The Conversion: Is the Way of Jesus Inclusive or Exclusive? Acts 8:25-9:12

The book of Acts is all about the earliest Christianity. It shows us something about the character of the earliest Christianity, especially about where the church got its power. No matter what your culture or what your class, no matter what conceptions and categories you come to the Bible with, it will smash some of them. Tomorrow we'll look at a section with two key episodes... The conversion of an outsider in "The Ethiopian Eunuch" and the conversion of the ultimate insider, The Pharisee Saul who'd become the Apostle Paul.

This story about Philip and the Ethiopian will show us the inclusivity of Christianity; the exclusivity of Christianity; and the grounding for both. Most people see Christianity as either inclusive or exclusive, but the fact is Christianity is both. We then come to perhaps the most famous conversion story in the history of the world: the conversion of Saul (who becomes Paul). This is the man who sought to do the most harm to the earliest Christians, but then God saves him and he becomes the writer of about a quarter of the New Testament.

"Conversion" is a controversial term. We'll let Jesus define it and see how conversion stories can vary in nature, but there are certain elements that must be present if you have really been "converted"... As always, conversion requires a turning and trusting the story of God rather than our own.

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