In Acts 14 Luke selects two encounters, one in Iconium where the message of the gospel was misrepresented by its enemies, and Lystra where it was misunderstood by its hearers. He tells us about these encounters to teach us to:

• Trust the Truth
• Protect the Truth
• Nurture the Truth

Living in a creation fractured by sin requires that

• We recognise that Worship is a matter of Determination
• That Memory is our Lifeline
• And that Honesty turns Despair into Desire

Knowing who our God is leads to confidence in our prayer life

Psalm 4 expresses our Burden for the loss, the pain we feel at the shame they heap on our God, and the appeal we make to them

The first psalm, the first in the collection to follow the two introductory psalms, is the song of a man who is utterly overwhelmed. That is where worship often begins, and is most needed.

The first psalm calls the individual to seek wisdom, the second calls the nations to submit for they are like chaff

Psalm 1 was intentionally chosen to be the first entry in the book of Psalms and we will look at it in that light to see how it prepares us to encounter all that follows.

In Cyprus, Luke focused on Paphos where the gospel was preached among people who had a distorted view of God thanks to the Jewish sorceror, Elymas. In Pisidian Antioch he shows us a context in which the truth is clearly known, but Christ still causes division. Some receive the fulfilment of all they have hoped for with joy, others reject it out of jealousy that it diminishes how special their truth makes them feel.