Moving Us Beyond Our Comfort Zone

In Acts 8:1, the writer Luke makes a notable statement, when he writes that the church was "scattered throughout .... Samaria." Prior to this time, Christians lived in the familiar surroundings of Jerusalem — home to the beginning of the Lord's church on Pentecost (Acts 2).

From all indications, the Jerusalem Christians would have been content to have remained there, but persecution scattered them into the new territory of Samaria.

Samaria was far beyond their comfort zone. They viewed it as a loathsome place that decent Jews avoided. Old Testament prophets had denounced Samaria (Micah 1:1-9), and the prophet Nehemiah knew enough about the character of the Samaritans, not to allow them to help with the building of the temple (Nehemiah 2:19-20).

Because of the longstanding social and religious barriers between Jews and Samaritans (John 4:9), the early Christians imagined God as a God of barriers (Acts 10:9-16; cf. Leviticus 11 (note the various "unclean" meats). Also see Acts 10:12-13,28).

But God tore down those barriers when He included the Samaritans in His salvation plan. Jesus had instructed His apostles to be witnesses in Samaria (Acts 1:8), but it took the threat of death to get the young church to take Christ's barrier-breaking commission seriously (Acts 8:1-8).

Dear reader, what barriers are keeping us from sharing the gospel today to folks in our community and around the world?

What will it take to move us beyond our comfort zone?

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets