Suffering Together (P. and A.) 20/09/2021

Suffering hardship together

Janie and I have shared 46 years of married life with many ups and downs but we have never had to deal with anything like what Priscilla and Aquila had to cope with. Probably not long after their marriage, they had to leave home and move. So what you might remark. However, it is important to mention that they had no choice. They were living in Rome at the time and they had to make a quick exit. No time to plan ahead. No time to say goodbye to loved ones and probably Priscilla came from Rome. The Roman Emperor decided to evict all Jews from Rome and Aquila was a Jew.

I don't know how much notice they were given to leave but I suspect that they had to leave hastily. Probably they has made plans for the years ahead and they might have imagined that Rome was their home for the foreseeable future. They might have planned to start a family and Rome might have seemed the ideal place to bring up children. It was the capital city of the Roman Empire. The Romans were ahead of the rest of the world in their technology. One example of this is that wealthy Romans enjoyed the luxury of a form of under-floor heating while people in Britain were living in cold draughty hovels with an open fire which filled the whole house with smoke. It would appear that Priscilla and Aquila had to move several times - they moved to Corinth from Rome and then they were at Ephesus and latterly they are back at Rome. These are the moves we know about. This was the first of many such removals. There were no firms to handle a removal. They could not phone up a company to take charge of transporting their possessions from Rome across the sea to Corinth. In fact, they probably had few possessions apart from the clothes they were wearing.

This was all part of God's perfect plan for their lives. God was teaching them a lesson in depending on him. I recently learned that it is good practice in tea plantations to deprive the young plants of water for a period of time - a forced drought makes their roots go much deeper into the soil. [Source: Cultivating a Forever Faith: Lessons from Priscilla and Aquila (Tyndale House Publishers) - Tessa Afshar]. God was doing this with A and P. He was encouraging them to sink their roots deeper into the soil. This might seem a strange analogy considering that they are not able to sink their routes deep anywhere because they are having to move regularly. But they were not being taught to settle down in one locality or culture. They were being taught to sink their roots deep into God's grace. They were being given the lesson of depending more and more on his grace. God was preparing them for future service. We often feel upset when we go through times of testing and suffering. We feel that it is unfair and may even blame God. The lesson we need to learn is that God allows suffering in order to teach us important lessons. God was preparing them for future service in a world which was hostile to this new Christianity. If you have been going through a hard time recently, the encouragement from God's word is that he allows this to happen for our good. It is how God teaches us to have faith and trust in Him. It is how he develops our Christian character - our fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).

Maybe you have been going through a rough time recently. It is unlikely that you have been forced into exile like P. and A. but you may have been experiencing poor health. Maybe you have had problems with your family or your work. Maybe you are very unhappy in your church. You are disappointed and even depressed. God has a plan for your lives and mine - and the reality is that this plan includes times of testing and trial as well as times of tranquillity and peace. When I researched my family story, I did notice that my grandparents and great grandparents had many difficult experiences including having to move from one country to another and then back again. This was all part of God's plan for their lives. Peter writes his first letter to Christians who were dispersed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (modern day Turkey) [1 Peter 1: 1] They were part of the diaspora - or the dispersion due to persecution. The 21st century has seen many people having to become refugees fleeing persecution from Syria, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan and many other places. The lesson we should learn is that we should not make ourselves too comfortable in our local area. We are only 'pilgrims' or visitors. I know that the analogy in the You Version Bible Plan talks about tea plants sinking deeper roots. However, there is the danger too that we sink our roots too deep in the world we live in and imagine that this is our forever home. 'Our citizenship is in heaven' [Philippians 3:20]

Here is our youngest daughter singing that she is a 'citizen of heaven.'

Fiona Crow: Citizen of Heaven from the album, Masterpiece.