As most of you know, Jeff and I were on vacation this past week.  We went to Myrtle Beach, with the express goals of resting, relaxing, and sleeping, with some sightseeing, and to spend some quality time on the beach.  We were successful.

Each time we leave to go on a real vacation we strive to take a true break from our work, which I must honestly say is something we struggle to do every time.

I hope that by now you have learned that I like to be surprised by Scripture.  Well, not by scripture so much, but by all the different ways it can be interpreted.  I will never say I know it all, and I will always want to dig a little deeper to better understand.  This week’s readings from Acts and John had some surprises for me. Good, God-ordained surprises that I needed to learn to better understand how God works in this world.

On Monday, the Bible study group dug into today’s lesson from Acts. Each of the five of us said we weren’t very familiar with these few verses. As we discussed them, we realized that we just did not have enough background information to put the story of Stephen’s martyrdom into perspective.  And you know what? We had to go back to read from the beginning of chapter 6 to learn why Stephen was stoned.