In Acts 16, a young church leader named Timothy becomes a part of our story. Timothy is significant for two reasons. First, he's only half Jewish, so his acceptance as a church leader further breaks down barriers to full participation in the church for non-Jews. Secondly, Paul becomes his mentor as a church leader, and writes two letters of advice to him, which we call 1 and 2 Timothy.
Also in Acts 16, we start to see how far the good news of Jesus is travelling in a short period of time. I'm going old school today and including a map because I think's it's cool to see what's happening visually.
Acts 15-18 chronicles what is called Paul's 2nd missionary journey, and in today's chapter he and his team travel the land portion of the journey, then a short trip by sea to Philippi. This is the first time the gospel reaches Europe. If you know your map, you can see Paul's team reaches the area of today's Balkan states and Greece. Churches are planted in cities like Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth -- all places far from Jerusalem, with very different cultures and religious traditions. Folks in these towns are likely converting from polytheistic religions or Greek philosophy when they become Christians, so there is a lot of teaching to be done to help them grow in their faith. Paul's letters of encouragement and instruction to these churches, which he writes after his journey, are the New Testament books that carry their names.
This information may seem a bit dry compared to more devotional stuff, but it sure helps if you're reading some of the other books. These chapters tell you why eight other New Testament books were written and help them come alive when you read them.
