Acts 17

So now Paul is on his way. If you didn't catch what happened, read chapter 16. If your brain is half way on while you read, I think you'll find it pretty cool. But anyway, Paul is on his way. He comes to a new city and goes into the temple. Remember now, this is Paul...this is Saul, formerly. He was the police of the Christians...he made sure there weren't any. Everyone knew who he was. It would be, in many ways, similar to Osama Bin Laden hanging out at the capitol building. And what was Paul doing? Debating with the Jews about the validity of Jesus as the Son of God! So Osama is not only at the capitol building, but while he's there he's trying to pass bills to prevent terrorism! Paul is doing the exact opposite of what everyone was afraid of him for. First he kills off Christians, now he persuades them!
Now interestingly, the Bible gives us a poll of those who decided to follow Christ:
*Uneducated outcasts: Multitude
*Educated Jews: some
*Leading women: not just a few (woot! woot! for the ladies, representin' in scriptures!)
Hmmm...someone else had similar numbers as His following...now who was that??? That's right! It was Jesus. As it turns out, the people who are most confident in themselves tend to be the ones who don't feel comfortable giving control to "God." They would rather just do without. It's the people who feel like they don't have control who are more willing to give everything they have to a God who loves them. Case in point: the aftermath of 9/11! People feel completely unsafe and unsure and *PRESTO!* the church pews are full.
Another, more general example: take a magnet and some paper clips to a tribe of uncivilized people and they will think you're a God (okay, it's an exaggeration, but follow...). Take the same objects to a high school and they will explain how magnetic forces work and why it's NOT God. I'm gonna have to side with the tribe on this one. It is God who makes magnetic work. When He wants them to, they don't work. We would call that a miracle, but I think it's a miracle that He indeed keeps them working in a predictable fashion and still has time to oversee all the other "Laws of Nature" and answer my prayers. Yes, magnets are a miracle, just like gravity, just like light, and just like Paul and Silas being freed. Study them and learn how to calculate them, so you can use these miracles to invent new things and make your heavenly daddy proud, but never cease to be amazed at the faithful miracles of God.
One last lesson, from which I have strayed: don't worry about being able to debate about God. Paul was perhaps the greatest religious debater ever. He spent three weeks with educated theologians (Acts 17:2) and very few of them decided for Christ. However, he showed love for a jailer in Act 16, and he and his whole family were won to Christ on the spot - no debating, no arguing. You've been called, time and time again, to love others. Nowhere does Jesus call for you to debate with non-Christians.