Finding Your People: You Were Never Meant to Walk Alone

What Acts 28:15 and an ancient Roman road show us about the gift of community

There's a moment on the Via Appia, the ancient road Paul walked into Rome, that most of us read right past in Acts 28. Once you see it, it changes how you think about Christian community and what it means to find your people. Last week we went down into the dark of the Mamertine, where Paul wrote his final words. This week we come back up out of the city and onto the road.

In this episode 00:00 Welcome and the Rome bonus series 02:20 Walking the road the story happened on 04:40 Acts 28:15 and the believers who walked out to meet Paul 06:56 What "took courage" really means 08:20 A moment on the road: "Welcome, I've been waiting for you" 10:55 The family you didn't know you were missing 13:16 You were never meant to walk alone, and a prayer 15:41 Come walk this road with us 16:48 Next week: the underground church

The Via Appia, the Appian Way, was built in 312 BC by the Roman censor Appius Claudius Caecus. It was the first great Roman highway and the road into Rome from the south, and it helped inspire the saying that all roads lead to Rome. Long stretches are still walkable today on the original black basalt paving stones, laid down more than three hundred years before Jesus was born. When our groups walk it, we're not walking near where the story happened. We're walking the road the story happened on.

By the time Paul reaches this road, he has survived a shipwreck, months of hardship, and a long imprisonment, and he is arriving in Rome as a prisoner in chains. He had written to the church in Rome years earlier and told them he longed to see them, but he had never been there and had never met most of them face to face. He is worn down by the very call that put him on this road.

Believers from Rome walked out to meet him, some as far as forty-three miles from the city.

And from there the brothers and sisters, when they heard about us, came as far as the Market of Appius and the Three Inns to meet us; and when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage. (Acts 28:15)

Word reached the church that Paul was coming, and they didn't wait at the gate. One group walked about forty-three miles to the Market of Appius. Another came about thirty-three miles to the Three Inns. On foot, to meet a man most of them had never met, so he could walk that last stretch into the city beside his people.

The Greek word behind "took courage" is tharsos: confidence, boldness, the strength to face what's coming. Nothing about Paul's circumstances changed in that moment. The chains stayed on. The trial was still ahead. But the weight of walking alone lifted, because his people had come for him. That's what community does. It doesn't remove the hard road. It means you don't walk it by yourself.

You can have a good marriage, a full house, a church you love, and still feel lonely. That's not a lack of people. It's the ache of not having people who are walking in the same direction you are, with the same hunger for God. There's a particular kind of loneliness that comes from never having people who are walking toward Jesus alongside you, and it's one many spiritually mature women carry without naming it.

This same thing happens on our trips, and I could never plan it. Women come, sometimes alone and nervous, not knowing anyone, and by the end of the week the strangers they started with have become their people. One woman last year, walking a tree-lined stretch of the Appia as the afternoon sun broke through, heard the Holy Spirit say, Welcome. I've been waiting for you. She came thinking she had chosen an adventure. She left knowing God had been drawing her all along.

Whether you ever walk that road in Rome or not, you were never meant to walk your road alone. When Paul hit one of the lowest points of his life, what God sent him wasn't a vision. It was people. So here's the question I can't stop asking: who is walking your road with you right now? And if the honest answer is no one, what is one step you could take toward the kind of community that comes out to meet you?

What translation does Rachael use on the podcast? The written study materials use the New American Standard Bible (NASB).

Is the Appian Way part of the Rome trip itinerary? Yes. Walking a preserved stretch of the original Via Appia is one of the stops on the trip, along with the sites from the rest of this bonus series.

I want to come to Rome but I'd be traveling alone. Is that okay? More than okay. Many women come by themselves, and that's often the very person the Lord meets on the road. You won't stay by yourself for long.

When does registration for this year's Rome trip close? Registration closes July 29, and there are only a few spots left.

What's coming next on the podcast? This fall we're studying the Gospel of Luke and then the book of Acts, since Luke and Acts were written as part one and part two of the same story.

If something in you is longing for the kind of people who walk the road alongside you, come walk this road with us this November. Registration closes July 29 and only a few spots are left.

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