Unstoppable! 'The Tumbleweed Phenomenon' — Acts 8:1-4

Years ago, notable New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce wrote a book on Acts called "The Spreading Flame." As I read his book in grad school, I couldn't help thinking about living in West Texas as a pre-teen boy. We had 70 acres to explore, fish, make forts, and play. Anytime we had to make a fire when camping, we would find a tumbleweed, stomp it into small pieces, and use it as fire-starter for dead mesquite limbs. We learned that you NEVER put a full-sized tumbleweed on a burning fire. As it burned, the tumbleweed would pop and shower the air with red-hot embers that floated on the wind threatening to start a wildfire. The more you tried to stomp out the burning tumbleweed, the more you spread the embers on the wind. Similarly, the unstoppable Good News of Jesus was a Spirit-ignited tumbleweed phenomenon. The more adversaries of the Jesus movement tried to stomp out the spreading flame, the more the wildfire spread throughout the Roman Empire. When Jesus' followers are scattered, the spreading flame brings God's love, grace, and salvation!