Word of Salvation – May 2026

Gossiping the Gospel

A sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Acts 8:1-4

Scripture Reading: Acts 6:8-15; 7:1-3, 51-60 and Acts 8:1-4

Suggested Songs: BoW.062         My soul finds rest in God alone
.                                   P/H.412           I love to tell the story
.                                   BoW.215         Take my life that it may be
.                                   BoW.159         Glory be to God in heaven

 

Theme: How God uses persecution for the furtherance of the gospel through ordinary people.

Introd:  The book of Acts begins with the agenda that Jesus has for His church – you can read it in in Acts 1:8.

In that verse Jesus calls his followers to be His witnesses.
If you think about it that is a very liberating and encouraging idea.
A witness is not called first of all to preach a three-point sermon or teach theology.
A witness simply tells what he or she knows… what they have seen or heard.
We share with others what we ourselves have experienced.
Jesus says in Acts 1:8, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea
and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Witnessing belongs to the very nature of being a Christian.
If you are a Christian then you are a witness… whether you like it or not!
We are people who know Jesus… and we testify to that.
We do that by the way we live and we do that verbally… speaking of what we know.

 

We’re going to think about that a little further as we consider these verses in Acts 8.
They bring home to us that we ought to be far more relaxed about evangelism.
God does not expect all of us to be able to preach or teach.
And we’ve going to see that today in this idea of gossiping the gospel.

Gossip is not hard to do, is it?  Gossiping comes very naturally to most of us.
Even ministers, clergy people, gossip.
In London three bishops were travelling back from a conference on the train.
The conference speaker had encouraged them to be more open in sharing their lives.
And particularly to be willing to share one’s failures.  So they decided to make a start.
The first bishop said: I enjoy my work but I have problems leaving the communion wine alone.
The second one said:  I’d doing well but I have struggle a lot with sexual temptation.
They both looked at the third bishop.  After a long pause he said:
Brothers I have a real problem with gossip and I just can’t wait to get off this train!

Gossip is so common.  Usually when the subject of gossip comes up we warn one another against it.
But this morning I want to encourage you to gossip… please do it..!
However, make the subject of your gossip the wonderful things Jesus has done for you.

 

A]       THE CONTEXT IN WHICH GOD WORKS WITH HIS GOSPEL MESSAGE.

 

1. The opening scene of Acts 8 is Jerusalem… that’s where the story begins.

In fact… up to this point the book of Acts has never taken us away from Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is where it has all been happening.

When it comes to the gospel Acts has, so far, focussed exclusively on Jerusalem.
God, it seems, has been working only in the nation’s capital.
The message of Jesus has been proclaimed only there.
Pentecost… the outpouring of God’s Spirit… that had happened in Jerusalem.
It was there that the apostles did their miracles… and the lame man had been healed.
It was in Jerusalem that Stephen had just preached the longest sermon in Acts.
A lot has happened… but all of it within Jerusalem.

 

I can also imagine how wonderful it must have been to be part of all that.
Can you imagine what it was like to experience the amazing growth of the early church?
Some 3000 had responded to the gospel on the day of Pentecost.  Wonderful!
By the time we get to Acts 4:4 the number of the men alone is already 5000.

It must have been exhilarating to be part of a movement that was just sweeping the city.
Can you imagine that sort of revival here in Brisbane?  Thousands converted in a few days!
It would be exhilarating.  And we’d want it to just go on and on.
People would have been swept away by it all… wonderful, to be there in Jerusalem.

 

But the problem was that the Great Commission was not being fulfilled.

The church is excited… but comfortable there in Jerusalem.  But what about further afield..?

2. Please don’t underestimate how difficult it was for the early church to break out of Jerusalem.

That required some dramatic rethinking.
The rest of the book of Acts shows us how the church struggled with that.
Why?  Because for centuries God’s people had worked with a radically different model.

In the O.T. the emphasis of the church had been on ingathering.
The idea was to bring others into Israel and into Jerusalem and into the temple.
And we get story after story in the O.T. that follows this model of ingathering.
Rabah, the prostitute, is gathered into God’s people… so is Ruth the Moabitess.

In fact the very name of Jerusalem fitted in with that model.
Jeru – salem… and salem means peace and salvation…!
So we can understand that the early Christians were very content to stay in the city.

 

But Jesus has a different agenda for his church… not just ingathering but outreach.
The Great Commission does not read:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me
therefore gather as many people as you can into Jerusalem.
No… the Great Commission reads:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me
therefore go…!  Go… go and make disciples of all nations.

 

And so what is happening here in Acts 8 is that God is forcing the issue.
Our text speaks of people preaching wherever they went.
And vs.1 tells us where they went: away from Jerusalem throughout Judea and Samaria.
11:19 tells us that at this time some went as far away as Cyprus and Antioch.
So the Lord is putting the program of Acts 1:8 into effect.
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

 

3. So when our text talks about the church being scattered let’s realise what that meant for these folk.

Stephen is martyred… and a persecution breaks out against the church.

That doesn’t only mean physical hardship for them… that dramatically turns their thinking upside down.

What on earth is God doing?
Surely, being God’s people meant that they were to work at gathering people in.
In fact, being scattered everywhere had been a sign of God’s curse in the O.T.
That’s why their 70-year exile in Babylon was so traumatic to the nation.
They had become a scattered people.

 

But now God uses this persecution to scatter… and so to change the church’s direction.
God has so often used difficulties and hardship to get His people moving.
That already happened back in Genesis 11… at the Tower of Babel.
God said: Go out and fill the earth and subdue it.
But people said: No, we’ll stick together here and build ourselves a nice city with a tower.
And so God disturbed them in their comfort zone to get them moving again.

 

Today it is still a huge danger that our church becomes our comfortable little ghetto.
A cosy little community… sitting in our comfortable surroundings away from the big bad world.
And then there is little care and little concern for a lost and hurting world.
And sadly, the message of Jesus then gets locked away inside our church buildings.

 

Today our programs and activities can keep the church focused on ingathering rather than outreach.
But then the Lord gets us moving again… at times even through hardships and persecution.
That has happened often in history.
It has even led to the saying that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
So Stephen’s martyrdom and the subsequent persecution are powerfully used by God.

 

B]       THE PEOPLE GOD USES FOR THE SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL.

 

1. Another outstanding difference in our text is the kind of people God uses to bring the gospel.

Did you notice that up until this point all the emphasis in Acts is on the work of the apostles.

Almost exclusively so!  They preach… they do the miracles… they lead the church.

 

At Pentecost it is Peter who preaches.
Later John and Peter deal with the lame man who is healed.
It’s true of course that we have Stephen here too… more than a chapter is devoted to him.

But he’s still an office-bearer in the church… he’s a deacon.
So in Acts, up to this point, the focus has been on a few very special people.
The apostles… and deacons like Stephen.

 

So when we find ‘preaching’ mentioned in our text we ask the question:
Okay, who does the preaching… the evangelising?
And the obvious answer seems to be: the apostles… and those especially gifted like Stephen.

 

And then we go from there and we ask about today: Who does the evangelising?
And the answer we usually give is: those whom God has gifted as evangelists.
People to whom God has given special abilities…!  Missionaries.
Those whom He has particularly called to that work…!  Evangelists.

And so we run a ‘Discover Your Gifts’ course to find out who’s got the gift.
And then we leave it to those who have the gift to do the evangelism.
And of course we expect our Pastor to do his bit in this area too.
But the rest of us…?  We’ll just pray and pay.

 

2. In some ways that is not an unreasonable assumption. It’s certainly very common.

In the rest of the book of Acts that seems to be the pattern of the early church.
Later we read all about evangelists and missionaries like Paul and Barnabas.
The bulk of the second half of Acts is all about Paul’s missionary journeys.
And the only others who feature prominently in the book are apostles and office-bearers.
Peter and Philip… Silas and Timothy.

 

But is that really the way it ought to be in the church?
Who is it who does the preaching here in our text?
Okay, at first glance we’re inclined to say: The apostles of course!

But surprise…!  Notice that this is precisely who were not involved.
It was those who were scattered who did the preaching.
And vs.1 tells us who it is who were scattered… and the apostles are specifically excluded.

There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem,
and were all  scattered throughout the regions Judea and Samaria.. except the apostles.
Notice: – all… except the apostles.

 

The apostles, it seemed, stayed in Jerusalem to give leadership from there.
So it wasn’t John and Peter… it wasn’t special people.
It was the ordinary man and woman in the pew who shared the Gospel.
Those ordinary Christians scattered… all except the apostles.

 

That’s a vision we need to recapture.  We need to be challenged by that.
It’s a wonderful picture of lay-ministry… ordinary people like us… bringing the good news.

 

3. That offers us a different and complementary perspective on the book of Acts.

Acts is usually referred to as ‘The Acts of the Apostles’.
Well, okay, of course these are the Acts of Jesus through God the Holy Spirit.
It is what He is doing.
But He does it through those great leaders and preachers like Peter and Paul.
And through inspiring people like Stephen who was appointed as a deacon.

 

But now we see that this book is also the Acts of very ‘ordinary’ Christians.
It’s also the story of what God’s Spirit is achieving through plain garden-variety Christians.
God does not bypass the common folk… they have a crucial role to play.

 

It’s a pity that too often the life of the church has focussed too much on pastors and clergy people.
As if they were somehow more important in the plans and purposes of God.
And we so easily overlook the importance of ordinary men and women.
In fact you have opportunities at work that your pastor doesn’t have.

 

I find it fascinating and humbling to read the stories of some of the great leaders in the church.
They were often converted through the humble witness of very ordinary Christians.
The great Methodist preacher John Wesley was converted on a boat trip.
It happened after discussion with a Christian fellow passenger.

Abraham Kuyper, theologian and parliamentarian was a preacher – but not converted.
He came to know the Lord through the witness of a country servant girl.
Actress Jane Fonda is reported to have become a Christian through the witness of her chauffer.
Charles Colson (Watergate!) came to know the Lord in prison through a Christian businessman.

So please… please never, ever underestimate the gospel witness of ordinary Christians.

 

C]       THE METHOD USED TO SPREAD THE WORD OF SALVATION.

 

1. That brings us to another important point: to see how the preaching of the Word took place here.

That’s important because we can so easily feel ourselves to be inadequate for the task.

You may even have been put off a little by my emphasis this morning on ordinary members.

 

In fact… let me share two typical responses to this idea.

 

The first reaction is one of denial.
Okay… so the common people preached the Word.
But me…?  Sorry!  I just don’t have the talent for that.
It’s not my cup of tea; I really don’t have the gift of the gab.

And then we think of all the other associated problems.
What if they ask me hard questions afterwards… like, about the Trinity.
I really don’t know enough to preach the Word.

 

A second reaction is to challenge the way we do things as a church.
Here is a text that supports what we call ‘lay preaching’ but we don’t allow that do we?
Our church says that you need to be theologically trained first.
Or that at the very least you have to sit for a preaching license.

The problem is that preaching has become institutionalised.
Preaching is something we do only from our pulpits… right?
And preaching is done only by seminary-trained men.  Well, that cuts most of us out.
But yet here in vs.4 it says that all… all except the apostles… preached the Word.
So what’s your reaction?  Move over John and let me into the pulpit…!!!

 

2. Here I need to point out that the NT Greek has two different words for ‘preach’.

One is the formal, official proclamation of the gospel by the church.

It is the authoritative announcement of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
In the book of Acts that is done consistently by the apostles.
Or if not by the apostles then by those appointed by them… Stephen… Silas… Timothy.

 

But here in our text a different word is used.
Not the word for the formal preaching of the Word.
Instead it’s the word from which we get our word ‘GOSPEL’.

Literally it reads: Those who had been scattered gospelled the word wherever they went.
They brought the good news of the word.
Everywhere they shared the glad tidings that Jesus is Saviour and Lord.

 

It is especially interesting how the word was sometimes used before Bible times.
In the Greek world outside the Bible the word could also mean ‘to gossip’.
Someone hears a good story and immediately passes it on.

I think it was John Stott who suggested we translate it that way here.
Those who had been scattered gossiped the word wherever they went.
So these ordinary people ‘gossiped the gospel’.

 

That is again a liberating way of thinking about evangelism.
The model here is of ordinary Christians preaching the Word.
But that doesn’t mean they sat down and made a three-point sermon and preached it.
It means that the good news of Jesus was simply part of their everyday conversation.
It happened as naturally as sharing the latest bit of gossip.

 

3. That is a helpful way for us to think about our outreach and evangelism.

Here is the chatter of ordinary, everyday conversation… but Jesus is the subject of it.

 

IOW we are talking about something that is very natural and very normal.
We’re not talking about you buttonholing someone with a ‘Brother are you saved…?’
We’re not talking about eyeballing someone and reciting John 3:16 to them.
We’re talking about very naturally steering the conversation to the topic of Jesus.

That takes us back to Acts 1:8 and us simply being witnesses.
Telling others what we have seen and heard… testifying to the things we know.
None of us finds it difficult to pass on as gossip what we find interesting or fascinating.
Well… let’s treat the gospel the same way.

So I want to encourage you this morning to gossip… you have my permission.
As long as it is gospel gossip!  Gossip that Jesus died to give you eternal life.

 

That leaves us with one little problem doesn’t it?
What is it that motivates you to pass on some juicy snippet of sinful gossip?
It’s usually because that bit of gossip made an impact on you when you heard it.
And the more it impacted you… the more you want to gossip it on to others.

So let me ask you:  Has the good news of Jesus had that sort of impact in your life?
Are you gripped by the glad tidings that Jesus died for your sins?
Does it blow you away to think that Jesus actually came to save you?
We gossip the gospel… not just out of a sense of duty.
But we do it out of sheer delight that we belong to Jesus for time and for eternity.

Amen