Let's face it. A good vacation requires a great soundtrack and one of the best things about extended travel is the playlist you put together for the road. Putting a playlist of favorites means there are no pesky ads, no constant search for a station as you go, and you aren't locked into a style of music. It seems that as we prepare to experience unfamiliar landscapes, we want our all too familiar, favorite tunes to be the accompaniment along the way. Old songs can evoke great memories and taking them with you as you travel layers the memory pile onto these great tunes. Memories and music, what a great combination that becomes a part of the overall travel experience. Or for today's purpose...Tunes and Truckin' make for a groovy way to go!!!
No better song encapsulates the vagabond mentality that partners travel than "Truckin" by the band who knows a lot about the subject, Grateful Dead (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Touch Of Grey" (Grateful Dead)) During their 30-year history, the original jam band were known for their constant touring schedule with 2318 events credited to them.
The song had to be edited down to three minutes from five to qualify for a single. This is not a surprise given the over 10-minute run time of today's feature video and the Dead's reputation for longer songs and for never doing a song the same way twice.
"Truckin'" peaked at #64 at the end of 1971 and saw its popularity continue as it possessed 8 total weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Out of the myriad of events in which Grateful Dead performed, "Truckin'" was used 520 times making it the 8th most performed song on the band's setlist.
Lyrically, "Truckin" is a biographical tale of the band's journey as they crisscrossed the world. For this song, the travelogue is predominantly in US metropolitan areas and tells the story of the band's life as they encountered those cities. The Dead are balanced in their approach to the peripatetic life as they regale about their touring including the lows as well as the highs. Many times lyrically telling the tale, especially about the quite literal highs...with "deadheads" in tow... Grateful Dead has a reputation for being overtly supportive of the recreational use of marijuana, hence the references throughout "Truckin'" and other of their songs that champion the cause.
Yet, the Grateful Dead are not the first adventurers to set out truckin'...
You may have noticed that Tuesday's Musical Notes is truckin' down a highway of our own. For a couple of years now, we have been attempting to tell the great stories of the Bible as we see a world that is fast becoming disengaged from the truth told through the lives of the patriarchs and prophets. Either through reticence, neglect, or distraction, we have allowed the Word of God to be placed on the back burner of people's lives. The Notes has gone down this pathway to introduce to the internetosphere some of the Sunday School truths of the past as well as a few moments of Scripture we have discovered for the first time. Thanks for joining us on this excursion!
Today we find ourselves with the Apostle Paul as he and his team of missionaries embark on the second of four truckin' trips. His companions for this odyssey differ from his first trip. Today we find Paul accompanied by Silas, Timothy, and the way the passage reads, probably Dr. Luke, the author of the book of Acts. Several locales are mentioned as they sojourn and for you visual learners out there (including myself) we submit this map of Paul's second missionary endeavor.
Paul and Silas set out and early in their travel encounter an impressive young man named Timothy. They decide Timothy should accompany them on the remainder of their sojourn. As they set out with Timothy, Paul begins the trip by removing distractions that might curtail their credibility. Timothy was the son of a Jewish woman and a Greek man. Because of Timothy's Gentile father and the potential of this fact causing a distraction amongst the Jewish population of the churches, Paul decided to remove the barrier to the Jews in the region where they were to travel by having Timothy circumcised.
The message that the team provided to the previously established churches was the details that the Jerusalem council decided regarding Gentiles becoming believers. Those ordinances were: 1) abstinence from things contaminated by idols, 2) acts of sexual immorality, 3) food that came about from the strangulation of the animal, and 4) abstaining from blood. Acts 15:19-20 NASB/AMP/ESV/KJV These standards greatly encouraged the newly formed churches with their combined Jewish and Gentile populations and caused growth in the Christian community of the churches.
The next portion of today's passage provides an interesting note in that Paul and his entourage were kept from preaching the Gospel in some of the areas in which they traveled. While they had a desire to tell everyone, God had a plan for them that did not include some of the locations along the route. "Phyrgia, Bythnia, Mysia all on the same street." The team followed the guidance provided by the Holy Spirit and kept truckin' like the doo-dah man and found themselves in Troas. Here, Paul has a vision of a man from Macedonia (southeast Europe, coast of the Aegean Sea) begging Paul for help. Encouraged by the vision the team set out under God's leadership to go to Macedonia, eventually settling in at one of the region's thriving metropolises, Philippi.
Even more so than the initial missionary trip of Paul, this second trip provides a template for the missionary efforts we should engage in today. Go to where God sends you. Find the place where folks gather, church or otherwise, and strike up a conversation with those gathered. Sounds simple enough that all believers should be doing it right? International travel may be God's plan for your work of spreading the Gospel and making disciples, but it may not. Maybe we should use the missionary template given to us in today's passage in the region where we are right now. God has already sent you there. The rest of working the plan is up to you.
In Philippi, Paul meets a group of women who were gathered in a prayer meeting on the banks of the river. The team engages these women and soon discovers Lydia paying close attention to what is being said. Lydia must have been a woman of some means as the Bible says she was a "seller of purple" fabrics from Thyatira (modern-day western Turkey). She had goods to sell and was on a journey of her own to sell her goods. The Bible also says that she was a "worshiper of God". Like so many today, Lydia possessed knowledge and even worship of God, but she didn't have a complete picture of what that meant. Even though she worshiped God, Lydia still needed to hear the story of the risen Jesus and His provision of salvation to the world. Paul shares this message with her and Lydia becomes the first convert to Christianity in Europe.
Of note, is the later portion of verse 14, where the Bible says in each translation/paraphrase "...the Lord opened her heart to respond..." God draws us at just the right time to Himself. Maybe He is doing so in your life right now. Don't say no.
Lydia and her household were baptized and so excited about their new-found faith that they encouraged Paul and the team to stay at her home, showing once again that as believers part of the changed life we live should exhibit a hospitable faith.
Go where God sends you (even if that is where you live). Seek out folks to engage. Engage them with the Gospel of Jesus. Be a tool of God's drawing power. Disciple them. Exhibit hospitality. In other words...just keep truckin' on...
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
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