...about two years earlier (Acts 16:6-10), the Apostle Paul had stopped for the night in Troas, on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea. His travel plans to visit churches in Asia were interrupted by a vision. A man from Macedonia was imploring him, “Come to Macedonia and help us.” The Holy Spirit wasn’t allowing Paul and his travel companions to go anywhere else, but the way to Macedonia opened up, so they left Troas.

The Macedonians were experiencing “down to the depths” poverty, yet they became an example of generosity to the whole body of Churches.

They sailed across the Aegean and began planting Churches around Macedonia in cities with names you will probably recognize. Macedonia became home to a number of the early Churches Paul writes and mentions in his letters – Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea.

These young Macedonian Churches were sorely persecuted from the time they came to faith, and it had left them financially bereft. The Bible says they were experiencing “down to the depths” poverty (2 Corinthians 8:2), yet their compassion for the persecuted Jewish believers in Jerusalem, and their willingness to act on it, became an example of generosity to the whole body of Churches.