During last Sunday's service Mick told of Peter Ten Boom who helped hide and save Jewish orphans from the Nazis. "Forgiveness is the only answer to hatred," the young Dutch man had preached. 40 years later, when he needed a serious operation, the doctor who saved his life was one of the orphans he had rescued.

The pastor, Rev. Peter Richmond, continued his series on the book of Acts. He talked about how Paul, Silas and Timothy embarked on taking the Gospel to Europe, starting with the city of Philippi. There was insufficient Jewish population to support a synagogue, so the apostles looked for a prayer meeting as a place to start.

They found one by the river; Paul the Pharisee might have been dismayed to find it consisted only of women. A Gentile business woman called Lydia accepted what she had heard, but soon afterwards trouble came in the form of a demonised slave girl who could predict the future and made lots of money for her master.

With a half lie obscured by most Bible translations but clear in the Greek text, she followed the apostles telling everyone that they were offering a way of salvation (it was a pagan society). Their real message, however, was that Jesus offers the only way of salvation: "No one comes to the Father except by me."

Christianity is often tolerated by worldly people until it starts interfering with the way they make their money, Peter philosophised. Casting out the demon and freeing that slave girl landed the apostles in a lot of trouble. In an undignified and unjust scene of mob rule still familiar to Christians around the world in the 21st century, they were flogged, Roman-style, cast into the inner prison and kept in stocks.

The circumstances were miserable, but somehow the apostles kept praising. "It brought the house down!" After an earthquake they were free, but not before the gaoler and his whole household were saved as the apostles demonstrated God's compassion.

Sunday services take place at 6 pm in the Avenue Centre, Greenhill Avenue, Tenby. Visit http://www.hesed.co.uk">www.hesed.co.uk or telephone 01646 681805 for more information.