Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 23-25.

In each of the three hearings Paul was in in today’s passage (before the Sanhedrin, before the Roman governor Felix, and before the Roman governor Festus) he revealed an understanding of the court before which he stood.  When he was before the Sanhedrin he pointed out that the high priest had violated Jewish law by ordering him struck before the trial began, and then used their division over the issue of resurrection of the dead to force the Roman commander to remove him.  When Paul was tried before Felix, he demonstrated a clear understanding of Roman rules of evidence and provided a better argument for his innocence than the Sanhedrin’s lawyer did for his guilt.  When Festus tried to force Paul to accept trial before the Sanhedrin, Paul appealed to Caesar in order to take that off of the table. In doing this, Paul gave us an example of following Jesus’ teaching from Matthew “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”   In a similar fashion, we should be prepared to hold those who oppose the Gospel to the rules by which they claim to live.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 21-22.

I find it interesting that when Paul arrived in Jerusalem he gave a detailed report of his ministry among the Gentiles to James and the elders of the Church.  I realized the Paul did the same thing every time he went to Jerusalem.  Peter did something similar after visiting Cornelius’ house.  In this case, Paul further accepted their plan to reassure Jewish Christians that he was not teaching Jews to abandon the Law of Moses when they accepted Christ.  As I read this I get the impression that Paul accepted the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem as having authority over the entire Church; he appears to have held himself accountable to them.  One could interpret this as lending credence to the Catholic Church’s claim that the Pope has authority over the Church in a line which reaches back to Peter, except for one thing, James the brother of Jesus led these councils to whom Paul, and earlier, Peter, reported.  So, to whatever degree the Apostolic Church had an individual who was THE leader of the Church, that leader was James the brother of Christ, not Peter.

I am not sure what exactly this means for us, but it does show us that even Paul acknowledged a need to be answerable to other Believers about what he believed and taught.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 19-20.

While Paul was in Ephesus there was a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit there resulting in many miracles.  This led to other occultists attempting to use Jesus’ name in their activities.  Before long this backfired on a team of exorcists.  This resulted in many Believers who had continued their occult practices after becoming Believers giving up those practices and destroying their “spellbooks” .  I use quotes because we do not really know what was on the scrolls which they burned, only that they were related to their practice of sorcery and had a large value.  Interestingly, only a short time later, Demetrius, a silver smith who made and sold shrines to the goddess Artemis, started a riot against Christians.  He appears to have done so by implying both that the spread of Christianity would hurt business and by threatening those craftsmen he employed with loss of employment with him.

When I started writing the previous paragraph I thought it was going somewhere different, but when I reached the end I cam back to a thought I had before I started writing.  At the end of today’s passage when Paul stopped and spoke with the elders from Ephesus he warned them against false prophets who would arise; men who would distort the truth in order to recruit followers.  The exorcists had attempted to hijack the name of Jesus to accomplish their own ends, rather than serving Him.  Demetrius tried to protect his own beliefs by using violence to silence Paul’s message, rather than making a counter argument for his own beliefs.  In the end, both served to bring glory to God, as will those who attempt to distort God’s Truth today.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 17-18.

Luke compares the Jews in Berea favorably to those in Thessalonica by saying that they examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was true.  Which should be taken as an example for all of us to follow: when we hear someone speak on a subject, we should read their source material to see if it supports what they are saying. We should especially follow this when someone claims to be communicating a message from God.  Of course that also gives us an example which those claiming to be speaking God’s word should follow: provide sources for what you say God’s message is.

When Jews from Thessalonica arrived in Berea to make trouble, the Believers in Berea sent Paul to Athens while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea.  In Athens, Paul got into a philosophical debate with some philosophers there after which he went on to Corinth.  From  1 Corinthians we learn that Paul changed his approach somewhat after Athens.  Perhaps that is me reading something into that passage from 1 Corinthians, but it has longed seemed to me to indicate that Paul felt chastised by his experience in Athens.  In Athens Paul took the existence of an altar to “an unknown god” to indicate that the Athenians were open to the possibility that their understanding of the divine was incomplete.  So, Paul started his preaching from there, but soon discovered that the Athenians behind that altar were not willing to accept the existence of the supernatural, the possibility that someone might be raised from the dead.  In Athens, Paul tried to win people over with a philosophical argument.  In Corinth, he focused on reaching those who were genuinely seeking, not those who merely sought debate.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 14-16.

Today’s passage contains two disputes which could have easily led to division in the early  Church.  The first dispute was doctrinal, do Gentile converts to Christianity need to follow the Law of Moses and be circumcised?  The second dispute was a character judgement, Paul and Barnabas disagreed about whether to take John Mark with them on their second missionary journey.  In the first dispute those involved appealed to the central Church in Jerusalem.  I would like to note that part of the reason for appealing to the Church in Jerusalem resulted from the fact that those claiming Gentile converts needed to follow the Law of Moses implicitly claimed to be speaking on behalf of the Church in Jerusalem.  Interestingly enough, the delegation from the Church in Antioch to the Church in Jerusalem did not present the dispute for resolution.  Instead, they merely recounted the events which led to the dispute in the first place.  And sure enough,  objections to Gentiles not being circumcised arose immediately, something which would seem to validate the point of those wishing to have Gentiles be circumcised.  However, the leaders of the Church in Jerusalem gathered together and, after much debate, sided with the delegation who thought Gentile converts should not be required to obey Mosaic Law.

In the second dispute, Paul and Barnabas saw no reason to involve anyone else, and because they could not agree as to whether they should invite John Mark on their second journey, chose to go their separate ways.  Barnabas went on his journey with John Mark, and Paul recruited Timothy to accompany him in a similar role.  This dispute resulted in two men who would have covered the same territory instead preaching the Gospel in two separate areas, and in both John Mark and Timothy being mentored to become leaders in the Church.  We have two different disputes with two different resolutions.  In one, the Church debated the issue and reached a decision which maintained unity within the Church.  In the second, two men divided over it and went their separate ways.  In both cases the Church was better off as a result of the dispute.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 11-13.

After baptizing Cornelius’ household, Peter went up to Jerusalem to explain what he had done, and why.  Initially, there were objections to Peter socializing with Gentiles who had not converted to Judaism.  However, once Peter gave a full explanation of what happened those objections were silenced (we will see later that at least some of the objectors still had reservations regarding Gentiles joining the Church).  Shortly after this some Jewish Believers arrived in Antioch and began preaching the Gospel to Gentiles there who became Believers.  When the Church in Jerusalem received this news, they sent Barnabas (note that some of those who had preached to the Gentiles in Antioch were from Cyprus, as was Barnabas).  Barnabas spent some time in Antioch and more people came to the Lord.  After witnessing the outpouring of the Spirit on Gentiles in Antioch, Barnabas left to go find Saul.  Luke does not tell us why Barnabas went to get Saul, but I believe Barnabas did so because he thought that the Gentile Believers in Antioch needed to be taught the understanding of God which can be obtained from the Jewish Scripture (what we call the Old Testament) and that Saul was the correct person to teach that to them.  In each of these cases, the Church accepted the moving of the Spirit and then evaluated what needed to be done to solidify the new Believers in their faith.  In the case of Cornelius, the Church knew of Cornelius as a God fearing man, familiar with the Scripture.  In the case of the new Gentile Believers in Antioch, the Church had concern about their knowledge of God, so they sent Barnabas, who upon investigating the situation brought in Saul to teach the new Believers what they needed to know.  In both cases the Church welcomed the new Believers and acted to strengthen their faith.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 9-10.

When I wrote about Philip preaching the Gospel to the Ethiopian yesterday I did not mention how the Ethiopian immediately requested to be baptized, and what that tells us about bringing people to Christ.  However, today we have two more incidents involving baptism.  Immediately after Ananias laid his hands on Saul, restoring his sight, Saul was baptized, even before he got something to eat.  Then Saul spent a few days with the Believers with the implication that they spent those days confirming that Saul’s belief was consistent with Jesus’ teaching.  We, also, have the story of Peter going to Cornelius’ house to preach.  There the Holy Spirit came upon those to whom Peter was preaching and Peter baptized them.  After which Peter spent a few days confirming that they had a solid grounding in Jesus’ teachings.  All three of these stories (the Ethopian from yesterday, Saul’s conversion, and Cornelius’ household) have one thing in common, the new believers were baptized immediately upon their confession of faith.  It was only after their baptism that the Church made an attempt to give them in-depth training about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  These accounts also tell us that the Holy Spirit had filled these people when they received the Gospel message.  We need greater spontaneity in the Church today, when the Spirit moves we need to follow.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 4-6.

I am not sure that I ever noticed before that when Luke describes the arrest of Peter and John he says that “the rulers, elders, and teachers of the Law” were present.  He also mentions that the high priest and members of his family were present.  Later, when all of the apostles were arrested, Luke says that it was the high priest and his associates who had them arrested (which sounds to me as more or less the same group), but they called the entire Sanhedrin together for the hearing.  Clearly at this second hearing the high priest and his faction felt that they needed more weight behind their attempt to silence the apostles.  They attempted to use the force of their position and power to silence those whom they felt were spreading dangerous misinformation.  Gamaliel presented one of the foundational arguments about why governments, and everyone else in positions of power, should respect freedom of speech.  The basis of Gamaliel’s argument was that any group built around falsehood will dissipate with time, with no effort on the part of the powerful, and even the powerful will fail to suppress a thought which comes from God.  But there is a little more to what Gamaliel was saying.  If you attempt to stamp out the truth, you will find yourself fighting against God and suffer for doing so

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Acts 1-3.

I have often tried to picture what happened on that day of Pentecost described here from the perspective of those outside of the house where the believers were meeting.  Sometimes I imagine that the people were drawn by the 120 different believers speaking loudly at the same time.  However, currently I believe that people were drawn to the area by the sound of violent wind which Luke describes.  I think people gathered expecting to find destroyed buildings, and perhaps people in need of rescue.  When they got there they bewildered by what they heard: they heard a bunch of people speaking in their native tongue (these were people from all over the world who spoke different languages in their homes).  Until recently I always assumed that different ones of the believers were speaking in different languages.  Recently someone pointed out to me that the wording suggests that each of the listeners heard each of the believers speaking in their native tongue.  I was unsure of it at the time, but as I read the passage today I believe that he was correct.  It seems to me that the disciples were speaking in their native tongue (my understanding is that would have been Aramaic).  So, from this perspective, the believers who were sharing the Gospel were completely unaware that they were speaking in anything other than their native language.  The Spirit had not caused them to speak any differently than they normally did, it was those hearing them whom the Spirit changed.  Which gives yet another reason to speak the Gospel to those around us, the Spirit changes those who hear the word of God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.