I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for over a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
The passage tells us that the successive kings of Israel continued to do evil in God’s eyes. The people of Israel continued the sins of Jeroboam in their reigns and placed an Asherah pole in Samaria. However, God saw the suffering of the people of Israel and provided them rescue from their enemies for a time.
Amaziah became king in Judah and executed the officials who had assassinated his father, Joash. However, he did not punish their families, for which he is commended. The passage tells us that he did what was pleasing in the sight of God, although not as pleasing as David. He followed after his father and continued to allow the sacrifices on the high places. He reconquered Edom. This led Amaziah to hubris and he made war against Israel. The king of Israel defeated him and sacked Jerusalem. At the end of his reign there was a conspiracy against him and he was assassinated. Amaziah’s sixteen year-old son Uzziah was placed on the throne.
Today’s passage in Acts contains two things that I find noteworthy. The first is the introduction of Apollos, a teacher of the Gospel who other references suggest was viewed as being in the same league as Paul for the spread of the Gospel. He was a learned man who preached with fervor and enthusiasm. We are told that he spoke boldly and accurately about Jesus, although he had no knowledge of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Which brings us to the second thing.
After talking about Apollos and how he was more thoroughly taught about Jesus by Priscilla and Aquila, Luke goes back to Paul and tells us that Paul arrived in Ephesus Where he found believers who had never heard of the Holy Spirit. In fact, they were only familiar with John’s baptism (as Apollos had been before he met Priscilla and Aquila). When Paul learned that they were for the most part only familiar with the teachings of John the Baptist, he taught them how John had pointed to Christ and baptized them again in the name of Jesus. When Paul laid his hands on them they received the Holy Spirit.
Which raises the question of what is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? And how do you know if you have received it? Here and elsewhere in Acts, Luke seems to mention speaking in other languages whenever he speaks of someone receiving the Holy Spirit. Yet, elsewhere Paul tells us that not everyone receives the gift of speaking in other languages. The other point I would like to make is that Luke’s accounts in Acts seem to all refer to people speaking in languages comprehensible (or at least recognizable) to those who witnessed the Holy Spirit coming upon them.
I love the opening to this psalm:
I will praise the Lord as long as I live.
I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.
I attempt every day to make it my prayer. As I read this psalm, I became inspired to attempt to memorize it. It has so many lines that are worth meditating on.
there is no help for you there.
When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
and all their plans die with them.
It is only God who can save us. I will praise the Lord.
The first of these proverbs gives us an important measure to use when we enter into debates with others, both of our own motivation and of the value in having the debate. Are we debating because we want to gain better understanding? Or, are we debating in order to show the other person how much wiser than them we are? If we are doing the latter, this proverb tells us we are not wise at all, but are rather fools.