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

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

    When Peter proposed that someone be chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, he did so to a group of about 120 believers. That group nominated two men from among them, men who had started following Jesus when He was baptized by John and were still among His followers. Then they prayed for God to show them which of the two should be selected and cast lots. This was all done at one meeting. This suggests to me that perhaps we spend too much time selecting people for leadership roles in the Church. However, what I really wanted to point out by discussing this is that 120 believers represented to bulk of Jesus’ followers when the Holy Spirit came upon them. I have confidence that Peter would have wanted the overwhelming majority of Christ’s followers to have a say in who was selected to replace Judas. The importance of this number is that it puts what happened on the Day of Pentecost into perspective. On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit added more than ten new followers for each person who was following Christ that morning. When we ask the Holy Spirit to work, this is the sort of results we ought to be prepared for.

    In today’s passage we have two examples of Peter’s outreach sermon. One on the Day of Pentecost, when we are led to believe that the Holy Spirit was specifically guiding his words. The second a few days/weeks later in the Temple after healing the cripple. In both cases, Peter made no attempt to sugarcoat the guilt of those to whom he was preaching. In both cases, he declared that his listeners were guilty of Jesus’ crucifixion. He made no attempt to avoid offending them. In no uncertain terms he told them that they were guilty of rejecting and sending to His death the one whom God had sent as the Messiah for whom they claimed to be looking. There may be times when we are called to use softer techniques, but this passage, and other passages in the New testament, make it clear that most of the time we should confront sinners with their sin (as long as we remember that we are no better than they). Perhaps a better way to express the lesson I take from these two sermons by Peter is that we should not be afraid of offending people.