ACTS study
Introduction; Yesterday I took my kids to the mall after
church, I usually get lost in the book store. Even though I bought an entire
shelf of books a few months back, I still can’t help from buying more books! So
I picked up a few more and found a comfortable bench and started reading the
History of Christianity. At the house I am almost thru with another ‘history of
Christianity’ that covers the story of the church from Pentecost to the present
day. I own a few complete volumes and have checked out many from the libraries
over the years. I read from both the Protestant and Catholic [Orthodox]
perspectives. I also read from the ‘out of the institutional church’
perspective. These are the histories of various groups of believers who never
became Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. I consider all these groups Christian
and appreciate the tremendous wealth of knowledge that these communities
provide.
Now, as we go thru Acts, I want to stay as close as possible
to both the doctrine and practices of the early church as seen in scripture. We
are not the first [or last!] study that has attempted to do this. That is
attempted to ‘get back to the original design’ as much as possible.
Historically you have whole categories of believers who fit into this mindset.
They are referred to as ‘Restorationist’ as opposed to Catholic, Protestant or
Orthodox. The Church
of Christ , The Disciples
of Christ, the Anabaptists and others fall into this class. I believe you find
true believers in all of these groups.
As you read the history of Christianity as told by the other
perspectives, you will find it interesting as to the way the institutional
church describes these ‘out of church’ groups. Some are called heretics
[Waldensians] others are simply seen as fringe groups. The strong institutional
church has branded those who would reject her authority as schismatics and
heretics on the grounds of their refusal to submit to the hierarchy of the
institutional church.
As we go thru Acts, I want us to read carefully and see the
story as told by Luke. We will not find ‘another more true group’ in the sense
that I want to start some new denomination. I also don’t want to simply find
proof texts to justify doctrine. Many well meaning believers can find the
verses they like the most and use them to combat the other points of view. We
will see verses emphasizing the importance of water baptism, or various truths
on the outworkings of the Spirit. We will see prophets functioning and read
texts that clearly teach Gods sovereignty [as many as were ordained unto
eternal life believed]. Instead of getting lost on these side trails, I want us
to read with an open mind and allow our beliefs to be shaped by ‘the story’.
I will spend time defending my own view of Local church. Not
because I believe ‘my view’ is the only thing worth arguing about, but because
I believe we see the intent of God for his people to be a living community of
believers in this book. Right off the bat we will see giving taught in a
radical way. The early church at Jerusalem
will ‘continue in the Apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers’.
They then sell their goods and distribute to all who had need. Where in the
world did they get this idea from? The Apostles doctrine obviously taught the
plain teachings from Jesus on sharing what you have with others. So instead of
seeing an early tithe concept, you see an early ‘give to those in need idea’
straight from the teachings of Jesus. We will see this early Jerusalem group meet daily, as opposed to
seeing ‘Sunday worship’ as some sort of New Testament Sabbath. Of course this
group will meet at the Temple
[actually an out door courtyard called Solomon’s Porch] and from ‘house to
house’. But the simple realty of Christ’s Spirit being poured out on them as a
community of people will be the basic understanding of what ‘church’ is.
You will find citizens of many surrounding areas going back
to the their home towns after Pentecost. These believers shared the gospel with
those in their regions and this is how the early church would spread. Some
commentaries will show you how when Paul will eventually show up in Rome there already was an
established church there. They obviously heard the gospel from these early
Roman Jews who were at Jerusalem
during Pentecost. So we will see ‘church planting’ from the paradigm of simple
believers going to areas with the message of Christ. Those who would believe in
these locations would be described as ‘the church at Corinth ’ or ‘the church at Ephesus ’ and so on. So we see ‘local church’
as communities of believers living in different localities.
We will see the development of leadership along the lines of
‘appoint elders in every city’. Not a top heavy idea of ‘Bishop’ in the later sense of Catholic
belief, but a simple ordaining [recognizing!] of those in the various cities
who were stable enough in the basic truths of the gospel, that in Paul’s
absence these elders were to be trusted as spiritual guides. Now, many of our
brothers can trace the historic office of Bishop as a fairly early development
in church history. Polycarp and others were considered direct disciples of the
Apostles who would be seen as Bishops and even write of the importance of
Bishops for the church ‘Where there is no Bishop there is no church’.
This will cause many well meaning believers to eventually
become Catholic/Orthodox as they read the church fathers and see the very early
development of Catholic Christianity. In many of the church fathers writings
you will also see an early belief in the Eucharist as being the actual Body and
Blood of Jesus.
To the consternation of many Protestants you even find
Luther condemning fellow Protestants for not taking literally the words of
Jesus ‘this IS my Body’. Now, I will not defend transubstantiation, but try to
follow the trend lines in Acts as to the lack of this doctrine being a part of
the early church. We will find Paul’s letter to the Corinthians addressing the
Lords Supper, but for the most part we do not see a strong belief in the
transmitting of divine grace to the soul thru the eating of Christ’s literal
Body and Blood as they ‘broke bread’. We do see the sharing of the common meal
and the ‘Eucharist’ as one meal called the ‘love feast’. Only later on in
church history is there a division made between the full fellowship meal and the
Eucharist.
So to be frank about it, I will challenge both our Catholic
and Orthodox brothers on some very fundamental beliefs. Well I hope this brief
introduction sets the proper tone for the rest of this study, God bless you
guys and I hope you get something out of it.
John.
(738) ACTS 1- Luke,
the writer of this book, feels the need to document the ongoing work of Jesus
and his revolution. He already wrote a gospel and believes this to be the
beginning of the story. In essence, the reality of Jesus and his resurrection
are just the start, we have much more to do and become on this journey. Most
writers jump to chapter 2. We have churches and music groups called ‘Acts
chapter 2’. Why does Luke seem to wait till chapter 2 before getting to ‘the
good stuff’? Chapter one records the 40 days of Jesus showing himself alive
after his death. Luke feels this singular truth to be important enough to
simply stand alone [I do realize the early letters did not have chapter and
verse divisions like today]. The real physical fact of Jesus bodily
resurrection is without a doubt the foundational truth of the gospel. The
outpouring of the Spirit and the whole future of the church depends on the
reality of the resurrected Christ. Paul will write the Corinthians and tell them
if the resurrection were not true then they are the most miserable of all
people. Luke tells us Jesus gave instructions for the Apostles to wait at Jerusalem for the Spirit.
They will be witnesses of him to all the surrounding nations after the Spirit
empowers them. We also see Peter emerge as the key spokesman for the group. He
quotes freely from the Psalms and reads their own history into the book. He
sees the prophetic verse from David on ‘let another take his office’ as
referring to Judas betrayal and death. They cast lots and choose Matthias as
the one to replace Judas. Peter shows the importance of Judas replacement to
come from one that was with them thru out the earthly time of Jesus. Someone
who saw and witnessed Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars have confused this
with the ‘ascension gift Apostles’. Some scholars have taken the truth of the
early Apostles having the criteria of being actual witnesses of Jesus, and have
said ‘therefore, you have no Apostles today’. Paul will teach in Ephesians that
after Jesus ascension on high he gave gifts unto men ‘some Apostles, others
Prophets, etc.’ The New Testament clearly speaks of Apostles as an ongoing gift
in the church. Barnabas will later be called an Apostles [Acts 14:14 ] as well as many other references
in the original Greek using the same Greek word for Apostle. But here we find
Peter seeing the need to replace Judas. Other scholars think Peter might have
jumped the gun. They see Paul’s apostleship as the possible person the Lord
picked out as the replacement. You do find Paul referring time and again to his
Apostolic authority as one ‘born out of due time’ who saw Jesus on the Damascus road. If Paul
was simply an ascension gift Apostle, why would he refer time and again to his
authority based on being a witness who also saw Jesus? It’s possible that Paul
was in this group of ‘Apostles of the Lamb’ who had extra authority based upon
their testimony of being eyewitnesses. So in chapter one we see that Jesus
appeared for 40 days giving instructions to the early leadership and told them
to wait at Jerusalem
for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see the incarnational purpose of God,
Jesus was and continues to be the express image of God to man. He was not some
‘phantom’ like the Docetists will claim, but a very real physical resurrected
Lord. Luke begins the early history of the church with this reality being
important enough to stand on its own.
(739)ACTS
2- The Apostles are gathered together in the upper room. As they continue in
unity and prayer the Spirit of God comes upon them like a rushing wind. There
appear ‘cloven tongues’ like fire above each of them. Why this image? Why not
‘ears’ or some other sanctified body part? God is going to give supernatural
power to the words that they will speak. In a few chapters we will read how an
angel will supernaturally deliver Peter from prison and say ‘go, speak the
words of this life’. These tongues are a precursor to the tremendous fire that
will be loosed from their lips. James says the tongue is a little member but
boasteth great things, it has the ability to start fires. Jesus said he came to
earth to ‘start a fire’ and how he wished it were already burning. Here he gets
his wish! Now the Apostles and early believers experience the gift of tongues.
They begin speaking and prophesying in the unknown languages of all those who
are gathered together to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. God ordained
this event to be strategically done at this time. All the surrounding regions
heard the believers speak the ‘wondrous works of God’ in their native tongue.
Peter stands up and delivers a scathing message! He basically tells Israel
‘this is that which the prophet Joel spoke about’ he goes on and says this
outpouring is part of Gods predetermined plan to pour out his Spirit on all
flesh in the last days. He speaks of divine manifestations [dreams, visions]
and carries the prophecy right to the end of the age. He then speaks the gospel
of Christ and tells Israel ‘this is the Jesus you killed’. Wow, these guys are
bold. Peter leads them to faith in Christ, their public baptism is the
immediate sign of their willingness to be identified with Jesus and 3 thousand
Jews become believers this day. Now, what is the church? This corporate group
of first time followers do 4 basic things. They ‘continue in the Apostles
doctrine and breaking of bread and prayers and share their goods with all in
need’[true fellowship]. This early community was a brotherhood who actually
gave priority to the teachings of Jesus passed on to them from the Apostles.
Don’t miss this! Many will develop all sorts of practices and beliefs that
‘make up church’. Some will justify extra biblical beliefs under the guise of
‘the Apostles doctrine’ as in if it were something totally contrary or not
known thru the gospels or the writing of scripture. Paul will tell Timothy to
stay true to the traditions he passed on to him. But I want to focus on the
fact that the Apostles doctrine was not something different then the basic
instructions Jesus left us in the gospels. Paul will add to this basic body of
Christian doctrine thru his letters to the churches, as well as the whole New
Testament. But we do not see a bunch of strange or unknown doctrines that come
from this time period. The basics are mentioned above. I do want to stress the
fact that this early expression of church life had no ‘Pastor’ in the sense of
their gatherings being a time where a singular authority figure had oversight
of the entire community. They had strong leaders to be sure, but would avoid the
Protestant idea of Pastor. They had no church building or belief in a strong
liturgy. The ‘breaking of bread’ was a common meal where they all shared
together in a real life setting. And of course their giving was radical, it was
not ‘a tithe’ and it was done to meet the real needs of the community around
them. All these elements are basic to what the New Testament church is. A
functioning society of people in whom Christ Spirit dwells and who see
themselves as a real spiritual community of people. As we progress thru out the
history of the church as seen in Acts we will never lose this basic mindset. It
will be carried into the epistles of the New Testament and remain the best idea
of ‘local church’ as found in the first century. There is a trend going on
right now in Evangelicalism that says ‘lets return to the ancient practices of
the church and see what we can find’. As an avid reader of church history I am
not totally against this movement, but I do see a danger in thinking ‘the
ancient practices’ are the 2nd or 3rd century development
of liturgy and Eucharist and other early ideas, and by passing the ‘real
ancient’ story in the book of Acts. To put it simply, some of the Protestant
and Evangelical ‘practices and beliefs’ that have developed since the
reformation are ‘ancient’. I believe we all have a long way to go, but the ‘low
view’ of the Lords Table [low as opposed to ‘high church view’. Though I
personally believe in the Lords table as a memorial, not as the actual Body and
Blood of Jesus. Yet I personally don’t like referring to such an important
practice as low!] seems to be the true ancient practice as seen in Acts. The
absence of the Priest officiating over the altar is no where to be seen in the
actual ‘church’ setting. This ancient church is really a simple brotherhood of
believers having all things common and having the resurrection of the Son of
God as the central organizing principle of their lives.
(740)ACTS
3- Peter and John go up to the temple and heal the lame man. This stirs up a
commotion and gives opportunity for Peter to preach Christ. I want you to see
something here. The miracles of healing thru out this book testify of something
specific. They do not simply prove the existence of God. These first century
people were not ‘post moderns’ they had no pre enlightenment era that affected
their minds. For the most part they were highly religious! Paul will tell them
this later in Acts ‘you are too superstitious’ [religious]. The miracles are
testifying to the fact that Jesus is alive, he really rose from the grave!
Peter’s sermons are centered around the reality of Christ being the fulfillment
of all that the prophets have spoken about! The church must not be ashamed of
the gospel. Recently the ‘church world’ was up in arms over the Popes recent
reinstating of the Tridentine Mass [the Latin Mass]. After Vatican 2 the
Mass was done solely in the language of the hearers. Many old time Catholics
were wanting the Latin too. So Pope Benedict said fine, you have the option to
practice it either way. Now, this ancient Mass had a prayer that simply prayed
for the Jewish people to come to know Jesus. Well, this upset the Jewish groups
and they demanded a change in the prayer. At first the Pope re wrote it but it
still asked for prayer for the Jews to come to Jesus. This still offended them.
So finally the church produced some prayer less offensive. We should not be
ashamed of the gospel of Christ and his resurrection! Peter was preaching the
reality of the resurrection and was in their face about it! Jesus has proven himself
to be alive, we are not just witnesses of the existence of God, we are
witnesses that Jesus is the way to him. The only way! Now Peter ends this
chapter in a unique way. He invokes the ‘blessing of Abraham’ and says it means
‘the blessing of Jesus in turning you away from sin’. We just finished a study
in Genesis. I emphasized how the New testament apostles viewed the Abrahamic
blessing thru the lens of redemption. They did not teach it in a materialistic
way. Peter also quotes Moses [as well as David] and says ‘Moses said the Lord
would raise up a prophet like myself, whoever doesn’t hear him will be
destroyed’. Peter sees the fulfillment of ‘the Moses type prophet’ in Christ.
Peter has a great gift of taking the old testament prophets and proving Christ
from them. There is a young hearer in this early church. He will eventually
become one of the first Deacons. His name is Stephen, boy he must be drinking
everything in. He is seeing and hearing the testimony of Jesus straight from
those who walked with him. He hears Peter’s teachings on Christ. He becomes
familiar with the way Peter associates the ‘Moses prophet’ with Jesus. This
young man will testify in Acts 7 of the reality of Jesus being the fulfillment
of the Moses prophecy. He will give the longest recorded sermon in scripture.
He will brilliantly trace the roots of Israel and show how Jesus is the
fulfillment of the prophets. He will be accused of going against the law and
the temple. He has the first grasp of ‘Pauline theology’ [actually Paul got it
from him!] and does such a convincing job of proving Jesus to be Messiah that
they stone him to death. He becomes the first martyr in the book of Acts. At
his death he says ‘forgive them; don’t hold this sin against them’. A witness
named Saul is sitting by. God answers Stephens’s prayer and Saul will become
one of the greatest fire starters known to man.
(741)ACTS
4- The religious leadership at Jerusalem
bring the Apostles in for questioning. The reality of the lame man being healed
and the fact that Peter was doing it in the name of Jesus was an offence to
them. Part of the group were called Sadducees. We often think of them as simple
Pharisees who disbelieved in the resurrection of the body. While this is true,
we must not overlook the demonic strategy behind the rise of a religious group,
just prior to the resurrection of Jesus, who would imbed doubt in the minds of
people concerning resurrection. Peter and John are questioned concerning the
healing of the lame man. The leaders really had no problem with the healing,
they did not want them doing this stuff in Jesus name! Why? Once again we see
the fact of mighty works being done in Jesus name as proof of his resurrection.
If the resurrection is true then Jesus must be the Messiah. If Jesus is the
Messiah then this first century group of religious leaders killed the only
Messiah that they will ever have! Peter actually tells them this in the chapter
‘you rejected the chief cornerstone’. Jesus was not simply one religious figure
in a religion of many religious figures. Let’s see, we have Mary the mother of
Jesus, a great woman to be sure. What about old John the Baptist, man was he a
firebrand! And don’t forget Moses and the prophets. But Jesus stands out
because he is the cornerstone. He alone is the mediator. Peter says ‘neither is
there salvation in any other, there is no other name given among men whereby we
must be saved’. These religious leaders killed the main person! Once again we
see the church practice ‘communal giving’. They sell their lands and houses and
bring the money and lay it at the apostle’s feet. The money is used 100 percent
for distribution to the communities needs. Why is this so important to see? As
you read all my writings you will see me teach over and again this basic
Christian principle, that giving in the New Testament churches was primarily
focused on meeting the needs of people. There was no sense of tithing to the
storehouse as being a practice of ‘giving to the church meeting on Sunday or
you are under a curse’. Now, it’s fine to give 10 percent on Sunday, it’s just
we shouldn’t by pass the actual documented practice of giving as seen in the
New Testament. Now, we do have the advantage of hind sight. Paul will continue
to write the epistles of the New Testament and never once stray from this
principle. In every single case, bar none, is New Testament giving taught as a
voluntary free will offering. It is radical, taught in proportionality [as God
has blessed you lay by you in store- Paul] but never once is it taught as a
compulsory tithe that if not obeyed will bring the curse of the law upon the
believer. Now, in the very next chapter we will see 2 people die because of
lying in the area of giving. But it’s not because they didn’t tithe. Nor is it
because they didn’t give all the price of the land. It was because they were
lying to the Holy Spirit, they were introducing a deadly poison into the
fledgling church. Jesus warned them in the gospels to avoid this cancer. He
told them ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy’. He
wasn’t saying ‘beware of their doctrine’ in the sense of don’t listen to what
they teach. He was saying ‘beware of actual hypocrisy’! The leaven of trying to
present an image of yourself contrary to truth. Faking it so you look good. Now
the leadership will warn the Apostles not to speak or teach in Jesus name.
Peter says ‘we ought to obey God more than you’. Was he being rebellious
against God ordained authority? Jesus did teach in the gospels ‘they sit in
Moses seat, do what they say, not what they do’. Paul will respond later ‘I
didn’t know I was speaking against the high Priest, I know he should be treated
with respect’ as he defends himself before this same group. Some believe Luther
and the reformers and even people like me are rebelling against authority when
we question the system. To be sure Peter was ‘rebelling’ against an authority
system that actually served God to a degree. This religious system [Judaism]
did preserve the writings of the prophets. Peter was quoting the Psalms and
prophets and utilizing the actual writings the scribes passed on to him. But
there comes a point in time where ‘we ought to move on with God, rather than
man’ a radical break from past well meaning systems, and a moving forward with
God and the working of his Spirit. We end the chapter with the Apostles and
believers rejoicing over the fact that Jesus movement is winning and Gods word
is being fulfilled ‘of a truth the kings of the earth and its rulers are coming
against God and his holy Son Jesus’. They knew they were in some rough waters
but heck, Jesus has been raised from the dead! What can they really do to us?
We will soon see. We also see another description of early church life. The
term ‘church’ is referencing a corporate group of people who are meeting daily,
both at the temple and from house to house. They are sharing their material
things with one another. The Apostles are testifying of the resurrection of
Jesus and his Messiahship every where they go. A believer named Barnabus sells
some land and brings the money for distribution. Another couple will make the
mistake of trying to ‘be like the Joneses’ they will pretend to do the same,
Peter will judge them severely!
(742)ACTS
5 – As the word spreads rapidly, all the surrounding towns bring the sick and
vexed to lie in the streets. Even the possibility of Peters shadow passing over
them for healing is hoped for. Notice the charismatic reality of this early
church. I do realize the many reasoning’s that intelligent people use to
explain the miracles as limited to the Apostolic period, but for the most part
we see a supernatural church in Acts as well as thru out the epistles and well
into the first few centuries of Christianity. The 20th century story
of Pentecostalism and the awakenings just prior, seem to show the reality of a
supernatural church existing alongside a theological one! There is much proof
to the orthodoxy and giftings of the church all thru out scripture and church
history. Peters shadow healed people, how can we explain this away? [p.s. Phillip,
who is not an Apostle, will also perform miracles. Just thru this in for those
who teach the Apostles were the only miracle workers!] Now, the immediate
response of the high priest and religious leaders was ‘if we don’t do something
about this, their movement will gain momentum’. They imprison Peter and the
Apostles. An angel appears and frees them and tells them ‘go back to the temple
and speak the words of this life’. When the authorities realize what has
happened they once again warn them about using Jesus name in their ministry.
They even say ‘do you intend to bring this mans blood upon us’. Basically Peter
says ‘yes’. Peter has been ‘putting it in their face’ ever since Pentecost. He
has blamed BOTH the nation of Israel
and her leadership for the death of Christ. He does not worry about offending
them! During this time some priests become believers. The majority of them do
not. Why? What has happened is common among movements. When an initial movement
starts up, there is always the question of ‘is it from God or not’? A few years
back the church went thru a renewal movement. Some referred to it as ‘the Toronto blessing’ ‘the
laughing revival’ and other names. You had those who were 100 % against it and
those 100 % for it. Who was right? Well, to a degree both of them! The point is
there were some things that were needing rebuke, but to throw it all out was
wrong. The defenders appealed to Jonathan Edwards’s writings and how during the
first great awakening he experienced many of the same manifestations as the Toronto movement. Edwards
left quite a bit of room for God being present in the religious emotions of the
people. The critics were offended that the revival guys were appealing to
Edwards and they would appeal to other stuff Edwards wrote in concern over the
religious affections. You also had the same manifestations a century later
under the second great awakening. The revivals in Kentucky had laughter and ‘strange barking’
and other weird stuff. The point is you always have a response to a religious movement.
Once the battle lines are drawn, it is very hard to switch sides. In this
chapter we see Gamaliel, a very respected Pharisee, stand up for the Apostles
and say ‘lets give them some room, others before them rose up and gained a
following, they all passed on. If this work is of God you can’t stop it, if
it’s of men it will fail’. There was some breaking thru to the religious mind
that was taking place in the elite religious thinkers of the day. After all,
Peter has been quoting Psalms and Joel in ways that were confounding the
religious thinkers. Don’t forget, Peter is an uneducated fisherman. Jesus
deposited some stuff in his men that was way beyond the basic understanding of
the day. Some ‘thinkers’ and intellectuals were humble enough to listen, most
were not!
(743)ACTS
6- There arises the first controversy in the Jerusalem church. The fact that they were
doing this daily massive food distribution led to an area of prejudice. The
‘Grecians’ [Greek speaking Jews] were being neglected. They were seen as a
little lower on the scale of racial purity. They were speaking a language less
pure than the Hebrew tongue. So the Apostles heard of the problem and said
‘pick out 7 men of good report, who have favor and wisdom and put them in
charge of ‘this business’. In essence these were the first Deacons. The
business was simply speaking of the duty of serving the food. Up until now the
Apostles were involved with the distribution. But they said ‘we will devote
ourselves to prayer and the Word’. This chapter is important, many well meaning
church communions trace their practices of church government to this time. Are
Deacons positions who ‘do the business of the 501 c 3’? Not really. Well, not
at all! Are there ‘Pastors’ here in the modern idea of the office of a person
who is over the flock and is the weekly speaker whom the people see every
‘Sunday’. No. Are these practices all wicked and from the devil? Of course not!
But it does help to see what is actually going on. This early community saw the
need for the leaders to devote time to the word and prayer. Fulltime ministry?
Really more of a community adjustment allowing those with greater insight to
propagate the gospel. Paul will later show us this doesn’t mean each separate
community had ‘full time ministers’ who were forbidden to work secular jobs. He
will continue to make tents thru out his life. But he will also teach that it
is all right to meet the material needs of those who are ministering spiritual
food. We also see the Apostles lay their hands on these first deacons. Is this
some type of official ordination [recognition, licensing] from a seminary? Of
course not. Is it wicked to attend seminary and have an ordination? Of course
not. The principle of the ‘school of the prophets’ in Elijah’s day shows the possibility
of God working thru these universities. It’s just we need to be careful we are
not reading ideas into the story that are not faithful to the text. My reading
of this chapter shows an organic community of people who were ‘the church’.
They did have leadership and sought God for direction and weren’t imprisoned by
any specific form of ‘church’. The main ingredient was a group of people
sharing the life of Christ and living this life out as a community. All church
communions have a tendency to read there own story into ‘Gods story’. That is
we find isolated verses of scripture and say ‘see, this is why our church
government does it this way’. It’s OK to a degree, but then when you see ‘our
church government’ as the only true church government, that’s where problems
arise. I think we should avoid looking for prescriptive patterns of ‘church
government’ from the book of Acts. We should read the story as a community of
people who are experiencing God and learning to walk out this experience as the
Body of Christ. The great mystery is that God is ‘no longer dwelling in Temples made with hands’
but in a vibrant Body of people! [p.s. Stephen will quote this prophetic
scripture in the next chapter as he does one of the most masterful jobs of an
Old Testament survey to be found in the New Testament].
(744)ACTS
7- At the end of chapter 6 we saw the accusation against Stephen ‘he teaches
the temple will be torn down and that Jesus will change the laws and customs of
Moses’. There are a few key chapters In Acts, this is one of them! Up until
this point we have seen Peters message of the Messiah thru the lens of
repentance and baptism. You will notice Peter is very strong on ‘you guys need
to repent and show it’. Strong word indeed! Peter also introduced the scripture
‘the Lord your God will raise up a prophet like unto me [Moses speaking of
Christ] whoever doesn’t listen to him will be destroyed’. But Stephen is the
first one to teach publicly the passing away of the law and the temple and the
new ‘house of God’ to be the people. It’s the beginnings of Pauline theology.
Now I have read how this chapter was questioned and doubted as to why Stephen
was teaching this. Some theologians thought the chapter was questionable as
canon because of it’s seeming to be so out of context. These are the times
where I do agree with the ‘seminary as being a cemetery’! This chapter is
absolutely brilliant! I don’t want you to miss the main point. Stephen traces
the history of Israel
and uses the verse from Moses ‘the Lord will raise up a PROPHET LIKE ME’.
Stephen explains that when Moses first showed up on the scene to deliver his
people, that the people said ‘man, who do you think you are! Who made you the
boss’? Then Stephen says ‘yet this Moses, who the people refused. He was
actually the ruler and deliverer that they refused’. Stephen is showing them
that the prophets actually prophesied of the first century reality of Israel
rejecting Jesus because Moses said they would! Don’t miss this point. This is
the main point of Stephens message. He is telling the religious leaders ‘you
simply fulfilled prophecy by rejecting the Messiah’. He even compares the
miracles and great works that were done by Moses to the great miracles Jesus
did. Stephen ends the chapter by also tracing Jewish history to David’s son
Solomon and how the future temple that he would build was simply a shadow of
the New Testament house of God. He quotes David in Psalms ‘God will not dwell
in temples made with hands’. Now, this has nothing to do with ‘church
buildings’. This has everything to do with Stephen’s insight into the
theological truths contained in Jesus teachings about the destruction of the
temple. In today’s ‘church world’ we have a very unbalanced view of temple
rebuilding and the significance of the passages in Matthew that prophesy of its
destruction. In Stephen’s mind the future destruction [that is future from his
time. A.D. 70!] showed the passing away of the old law and its entire system of
worship. The first century Apostles and teachers saw the eschatological
portions of scripture from a redemptive lens. Peter earlier said ‘repent and be
baptized… so your sins will be blotted out at the return of the Lord’ ‘whom the
heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things’. He couched
individual salvation in with Gods ‘full world’ purpose of redemption [Romans].
They saw it from a wider angle than just ‘me and Jesus’. Now Stephen is doing
the same. The whole Apostolic tradition concerning the destruction of the
temple showed the purpose of God in ending the old concept of law and ‘limited
kingship’ [from Jerusalem’s throne] and how God raised up his Son and placed
him at his right hand and made him Lord and Christ. The passing away of the
temple and Stephens preaching on ‘the customs being changed’ was right on! When
I taught Hebrews I tried to bring this out. I realize that some teachers say
Paul didn’t write Hebrews. I attribute it to him simply because no one else had
the revelation he had in these areas. But I wouldn’t argue with saying Stephen
might have penned it [depending on the dates!] Now we end the chapter with
Stephens’s famous martyrdom and him saying ‘lay not this sin to their charge’.
Saul [Paul] is a witness to this killing, he will become the greatest advocate
for grace versus law that the church will ever know. NOTE- I forgot to mention
that Stephen even compares the mass killing of babies at the time of Moses with
the mass killing done under Herod during Jesus time. He shows how Moses and
Jesus were alike in many ways.
(745)ACTS
8- After the death of Stephen the church scatters thru out the region. We see
Phillip being used and directed by God. An angel will speak to him, he will be
supernaturally translated from one place to another. We see the simple reality
of all believers having Gods legitimacy to function. This is important to see!
Later on we see the first gentile church at Antioch being told ‘separate me Paul and
Barnabus unto the work which I have called them to’[Acts 13]. Some will develop
unbiblical restrictions from this verse. The strong ‘local church’ view [the
view that sees local church thru the 501c3 Sunday building mindset!] will later
teach ‘see, you can’t function on your own. If you are not under a ‘local
church covering’ you are an independent rebel out of Gods authority’. Here we
see the simple reality of God sending and communicating to Phillip on the basis
of him being a child of God. In Acts 13 the Spirit communicated his purpose to
an entire group, in this chapter he communicates to an individual. The legitimacy
comes from the reality of God being the one who is giving the directions! Now,
we see Phillip at Samaria preaching the Kingdom and doing miracles. The
sorcerer Simon gets converted. The church at Jerusalem sends Peter and John to see what’s
happening and they lay hands on the Samaritan believers and they ‘receive the
Holy Ghost’. This is also described as the Holy Spirit falling on them. This
chapter is used as a proof text for pro Pentecostal theology and anti! The
Pentecostals say ‘see, believers don’t have the Holy Spirit until a separate
Baptism takes place’. The anti Charismatics say ‘this is an anomaly. God did
this because he didn’t want to have a competing church in Samaria that did not have the approval of the
Jerusalem
church’. I will agree and disagree with both of these propositions [yes, at the
same time!] Paul will teach in his epistles that it is impossible to believe
without having the Spirit. He will also teach a doctrine of being filled with
the Spirit. The arguments over the terms used can be confusing. The fact is we
see both the experiences of believers [who have the Spirit] still experiencing
greater empowerments down the road. And we see believers ‘getting it all at
once’ [Acts 10]. Theologically, you can’t be born again without having the
Spirit. But you can call ‘the Spirit falling on you in a fresh way’ ‘getting
the Spirit’. The different expressions people use do confuse the matter. The
hard and fast Charismatics will not agree with me. And the old time Calvinists
might disagree with me. I believe both sides have things to add to the debate.
I want all of us to be open and daily expecting God to renew us with the Spirit
on a daily basis. I know one thing for sure, Paul taught we can water and plant
all day. But if the Spirit doesn’t do his work we will never see any real
increase! Simon the sorcerer sees that thru the laying on of hands the Spirit
is given. He asks ‘Hey, I will pay you money for the gift of being able to lay
hands on people and have them receive the Spirit’. Peter responds ‘you wicked
sinner! How dare you think you can purchase Gods gift with money! You and your
filthy money will perish together! You better pray that God forgives you for
this’. Simon says ‘can you pray for me’? He didn’t want to get struck down that
instant! Peter will later teach in his letters ‘take oversight of Gods flock,
not for filthy lucre. But of a ready mind’. James will write in his letter ‘woe
to the rich, their day is coming’. John writes in 1st John ‘love not
the world neither the things in the world’. Paul will pen ‘The love of money is
the root of all evil. Some went coveting after it and have left the faith’.
Where in the world did all these first century Apostles get this idea from? Was
it the devil tricking them out of the truth of wealth? Were they under the
spell of church tradition? Lets see, Jesus said ‘the rich man dies and goes to
hell. The poor man to Abrahams bosom’ ‘it’s harder for a rich man to go to
heaven than for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle’ ‘the rich man went away
very sad because he had much riches’ [after Jesus said go sell all you have and
give to the poor] ‘you can not serve God and mammon’ ‘the deceitfulness of
riches choke Gods word’ ‘thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of
thee’ [to the rich man who was planning on building more storage for his
stuff!] The simple fact is the early church had imbedded in their minds a non
materialistic gospel. The modern church seems to read scripture thru the lens
of the prosperity promises that you do find thru out scripture. The prosperity
promises are true and should be understood, but we need to also see the reality
of what I just showed you. The church will eventfully coin the phrase ‘Simony’.
It will refer to those who use money to gain influence and official positions
in the church. Simons name does becomes famous, but not in the way he wanted!
(746)ACTS
9- Paul gets permission from the high priest to go to Damascus and arrest the believers. On his way
the Lord appears to him and Paul is told to go to Damascus and wait for instructions. He is
blind for 3 days. God gives a vision to Ananias and tells him to go to Paul in
Judas house, because he too had a vision of a man coming to him and laying
hands on him. Ananias is afraid but does it at the Lords insistence. I want you
to see the role of visions and divine guidance in this event. The purpose of
the visions and supernatural events has nothing to do with the canon of
scripture. Some teach that the only reason you had supernatural guidance in the
early days was because the canon was not complete. But after its completion you
no longer had these types of things. First, no where is this doctrine taught in
scripture. Second, you did not have total agreement on ‘the canon’ [all the
books that make up our bibles] until the 4th century! Now you did
have a basic group of letters and writings that were accepted as authoritative,
but there was not total agreement. Many early believers had the epistles of
Barnabas and a few other letters that were accepted. Some did not include
Revelation at all. Others questioned Hebrews and James. You also did not have a
workable, readable ‘bible’ in actual book form until the 12th-13th
century! That's right, the actual form of our modern books was not invented
until that late date. Plus the availability of books on a mass scale did not
appear until the Guttenberg printing press of the 16th century. Just
in time for Luther’s Reformation! The first book printed on his press was the
Guttenberg bible. So the point is, the idea that somehow right after the early
Apostles died off you had all believers going to ‘their bibles for direction’
as opposed to having dreams or visions or other divine guidance, really isn’t a
workable solution. In this chapter God needed to get orders to his people, he
gave them visions! Now Paul immediately preaches Christ as the Son of God and
Messiah. He stirs up the waters and they sneak him out of town and send him to Jerusalem . The church at Jerusalem are leery of
him, Barnabas vouches for him and he is received. He starts preaching there and
once again they want to kill him. He eventually is sent back to his area of Tarsus . Now Peter is
still on the road preaching Christ. He heals a man at Lydda and many come to
the Lord. A woman named Tabitha dies at Joppa, a town close to Lydda. They call
for Peter to come and he does and raises her from the dead. What are we seeing
here? An early church [community of believers] preaching the gospel and doing
miracles and affecting large regions without lots of money. Without hardly any
organization. Without setting up ‘local churches’ in the sense that each area
has separate ‘places’ they see as ‘local churches’ with salaried pastors
running the ‘churches’. You are seeing a radical movement of Christ followers
who are sacrificially giving there lives away for the gospel. No prayer
meetings on ‘how in the world are we going to reach the region for the Lord. We
need tons of cash’! They believed the simple instructions Jesus gave to them on
going into all the world and preaching the gospel. Sure there will be times
where support is sent to help them make it to the next location. But the whole
concept of needing tons of cash and to build huge ‘church
buildings/organizations’ and to set up salaried ministers is not seen in this story.
I do not think the development of these things over the centuries means ‘all
the churches are deceived’ type of a thing. All ‘the churches’ [groups of
believers who are presently identifying themselves this way] are great people
of God. They are doing the works of Jesus and functioning to a degree in the
paradigm that they were given [either thru their upbringing or training]. But
today we are seeing a rethinking of the ‘wineskin’ [that which contains the new
wine] on a mass scale. As we read this story in Acts I want to challenge your
mindset. Don’t fit the story into your present understanding of ‘local church’.
But let your understanding of ‘Local
Church ’ be formed thru
scripture. This chapter said ‘the churches had rest and were edified and were walking
in the fear of the Lord’. The ‘churches’ are defined as all the communities of
believers living in these various locations!
(747)ACTS
10- This is another key chapter in Acts. Peter is still in Joppa and while
praying on the roof he has a vision. God shows him all the non kosher animals
that Jews were forbidden to eat and says ‘rise Peter, kill and eat’. Peter
refuses and tells the Lord he has never allowed himself to eat unclean stuff.
The Lord reveals to him the principle of not making judgments of what is ‘clean
or unclean’ according to the old standards of the law. It is important to fully
see this. God wasn’t simply saying ‘now all things are clean’ he was saying
‘the old prism of law and moral standards are no longer to be used as the
measuring rule of clean or unclean’. Now, was God throwing out all ‘measuring
rules’? No! He will flatly show Peter that ‘all who believe in Jesus are
justified from all things that you could never be justified from BY THE LAW’.
In essence God is saying to Peter ‘Jesus is the new measuring rule!’ [Actually
he was the original one the law always pointed to]. Well at the same time Peter
has this vision, a man named Cornelius has an angel appear to him and tells him
to send men to Joppa and get Peter. So as Peter is wondering about his vision
of the unclean animals, the brothers knock on the door and relate the angels
message to him. Peter goes to Cornelius house and preaches the gospel and the
Gentiles become believers. Is this the first time we see Gentile converts in
Acts? No. Phillip converted the Ethiopian eunuch in chapter 8. But this is seen
as the Lord giving Peter the ‘keys’ of the kingdom to the Gentiles. In the
gospels we read how Peter was given the keys to the kingdom. Our Catholic
brothers see the office of Pope as ‘the keys’. I think a better view is to see
how the Lord used Peter in Acts 2 and here to be the one to ‘introduce’ the
gospel to both Jew and Gentile. Keys open things. They open doors. Jesus is the
open door that Peter walked them thru by faith. Now we also see Peter preaching
justification by faith for the first time in Acts. His other invitations were
legitimate, but they focused on repentance and baptism. Here Peter says ‘and to
him give all the prophets witness that whoever believes in him shall receive
remission of sins’. Now I have taught this before on this blog. I try not to
make excuses for the teaching by Peter on baptism. He even says in his epistle
‘the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the washing away
of the filth of the flesh but the answer of a pure heart towards God’ [quick
quote, go find it for an exact wording!]. Now, if you do a word check on this
blog, probably in the section ‘prophecies, dreams, visions part 2’ and you find
the teaching on baptism from Acts 2:38, I do give an explanation on this. I
believe we are seeing the natural progression of greater understanding that
Peter and the brothers were attaining as they progressed on the journey. I
showed you how Stephens sermon in acts 7 hit on Pauline theology for the first
time in Acts. A few chapters later we see Peter quoting a scripture on ‘all who
believe’ are justified. The first connection from Peter on ‘believe and be
justified’. Now that Peter has opened this ‘door’ we will see Paul preach this
thru out the rest of the book. We see the famous verse in acts 16 ‘believe on
the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your house’. The point is we are
seeing not only the development of the Body of Christ in this book, but also
the development of Christian theology. Many believers fight over these various
verses and even trace the authenticity of their movements to these verses.
Others try to brand you as a heretic over which scriptures you see as the
‘conversion text’. While I fully agree with the doctrine of Justification by
faith as one of the foundational doctrines of scripture, I avoid calling the
churches who trace their ‘altar call’ experience to water baptism as
‘Cambellites/heretics’. I also disagree with those who are strong water baptism
advocates when they say those who do not believe in full submersion are not
Christian. In this chapter these Gentiles were justified by passive belief! No
evangelical altar call at all ‘the Spirit fell on all who heard the word’.
Peter says ‘can we forbid water to those who received the Spirit like we did’?
There was no altar call because Peter would have never given one! Even though
God gave him the whole vision and all, yet they were shocked when God actually
‘saved them’. So we see the will of God in accepting all who believe in Jesus.
The justifying of these Gentiles was passive, they had no ‘sinners prayer’ they
were justified before they got in the water. So to all those Church of Christ
[or even Catholic and Orthodox brothers] it is not totally wrong to trace your
outward experience of becoming a Christian to the time of baptism [I will not
get into infant baptism here!]. But it also is not wrong to trace it to the
time of simple belief. Gods purpose is to save people. Acts is revealing to us
the progressive journey of man with God. God does put down the requirement to
‘believe in Christ’. The entrance into communion with God is limited to all who
believe in him! But don’t make it harder than this. NOTE- I didn’t get into all
the particulars of repentance and baptism and exactly how many ‘steps’ you need
to ‘get saved’. Seeing Acts this way misses the main thrust of the book. But
let me add, why don’t we see Peter mention repentance here? Cornelius is called
‘one who feared God’. This description didn’t just mean ‘he prayed and fasted’
it actually described Gentile converts to Judaism. These were called ‘God
Fearers’. They practiced Judaism already, except for the rite of circumcision.
So this fact meant they ‘already repented’ to a degree. The law did teach
repentance well. It had a system that engrained the moral concept of sin and
repentance into man. Hebrews chapter 6 teaches this. So you can say Cornelius
and his relatives were already aware of sin and the need to turn from it [also
the basic elements of Johns baptism] so here Peter bypasses the repentance part
and simply shows them the missing ingredient, which was faith in Christ.
(748)ACTS
11- Peter recounts his vision and experience he had at Cornelius house. The
Jews at Jerusalem
were upset that he went and ate with non Jews. He explains that the Lord showed
him not to view these gentiles as unclean. They were accepted and made clean
thru Christ’s blood. The leadership at Jerusalem
agree [for now!] We begin to see the tension that will play out thru the rest
of the New Testament. This struggle between Jewish law and grace will become
the number one issue of contention in Paul’s letters. In this chapter we see
Barnabas go down to Antioch
and eventually get Paul from Tarsus
to help him establish the fledgling church at Antioch . After Peters experience they began
preaching to gentiles and Antioch
becomes the counterbalance ‘church’ [community of believers] to Jerusalem . I want you to
see something important here. The church at Antioch does not have ‘Temple worship’ along side ‘home meetings’.
The believers ‘assembled’ as a brotherhood. They met in homes to be sure, but
‘the church’ was simply a description of a called out group of people who
continued in grace and lived as a fellowship community. The reason I emphasize
this is because we grasp limited ideas of church and then we try and make
others fit our ideas. The church at Antioch
[and Corinth , Ephesus , Galatia ,
etc.] will continue to maintain this basic identity all thru out the New
Testament and well into the second century. The earliest archeological find of
a ‘church building’ is found in the 3rd century. There was an
inscription discovered that spoke of the ‘church’ meeting here. The ‘here’ was
the home of a believer! [I think the find was ‘Europa/duropa’ or something to
that effect]. The point here is I want you to see the original design of the
church. Up until this point we see the early church evangelizing large regions
by simply being led of the Spirit. The finances are simple, this chapter will
end with the believers at Antioch
pooling their resources to send relief to the church in Judea .
It will be the beginnings of Paul’s ministry of relief that we read about in 1st
Corinthians 16. This chapter says Prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch . Agabus prophesied of a famine to
come, the church made arrangements to send relief to their brothers. One of the
main Apostles at Jerusalem ,
James, will oversee a group of poor saints thru out his life. There is no early
doctrine seen of rebuking the poor saints and teaching them how they were
redeemed from poverty and the curse of Deuteronomy in a way that poverty was
see as a sin. James will actually pen his letter and say ‘God chose the poor of
this world [not just ‘poor’ in spirit] rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom’
he will also rake the rich over the coals! The whole point is as we read the
bible, we need to read it in context and allow the story to shape our views,
not the other way around. This Antioch community received New Testament
prophets, they did not view the verse in Hebrews ‘God spoke to us in the past
by prophets, but in these last days by his Son’ they didn’t see this as meaning
there were no more prophets. These believers were not tithing, they did not
have a church building, no ordained clergy or ‘high church’ model. They were a
vibrant bunch of grace believers who will be told they don’t have to keep the
law to be saved! From this point forward, no New Testament church in scripture
will lose this basic idea. Some will struggle [Galatians, Corinth ] but the basic truth of ‘the church’
being the people of God justified freely by grace, will remain strong. They are
still living a communal type of idea, and giving is still radical, done to meet
the real needs of people, and is not a tithe!
(749)ACTS
12- Herod kills James [not the brother of Jesus who is one of the lead Apostles
at Jerusalem ]
and puts Peter in jail. The church has a prayer meeting for Peter and an angel
goes into the cell and wakes Peter up. He leads him outside the city and frees
him. Peter thinks it’s a vision and realizes it really is happening! Note how
real their visions and dreams must have been, Peter at times can not determine
fact from vision! He shows up at the prayer meeting and a girl named Rhoda
hears a knock at the door. She asks ‘who is it’? He says ‘It’s me, Peter!’ She
can’t believe it and leaves him standing at the door! She tells the prayer
group ‘it’s Peter’ they tell her ‘no way, maybe his angel?’ Funny, you can
believe his angel showed up, but no way could the Lord deliver him from jail.
At the end of this chapter we see the return of Paul and Barnabas after they
brought the relief money to the saints at Jerusalem .
It calls it ‘their ministry’. This early church did not see ‘the ministry’ as
the actual business and the need to raise funds for the ‘church’. Now, it’s
fine to pool your money for good cause’s with other believers. When I teach we
are not ‘under the tithe’ this does not mean we shouldn’t support good
ministries with 10 percent or more of our money. The point is, here we see
Peter going back out to the field, Paul and Barnabas returning back from ‘the
field’. Spontaneous prayer meetings. No set time or way to give offerings, just
a true freedom of giving themselves away for the cause of Christ. Leadership
does exist, but the normal function and flow of this church is not centered
around ‘the Sunday Sabbath’ [EEK!] There is a real sense of this community of
believers being led by the Spirit. It would be wrong to say ‘hey, Phillip went
out on his own! He is not under the local church covering’! Or ‘now that we are
back from Jerusalem ,
lets ask Pastor so and so [the supposed Pastor of the ‘church at Antioch ’] what's next’.
There were no ‘Pastors’ in the sense of the fulltime Christian minister who
oversees the ordinances on Sunday. Now, these developments will arise as the
centuries progress. Many good Pastors and Priests will function this way for
centuries. They will see the church ‘building’ as ‘the church’. Our Catholic
brothers will begin to see ‘the altar’ as the actual place ‘in the church’ that
Jesus Body is ‘re offered’ [presented] as a ‘bloodless sacrifice’ for the
salvation of the world. All developments that are not seen in Acts. The point
is, we limit the flow of Gods Spirit thru his people when we regress from ‘the
true has now come’ [the whole reality of Jesus and the church being the real
image of things. The law and it’s shadows were only an incomplete picture].
When we as believers go back to ‘the shadows’ thinking that form and ‘pictures
of things’ [symbols] are the way we will touch the world, then we lose the
reality of us being the actual people of God showing the world Christ thru our
unselfish lives. Jesus said when the people of God love each other and lay
their own desires and goals down for his Kingdom, then the world will see our
actions and believe. Jesus did leave us memorials ‘do this in remembrance of
me’ ‘as often as you do this you SHOW the Lords death till he come’. I do
realize that the church does have an element of ‘presenting thru picture [art]
the Lords death and resurrection’ [passion plays and so forth] but when we lose
the real fellowship mentality of this first century church, we then lose the
greatest picture of all. Being the actual functioning Body of Christ on earth.
John writes ‘how can you say you love God, who you don’t see. When you can’t
love your brother, who you do see?’ [1st John] the New Testament clearly shows
us that the love we have in word and deed is the greatest ‘sacramental’ picture
we can declare to the world. Our Catholic friends have a song ‘they will know
we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes they’ll know we are Christians
by our love’. I agree.
(750)ACTS
13- The believers at Antioch
were praying and fasting and the Holy Spirit said ‘separate me Paul and Barnabas
unto the work which I have called them’. Then the whole group laid their hands
on them and sent them out. Notice, there was not a singular authority figure
who was the overseer of this church [community of believers]. It is important
to see this, because when you share the oversight of a body of people with a
plural team [Elders/Pastors- the title you use is insignificant] then there is
less of a chance of one person becoming too elevated in the minds of the group.
There is also a dynamic of the group coming to maturity as they see themselves
as being able to ‘ordain-lay hands’ and send out. Now Paul and Barnabas begin
their missionary journeys. At Paphos Paul casts blindness on a sorcerer and the
chief deputy believes. At Antioch
[Pisidia] they preach in the synagogue. Paul does a good Old Testament survey
and mentions ‘Saul from the tribe of Benjamin’ as being part of Gods plan. I
always wondered if Paul saw himself in this image [Saul from Benjamin]. Jesus
did tell Ananias that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear his name. Notice also
that Paul's message saw the promise to David in Psalms ‘the sure mercies of
David’ as being fulfilled thru Christ’s resurrection. The theme of the message
was not ‘Jesus rule is delayed’ [dispensational teaching] but that thru Jesus
the promises to the fathers have come to fruition. While it is true that the
Jewish hearers will reject their Messiah as a people, yet this did not mean
that the Kingdom was delayed or that the ‘church age’ was a parenthetical time
until the ‘Kingdom age’ reconvenes. The whole tenor of Paul’s message is the
reality that Jesus resurrection and being seated at Gods right hand is the
promise being fulfilled that God made to the fathers. It is important to see
his theme all thru out the Apostolic writings. The following week after Paul
delivers his message, many gentiles come back to hear the word again. The
leaders get jealous and Paul rebukes them. He tells them it was necessary for
the Jews to have heard the word first, but then in fulfillment of the prophets,
Jesus will be a light to the gentiles also. Paul and Barnabas sail off to
Iconium next. An important theme in all the sermons in Acts is how the main
message is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Prophets. Paul tells them that
they heard the readings from the prophets [Old Testament] every Sabbath day,
but they also fulfilled the prophetic word by not being able to understand what
the prophets were saying. So they crucified Jesus because of their blindness to
the meaning of scripture. We need to see Jesus as the fulfillment of the
prophets. The ultimate end of our purpose. To become like him in every way. In
today’s church world it is so easy to see the word and ‘church attendance’ as a
means to self fulfillment. But we need to re focus on becoming more like him. I
am sure it was a shock to Paul when he realized all the time and study he did
as a Pharisee was missing the main intent of scripture. It was humiliating to
find out that the simple men who became these followers of Christ were closer
to the truth than the theological doctors of the day. Jesus said we must become
like little children again in order to see Gods kingdom.
(751)ACTS
14- Paul and Barnabas continue going thru different cities [Iconium, Lystra]
Paul heals a man who was lame from birth and the whole city says ‘these men are
gods who have come down in human form’. Paul barely stops them from offering
sacrifices to them! In each city they travel to, they have a routine. They go
into the synagogue and speak to the gathered. Both Jews and ‘God fearers’
[gentile followers] the pattern of some believing and others resisting becomes
routine. Paul also has to deal with the Jews who were following him from past
cities. They were sort of 1st century ‘apologists’ who made it their
purpose to simply stop Paul. I want you to see that the ‘churches’ were the
various groups of people who believed. They did gather together [Ecclesia] but
they did not see ‘church’ as a place they went to for religious instruction.
They did not start ‘gentile synagogues’ in competition with Judaism. Now Paul
goes back thru the cities and at that point ‘ordains Elders in every church’.
This is important to see. The ordaining of Elders was the simple process of
seeing who had the maturity of understanding in the gospel and could be looked
up to as a spiritual guide. Any questions or new converts in the towns would
know ‘so and so’ is a responsible believer who Paul put his stamp of approval
on. Why even do this? Remember, the enemies of Paul [Jewish law keepers] are going
behind Paul’s back and trying to undo all the work that Paul was doing. Elders
were gifted men who had the ability to push back against those whose ‘mouths
must be stopped’ [Paul’s future language against false teachers]. These Elders
were not full time Pastors in the modern sense. They were not singular
authorities who ‘cover the flock’. They were not hired clergy! The reason why
it is important to see this is because we want to stay as close as possible to
the historic picture of the church as we read thru Act’s. These ‘local
churches’ were caring communities of Christ followers who did have spiritual
oversight that were to be respected and held in high esteem. Paul and Peter
will teach the concept of giving honor to those who have spiritual accountability
for you. But we can’t apply this to unbiblical forms of ecclesiology/hierarchy
that will develop over the centuries. In Luther’s day many well meaning men
felt Luther [the 16th century reformer] was rebelling against God
ordained authority by going against the Pope. We need to understand that John
the Apostle rebuked the rise of singular authorities who would seek to have the
preeminence amongst Gods flock [Diotrephes- 3rd Jn]. Paul will warn
the Ephesian church [later in Acts] that after his departure men would rise up
seeking to make disciples after themselves. The point is any future use of the
teaching of Elders/Pastors and the true responsibility to honor and submit to
godly authority has to be seen in context with the complete story. While Luther’s
[and Paul’s] critics could make the case that they were rebelling against God
ordained authority, yet at the same time true revolution always carries an
element of casting off old systems and restraint. Paul will confront Peter
openly over his hypocrisy between treating Jewish believers different than
Gentile believers. Peter was an Apostle before Paul and the argument could have
been made ‘who does Paul think he is, going over the head of Peter’. So we need
to see the biblical truth of God ordained leadership. The fact that many good
Pastors and men of God have faithfully served Christ’s church. But we do not
want to develop mindsets contrary to the freedom that we have in Christ while
teaching the truth of godly leadership. Paul ordained ‘Elders’ on his way back
thru Lystra and Iconium. He sails back to Antioch
and recounts all the wonderful success that they had with the gentile
believers. Antioch
has this free flowing spirit amongst the church. They are gentiles and are not
keeping the Jewish law. Paul and Barnabas were getting a reputation amongst the
Jewish leadership in the cities and towns. Word gets back to Jerusalem and we will see whether Paul’s
gospel will prevail before the ‘church authorities’? I believe we could
describe Luther’s response before the Catholic church as fitting Paul’s spirit
‘unless I am persuaded by scripture I can not go against my conscience. Here I
stand, I can do nothing else’.
(752)ACTS
15- Some brothers from Judea came down to Antioch and taught the
believers that they had to be circumcised and keep the law in order to be
saved. These are the Pharisees out of Jerusalem
who became believers. They tried to put the gentile believers under the yoke of
the law. Paul and Barnabas disagree strongly with this teaching. They decide to
bring the question before the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem . This is the first ‘church council’
in history. The ‘Jerusalem
council’. At the meeting the dispute arises. Peter speaks up and recounts his
experience at Cornelius house. How God showed Peter that he would justify
people by faith, without having to become converts to Judaism. James chimes in
and quotes a famous verse [famous now!] from the prophet Amos ‘in those days I
will rebuild David’s tabernacle and all the gentiles upon whom my name is called
will see me’. I want to stop here for a minute. On this blog I wrote a chapter
on David’s tabernacle. It is in the booklet ‘The great building of God’ you
might want to read it if you are not familiar with David’s tabernacle. I want
to note that scholars disagree on what James means here. Some see ‘David’s
tabernacle’ as the house or dynasty of David. Like Paul saying ‘house of God’
when speaking of ‘the family of God’. Others say this verse teaches the
rebuilding of the Temple .
The main reason James is quoting this verse is really not for the ‘rebuilding
of David’s tabernacle’ section. It is for ‘all the gentiles who call upon my
name’ part! James is agreeing with Peter and taking the side of grace when he
says ‘look, even Amos said gentiles would call on Gods name’. Paul does this in
Romans, he quotes the Old Testament prophets in context of the gentiles being
accepted. So I wanted to just put some context to why James is bringing up this
verse. But I also give credence to seeing ‘David’s tabernacle’ as speaking of
the New Testament house of God [the Body of Christ] and Gods intent to
‘tabernacle in his people’. Acts does teach that Jesus has ascended and is
seated on a throne that includes Israel as well as the whole
universe! So in this context Christ can be seen as ‘building the tabernacle of
David’ [spiritual temple of believers] that includes all ethnic groups. Yes,
gentiles too can call upon his name! The Apostles and Elders and brothers all
reach agreement and write a short letter and send Judas and Silas along with
Paul’s group back to Antioch
to read the final decree. They told the gentile believers they were not under
the law and did not have to convert to Judaism to be saved. They did give four
simple restrictions. Don’t eat meat with the blood in it, don’t eat food
offered to idols or strangled animals. Don’t commit fornication. Basic
requirements that later on will lose their emphasis as the church grows in
grace [accept for fornication! God does require believers to walk in holiness].
Now this chapter is vital for every believer. The 16th century
reformation restored the truth of people being saved freely by grace. Many
Christians were lost in the legalistic requirements of religion. Many believers
thought they could buy their way out of purgatory with money! Others thought
they would be saved by keeping church law. This early church council gave
freedom to the church in seeing herself accepted by grace. The church grew in
her understanding of Gods grace. As God’s revelation of himself progressed thru
out the early church, they saw him as being ‘inclusive’ not exclusive! The more
they learned about God, the more they understood him justifying people freely.
It is easy to lose the reality of God justifying man freely thru grace. No
excuses for living in sin, but true acceptance and forgiveness because of
Christ. This is truly the heart of the gospel. The first church council laid
the foundation of Gods free grace. The gentiles at Antioch and the other towns were ecstatic
over this decision. Truly the gentile churches are experiencing more freedom
than the church at Jerusalem ,
after all they had the ‘Pharisees who believed’ at Jerusalem , and they weren’t willing to give
up on their belief of the importance of the law and circumcision. They will
haunt Paul thru out his life. After the letter is read, Paul and Barnabas
continue to teach at Antioch
and the 2 brothers who were out of Jerusalem
are free to leave. Judas goes back, but Silas likes the freedom at Antioch and decides to
stay. Paul says ‘lets go visit all the brothers in the cities where we
preached’ Barnabas says ‘great, lets take John Mark!’ Paul doesn’t want him
because he abandoned them on an earlier missionary journey. Paul takes Silas
and John goes with Barnabas. The ‘visiting of all the brothers’ is also
described as ‘visiting the churches’. Once again, the brothers [and sisters] in
the cites are defined as ‘the churches’. They were called out groups of
believers who were recognized not because they ‘attended church on Sunday’ but
because they were followers of ‘the way’.
(753)ACTS
16- Paul and Silas hit the road. They are being led by the Spirit and are
evangelizing large regions without a lot of money, organization or ‘corporate
help’. Now, these things are permitted, but we need to make sure we are seeing
this story right! Jesus imbedded a mindset into the Apostles, he told them
‘don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment!
No special appeals for funds [ouch!], keep it simple’ [Message bible- Jesus
instructions when he sent them out by two’s]. So here we actually see the
Apostles living the vision. Paul by the way has a vision! He sees a vision of a
man in Macedonia
saying ‘come and help us’. Luke writes ‘we took this as a sure sign of God
sending us’. Wow, what childlike simplicity. The great theologian Paul, the man
who could argue orthodoxy all day [and win]. He has a vision and says ‘we took
it as Gods will’. Don’t develop doctrines that cut you off from God’s
supernatural guidance. Sure, people have gotten into trouble with visions.
Cults have ‘prophets and apostles’. But the church also had these things and it
helped on the journey. Now at Philippi they
convert a woman down by the river. They cast out a demon from a fortune teller.
The ‘masters’ see they lost their ‘money maker’ and stir up trouble in the
city. Paul and Silas get thrown in jail. They praise God and sing, an
earthquake happens. The doors swing open. The jailer thinks they all escaped
and is going to kill himself. Paul and Silas preach the gospel and he asks
‘what must I do to be saved’ they say ‘believe on the Lord Jesus and you will
be saved, your family too!’ The whole house gets baptized and the city leaders
send word ‘tell them to leave’. Now, Paul is a lot like me. He doesn’t let
stuff slide. He says ‘they beat us unlawfully, we are Roman citizens! Now they
want us to leave secretly. Let them come and tell us publicly’ the leaders hear
they are Romans and are worried. Paul made them squirm! Let’s do a little
overview. We are halfway thru the book of Acts and we see the ‘churches’ as
these free flowing believers carrying out the gospel. Baptisms and healings and
visions. We also see doctrinal growth. We challenge the mindset of many
evangelicals, baptismal regeneration is not taught [at least I don’t see it]
but baptism in water is the immediate outward identification of the believer.
In essence it was the New Testament ‘altar call’. Our Catholic friends will
eventually develop an idea of baptism as washing away original sin. But
sometimes we miss the other idea of putting off adult baptism because of fear
of future sins. Saint Augustine ,
the emperor Constantine and others delayed their baptism thinking they would
use it to ‘clean them up’ after any future faults. The doctrine of baptism in
Acts is seen as an immediate rite that does affect the believer [as do all
outward acts of obedience! Even the Lords Supper strengthens the faith of the
believer]. But justification and believing are prior to baptism. But not two
weeks or two years prior! But a few minutes. I also forgot to mention that Paul
has Timothy circumcised in this chapter. The great Apostle Paul, who will
eventually pen the words ‘circumcision means nothing, but a circumcised heart
is what matters’ here he gave in. Paul and Silas are fresh off the recent Jerusalem council. They
have been accused of teaching Jews ‘abandon the law and circumcision’. The
decree from Jerusalem
said the gentiles don’t need to worry about these things. But they were still
teaching Jewish converts to maintain Jewish law and custom. Timothy was not
circumcised, and everyone knew it! His mother was Jewish but his father was
Greek. So Paul realized that the judiazers would eventually say ‘see, Paul is
even teaching Jews to break Moses law’ so Paul gives in and compromises here.
Do the restrictions at the Jerusalem
council still hold sway over Jewish believers today? No. Paul will eventually
abandon all Jewish law and custom from his doctrine of justification by faith.
But at this stage they are still learning and growing. The mindset of ‘God’ in
this book is one of ‘less restrictions’ and more acceptance as time rolls on.
We see enough stuff on baptism to not call the churches who emphasize baptism
‘Cambellites/heretics’ [the term Cambellite comes from the founder of the Church of Christ / Disciples of Christ groups.
Their founder was Alexander Campbell. He falls into the restorationist camp. He
saw the emphasis on adult baptism in scripture and many of his followers see
the act of water baptism as the moment of conversion]. But we also see the
basic ‘ingredient’ for acceptance as faith. So God is not excluding those who
focus on baptism [Peters initial converts] but showing us greater acceptance
among ‘those who believe’ [Acts 10]. This is what I tried to say in our
introduction to this study. As we read we shouldn’t be looking for formulas or
hard and fast verses to simply justify our churches beliefs against the church
down the block. But we need to see the heart and mind of God. We also shouldn’t
trace our peculiar belief to this historic church and say ‘see, our group is
the most accurate one’. Why? Don’t I believe my idea of simple church is closer
to the historic church? Yes. But the ‘church’ will develop in good and bad ways
as the centuries roll on. The fact that many Catholics and Orthodox and future
Protestants will grow and fight and reform, means the church herself has within
her the inherent ability to ‘get back to the Cross’ or the reality of all of
these groups believing in Jesus causes there to be a fundamental unity that
exists because we all possess Christ’s Spirit. So even though I personally see
the organic church in Acts, this doesn’t mean that I see the other expressions
of church as totally illegitimate or lost! So let’s end this chapter rejoicing
with the jailer who heard the gospel and ‘believed with all his house’.
(754)ACTS
17- Paul heads to Thessalonica and preaches 3 Sabbath days in the synagogue.
Once again the unbelieving Jews follow him and stir up trouble. Paul heads to Berea and speaks the word.
The Bereans are said to be more noble because they heard Paul out and then
searched the scriptures to see if he were telling the truth. The message he
preached is that Jesus is the Messiah that the Old Testament prophets spoke of.
In 1st John, John says ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God’ Paul was showing them that Jesus was the Christ. Again trouble
arises and Paul sails off to Athens
and sends for Timothy and Silas later on. Now, Paul spent 3 weeks at
Thessalonica. No huge budget, no message on ‘how can we reach Thessalonica
without lots of money’ [I have heard it taught that you cant even begin to
think about planting a church unless you have $250,000 dollars!] Paul believed
in the power of the gospel. It took 3 weeks of simply sharing the gospel to
plant this church! He will write them a few letters and give them some
instruction, but the simple truth is every believer has the ability to ‘plant
churches’ [speaking the gospel to people groups and those people believing and
becoming ‘the church’]. At Athens Paul is troubled by all the ‘superstition’
[religion]. He runs into the philosophers. It said the people there spent all
their time in either telling or hearing some new thing. An ancient form of ‘the
view’ [the television show where the ladies talk about nothing all day long!]
So Paul disputes with them and uses their own altar to ‘the unknown God’ and
declares Christ unto them. Recently a Catholic priest made headlines because he
advocated for Christians to use the name Allah instead of God. He felt the name
was referring to the same God. Does Paul’s use of the ‘unknown God altar’ fall
into this category? No. When any religion names their god and defines him, then
this god is a false god [unless your speaking of the true God]. So in this case
Paul was simply saying ‘this altar to the God you don’t know, I will show you
how to come to know him’. Now, why were these philosophers in Athens ? A few centuries before Christ you had
the rule of Alexander the great. The Old Testament prophet Daniel speaks in
detail of his rule. Alexander ruled one of the greatest empires known to man.
He established the greatest library of the ancient world. He made Greek the
common language. This is why the New Testament was written in Greek. Though Rome was the ruling
empire of Jesus day, the culture was still Greek to a degree. This is called
‘Hellenization’. The Greeks even translated the Old Testament into Greek before
the days of Christ. This translation is called the Septuagint, which means 70.
This comes from the supposed number of scholars who worked on the translation.
This period just prior to Christ was the time of the great philosophers. Plato,
Aristotle and others. These Philosophers laid down a foundation of sorts for
morality and the cultures that would develop down the road. The church fathers
disagreed somewhat to the degree of mixing Christian faith with the thought of
the pre Christian philosophers. Origen thought these men were Christian to the
degree that God used them to instill types of thought and belief in the
immortality of the soul and other concepts as a precursor to Christ. Others
thought they were competing worldviews for the religion of Christianity and
should be rejected. Paul himself will write the Colossians and warn them of the
philosophies of men. Many thinkers were affected by the ‘new age’ concepts that
came from these groups. Augustine, the great 4th-5th
century Bishop from North Africa was into
Manichaeism prior to his conversion to Christianity. He eventually would sit
under the sound teaching of Ambrose and leave his former ideas. These groups
had strange beliefs and concepts that would sound like the scientology
adherents of our day. Others were not as drastic but would still be seen as on
the verge of Christian truth. Marcion was sort of in this class. The point is
Paul will take advantage of the philosopher’s willingness to delve into all
types of ideas, and use this as an open door to preach Christ. Some breakaway
groups from the more Orthodox churches will claim that the Catholic churches
belief in the immortality of the soul is not scriptural. These groups teach
that the ancient church picked these beliefs up from the philosophers of the
day [some of the seventh day brothers say this]. You also find some Protestant
brothers challenge the authenticity of various bible translations based on the
Septuagint translation from ancient Greece . The church father Jerome
will use the Septuagint in his popular translation of the Latin Vulgate. Some
Protestants see Jerome’s version as less than pure. This is also why the
Catholic bibles have the Apocrypha in them [The books between Malachi and
Matthew that the Protestant bibles don’t have]. When Jerome translated his
vulgate, he brought these books over from the Septuagint version. Jerome did
put an asterisk next to the apocryphal books, he noted they were included from
the Septuagint, but were not seen as authoritative. Simply added for historical
content. So we see the tremendous influence that Greek culture and philosophy
played in the early stages of the church. Paul knew their thought, but his
gospel was founded on more than some new belief system. Paul claimed that Jesus
had been raised from the dead!
(755)ACTS
18- Paul goes to Corinth ,
he meets Aquila and Priscilla. They are all
tent makers and he stays with them and does some manual labor! Poor Paul, he
just didn’t understand that when we read earlier in Acts, that the Apostles at Jerusalem devoted
themselves to prayer and the word, that this meant they were in ‘full time
ministry’. I am being sarcastic! The point is Paul did not see his very gifted
apostolic ministry as a ‘ministry’ that would be run like a modern business. He
certainly did not see manual labor as some type of lack of faith. In today’s
environment you can ask a brother ‘how are you supporting yourself’ and many
times the answer is ‘we are a faith ministry’ kind of saying ‘I don’t work, but
I ask for money’ [Ouch!]. Now, Paul will say it’s good to meet the material
needs of laboring elders/pastors, but don’t develop more into it than this. At
Corinth Paul teaches for a year and a half, one of the longest recorded stays
at any of his ‘churches’ [cities with believers in them]. He goes to Ephesus and back to Antioch . Then makes a
tour of the cities where he originally preached. Basically going back and
strengthening the churches. The Lord speaks again to Paul in a vision while at Corinth , he says ‘don’t
be afraid to speak, no one will lay a hand on you. I have lots of people here’.
Simple encouragement by divine means. Why, or how Christians can develop
doctrines that say ‘these things don’t happen any more’ is beyond me. At
Ephesus Aquila and Priscilla hear a great preacher. His name is Apollos and he
is very well spoken. He is also limited in his understanding of the gospel.
They take him and ‘expound unto him the way of God more perfectly’. It took
humility on both sides for this to happen. Over the years I have had good
friends who were/are pastors. As the Body of Christ goes thru transition it is
becoming very well known that the development of the full time clerical office
of Pastor was really not a scriptural development. Sort of like realizing
during the reformation that there were limited teachings from the church that
were simply wrong. As the people of God become more aware of ‘the more perfect’
things [more mature understanding on stuff] there is a humility that needs to
be present in order for the proper change to occur. In many cities across the
nation [and world] there are structures of church and practice that are
limited. As Gods people [both pastors and parishioners] see this, then there is
a process of change that occurs. In the more limited ‘churches’ you have
scenarios where well meaning men often rebuke any freedom of growth along the
lines of ‘I am your pastor, your role is to come to the Sunday [they view it as
some type of Sabbath] service, pay your tithe to the storehouse [which they
actually see as the church building!] and any rebellion against this order is
like rebelling against Moses in the wilderness!’ Now, all good pastors
obviously are not like this, but there are more situations that fit this
example than you realize. So like Apollos [a good public speaking ministry-
Pastor] he simply had to go thru a stage of seeing things at a deeper level.
Simply submitting to the gifts that exist in the Body of Christ and being
humble enough to learn. After Apollos learns, he is even stronger than he was
before!
(756)ACTS
19- Paul runs into some of Apollo’s disciples at Ephesus , he asks them if they received the
Spirit ‘since they believed’ [Notice what they were believing!] And they said
they have never heard about the Holy Spirit. He questions them on what they are
believing in. They answer John’s baptism. They only knew the message of John
the Baptist on repentance. The basic preaching from Apollos before he was
‘instructed in the way of the Lord more perfectly’. Paul does not say ‘now,
believe in the Holy Spirit and you will have the baptism in the Spirit’. He
says ‘John [the Baptist] preached that you should believe on him, that is
JESUS, who would come after him’ after hearing THIS [the basic message of
Jesus!] they were baptized in Jesus name and Paul laid his hands on them and
they received the Spirit. There are lots of things here that different groups
use to justify their beliefs. I fully believe in all the gifts and workings of
the Spirit, but once again many well meaning pastors [from Pentecostal
backgrounds] teach this chapter as saying these disciples were believers in
Jesus and did not have the Spirit. This is not true! They were not yet
believers in Jesus and the actual person they believed in to get the Spirit was
Jesus, not the Spirit! But all in all we see the laying on of hands, prophecy
and tongues happen. So these guys are charismatic! But also Calvinist [in my
mind- I believe Paul was strong in predestination, but also operated in the
gifts]. Now Paul goes and ruins his reputation! Can you believe he is actually
sending handkerchiefs to sick people and they are getting healed and delivered
from evil Spirits! Old Jonathan Edwards would never do that! [Or Calvin or
Luther…or would they?] Paul casts out some demons in Jesus name [that’s it, he
is cancelled from speaking at our reformation conference!] and 7 sons from a
Jewish family try to cast out a demon from some guy using Jesus name. The demon
says ‘Jesus I know, and Paul too! But who in the heck do you think you are’ and
the guy who’s possessed beats the hell out of them! Ouch! I find it funny that
the demons knew Paul by name. They must have heard how Paul was one of the
deadliest enemies to satans agenda. The demons who were showing up for orders
were scared they would be assigned to Paul, they knew he had some strong
handkerchiefs! Demetrius, a guy who made his living building idols to Dianna, a
false goddess, realizes that if Paul keeps preaching about Jesus that his
living will be threatened. So he stirs up trouble. He says ‘if we don’t stop
these guys, our shrine making business will be in jeopardy, oh, and the great
goddess Dianna will also lose her honor’ He couldn’t give a rip about the fake
god, he was worried about the bottom line! I find it funny how people will
choose which image of ‘God-Jesus’ they believe in based on the bottom line.
Some choose to grasp an image of Jesus contrary to the New Testament, if you
challenge this belief, they will simply ignore you based on the bottom line.
The Jesus of scripture challenges the materialistic gospel that permeates many
in today’s church. Some grasp this modern image of Jesus because they can’t let
go of the possibility that there ‘trade’ [belief system of profit] is going
away!
(757)ACTS
20- Paul travels with some brothers on the journey. This mode of visiting
different regions and bringing brothers with him is exciting! They are truly
seeing the Kingdom
of God becoming
established in the earth. Scripture says ‘they broke bread on the first day of
the week’ we read later in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that when they met
on the ‘first day of the week’ he asked them to take up a collection before he
arrived [so he could take the money and meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem ]. Do we see
here some type of Sunday Sabbath, that is the ‘church day to pay tithes’ so you
don’t get cursed? Of course not. You are seeing the simple practical outworking
of a people who are becoming the people of God. It’s fine to meet on a Sunday
and to ‘break bread’. Hey, the group needs to know when to meet for the meal!
But don't develop liturgical/sacramental ideas out of this. You say ‘hooray for
John [me], he is really giving it to those Catholics’ well, don’t say hooray
yet. Now he calls for the Elders at Ephesus
to come to Miletus
so he can give them some instructions and a farewell. This address from Paul is
one of the best in the New Testament. He covers the basics for leadership and
church growth. Now, he tells them ‘all the time I was with you guys I was
upright. I taught you publicly and from house to house. I showed you repentance
toward God and faith towards Jesus Christ. I worked and did not covet your
money. I did this to prove I was not there to gain financially from you. To
give you an example as Elders yourselves, so you would not see the
responsibility of oversight thru a covetous mindset. Beware! After I leave you
there will be an attempt by the enemy to undo the work of the Cross. Some men,
even from your own group will rise up and speak twisted doctrines. They will
try to become preeminent in the group, drawing away disciples after themselves.
Don’t become sidetracked and become followers of men! Guard the flock over
which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Feed them Gods good word’. Paul
lays down strong guidelines here. He actually teaches the elders that he worked
when he was among them to leave this example of leaders not seeing ministry as
a means to get gain. In one of his future letters [Timothy or Thessalonians?]
he actually says this ‘working’ that he did was a tradition for them to keep.
He said this in context of those who refused to work. Very strong indeed. Peter
also will teach the Elders to take oversight of Gods flock ‘not for money, but
out of a pure motive’. In the wars that rage over ‘simple church’ versus the
modern 501c3 model, both sides have shot at each other wrongfully at times.
There are very intelligent brothers who will take this chapter and teach that
the modern Pastor has fallen into the trap of ‘making disciples after
themselves’. They see the development of the role of Pastor as becoming the
fulfillment of this. Now, I do see some merit to this, but I see most pastors
[all the ones I know and have known personally over the years] as Elders who
are striving to help Gods People. I see a real need for all leadership to see
that ministry is not a fulltime clergy type office that has developed over the
centuries! Paul is simply addressing the Elders [more mature ones- in the
gospel, not necessarily old!] and showing them that their purpose is to help
the people of God grow in grace and make it to a place of self sufficiency in
Christ. Paul is pretty much laying down the gauntlet that leadership is not
some ticket of ‘now that I am in ministry, my income comes from the God
ordained tithe’. This is never taught as a means of support for New testament
ministers. These ideas have developed out of the Old Testament idea of the
tithe supporting the Levitical Priests. In the New Covenant all are Priests and
we don’t practice this type of thing. But Paul does teach that it’s good to
support materially [financially] those who are feeding you spiritual food. He
does teach ‘don’t muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’ [he called us
ox's!] seriously, he lays down the biblical guideline of supporting those who
minister the word. But it is important to see he was not establishing some type
of clergy system, the fact that he was working while with these Ephesians and
actually used this as an example for OTHER ELDERS as well as the believers
shows you this. All in all the main point Paul is getting across is he wants
the basic truth of the gospel to prevail and he does not want top heavy
leadership to come in and draw away disciples after them. That is for strong
gifted leaders to become the main focus of these Ephesian believers. So this
chapter is important because we see Paul address these elders that he has been
‘ordaining’ in the churches [groups of believers]. We see the basic character
and function of these men. We see the warning that cults will arise. In Paul’s
day groups did come forth from the basic Christian communities [Gnostics and
Docetists] that had a basic understanding of certain Christian things, but
would deny the reality of Jesus. Paul bids them Farwell as they all embrace on
the shoreline. The Elders were heartbroken over Paul’s words that he will
probably see them no more. He wanted to keep the upcoming feast at Jerusalem and eventually
preach at Rome .
He was on this obsession to carry this gospel to the seat of the empire, even
if it means his life.
(758)ACTS
21- Paul goes to Tyre
and the saints prophesy for him not to go to Jerusalem . He makes it to Caesarea
and Phillip has 4 daughters who also prophesy. Agabus shows up, he is a
prophet, and he takes Paul's garment and does one of those weird prophetic
actions and wraps it around him and says ‘the Lord says whoever owns this
garment will be bound like this at Jerusalem’. A few things, many good men
teach that the word for ‘Prophecy’ [to prophesy] is simple preaching. Now, true
simple preaching of the gospel is a function of the prophetic. Paul says in
Corinthians that whoever says the name of Jesus is speaking mysteries that only
the Spirit knows. So preaching does fall into this category. But a simple
reading of the text shows you that Agabus, who functioned in the office of a
Prophet, was doing more than simple preaching. There obviously was a predictive
element to what he did. Agabus is an ‘ascension gift Prophet’. In Ephesians
Paul teaches that after Jesus ascended he gave gifts unto men. Some of these
gifts are Prophets. Why would Jesus establish an entire class of New Testament
Prophets, and take them away as soon as the New Testament was complete? Now
Paul makes it to Jerusalem
despite the warnings. Right away James and the Elders call him to a meeting.
They rejoice over all the Lord is doing with Paul’s gentile outreach, but they
tell him ‘look, we have many Jews. They are all believing in Messiah, and they
all keep the law’. There is a fundamental rift between James and Paul. Most
preachers do not say or admit this, they feel to admit it would violate the
Canon of scripture. First, read my commentary on Hebrews 11 on this site.
Second, I believe we are simply seeing the historic development of truth as we
progress thru Acts. Peter, James and Paul [later we read Johns epistles] never
contradict each other as far as the overall message of the Cross is concerned.
But God does allow us to peer into the different insights that these key 1st
century elders were seeing. So James might really be seeing things from a
different vantage point than Paul. Paul might not fully see James reasoning.
They are both being used of God, their writings will harmonize. But they don’t
necessarily see it yet! James pressures Paul to take a vow with some brothers
to basically show he isn’t teaching Jews against the law. Paul does it. The
city finds out Paul is in town and they drag him out of the Temple and they beat the guy! The local
police come and rescue Paul. As he is being carried away he speaks Greek to the
soldiers, they are surprised he speaks Greek. He then addresses the Jews and
speaks Hebrew. Paul used positioning and all the influence he had in any area
[even language] to make his point. In the next chapter we will read his
defense. I want to close with us seeing that Paul was being accused of teaching
Jews against Moses and the law and Temple .
Was he? Actually as Paul’s understanding of the gospel of grace increases, he
does teach this. If you believe Paul wrote Hebrews [the letter] then you see it
there. But Paul initially was only preaching grace to the gentiles. James even
says ‘show the people that the rumors about you are wrong, show them that you
too are keeping the law like all Jews’ and basically Paul gives in by agreeing
to join in the vow with the brothers. Some times we read Acts [as well as the
bible] as if it were a single book written at one sitting. When you do it like
this you don’t leave room for the development and growth of the characters
themselves. God is allowing Peter to preach in a more limited way in the first
few chapters, after Peter hears from Stephen and Paul he seems to leave more
room for believing and being justified. He is learning and growing as the story
progresses. The same with James. His epistle is obviously a different view
point from Paul. Do they contradict? No. But some commentators do not honestly
look at the different angles. James will actually say ‘see how a man is
justified by his works, and not faith only’. Now, he does say ‘faith without
works is dead’. And many good teachers say ‘all James was saying was you need
active faith at the time of conversion’ [James isn’t speaking about the ‘time
of conversion’!] Well actually , he was saying more. Was he teaching
justification by works? No, at least not in the way most theologians see
‘justification’. But James was seeing justification thru the lens of the future
result of the believer actually becoming just! [What some believers call
sanctification] He was seeing the Genesis 22 justification of Abraham offering
Isaac, not the Genesis 15 account that Paul emphasizes. So James is teaching
‘justification by works’ that is, Gods grace that legally justified you when
you believed, actually changes you to the point where you do good works, and at
that point God continues to say ‘good job son-
you are doing what’s right’ [another word for doing what’s just/right-
justification!] Now, I can’t explain the whole thing here, the point is James
is dealing with Jewish believers and he is seeing things from a different
timeline than Paul. The strife between the early Jewish believers and Paul is
intense. Ultimately the Temple
will be destroyed and the future of the Christian church will be shaped by
Paul’s theology. James writes a great letter! But Paul will carry the day.
NOTE- I see James saying ‘see how a man is justified by works’ meaning the
future act of God being pleased with the changed life of the believer. We see
‘see how a man is justified by works’ and try to make that fit ‘see how a man
is initially saved/born again’ but James, in my view, is not speaking of the
initial act of justification [which is solely by faith] when he says ‘see how a
man is justified by works, and not by faith only’ James is working on a
different timeline!
(759)ACTS
22- Paul makes his case before the Jews at Jerusalem . As he speaks in Hebrew, they give
him special attention. We learned earlier [Acts 6] that Hebrew speaking Jews
were looked upon as better than non Hebrew speakers. Paul tells the Jewish
people that he too used to be zealous of the law and also hated the new
movement of Messiah. He informs them that he was raised under Gamaliel’s school of Phariseeism ! You had different schools
of learning, even within the class of the Pharisees, Paul was what you would
call a Harvard man. He explains that on his previous trip to Damascus he encountered Jesus. He gives his
conversion testimony, which by the way contains most of the elements of all the
various conversion accounts in Acts ‘arise, be baptized and wash away thy sins,
calling upon the name of the Lord’. Paul was such an anti Christian that the
Lord made sure he would cover all the angles![and also be received amongst all
the different groups of believers thru out the church who will claim strong
baptism verses, or calling on the Lord verses. In essence you can find in him
the varied experiences of believers thru out the centuries]. Now Paul recounts
how after his conversion he had a vision in the Temple at Jerusalem . He has his audience captivated
until he says how Jesus appeared to him and told him to go to the gentiles.
This was too much for the elite Jewish mind to grasp. The people chant ‘away
with him’ they want him killed! As the soldiers are getting ready to beat him
some more, he says ‘is it lawful for you to beat a Roman citizen like this?’
Paul was quite a guy, he used any advantage he had to win the argument. The
soldier's enquire how he obtained Roman citizenship, he tells them he was ‘free
born’. All people under the rule of Rome
were not Roman citizens. The region of Judea
and the area of Jesus and his men were considered the ‘wrong side of the
tracks’ Galileans were a low class. Most scholars believe Jesus spoke Aramaic,
the language from his area. Paul was the first out this bunch of radical
followers who had an upper class image. His pedigree was good. He surprised his
opponents by having a good education and being a Roman citizen. Paul also wrote
[Corinthians] how not many noble and educated people were chosen by the Lord.
It wasn’t because the lord didn’t want the upper class folk! It was the fact
that education and ‘class’ can be such obstacles in the minds of those who
posses it. It’s the sin of pride. Also in this chapter Paul describes his
vision at the temple as ‘being in a trance’ the same language used of Peter in
chapter 10. A trance is a different type of experience. St. Thomas Aquinas,
considered by many to be the most intellectual apologist of the latter middle
ages [scholastic period] shared experiences he had right before his death. He
would call them ‘being in a state of ecstasy’. These were sort of ‘trances’
where he would experience the presence of God so mightily that he would describe
it as almost unbearable. He would say that the Lord revealed so much to him
during these times that all he had ever written or taught in the past seemed
trivial compared to what he was ‘seeing’ during these events. Paul himself will
write about being caught up into the 3rd heaven and not knowing
whether he was in the body or out of it. He would say he saw things that were
impossible to explain in human words. In this chapter Paul says Jesus appeared
to him at the beginning of his journey, it seems as if this wasn’t the only
time he saw the Lord.
(760)ACTS
23- Paul continues his defense before the council and chief priests. He
realizes that the council is divided ‘politically/religiously’ along the lines
of the Pharisees versus the Sadducees. Though these were both religious groups
who were Jewish, yet they had major disagreements. The Sadducees did not
believe in the resurrection or spirit or angels [why in the heck would you even
want to be religious if you rejected these things? ‘Eat, drink and be merry,
for tomorrow you die’! The philosophies that rose out of the enlightenment era
and the French revolution were based on ‘nihilism’ the idea of having no moral
compass. The rise of Marxism and other communist expressions of Government had
good intentions at times! The problem was they espoused the atheistic
philosophies of the time and ultimately this leads to a total loss of purpose
and meaning. Though these philosophers tried to say that religion and the ‘God
delusion’ were the cause of all the ills of society, there grand scheme would
ultimately lead to forms of human government that disrespected human life.
Hitler of course was an extreme example. He did embrace eugenics, the idea that
the stronger races will eventually win and the weaker races/classes will die
off. He simply thought he was speeding up the process by exterminating Jews.
Though the philosophers of the enlightenment fall into different groups. Some
for example did believe in deism and they felt God could be proved from natural
means. Others saw religion as the ‘opiate of the people’ and ultimately did
disgrace unto the human race!] The Pharisees believed in resurrection. So good
old Paul stands up and says ‘I am a Pharisee, and the very reason I am in
trouble is because I believe in the hope of the resurrection’ Paul knew how to
‘triangulate’ [politically]. Well of course the Pharisees say ‘well, we see
nothing wrong with this man. If an angel or spirit appeared to him, then Gods
will be done’. So the group splits. Paul is put under guard and eventually
appeals to the next step. The authorities send him to Governor Felix in Caesarea for the next appeal. Why is it important to see
the legal maneuverings of Paul? Jesus even appears to him again and says ‘you
will testify of me in Rome ’.
The religious leaders of the 1st century did all they could to not
report the facts of the early followers of Christ. The gospels tell us that
they even resorted to outright lying to cover up the fact of the resurrection.
Paul’s interjection into the legal arena caused there to be a written record of
these events! The historians of the day were covering the legal events of the
day. The record of Jesus and his followers would be forever imbedded in the
historic records of the time. God wanted Paul in this system as a sure testimony
of the witness of Christ’s resurrection. We end the chapter with Paul waiting
at Caesarea for the accusers to come and make
their case.
(761)ACTS
24- Paul’s accusers come down from Jerusalem .
They hired a lawyer [orator] to accuse him! Tertullus gives a speech to the
Governor that could be defined as the classic political ‘suck up’ speech of all
time. Paul defends himself and says ‘I am not guilty of these so called
accusations. But I am guilty of believing the law and the prophets. I believe
that what they spoke of [the shadows] have happened! I believe in the
resurrection. Jesus has fulfilled the promises of the prophets!’ I had a
discussion with a good friend the other day. We have a mutual friend who is
really into Messianic stuff. He has espoused the idea that the feasts and
images of Israel
are EXACT PICTURES that give us a detailed road map to Christ’s return.
Basically the friend believes that all the shadows and images are exact
descriptions of all future events. I shared with my friend that I too believe
that the feasts of Israel
are prophetic signs of things. Surely Passover and Pentecost have had great
meaning for the people of God. Paul says ‘Christ our Passover died for us’.
Some see the end time feast of the latter harvest as having future fulfillment
in the ingathering of the nations to Christ. I have taught some of this on the
radio before. The problem with this other stuff is it takes the feasts and
shadows and tries to ‘detail’ every little thing. Paul understood the prophets
and law having been fulfilled thru the present work of Christ and his
resurrection. I can’t stress enough how the apostolic witness in Acts sees
Jesus as the fulfillment of these things. They do not preach a heavily
nationalistic [Jewish] message, though they are all Jews! [The Apostles] As
Paul defends himself, the governor listens and trembles! Paul spoke of judgment
and temperance and the reality of a future resurrection of the just and unjust.
The basic apostolic message as seen in the classic creeds of the church. Paul
will sit under house arrest for 2 years until another person takes over Felix’s
position. The guy’s name is ‘Porcius festus’ [I think I would prefer the name
Judas over Porcius!] We end the chapter with Paul waiting to give another
witness of Jesus before another ruler. The legal problems of Paul were Gods
providence to give Paul opportunity to speak the gospel all the way up the
chain. The chain ends at Rome .
(765) ACT 25- Festus hears the
Jews at Jerusalem ,
they want him to bring Paul to Jerusalem .
Festus goes back to Caesarea and asks Paul ‘why don’t you go back with me’?
Paul appeals to Caesar! Of course going to Rome was part of the plan. Now King
Agrippa [another one of the many ruling authorities that Rome had over the
people!] comes to Caesarea and Festus tells him about Paul. Agrippa will get a
strong word in the next chapter. Also the Jews come down from Jerusalem and
accuse Paul of many things. I want to make a note here. In the area of
apologetics, which we do a lot of, you need to be careful that you don’t jump
on the bandwagon of unfounded accusations. There are and have been real
doctrinal heresies that needed to be dealt with, but some of the apologists
really get personal. Even calling family members degrading names! In Paul’s
case he had accusations that were not true. He does defend himself against the
false ones, but also admitted that he believes in Christ’s resurrection and
that this is considered heresy among certain Jews. Paul’s main message was
Christ and the resurrection! As we get ready to close our study in a few more
days, I want to recap the importance of seeing Jesus and his fulfillment of the
Old Testament prophets as the main message of the Apostles. This early teaching
by the Apostles needs to be the ‘tradition’ if you will, once again. We
[believers] have a tendency to delve deeply into all sorts of stuff. Paul will
warn his spiritual sons ‘don’t get lost in endless genealogies and debates
about the law’ and Hebrews says ‘it is a good thing that the heart be established
with grace, not with meats [legalistic doctrines] which have been unprofitable
to those who have gone that route’. Now, you guys know I believe in correct
doctrine, and Paul wasn’t advocating ‘no doctrine’. But it is easy to get lost
in endless debates that lead to nowhere. Ultimately our goal is to present
every man perfect in Christ. Paul will stick with this message all the way to Rome !
(766)ACTS
26- Paul makes his case before Agrippa. Paul says that he is being accused of
the hope that all the Jews are waiting for and serving God day and night to
receive! It’s funny how all the religious requirements of the law and temple,
the whole culture of Judaism. All the symbols that made up their heritage. All
the times they would quote Moses or Abraham ‘we have Abraham as our father’ ‘we
know God spoke to Moses’ all of these things were for THE SOLE PURPOSE of
coming to a point in Jewish history where the Jews would receive their Messiah.
Paul states ‘this actual hope and reason for our existence as a Jewish nation is
the cause of contention that the Jewish leaders have against me’. What an
amazing thing! Now once again Paul will state the basic Christian doctrine of
Jesus and his resurrection ‘king Agrippa, why would it be so hard to believe
that God can raise the dead’? Did you ever ponder this question? A few years
ago you didn’t exist [30-50-70?] since you were born you have been taught that
you exist because of certain natural means. You learned the process of birth,
and some of you have actually had kids yourselves. During you life you have
heard and learned about the universe, planets, the history of man. We have
lived thru an industrial and technological revolution. We put men on the moon,
we splice genes, we take men’s hearts out of their bodies and put pumps in
there place! Plus all these things came from a point in time where there was no
thing! Hebrews says God made every thing from nothing! Science actually does
agree with this [read my section on Evolution] and after all this experience
and knowledge you have attained in your very short life, yet if God were to say
‘I will raise the dead’ people say ‘now, how can you expect me to believe
that?’ We do have pea brains at times! Paul also retells his conversion and
says how Jesus told him he would be a witness of the historical events of
Christ and his resurrection, but Jesus also said ‘and you will testify of the
things I will reveal to you in the future’. Now we have to do some stuff. What
were the things that Jesus was going to reveal to Paul in the future? We read
these things in Paul’s letters. Basically the great reality of our sharing in
the divine nature [actually this is Peter] our sonship. The great mystery of
God making one new man out of Jew and Gentile. Truths concerning the ascension
and the heavenly realities of redemption [Hebrews]. The point is the ‘future
revelation’ of Jesus to Paul was not some knowledge outside of the boundaries
already laid down in the gospels. The doctrine of the Apostles was already
being taught thru out the book of Acts. God simply gave Paul greater insight
and revelation into the truths that already existed. The Gnostics [early second
century cult of Christianity- the word comes from the Greek term ‘Gnosis’-
knowledge]. They taught a type of special knowledge that said the basic
Christian who only has the historical truths of Jesus are at a lower level.
Once you become a Gnostic, you then have special revelation that can’t be
learned thru normal means. A popular Christian teaching comes close to this
‘revelation knowledge’. Many years ago I was a student of E.W. Kenyon and the
word of faith movement. Brother Kenyon taught a type of mystical teaching that
said God can reveal things to people outside of the 5 senses, and this is
‘revelation knowledge’. Can God do this? To a degree, yes. We actually read how
Agabus gave Paul a prophecy about being bound at Jerusalem. Or Paul dreaming
about a man in Macedonia asking for help. I see the reality of God being able
to reveal things to us supernaturally as a gift of the prophetic. We are born
of Gods Spirit and we do receive understanding from God as his Spiritual
children. But yet Paul will write ‘study to show yourself approved’. So Jesus
told Paul he was going to show him stuff in the future. Paul based his
apostolic authority on this fact [Galatians 1-2]. He would say ‘the gospel I
preach was not given to me by men, but God revealed it to me’ what gospel is
Paul talking about? The gospel [good news] of the grace of God. Jesus revealed
the more important stuff to Paul as time went on, Paul was seeing more and more
grace!
(767)ACTS
27- Paul heads to Rome !
He sets sail under guard and has a few harrowing experiences. He warns the
ships captain not to sail at one stop, the time of severe weather is at hand.
They refuse to listen, they set sail and wind up almost dying. Paul gives them
a classic ‘I told you so!’ and says ‘don’t worry, an angel from God appeared to
me and told me your lives will be spared’ [poor Paul, when is he going to see
that these prophetic experiences are ruining his ministry!] they all swim to
shore after the ship gets stuck off shore. At one point while still stuck in
the water Paul tells them ‘you guys have not eaten in 14 days, have some food’
he breaks bread, thanks God and invites them to eat. I really see this as a type
of ‘Lords supper’ thing. I have showed you guys in the past that the early
church practiced a type of ‘common meal’. They seemed to take Jesus words in
John 6 [Paul in Corinthians too] to teach that ‘as oft as you do this’ [do
what? As oft as you get together and eat a meal from this time forth, you will
remember that your actual spiritual life is pictured by you eating and drinking
for physical life. I am your daily bread of life. You live because I live!]The
early believers seemed to take it in this ‘buffet style’ way. So Paul seems to
be holding some type of ‘invitation Lords meal’ and saying come and dine! At
the end of this chapter Paul’s life is spared by the favor he had with the
centurion Julius. God gave him protection to complete the mission. Paul has
been witnessing of Jesus to all these gentile [Roman] authorities and he will
take it to Rome .
Ultimately it will take 3 centuries before the whole kingdom [Roman
Empire ] will bow the knee, but Paul was the firebrand who set the
match.
(768)ACTS
28- After the shipwreck they wind up on an island called Melita. Paul meets the
barbarous people and they welcome him. During a bon fire type thing, Paul is
collecting wood and a poisonous snake bites him. The people think ‘surely this
man is a murderer and ‘vengeance’ got him!’ Notice the fact that moral/natural
law was imbedded in the consciences of these savage like people. Where in the
world did they come up with such an idea of right and wrong and justice? The atheists say ‘well, all people simply
come up with some type of code to live by. This is really not proof for moral
law’. The Christian answers ‘so how come you never find some isolated tribe who
rewards murder and punishes goodness’! Now, I realize there are distant tribes
who practice violent stuff. The point is in all of these societies, there is a
basic right and wrong that is honored. If the tribe is violent, they still
don’t reward the cowardly killing of one of their own kids! These savages had
the built in conscience of moral law that Paul teaches in Romans. Now after
Paul doesn’t get sick or die from the bite, they ‘change their minds’ and say
he is a god! People are fickle. Paul heals the father of the chief of the
island, a small healing revival breaks out. Paul demonstrates the power of the gospel
in word and deed. Even today, in many 3rd world countries you see
healings and miraculous signs along with the preaching of the gospel. They
launch off and land in a few more spots and finally make it to Rome! Paul calls
the Jewish leaders and makes his familiar defense. He lists the accusations
against him and defends himself. He thought the whole Jewish world knew about
the gossip! The leaders tell him ‘we haven’t heard any stuff about you, but
tell us more about this sect’. Leaders, don’t make the mistake of defending
yourself over personal stuff from the pulpit! Often time’s people don’t know
what you are talking about. Paul does set up a day and teaches the Jews in Rome
from morning till evening showing them all the scriptures that testify of Jesus
in the Law of Moses and the prophets. He ‘testified of the Kingdom of God and
Christ’ [they go hand in hand!] Some Jews believe, others don’t. Paul then
quotes the most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New Testament ‘Isaiah was right about you! Having
eyes you can’t see, ears you can’t hear…’ Luke ends the chapter [and book] with
Paul living 2 years in a rented room and preaching the kingdom of God to all
who will listen. Paul finished his days infecting the capitol city of the
empire with the gospel! Church history tells us that Paul [and Peter] were
martyred under Nero’s persecution. John [the apostle] writes about the beast
making war against the saints and killing them. No wonder why the early church
called Nero ‘the beast’. Paul writes one of his best letters to the Roman
saints and the church will forever have an ‘eternal witness’ in the city of
Rome. Paul got his wish.
(769)ACTS
CONCLUSION- As we finish our study in Acts, I want to review a few things. The
‘church’ [ecclesia] as seen in Acts are without a doubt ‘organic’ this term
describes the community of people in the various locations who believed the
message of the Messiah. These people were not establishing ‘church meetings at
the church on Sunday’ to compete with the Jewish meetings at the synagogues on
Saturday. The transition from the old law into the new covenant was not only
one of a change in message [law versus grace] but also a transition from
shadows to reality. All the ways of worship and ‘liturgical’ form were part of
the old law. The temple and priest and altar were important types and symbols
of what was to come. But in the New Testament communities these ideas of
physical worship changed. The actual praise of Gods people and doing good deeds
will become the sacrifices that God is well pleased with [New Testament]. The
Lords meal was actually a meal! The gathering on the first day of the week
became a good tradition in memory of Christ’s resurrection. But as time went on
many well meaning believers would return to the symbols and incorporate them
into their worship. The church would be seen as the ‘church house’ the altar
would be seen as a real place upon which the ‘bloodless sacrifice’ [Eucharist]
would be re offered again for the sins of the world. The priest would be seen as
having special powers given to him by Jesus, that during the mass the host
becomes Jesus flesh and blood and as the people ‘eat’ him they are partaking,
literally, of Jesus flesh and blood. Now, are all these believers wrong? Should
we see the development of sacramental theology as pagan? I personally don’t
think so. I prefer to view the changes that took place in the church as part of
a process of Gods people grappling with doctrines and beliefs while at the same
time struggling to maintain unity as the centuries progressed [I am not making
excuses for wrong doctrine, I think well meaning church fathers grasped wrong
ideas out of a fear of loosing their identity. The idea of a strong magesterium
[teaching authority] gave room for wrong doctrines to become firmly entrenched
in the collective mind of the early church]. For the first 1000 years of
Christianity the people of God were primarily seen as Catholic. In 1054 the
official split between eastern and western Christianity will take place.
Another 500 years until the Catholic Church split again [1517]. The host of
churches that came out of the Protestant Reformation are too innumerable to
mention. Should we view all of these groups as deceived religionists? Of course
not. Do we find a pattern in Acts that would allow us to trace ‘the true group’
and lay claim to being the most authentic? I don’t believe so. But as all the
people of God strive for the unity that we actually posses in Christ, we have
the great resource of the church fathers, the wisdom and insights of the
reformers. The heritage of the outgrowth of the restorationist movements. The
excitement of the Puritans as they launched out to found a new world free from
religious persecution. If it weren’t for the strong institutional church we
wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have even had a Luther [Wittenberg ] Calvin [first Paris then Geneva ] or Zwingli [Zurich ]! Or the ‘pre reformers’ Wycliffe,
Huss and Knox. These men were products of Catholic higher learning! It was the
reality of Catholic institutional Christianity that allowed for these men to be
trumpets of truth in their day! The university cities that they taught in as
Catholic priests allowed for their influence to spread far and wide. In each
generation of believers you have had Gods people progress so far and leave us
with great treasures that were intended to be passed on to future generations
If we severe ourselves from historic Christianity, then we lose the great gains
that have been made in the centuries gone by! The book of Acts shows us the
freedom of the people of God. ‘Where 2 or more are together in my name, I am in
the midst’ isn’t some description of ‘local church’. As in if we copy the
formulas of what happened in Acts [break bread, prayer, etc.] then you ‘have a
church’. Jesus promise to be with us when we are together is the act of
brotherhood. Surely we saw Jesus going along with the people of God all thru
out Acts. The Spirit of God that indwelt them in chapter 2 was the promise that
he would be with them. He legitimized them! Not some institution [‘local
church’] that they were to start! So today all the people of God are striving
to find a closer identity with each other as fellow believers in the Lord. I
believe the book of Acts gives us a beautiful picture of the church in her
infancy stage. I also believe the growth seen as we read Paul’s letters to
these churches indicates the heart of God for his people to remain in grace.
Paul warns the churches to not fall into the
legalism of observing days and regulations and legalistic requirements.
He wants them to live simply, free from sin and to be the people of God in
society. Some branches of Christianity took hold of the strong ‘we are
pilgrims’ view [which is true to a degree] and would separate from society. Not
realizing we are pilgrims and strangers to the worlds system, but our Father is
God of heaven and earth! We are here to impact this planet! So let’s run with
the exciting message and revolutionary mindset that the early church possessed.
They weren’t in this thing for what they could get out of it, they were really
laying their lives down for the gospel. They were sharing their stuff with each
other. They were loving God and their fellow man in ways that were uncommon for
their time. It wasn’t only what they said that allowed them to ‘turn their
world upside down’ it was who they were, the People of God.
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