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

In today’s passage we have a contrast between Paul’s behavior and that of his enemies.  First, we have Ananias, the high priest ordering Paul to be struck, contrary to the Law of Moses, for saying he stood before the Sanhedrin with a good conscience. After this, some Jews conspired and took an oath before God to kill Paul.  Some members of the Sanhedrin conspired with them in order to bring Paul to where they could carry out their plan.  Later, some of the chief priests and elders requested that the Roman governor transfer Paul back to Jerusalem for trial because they had a plan to have him ambushed on the way to that trial.  Paul, when he was before the Sanhedrin and after being told that the man he called “a whitewashed wall”(almost certainly a reference to Ezekiel 13), apologized for speaking ill of the high priest.  Later, when he was tried before the Roman governors, Paul clearly defended himself as innocent of the charges brought against him by challenging his accusers to bring forth witnesses to support their accusations.  It is worth noting that Paul was basically accused of angering those who disagreed with him so much that they started riots.  So, we had a high priest ordering someone struck for declaring themselves innocent.  We had other people taking an oath to God to murder someone.  Then we had people who held themselves up as the arbiters of moral rectitude conspire to help those people murder Paul.  Let us follow Paul’s example, who modeled what Peter wrote about in his first letter.  “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority.”

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

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

I have never paid close attention to what the elders of the Jerusalem Church said to Paul when he arrived in Jerusalem.  First, they tell Paul that the thousands of Jews who have become followers of Jesus in Jerusalem zealously follow the Law of Moses.  Second, they tell Paul that those Jewish converts had been told that Paul tells the Jews living among the Gentiles to not follow the Law of Moses.  What I had never noticed before was that the controversy was not over whether or not the Gentile followers of Jesus needed to follow the Law of Moses.  The controversy was over whether or not Jewish followers of Jesus should follow the Law of Moses.  The implication of this exchange is that Paul did not teach Jewish followers of Jesus to abandon the Law of Moses.  In fact Paul appears to have generally followed the Law of Moses in his personal life.  Luke tells us in Acts 18 that Paul took Nazirite vows.  Further, a few verses later, Luke reports that some Jews from Asia had seen Paul in the city with an Ephesian Gentile and assumed that he had brought him into the temple (in violation of Jewish Law).  Until today, it never occurred to me that the Jews who started the riot which led to Paul’s arrest may have believed the same thing which the Jewish Believers in Jerusalem believed.  They did not really know what he taught, but they thought that they did.  Let us not be like them, prepared to hate someone for what someone else tells us they believe.  Paul refused to compromise his message just because people distorted what he said.  If we are not called to imitate Paul, let us at least encourage others to actually listen to what he, and those like him, has to say.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

Today’s passage begins with Paul’s second visit to Ephesus.  It mentions that Paul met twelve men who were “disciples” who had not heard of the Holy Spirit.  These men appear to have been disciples of John the Baptist and only somewhat aware of Jesus.  Although another possibility is that they became believers after hearing Apollos preach before he learned of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I am still inclined to think that they were disciples of John the Baptist who had never heard the Gospel of Jesus, but were fully prepared for it by John’s teaching.  It was only after Paul spoke to them that they were baptized in the name of Jesus and received the Holy Spirit.  No matter what understanding we have of these believers (were they disciples of John the Baptist who were only a little aware of the Gospel of Jesus, or were they disciples of Jesus who had not heard of the Holy Spirit?), we see the importance of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Reading this passage, I realized that I always thought that Paul spent more time in Corinth than anywhere else on his missionary journeys.  However, I noticed today that he spent over two years in Ephesus.  Paul decided to leave Ephesus after an incident which led to the Believers in Ephesus to give up their occult practices.  The incident involved some Jewish exorcists being overpowered by a demon-possessed man after they tried to drive the demon out in the name of “Jesus whom Paul preaches.”  The contrast between the way these exorcists drove out demons and the way in which Paul did led them to realize that the power of Jesus was not in rituals or special incantations.  They realized that those things were a form of idolatry which came between them and God.  Luke tells us that they destroyed 50,000 drachmas worth of paraphernalia, which comes out to over 130 years of wages for the average person.  The reason I mention this is that shortly after Paul decided to leave Ephesus (but before he did so), a riot broke out inspired by craftsmen who felt economically threatened by the growing Christian Church.  I suspect that Demetrius, who started the riot, saw what the Believers did with their sorcerous paraphernalia and perceived that such would impact his business in time.  All of this highlights how we as Christians need to subordinate our economic interests to our faith.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

Luke tells us that when Paul was in Thessalonica, some of the Jews were jealous of him, but were unable to muster enough supporters through reason to interfere with his ministry.  So, they found some discontents in the marketplace and started a riot.  When Paul went to Berea, it was only when some of his opponents from Thessalonica followed him there to stir up trouble that he had any problems there.  In Athens, Paul debated the philosophers of Athens and gained a few converts.  In Corinth, again some of the Jews opposed Paul and brought him before the courts, but the court administrator refused to hear the case.  From Corinth, Paul went to Ephesus and appears to have spent only a day or two there before moving on.  In most of the cities where Paul was forced to move on due to violence, his companions were able to stay to wrap things up before following him.  As we read the Book of Acts, it becomes clear that Paul courted confrontation.  That does not mean that he was wrong.  Paul’s willingness to aggressively preach in the face of opposition helped to spread the Gospel.  Of course, many of us are called to be less confrontational as well, supporting those whose style produces hostility in those who do wish to stop the spread of the Gospel.

I wrote more on that than I intended because I think we do not give Apollos enough attention.  As I read this passage, Apollos had learned about Jesus and understood what He taught without being brought into the Church.  Apollos appears to be a kind of counterpoint to Paul.  When Paul, as a faithful Jew, learned of Jesus, he was angered and offended by what he heard, only becoming a follower after being directly confronted by Jesus.  Apollos, on the other hand, when he heard of Jesus examined the Scriptures and found Jesus there.  When he learned about Jesus, Apollos did not join the Body of Believers, apparently considering them just Jews as he viewed himself.  Yet, he went out and preached the Gospel, apparently accurately despite not receiving a thorough training in it.  Paul came to faith in Christ because Jesus appeared to him.  Apollos came to faith by studying the Old Testament Scripture.  Both were thoroughly trained in those Scriptures and used that knowledge to bring others to Christ.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

When Paul and Barnabas got back to Antioch in Syria they got into an argument with some people who had come from Jerusalem who were teaching that the Gentile Believers needed to be baptized.  The fact that Luke refers to those who taught circumcision here as “certain people” suggests that perhaps he did not consider them Believers.  In any case, the debate got so heated that the Church in Antioch decided to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem for guidance from the Church there.  The first thing we see here is that the Church in Antioch chose to be held accountable to the larger Church body by seeking guidance on a disputed doctrine from those who had been Believers longer than they.  In Jerusalem the apostles and Church elders gathered to discuss this controversy.  Some initially argued that Gentiles needed to be circumcised and obey the rest of the Law of Moses.  Then Peter got up and argued against that, citing his experience at Cornelius’ house and the vision which preceded it.  After Peter spoke they listened to Paul and Barnabas relate what they had witnessed among the Gentiles.  Finally, James got up and gave his judgement on the issue that the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised.  James bases this judgement on both the testimony of Peter, Paul and Barnabas regarding the working of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles and on the words of the prophets saying that Gentiles would bear God’s name.  The important thing about this decision is that the Church debated and prayed about it and then made a definitive decision about it.  We in the Church today need to follow this example on controversial topics.

Now I want to bring up that Luke tells us that when Paul asked Timothy to join him in his journey, he had Timothy circumcised.  Paul got Timothy to be circumcised because the Jews in that area knew that Timothy’s father was not a Jew.  Since Paul was one of the champions of the decision to not require Gentiles to follow the Law of Moses, the fact that he had Timothy circumcised is noteworthy.  It gives us insight into Paul’s desire to work with people as he found them.  Since the Jews would view Timothy, as the son of a Jewish woman, as a Jew, Paul had Timothy follow the prescription of the Law of Moses to be circumcised.  Which reflects on what Paul later writes about being all things to all people.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

Reading today’s account is interesting.  We do not exactly know how long it was between Peter baptizing Cornelius’ household and the believers from Cyprus and Cyrene preaching to Gentiles in Antioch.  However, it is apparent that even after the Jerusalem Church recognized that the Gospel was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews it took some time for the Believers to begin reaching out to them.  The Church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to teach these new Believers the basics of what Jesus taught.  Once Barnabas had given them a crash course, he realized they needed a deeper grounding in what we call the Old Testament than he felt able to provide.  So, he went to Tarsus to get Saul, who had been a student of Gamaliel.  Here is the thing: these new converts did not know anything about the Old Testament.  So, Barnabas, one of the men responsible for the early Church realizing that the Gentile converts did not need to follow the entirety of Mosaic Law (r even most of it), went and got Saul, the other one of the men responsible for that, to teach them the Old Testament.  Those who think we can follow Jesus without learning what the Old Testament says about God, have not actually read the New Testament either.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

From the account here it is not clear whether Jesus bodily appeared to Saul (Paul) or not.  However, in his letters he reported himself as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.  So, I will count this as Jesus appearing to Saul (Paul) in His resurrected body.  The main point about these accounts about Saul is that once Saul recovered his vision he began to preach Jesus in such a manner that the Jews in Damascus sought to kill him and he needed to be snuck out of the city to avoid them doing so.  Then, in Jerusalem, he debated the Hellenistic Jews in a way which led them to seek his death.  Once more his fellow believers got him out of the city.  This time they sent him to Tarsus.  There are two things I want us to take away from this.  First, Saul was not afraid of offending people.  Two, beginning immediately after his conversion, his arguments for Christ were such that those who disagreed with him were unable to counter his arguments.

I am not going to write much about Peter’s vision and his visit with Cornelius.  However, I want to quote, and comment on, the voice which spoke to Peter in his vision. “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”  We need to keep this in mind when we interact with those whom God has called, whether they have yet accepted that call or not.  More specifically, we should not call anyone impure.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 7-8.

The first thing I want to look at is what Luke writes at the end of his account of the martyrdom of Stephen.  He writes that Saul approved of their killing Stephen.  I think this indicates that Saul (Paul) was Luke’s source for the account of what happened at Stephen’s trial.  Further I think it is Luke setting up Saul’s conversion story.  Luke tells us about Saul approving of Stephen’s killing and that Saul led the persecution of the Church in order to remind us how much an enemy of Christianity he was before his conversion.  My reading of this is that Luke is telling us that, before his conversion, Saul was the chief enemy of the Church.  The point of him telling us this was to show us how God will change even the most virulent enemy of Him into His loyal servant.  No matter how far from God someone we meet may seem, God will welcome them if they turn to Him, and a miraculous conversion story is not out of the question.

Next we have the account of Simon of Samaria (oftentimes known as Simon the sorcerer).  Simon had used his abilities to perform wonders to make people think that he was someone great.  It is not clear from the account whether or not Simon had supernatural powers, or if he was just someone with great powers of observation and the skills of a modern magician.  I suspect the latter.  In any case, when Philip arrived and preached the Gospel with signs and wonders, Simon became a Believer in Jesus and was baptized.  Then, when he saw Peter and John laying on hands so that people received the Holy Spirit, Simon’s desire to be someone special raised its head and he tried to buy that power.  Peter rebuked him for this and he appears to have accepted Peter’s rebuke and repented.  Simon wanted the recognition and authority which came from the power of “dispensing” the Holy Spirit by laying hands on people.  Peter’s rebuke indicates that God’s power is not given to us because we desire it.  In fact, the desire to have God’s power in order to elevate ourselves above others is sinful.  Simon wanted this power so that he could once again receive the accolades from others that he had received before he came to Christ.  Peter’s rebuke seems to suggest that Simon thought he could profit from such power.  Simon desired the power of God in order to advance himself.  Seeking the power of God so that we might be glorified is sin.  Seek the power of God so that God may be glorified.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

The first thing I want to touch on is what Peter (and the other Apostles) said to the Sanhedrin.  Peter told the Sanhedrin that he (and the other Apostles) would choose to obey God rather than listen to the commands of men.  Peter told them this on two occasions.  The first time, John was with him and agreed with his declaration.  The second time, all of the Apostles were with him and agreed with him.  They were explicit in saying that they were compelled to speak about what they had seen and heard.  We should be similarly bold in speaking of what we have witnessed God doing.  I want to note that the Sanhedrin was both the political and religious leadership of Jerusalem.  On both occasions the Sanhedrin threatened the Apostles with punishment should they continue.  In order to fully understand this situation we should look at the prayer the Believers prayed after the first time.  After Peter and John were threatened if they should continued to preach in Jesus’ name, all of the Believers gathered to pray in response to these threats.  We should model our prayers for dealing with danger on their prayer recorded here.  Instead f praying for protection in the face of threats of violence, they prayed that God would enable them to boldly speak His message despite those threats.  Not only did they pray that God would make them speak boldly, but also asked that He perform signs and wonders in order to draw attention to the message which they were speaking on His behalf.

Which brings me to the second point we should take from this part of the passage.  Let us seek that God heal the sick whom we encounter and perform signs and wonders in order to bring attention to the message we speak on His behalf and to draw others into a relationship with Him.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus

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

We often speak about the Jesus’ earthly ministry as if He only had twelve disciples with Him for His entire ministry.  However, Peter here states that they needed to select a replacement for Judas from among those who had been with them the whole time, from John’s baptism to when Jesus was taken up into heaven.  Furthermore, Luke writes that they nominated two men to take Judas’ place.  This tells me that there were more men who fit the criteria which Peter gave for that role.  In fact thinking about it, it seems to me that there were at least fifty-eight men who met Peter’s qualifications, and possibly at least seventy-two depending on how we read the passage where Jesus sent out seventy-two (or possibly only seventy, depending on which manuscripts we believe got the number correct).  If the Twelve were among the seventy-two, then there were only sixty men other than the Twelve in that group (or fifty-eight, if it was only seventy whom Jesus sent out). *  This means that there were at least seventy men who had been following Jesus and were His disciples since He was baptized by John (or possibly when He returned from being tempted in the wilderness).  Which means that when the Gospels refer to Jesus travelling with His disciples it refers to a group of at least seventy (except when it specifies that He had taken aside a smaller group such as “the Twelve”, or specifies that He had taken only a few named disciples).  The point of all of this is that there were more than just eleven men who had received all of Jesus’ teaching, some of whom had been killed before any of it was written down.  Rather, we have a group of at least seventy who had heard all of Jesus’ teaching.  The Twelve were those whom Jesus had called out specifically to be leaders among His disciples.  What this tells us that when the teaching of Jesus was written down there were a large number of people around who knew what He had taught and could hold those who wrote it accountable.  So, we have reason to trust that which has been passed down to us.

*I think that might be confusing, so let me explain it more clearly here. In Luke 10 Jesus sent seventy-two of His disciples out ahead of Him to preach the kingdom of God (some manuscripts of Luke say that it was seventy, rather than seventy-two.  There are different cases to be made about the symbolic meaning of both 70 and 72 which would be why Jesus chose that number to send out).  In any case this came shortly after the Twelve had returned from when Jesus sent them out on a similar mission.  So, it is possible that Jesus did not include the Twelve among the seventy (or seventy-two) whom He sent out on this second mission.  However, if He did include the Twelve among them, it would mean that there were at least fifty-eight men who were His disciples in addition to the Twelve.

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

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus