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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Acts 26-28.

    I want to make a couple of points about the defense Paul raised before King Agrippa and Governor Festus. As he had done previously with Governor Felix, Paul starts his defense by praising King Agrippa’s understanding of Jewish Laws and practices. Paul then relates his conversion story before getting into the heart of his argument for following Jesus. Which brings me to the main point I want to make about Paul’s argument for Christianity. Before I go into that I want to bring to your attention that we are in late November and I am only now getting to the end of the Book of Acts in reading through the Bible. The bulk of the year was spent reading the Old Testament and only a little over a month will be spent on the letters of the New Testament. The heart of Paul’s argument for Christianity was how the Old Testament Scriptures are fulfilled in Jesus. Throughout the Book of Acts, Luke repeatedly mentions that someone went through the Old Testament and showed how the prophets pointed to the events of Jesus’ life and His teachings. Here Paul did not even find it necessary to go through the evidence in Scripture for Jesus, King Agrippa interrupted him as he began to make his case, suggesting the King Agrippa already knew the arguments and that they did indeed make the case which Paul claimed for them. I believe this represents Luke’s primary hypothesis throughout the Book of Acts (and I suspect his unspoken reason for writing it): Christianity is not a new religion, rather it is the logical conclusion from Judaism. Luke tells us that Paul made a similar presentation when he spoke with the Jewish leaders in Rome.

    As I began reading Luke’s account of Paul’s journey to Rome the first thing that struck me were the details he included: details which lend credibility to his account. One could argue that those details may have been included in order to lead people to believe a story which Luke had made up. There are two problems with that theory. The first is that these details allow someone to readily prove Luke’s account false. He lists the names of people with whom his account can be checked. The second problem with that theory is that the idea of such details being necessary to believe a story is relatively modern. The idea of recounting events as they happened, rather than adjusted so as to more readily make the point o=you wanted to make, was fairly novel at the time Luke wrote. As a matter of fact, Luke may be the first writer to do so. Relative to the first point, there was a time when historians argued that Luke’s accounts must be fabricated because his details did not match what the historians knew about the people, places, and events he mentions. More recently, it has been discovered that Luke’s account was more accurate than what those historians believed to be true.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. You may be asking yourself, “What do all these cat pictures have to do with a Bible study?” The answer is, “Absolutely nothing.” I just like my cat and the pictures my wife and I take of her.

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

    When Paul was before the Sanhedrin he realized that the Sadducees primary opposition to what he preached was to beliefs he shared with the Pharisees on the Council. When he made it clear that the grounds over which the Sadducees wished to have him jailed and/or killed applied to the Pharisees on the Council he disrupted the meeting. However, I do not think that Paul’s primary purpose was to disrupt the meeting. I believe that his primary purpose was to point out the hypocrisy of the leadership of the Pharisees in making common cause with those who would use beliefs which Paul shared with the Pharisees as their justification for condemning Paul. Of course, the real reason that the members of the Sanhedrin (or, at least its leadership) wished to condemn Paul was because the teachings of Jesus were a threat to their power. A further example of the hypocrisy of those opposing Paul were the group of men who vowed to murder Paul, and the Jewish leaders who conspired with them. Such things were a violation of the Law of Moses, to which they claimed loyalty as their basis for opposing Paul. Paul used the hypocrisy of his opponents to preach the Gospel. Luke does not record that anyone was converted because of Paul highlighting the hypocrisy of his opponents, but there was value in doing so even if no one responded.

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

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

    While Paul and his companions were staying with Philip the Evangelist in Caesarea, Agabus, whom Luke tells us had the gift of prophecy, told Paul that he would be bound by the Jewish leaders and turned over to the Gentiles in Jerusalem. In yesterday’s passage, Paul told the elders of the Ephesian Church that prophets in city after city were inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell him that jail and suffering were ahead for him. Paul repeatedly expressed his willingness to face imprisonment and suffering for the name of Christ. In fact, he seemed almost eager to face such things. I believe that we should share that eagerness. One thing which troubles me each time I read this is the sense that the repeated warnings from the Holy Spirit may have been intended to lead Paul to change his plans about going to Jerusalem. I will note that in yesterday’s passage, Paul expressed the belief that he was bound by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem. So, perhaps the warnings were merely meant to provide us with an example of Paul’s willingness to face suffering for the name of Jesus. Paul did not go to Jerusalem unaware of the fate he would come to there, but he willingly went anyway. Since Christ faced suffering in order to bring us salvation, we should be willing to face suffering in order to serve Him.

    I have written previously about how on Paul’s missionary journeys people stirred up trouble for him by slandering him to non-believers. In today’s passage, we discover that some believers had come to believe some of the slander against Paul. The elders of the Jerusalem Church decided to address the issue by having Paul demonstrate his adherence to the Law of Moses, which led to further problems. I am not sure that what the elders asked Paul to do was wrong, but it does fall into a pattern that often brings problems just like the one we encounter here. Catering to those who allow rumor and innuendo to shape their opinions about someone often leads to trouble and we should never form an opinion of someone based on rumor and innuendo.
    When Paul was in the Temple, people who hated Paul and the message he preached allowed their hatred of him to shape their perception of him. They assumed that because they had seen Paul elsewhere in Jerusalem showing a Gentile around that he had brought the Gentile into the Temple with him. Then a little later in the passage we realize that the people rioting had different ideas about the reason for the protest. The Roman commander, having extracted Paul from the mob, reached the conclusion from what they were saying that Paul was an Egyptian revolutionary. The crowd itself was shocked into silence by Paul speaking in their language.

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

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

    One of the more common ideas about Christianity is that it was Paul who created Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism. However, throughout the Book of Acts, whenever Paul went to a new town he preached in the local synagogue until those with the influence to do so made him unwelcome. Reading today’s passage made me realize that even those Jews who did not accept Christ viewed Christianity as merely a sect of Judaism. Luke describes a group of Jewish exorcists who attempted to use the name of Jesus to cast out demons. Clearly these Jewish men considered Jesus and Paul to be members of the Jewish faith. The results of their actions led many to recognize the dangers, and sinfulness, of occult and pagan worship practices. I suspect that the response to this incident was what created Demetrius’ concern about his business. As an aside, when the rioters gathered in the amphitheater, Paul wanted to go in and address them, but those who knew him begged him not to do so. Coming back to my main point, when Paul addressed the Ephesian elders on his trip to Jerusalem he told them that he had one message for both Jews and Gentiles. I believe that Paul preached throughout his ministry that Christianity was the natural progression of Judaism, that a full and genuine faith in Judaism would lead one to follow Jesus.

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

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

    When Paul and Silas preached in Thessalonica and Berea we see somewhat of a repeat of what happened to Paul and Barnabas. There are a few differences. In Thessalonica, Paul and Silas had reached a larger percentage of the prominent women and their opponents were unable to turn them against them. In this case those who wanted to make trouble for Paul and Silas needed to appeal to troublemakers in order to start trouble. Luke does not spell it out, but it reads to me like Paul and Silas were able to get their message heard by the prominent citizens of the Thessalonica so that even those who did not become believers did not accept the slander which their opponents spread about them. Then in Berea, when opposition started, only Paul needed to leave in order to calm things down. Silas and Timothy were able to stay in order to minister and teach longer. Of course, Luke tells us that the people of Berea were more open minded than those of Thessalonica. So, Paul’s confrontational approach to opposition was counterproductive, but they did not ask Paul to change. They just asked him to go elsewhere while Silas and Timothy remained and answered the arguments for those who were receptive.

    I have always loved Paul’s appeal to the Athenians both because I identify with their intellectualism/skepticism and because of the simplicity of the argument. Paul used the fact that the Athenians sense that there was likely a Power in the universe about which they lacked knowledge. From there he argued that that Power is God. Further he argued that their sense that they were missing something was a result of the signs to Himself which God had put in the very fabric of the universe. Finally, Paul made the case that God had now provided a more concrete knowledge about Himself through His resurrection of Jesus so that people could fully know who He was. The bulk of those listening were unwilling to accept the idea that God could resurrect the dead. This illustrates the problem with relying totally on logic; if your starting assumptions are wrong you will never be able to reach the correct conclusion.