Acts Chapter 12

Today’s chapter is full of emotion; sadness over the martyrdom of James, anger over Herod’s plan to have Peter killed after the Passover celebration, amazement over Peter’s escape from jail, and satisfaction over Herod’s fate in verses 22-23.

What struck me was feeling of amusement, verses 12-17 could have been a scene out of a sitcom.  After Peter’s fantastic deliverance from jail, he went to the house of Mary, mother of John Mark.  A woman named Rhoda answered his knock in her excitement, she left Peter at the door, ran to inform the disciples he was there. As Peter continued to knock, the disciples tell Rhoda she out of her mind; other translations say she was mad. When they finally acknowledge someone may be at the door, they insisted it was not Peter. 

This exchange is comical, but what I find most interesting is the fact that the disciples were gathered at Mary’s home to pray. Most likely the disciples were fervently praying for Peter’s fate. When God answered miraculously, they did not recognize it. 

Being on the more practical side, I know I tend to rationalize, explain away something that is incredible. I remind myself that the God we serve is mighty, anything is possible. He created the world, parted the Red Sea, and caused the sun to stand still in the sky. He is also the God who created our fingerprints, who knows how many hairs are on our head and cares for the smallest of birds.  When I ask Him for something, I should not doubt his ability to grant it. I often pray for sensitivity to recognize His activity, to respond like Rhoda with overwhelming joy and praise to an answered prayer.  

Scripture says, What father among you, if his son asks for bread, would give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, would give him a snake instead of the fish? (Luke11:11) We have a Father in heaven that sometimes delivers a whole bread truck when we asked for a loaf. Preparing for the miraculous should be the norm.

Acts Chapter 11

What an awesome chapter, so much happens in these thirty verses of scripture. The excitement of the gospel spreading was tangible. 

Here's the flyby.

* Word spreads that Peter has been baptizing Gentiles. The Gospel spreads cross culture.

* Peter comes back and shares the epic vision and that God said unclean things are now okay.

* He explains that the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles while he was speaking, and filled them with the same signs and gifts as they had received.

* A celebration erupts.

Meanwhile in Antioch

* The disciples there are preaching to Jews and Gentiles also.

* Barnabas goes to check things out. He and Paul stay for a year to help the church get up and running.

* A prophet comes and declares there will be a bad famine soon.

* The disciples decide it's up to them to make sure that fellow believers are cared for if this happens, so they send supplies with Barnabas and Saul.

I love how the Christians responded to the need by being generous and providing for fellow believers. This is a wonderful picture of love in action. What would the world look like if the Church responded in the same way to the needs of our communities today?  What if our “normal” was living in a constant state of radical generosity?

Acts Chapter 10

The other day I was driving home.  As I turned right to get onto the free way and started to merge left I got stuck behind a slow driver.  The driver seemed to be going unusually slow.  Out of frustration I said out loud, “Come on… let’s go grandma!” Finally, I got to a place in the road where I could pass and I flew by. As I passed, I honked my horn. I started to make my way to the left lane and before I knew it, there was a motorcycle that flew passed me.  The sound of the motorcycle startled me and I said, “What? Are you crazy?” 

In case it’s not clear, I have a problem controlling my emotions with people on the road.  I realized that based on what they were doing, or even how I perceived what they were doing, I was judging them.  I was placing them into specific groups based on what I saw from my perspective.  I think we all do this much more often than we think.

In Acts 10, God brings two unlikely people together, Cornelius an Italian-Roman Centurion who oversaw about one hundred men and Peter. The Jews despised the Romans for the occupation of their land.  They believed that God would send a messiah to come and destroy the Roman Empire. God was working in the lives of both men to bring them together and ultimately bring Himself glory.   

God calls us to lay down our prejudice.  God calls us to love and allow ourselves to be used by Him.  The God we serve has come, died, and rose again for all men. Our world is very divided but the Kingdom of God is not! As the people of God lets adopt His heart for the world so that we can live and love like He does.  

Acts Chapter 9

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord…if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

 Acts 9 is a pivotal chapter in the book, and in the history of the church’s dynamic beginning.  And, while I could write volumes about Saul’s conversion and dramatic transformation from the foremost persecutor and murderer of Christians, to their most esteemed First Century champion and apostle – there is something else in this chapter that caught my attention.

In verse 2, the Christians are referred to as “belonging to the Way.”  The Way has a different feel to me than our modern phrases of Christianity or Church.  Instead of a heritage, event, location, or even a series of ethical, theological, or philosophical convictions, it seems to speak more to a direction, or flow of living; a lifestyle.  I like that better because it suggests something more than what one does or believes, but rather who one is – an identity.  Jesus understood this when he described himself as “The Way” (John 14:6). Being a Christian, or going to Church is much more than a compartment of our lives.  It is our identity. The Way is the established direction to which everything in our lives points and flows.  Everything we say and everything we do embodies it (Col. 3:17).

I have never been more convinced that we must return to this kind of thinking.   When Jesus is visible in our ordinary existence and the everyday flow of our lives people will come to know Him. We can no longer rely on Church Services to reach so many of those who will never darken our church doors. Instead, it’s in the everyday aspects and direction of our lives, where others will see that God is love.  It’s in the Waythat we live at our dinner table; It’s in the Way we love and train our children, it’s in the WAY we humbly serve in workplaces, in the openness of our homes, and our open hearts that many will be drawn to choose that way of living – to walk in the Way – to choose Him.

Acts Chapter 8

I like Phillip.   He is an example of a spirit-led, obedient follower of Jesus who listens to God.  As persecution increased, the disciples and other followers of Jesus began to scatter and Phillip found himself proclaiming Jesus to two unlikely audiences.

Upon leaving Jerusalem, Phillip lands in the city of Samaria. The Samaritans were a group of racially mixed people, partly Jewish and partly Gentile.  They were reviled by both Jews and non-Jews alike but led by the Holy Spirit, Phillip didn’t avoid them.  He found crowds eager to hear his teaching about Jesus the Messiah.  His words were confirmed by miracles of healing and ‘ there was much joy in that city.’

Philip is full of trust and abandonment to God.  An angel of the Lord directs Phillip to go and he goes.  More specifically  “go over and join this chariot”.  Phillip goes.  When the invitation to jump in the chariot is given, Phillip doesn’t hesitate.  He explains to the eunuch how Jesus fulfills the passage in Isaiah, the eunuch believes and is baptized. Then the Spirit of the Lord miraculously carries Phillip off to his next assignment!

Phillip was listening and poised to obey God’s voice.  He was ready for God-directed adventure in his life. I think Phillips demeanor must have been humble, welcoming and gentle.  The Samaritans listened to him and the eunuch invited him into his chariot.

My prayer is to slow down, listen and respond to God with a yes. And may God remind me to be humble and gentle with the people he brings across my path everyday.

Acts Chapter 7

This is such an amazing chapter, we have the paths of Stephen the first Christian martyr and the future Apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus), intersecting in this monumental event.

Stephen starts out by addressing the Jewish counsel respectively as brothers and fathers, then he methodically goes through the history of Israel from Abraham to Jesus. If you have never read the Old Testament and were given a transcript of Stephen's testimony before the Jewish counsel you would have a pretty good idea of Jewish history up to that point. 

Stephen is on a roll until he gets to v51-53 and the Jewish leaders lose their minds! While the leaders are enraged and about ready to kill him Stephen says something amazing “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!”My question is why is Jesus “standing”? In Hebrews 1:3 we are told “… When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.”Jesus is seated, but Stephen sees Him standing to receive him into heaven. What joy it would be to see Jesus standing to welcome home those that love and believe in Him!

Finally, V58 is where Saul and Stephens's paths crossing for the last time. I kind of think that Stephen's vision of heaven opening up and Jesus standing there to greet him laid the groundwork for Saul to become Paul; he may have longed to see what Stephen saw that day.

Acts Chapter 6

I appreciate so much how authentic the scriptures are about real world problems.   In the conflict surrounding widows being taken care of between the Hellenistic Jews and Hebraic Jews the story makes clear that the care was not even. There was a problem. I like how it was discussed, addressed and yet the Apostles didn’t lose focus on their primary mission.

“Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

The description of Stephen makes me wonder today where are the men and women that we can say.  “They are full of God’s grace and power, performing great wonders and signs among the people.”  or “They saw he had the face like an angel”!

Acts Chapter 5

As it was written in Luke 9, Jesus calls the twelve apostles together and gives them power and authority to drive out all demons; to cure all diseases. Then He sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

In Acts, the disciples set out to do as commanded by Jesus - like Jesus they were also persecuted, arrested, and put into jail.

God intercedes and frees them from jail, and they continue to teach and spread the news of God’s Kingdom.

Again, the apostles were rounded up to appear before the Sanhedrin. 

Peter and the apostles reply “We must obey God rather than men! The Lord of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead - whom you had killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him to His own right hand as Prince and Savior that He might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witness of these things, and so is The Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

Wow! A lot to digest, but what these verses say to me is that we are commanded by God, through Jesus, through the apostoles to spread the news and the teachings of Jesus. Through arrest, jail, and even in death, just as Jesus and the apostoles had faced.

I have to ask myself as a Christian, what is my level of commitment? How much persecution am I willing to endure? I’d like to think my commitment level is total - but that is what Paul and Judas thought too. Oh Lord, I pray that you guard my heart, and I be committed to you100% through good and difficult times.

Acts Chapter 4

Be Bold.  One of the verses in this passage that stands out to me is verse 13:  “The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures.”  Many times, I think it is easy for us as Christians to defer to those trained for full time ministry to be boldly proclaiming the gospel to others.  We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking we need to understand all intricacies and nuances of scripture and without that we feel unqualified to reach out to those who do not know the gospel.   Looking closely at what Peter says, he very simply lays out the gospel -  the healing power comes from the name of Jesus whom we crucified, but he was raised from the dead and salvation only comes through him.  No complex apologetics, no complicated words used by the most educated – just the gospel.

Perhaps if feeling unqualified isn’t what is holding us back, it is our concern of how people will respond to us or how we will be treated if we share the gospel.  We live in a nation in which we have religious freedom.  Although in recent years, that freedom is getting challenged by many who try to make Christians look like cause of many problems in our nation, and so looked down on something no one wants to feel.  For the early believers, the consequences were much worse – getting kicked out of the city, jail or even death.  However, that clearly did not deter the early Christians from boldly speaking the truth about the gospel.

God calls us as ordinary men and women to be bold in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ risen.  With the help of the Holy Spirit, may we hold true to that calling!

Acts Chapter 3

This is the first recorded miracle after Pentecost, the first time we see the disciples healing someone, a healing that serves as an attention-getter for all those in the Temple that day. The attention the healing generates is the first opportunity we see for the newly anointed disciples to speak out to non-believers—and they do! For those listening, they deftly tie in Jesus with the Yahweh that the Jews know: Jesus is no departure from the Jewish faith, but a continuation of the manifestation of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They remind the listeners of recent history—“this is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate … you rejected this holy, righteous one.” Peter attributes the healing of the man they’ve all seen crippled and begging for years to the power of Jesus, to the power of just his name. And thus, we see the post-resurrection, post-ascension, post-Pentecost ministry of the disciples begin. 

So cool. 

What I find myself wondering is how I can spot opportunities to tie the Gospel into everyday occurrences. Peter and John saw the beggar, the lame man who was at that gate all the time, and not only blessed his socks off, but put themselves in a sweet spot to speak truth to all who would listen. I often feel like I could speak truth if only given the opportunity. If—you know—it “comes up.” So I pray for the right opportunities and the right words. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think I need to add a prayer to seethe opportunities, to have God-inspired insight into how to bridge the every-day stuff to organically tie in truth.