Tag Archives: Acts

Devotions: August 5

Posted on
Reply

Acts 23

After Paul has been warned repeatedly about going to Jerusalem, he arrives and almost immediately a plot to take his life is hatched by some of the Jewish leaders. He is run out of the Temple on the assumption that he had let a gentile in. Falsely accused, Paul uses the opportunity of his arrest to preach the Gospel. Now waiting in a Roman jail until the officials can determine what the accusations against him are, verse 11 says:

The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”

Jesus does not promise to deliver Paul from his imprisonment and persecution, instead he says Paul has a job to do and that he would be able to preach the Gospel in the center of their world, Rome. So much of the time we are eager to have a mission from God, but not so much having to take on the consequences that come with pushing against the the religious and secular culture of the day.

Devotions: August 3

Posted on
Reply

Judges 17

This story is about Micah. As a way of background, Judges 17:6 says “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Apparently Micah found himself a wandering Levite whom he convinced to stay with him as his priest (verse 13):

Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.”

It looks like even way back in the time of the Old Testament judges the “prosperity gospel” was alive and well. It’s all about who you know and what you do that makes God owe you.

Acts 21

I want to focus here on Acts 21:4-6:

And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days. And through the Spirit they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.

If it was really the Holy Spirit speaking through the disciples in Tyre, why did Paul ignore them and continue on to Jerusalem? In all the other warnings on Paul’s journey back to Jerusalem from Greece, the warning is that difficulty is coming, not that he should not go. I wonder if that is what is meant in these verses or not.

Mark 16

Almost two thirds of this chapter (Mark 16:9-20) are not found in some of the earliest manuscripts and other’s have some other text inserted between verses 8 and 9.  Without these added verses Mark’s gospel ends without anyone actually seeing the resurrected Christ. Perhaps then a later scribe was motivated by that omission to fill in some detail in the end. Another theory is that the original ending past verse 8 was lost very early on and so a new ending, the one we have today, was grafted in. In any case, the version we have now is from the early second century. For those that are interested, I found Bible Research and Wikipedia articles that were helpful.

Devotions: August 2

Posted on
Reply

Judges 16

This is the story of Samson and Delilah. People generally know the story from Sunday school classes as a kid so I won’t go into full detail. Reading it again for the first time in a long time though, I was struck by how Samson seems to have known what Delilah was after. It is almost as if he is tempting her. Notice that the first time she asks him about the source of his strength he says that new bow strings would bind him. Now when he’s startled awake and finds himself tied up with bow strings I’m sure he put 2 and 2 together, but he doesn’t get rid of her. The next time she asks he says that if he is bound by new ropes, then he will lose his strength. Same thing, she tries it. The third time she asks he tells her that if his hair is woven that he will lose his strength. Now he’s getting awfully close to the truth. He knows that she is testing him, it sure seems like he would have to know what she is after. Why did he tell her his secret? Was he tired of her insistence? Was he tired of the secret?

Acts 20

Paul is on his way to Jerusalem from Greece. Even though he spent three years in Ephesus (a main city of Asia Minor, modern day Turkey) he decides to sidestep it on his way. Instead, he sends word to the elders of Ephesus to come see him in Miletus. I thought it was kind of weird for him to avoid Ephesus but then send out to the elders so he could talk to them until I read verse 25:

And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.

Previously in verses 22 and 23 Paul had said:

And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.

Paul is saying his farewell. He knows that he could be deviated from the course laid out in front of him if he were to go to Ephesus. I simply can’t imagine what would be going through Paul’s mind, but what is recorded in Acts 20:24 is:

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

Amen! If only we could keep that view before us. Not that we should haphazardly through our lives away, but that we should intentionally and earnestly abandon self and take on the life of Christ that was given to us.

Mark 15

This is Mark’s recording of the Crucifixion. What struck a cord in me today was verses 29 and 30:

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days,  save yourself, and come down from the cross!”

These people knew what Jesus had said, what he had done, what he had prophesied, yet when he didn’t deliver on what they had anticipated and sought after, a long-lost King of Israel to overthrow the Roman rule and reestablish the kingdom, they “threw him under the bus” and abandoned him to death. The Pharisees were even able to convince them to call for the Crucifixion in the first place (verses 13 and 14). Yet just days before they were throwing palm leaves in front of him and yelling Hosanna, a cry for salvation. It almost makes one wonder if a significant miracle in the Crucifixion was getting Jesus to the Cross in the first place. I think this is one reason why antisemitism stemming from the Crucifixion is so misplaced and misguided. Something happened between the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the feverish cries of “crucify him” just days later, Jesus was appointed to die then and there, for the Jews, for us, for the world.

Devotions: July 29

Posted on
Reply

Acts 16:6-10

So Paul, along with Silas and Timothy, have been wandering around preaching the Gospel. Verses 6 and 7 tell us that despite a strong desire to visit “Asia” (modern day Turkey), the Holy Spirit (or Spirit of Jesus) has so far prevented them. I wonder what the specifics of the prevention were but that’s not for us to know I guess. What is interesting is what happens next.

Paul has a dream (Acts 16:9) in which a man from Macedonia (just across the Mediterranean from Asia, where Paul has been wanting to go) is pleading with him to come there and help. Immediately they go, “concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” This is, in my mind, one of the clearest illustrations of a call or leading towards ministry in the Bible. God used a dream to make clear to Paul (notice all three knew immediately what it meant and what they needed to do).

How often do we find ourselves wanting to go to our own “Asia”? Paul was even well intentioned here, he wasn’t planning on having a vacation in Istanbul, he was planning on preaching the Gospel throughout the entire area. So here’s the question, do you have a “man from Macedonia” that God is using to lead you?

Mark 11:22-24

This is frankly a really hard section of Scripture for me to understand.  Jesus has just triumphantly entered Jerusalem, cleansed the Temple of the money changers, and is now on his way out of town for the night. He and the disciples pass by a fig tree that Jesus had earlier cursed and the disciples are astonished that the tree is, in fact, now dead. Jesus replies with a statement on prayer:

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Now this seems kind of paradoxical since we are all very aware that we don’t get everything we ask for. In fact, it would be a very bad thing if that were the case since we may very well ask for something bad for us or others unintentionally. Here are some thoughts and possibilities concerning what Jesus says here:

  • Jesus often seems to use hyperbole or exaggeration to make a point. Perhaps what he is trying to say is “Look guys, don’t be surprised when you receive something you prayed about, God desires to give you you’re heart’s desire, have a little faith.”
  • This verse needs to be thought of in light of James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” I think what James is saying is that when our desires and intentions are in tune with God’s desires and intentions, we can have confidence and faith that God will see it through.
  • God is not a genie. Jesus is not giving a “if you do X, then God must give you Y” kind of direction. Today it is popular in too many Christian circles to force God into the role of a personal genie bottle. We rub Him the right way and we are assured to get a better job, the latest gadget, or even a mended hurt. Instead God assures us that even when we are going through that “valley of the shadow of death”, He is with us and loves us.
  • In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, the great Christian author C.S. Lewis says: My own idea is that it occurs only when the one who prays does so as God’s fellow-worker, demanding what is needed for the joint work.