Posts Tagged with "Acts"

"Although there have been several accounts of persecution so farin Luke's narrative, the pastoral application in these versesfunctions to challenge readers more directly about this issue thanever before." David Peterson "The cross is a sword because its message is not the messagethat insurrectionists want to hear. Who wants to hear that he issinful at the core of his bein...

"Here was a crisis point in the history of the early church, for much depended on Barnabas's reaction, counsel, and report-not only at Antioch itself, but also at Jerusalem and in the later advance of the gospel through Paul's missions." Richard Longenecker "They must have taught about Christ, making sure that the converts knew both the facts and the significance of his l...

"Even though Peter has been taught personally by Jesus, has received the Spirit, has powerfully preached the gospel, and has performed miraculous signs in the name of Jesus, taking this next step in the kingdom challenges him to the core of his being. To be Jewish meant to follow strictly the code of what to eat and what to avoid. An entire chapter of Leviticus spells thes...

"In this chapter we will explore how to read and preach the most prevalent genre in the Bible. Narrative is not the most important genre just because it is the most prevalent, but if you do not understand the basics of this genre, you will be greatly limited. Completely limited! For even the non-narrative parts of the Bible take their place within the overarching metanarra...

"Sandwiched between two of the most dramatic passages in Acts-Paul's conversion and Peter's vision on the rooftop-these verses often do not receive the attention they deserve." Brian Vickers "Both apostles (despite their different callings) had a key role to play in liberating the gospel from its Jewish clothing and opening the kingdom of God to the Gentiles. Luke therefo...

"As applied to our Lord, then, the title 'Son of God' marks Him out as the true representative of the Israel of God and as God's anointed king, the promised Messiah; but it is no merely official title. As He Himself used it, it reflected His unique relationship and fellowship with the Father, and His function as the revealer of the Father" F.F. Bruce "The effect of this p...

"Frances Thomson's early life was one dead end after another. He studied for the priesthood but did not complete the course. He studied medicine but failed. He joined the military but was released after one day. He finally became an opium addict in London. But he could not get away from God's persistent love for him. In the midst of his despondency Thomson was befriended b...

"A more exotic person could hardly be imagined! Not only fromone of the most remote regions of the world, he was also animportant official there and a eunuch as well." Conrad Gempf "How difficult it was to understand the prophecy before it wasfulfilled; how easy, once the fulfillment is known." F.F. Bruce "It was clearly a part of God's plan for the gospel to reach thisB...

"God says that history is important, and it should therefore be important to us. In the Bible, God commands his people to pay attention to what happened in the past. He tells us to remember the past, to learn from it, and to tell the next generations about itThe gospel, the good news, announces events that happened in the past, in the death and resurrection of Christ. It i...

"There are certain facts in history which the world tries hard to forget and ignore. These facts get in the way of some of the world's favorite theories, and are highly inconvenient. The consequence is that the world shuts its eyes against them. Little by little they sink out of sight of the students of history, like ships in a distant horizon. Of such facts the subject of...

Having failed to overcome the church by either persecution or corruption, [Satan] now tried distraction. If he could preoccupy the apostles with social administration, which though essential was not their calling, they would neglect their God-given responsibilities to pray and to preach, and so leave the church without any defense against false doctrine. John Stott In thi...

"[Envy is] resentment that it's going well for the other person and not for you." John Piper "What an envier wants is not, first of all, what another has; what an envier wants is for another not to have itThe envier has empty hands and therefore wants to empty the hands of the envied. Envy, moreover, carries overtones of personal resentment; an envier resents not only som...

"For a full understanding of the early church we need to read TheActs of the Apostles and The Book of Revelation side by side.Both tell much the same tale of the church and its experience ofconflict, but from a different perspective. Luke in the Actschronicles what unfolded on the stage of history before the eyesof observers, John in the Revelation enables us to see the hi...

"Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing." John Piper "The forty days which Jesus spent on earth after His resurrection constitute an important part of His life and teaching. We usually do not pay enough attention to this. But the moment we attentively survey what Jesus said and did during those forty days, we detect that these shed an entirely ...

"In this state of exaltation Christ continues the work which He began on the earth. There is a great difference between the work which Christ achieved in His humiliation and that which He accomplishes in His exaltationHe did not at His ascension enter upon an unproductive rest but instead now applies the fulness of His achieved salvation to His church." Herman Bavinck "He...