Tag Archive | The Church

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 325

Nov21

    Day 325—We are in the ELEVENTH month of Bible reading and studying The ACTS of the Apostles with the LETTERS of the Apostles.

Day 325 – Acts 13 – 14 (1st missionary journey, Cyprus, Antioch #2, Iconium, Lystra, return home)

Acts 13.

While the prophets and teachers at Antioch were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit pointed out Barnabas and Saul for missionary work in Asia Minor. After those elders put their hands on them and prayed, Barnabas and Saul were sent off. The young John Mark went along to assist them.

The first stop was the island of Cyprus, where Barnabas’s home was, and where a sizeable Jewish population lived. They began at Salamis and proclaimed God’s word in the synagogues. They toured throughout the whole island and came to the capital, Paphos. There, the proconsul, Sergius Paulus summoned them to hear the word of God.  As they preached, the local magician, Elymas opposed them, trying to turn the proconsul’s attention away from the message.

But Paul (now called by his Roman name because he would be serving in the Roman world) cursed the sorcerer with the authority of the Holy Spirit, and this “enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, was made blind for a time.  (Did Paul hope his blindness would lead to his salvation, like Paul’s?)  With the evil man silenced, Sergius Paulus believed in the teaching of the Lord.

Next, Paul (now the group leader) and his companions sailed to Perga. For some reason, John Mark left Paul and Barnabas here and returned home to Jerusalem.  He was very young. Did the harshness of the journey, or the fierceness of the opposition, or maybe personal friction change his mind?

Paul and Barnabas went on to Antioch-Pisidia and preached in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He began with the history of Israel down to King David and segued to David’s greater son, Jesus, the promised Messiah.  But the Jerusalem leadership did not believe and condemned Him to death. However, God raised him from the dead. This Jesus was seen by many people, from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now His witnesses. We bring you this Good News that God promised our fathers.

Paul then quotes Psalm 2:7, Isaiah 53:3, Psalm 16:10 and Habakkuk 1:5.

The Gentiles loved the message and begged them to return. But jealous Jews contradicted and reviled them.  However, those Gentiles whom God had chosen, believed, rejoiced, and glorified the word of the Lord.

Acts 14.

The missionary duo journeyed on to Iconium and spoke in the synagogue.  Here, a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.  But the UNbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against Paul and Barnabas.  This only caused the two to stay longer in Iconium, speaking boldly for the Lord. The Holy Spirt granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.  However, when they heard of a plot to stone them, they moved on to the area of Lystra and Derbe, where they continued to preach the Gospel.

In Lystra, they saw a crippled man listening to the preaching.  Seeing that he had faith, Paul told him to “Stand upright on your feet.”  The man was instantly healed. But, instead of praising God, the people cried, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.” They called Paul, Zeus, and Barnabas, Hermes and brought festooned oxen to sacrifice on their behalf.

“NO, NO, NO!!” cried Paul. “Men, why are you doing this?  We are men like you.  We bring you Good News! You have to turn from these vain things to THE LIVING GOD!”  And he preached to them. Even then, the apostles scarcely restrained the people from sacrificing to them.

Then, Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and persuaded the crowd against them.  They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town as a dead man. Whoa!

But the new believers gathered around him (praying?), and Paul rose and entered the city. The next day, they went to Derbe, preached the Gospel, and made many disciples.

Then the duo began the return journey, checking in at each town they’d visited to strengthen the brothers, encourage them to continue in the faith, and saying that “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”  They also appointed elders in every church and with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord.

On the return journey, they also preached in Perga before getting on a ship for home.  Back at their sending church at Antioch, “they declared all that God had done with them, and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”

And they stayed there for a time.

2024GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 324

Nov20

    Day 324—We are in the ELEVENTH month of Bible reading and studying The ACTS of the Apostles with the LETTERS of the Apostles.

Day 324 – Acts 11 – 12 (Peter reports to the church, Antioch church, James killed, Peter arrested, Herod)

Acts 11.

After Peter’s astonishing experience with the Roman Centurion, Cornelius, he heard of rumbling from the apostles in Jerusalem about Gentiles, so he went there and told the complete story. He told about the vision with “unclean” animals in a sheet descending from heaven and how God told him to kill and eat them. He told them about the men who Cornelius sent, and how, after going to the Centurion’s house, the Holy Spirit fell on the people there as it had on them at Pentecost.

“If then God gave the same gift to them, as He gave to us, when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”  When they heard this, they stopped complaining.  “Glory to God! To the Gentiles, then, has God also granted repentance that leads to life.

And so the hand of the Lord was upon the Gentiles and Hellenists of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Cyrene, and Antioch, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. This report came to the apostles in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch to check it out.  When he saw the grace of God at work, he was glad and exhorted them to faithfulness. He also went to nearby Tarsus and brought back Saul to help teach the people. The two stayed there a whole year. And it was at Antioch that the disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians.”

Then, a prophet came from Jerusalem to Antioch and foretold of a great famine coming in the days of Claudius.  So these new “Christians” collected an offering and sent it to the brothers in Judea by Barnabas and Saul.

Acts 12.

About that time, King Herod Agrippa 1 laid violent hands on believers.  He killed the disciple James, the brother of John, with the sword (beheaded).  When he saw it pleased the Jewish leaders, he also arrested Peter during Passover, intending to do the same to him. He put Peter in prison with TWO chains between TWO guards. (Didn’t he know that Peter worked in THREES??)  Meanwhile, the church made EARNEST PRAYER to God for Peter.

The night before his execution, an angel of the Lord came to Peter in the jail cell. He punched him in the side to awaken him, saying, “Get up quickly!”  Immediately, the chains fell off Peter. “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.  Wrap your cloak around yourself and follow me.”  Peter obeyed, thinking it was all a dream.  But, after the prison doors opened before them, like grocery store doors, and Peter found himself outside in the street, he realized it was real.

Quickly, he went to John Mark’s mother’s house, where believers met and prayed. He knocked at the locked door, and a servant girl, Rhoda, came to answer.  When she learned it was Peter, she was so excited that she ran to tell the others, leaving Peter standing outside.  They quickly remedied that and brought Peter inside. In whispers, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the brothers,” he said, then went to another place.

(NOTE: He wanted them to tell James, the brother of Jesus, who was becoming the leader of the Jerusalem church, and NOT the disciple of Jesus, John’s brother, who had just been martyred.)

The next day, Herod sent for Peter to execute him, but they found him gone, vanished, with no explanation from the guards.  THEY were killed instead for negligence in letting a prisoner escape. Herod searched for Peter everywhere, but he could not be found.

Disgruntled or embarrassed, Herod left Judea and stayed in Caesarea awhile.  Herod took out his anger on the people north of him in Tyre and Sidon. They came and begged for peace.  On the day they came before him, Herod – dressed in his finest royal robes – sat on his throne and delivered a fancy speech to them. Trying to ingratiate themselves with him, the people shouted, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”  

The arrogant king did not deny the adulation or give GOD the glory.  Because of this, God struck him down and he was eaten by worms as he breathed his last.  Gulp!

But… the word of God increased and multiplied.

Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, bringing John Mark with them.

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