Facebook Icon Instagram Icon Twitter Icon

Topic: Spirit

It's the beginning of the end for Paul as he is arrested in Jerusalem. He'll never be a free man again. And the people who have stirred up the crowd and demanded his arrest (and tried to kill him) are the Jews from Asia – the very people he had just spend the last several years trying to win to the gospel.
Paul says in chapter 20 that he's compelled by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. In every city he visits, people tell him through the Spirit, that he's going to face persecution. People even tell him "The Spirit says don't go!" But Paul pushes on, going to Jerusalem anyway. So are the other disciples false prophets? Is Paul disobeying the Spirit by pressing on? Or is it that "prophecy" in the New Testament has a little definition than it did in the OT?
A riot breaks out in Ephesus, because so many people are being converted to follow Jesus that it is affecting sales at the local shrine shop. Paul heads for Jerusalem and ends up in city called Troas, where a sleepy young man falls from a third story window and dies.
David observes that it is the fool who lives as if there is no God, and yet he also observes that 100% of us live that way. Yet, there is a group of people God calls "his own," a group he calls "righteous." So the question becomes, who are those people, why has God chosen them, and how do you move from "all have sinned" to "and are justified freely"?
Paul and Barnabas head into Lystra, and when the locals watch a lame man get up and walk in the power of God, they try to make sacrifices to them, thinking they are gods. Paul preaches to them, but before long, hostility arises and Paul is stoned and left for dead.
The church in Acts is taking off like a roller coaster, picking up speed as the number of disciples continues to grow. But not everything is going perfectly smoothly. As numbers rapidly increase, so does the opportunity for conflict. Sure enough, what started out as a good benevolence program has now become a place where certain people are getting overlooked. The apostles have a choice to make.

20/20 Vision

January 21, 2024
Stephen is recognized publicly in the church as a man full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. He is put in a position of leadership, but becomes known more for the great wonders and signs he was doing among the people. He ends up on trial in front of the Sanhedrin, and this time they can't handle the truth, and he becomes the first Christian martyr.