Acts 7: Message and Martyrdom

Stephen's speech before the Sanhedrin is far more than simply a speech with a climactic denouncement of the Sanhedrin as men who have more in common with those who killed the prophets than with those who followed them. An amazing level of complexity is wrapped into a message which both answers the charges against him (from Acts 6:13-14) and presents a number of important truths along the way. Among Stephen's points are:

1. God's plan is, and always has been, progressive and changing. Whether in the calling of Abraham or the shift from the Land to Egypt to the desert and back to the Land, or whether in the giving of the Law and the shift from the tabernacle to the Temple, God's concern has been the advancement of His salvific program with His people.
2. God's blessings aren't limited to the Land and the Temple. God blessed his people in many places and in many ways apart from the Temple and the Land. God desires the expansion of His Kingdom well beyond these narrow borders to the entire world and its people.
3. Israel's history is one of rejection of what God is doing, and the Sanhedrin of Stephen's own day are in line with that history. By referring to them as "stiff-necked, with uncircumcised hearts and ears," Stephen is drawing on prophetic language to connect his judges to the ones who were judged by God rather than the faithful remnant.

The most stunning part of Acts 7 for me though isn't Stephen's speech, even though it is the major portion of the chapter. What is more arresting for me is the parallels Luke draws between Jesus' death and Stephen's martyrdom. Even more compelling is the fact that Stephen sees the Lord standing in heaven to receive him. When everyone else has abandoned Stephen and his accusers are killing him, Jesus stands in honor of His dying saint. That encourages me on a level too deep for words. What kind of a God does that for those who serve Him with their dying breaths?

God is with His People-Acts 6

Acts 6 is an interesting little chapter. In it, one reads of the 1st church conflict and its resolution by the appointment of Greek cultured Jews as deacons. This little incident is set against the backdrop later in the same chapter of very real and serious persecution of one of the new deacons, Stephen. The contrast is illuminating. Compared with being on trial for his life, the problem he was appointed by the church to solve must seem small, as indeed it is (at least in comparison). But I think that very contrast illustrates something profoundly important, the truth that God is always with His people. In matters both comparatively small and ultimately serious, God's Spirit is always at work in both His Church as a whole and in the lives of its individual members.

That great truth encourages me a great deal. I've never been on trial for my life and don't really expect to be anytime soon. The problems of my life, such as they are, all lean more to the side of common and even ordinary than they do toward matters of life and death. So I am glad that God is in the comparatively small stuff too, because it means that Jesus really has kept His promise to be "with us always, even to the very end of the age." It also means that in the "small" things, I can learn to trust Him, remember and recognize His presence with me, so that when the "charge of the elephant" type circumstances arrive, I can have assurance that He is with me, and be able to stand.

Acts 5:12-42 and the Persecuted Church

I think the thing that impresses me most about the apostles in this passage is their sheer perseverance in the teeth of persecution and abuse. In Acts 3, they get arrested for preaching at Solomon's Colonnade after Peter and John healed a crippled beggar there. By Acts 5:12, it's not just an impromptu preaching location, but the Church's regular meeting place. From there the Apostles are arrested again (5:18) and to there they return to preach both after their miraculous jailbreak (5:19-20) and after they get flogged by the Sanhedrin (5:42). These guys are either remarkably dense, or so righteously stubborn that they simply don't care what men think in comparison to their regard for what God has called them to do. Obviously, I think it's the latter, but I still stand in awe.

Actually, I stand in awe of the believers in the persecuted Church worldwide. I wonder sometimes, could I stand like so many do in forgotten prisons and distant villages all over the world? Could I take torture and death before I would be willing to deny the Sovereign Lord who bought me? Would I consider it pure joy to be counted worthy to suffer (5:41) for the Name of Jesus? I certainly hope so. But I wonder if we in America, with all of our (mostly unused) freedom to preach the Gospel of Christ, aren't missing out on something terribly important to the Christian life. I'm not saying I want to be persecuted or suffer martyrdom for the sake of Jesus. I'm not a masochist, at the end of the day. But it does seem that true Christianity flourishes best and most in a situation in which the Christian life is not lived out on "home court," but where everyone is against you.

If you're still reading this, please join me in a prayer. Pray first of all that God will spur us toward making greater use of our freedom to make the Gospel known. Pray too that our brothers and sisters in tough countries all over the world will endure the test and preach anyway.

Acts 5:1-11 and Spiritual Hypocrisy

In ancient times, the theater did not rely so much on the actor's ability to convey emotion with facial expressions as we do today. Back then, they used masks. From this practice, we get the traditional tragedy and comedy masks which are a symbol of the theater even today. The Greek word from which we get our English word "hypocrite" is based on this ancient practice. Literally, it means "to speak from under" and it originally was a reference to actors whose art involved doing precisely that as they performed on stage.

The major sin of Ananias and Sapphira was spiritual hypocrisy, of pretending to be more spiritual than they really were and in so doing, acting dishonestly. They operated on the premise that "no one will ever know," as if somehow both they and God did not or would not know what they were doing.

But hypocrisy is one of the most subtle sins to which we all are prone. Most of us wouldn't do it as baldly as Ananias and Sapphira did, but nevertheless, we can fall into this sin if we aren't careful. Here are some of the more common situations in which we are tempted:

1. Someone at church asks you how you are doing. While I know the social convention is to always say "fine," or some such, this is church. The Church is supposed to be a new type of community. If that isn't quite true (i.e., inwardly you're thinking, "Well, my sister is dying of cancer, my income isn't paying the bills this month, I feel very far away from God," etc.), how should you answer?
   
2. You are deeply struggling with or enmeshed in a sin. You're afraid to tell anyone about it, yet you can't get free from it. What do you do?
   
3. You are in a Bible study. Everyone is sharing their experiences with God and it comes to your turn. If you don't have a similar type of experience to theirs, what do you do?

We have to be careful. This kind of hypocritical behavior inhibits the kind of deep relationships which we all want and for which the Church is designed. I've failed in every one of these situations, so I'm glad that God is merciful and gracious. I'm also still tempted.

What about you?

What is the "filling of the Spirit"?

In two places in the Acts 4:1-31, Luke tells us that people were "filled with the Holy Spirit." The first reference is v. 8, where Peter begins to answer the Sanhedrin regarding the healing he and John had performed the previous day. The second reference is in verse 31, where all the praying church were filled with the Spirit. But Luke doesn't go into much detail as to what that means, since he seems to more or less assume his readers know.

There are two major schools of thought on this. Our charismatic friends tend toward equating the filling of the Spirit with speaking in tongues. I don't believe that they are correct on that because:

• Not everyone has the gift of tongues (1 Cor. 12:30), but everyone is commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).
• While tongues is mentioned as evidence of being filled with the Spirit in Acts 2 and a couple other places in Acts, here in chapter 4, there is no mention of anyone speaking in tongues. Nor is tongues described as "the filling of the Spirit" elsewhere it is mentioned. For example, in Ephesians 5:18ff, evidence of filling of the Spirit includes such things as "speaking to one another with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs," avoiding drunkenness, thankfulness to God, having a God-honoring marriage, a God-honoring master/slave relationship, and obeying one's parents.
  
• Therefore, I think the filling of the Spirit, while it may be evidenced by tongues speaking, is not equivalent to it.
  

As far as I have been able to discern it biblically, the filling of the Spirit is a repeatable experience of believers that results from their rejection of and repentance from sin and choosing submission to God instead. The Spirit's filling is simply the turning over of control of your life from yourself and your flesh to God and His indwelling Spirit, so that your life produces the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). I say it is repeatable, because while there are indications that the Holy Spirit's filling can be lost, or at least masked due to grieving (Eph. 4:30) or quenching (1 Thess. 5:19), it is also true that we who believe in Christ cannot lose His indwelling presence (Rom. 8:9-11).

That fact is a great comfort to me, because I find myself so often in need of fresh filling from the Spirit to accomplish the calling He has given me. Whether in my role as pastor, or as husband, father, or simply as a human being created in God's image, I often fail. I don't always speak as I should, think as I should, or act as I should. Yet God is gracious, granting both forgiveness and fresh filling from the Spirit as often as I fall down. What a mighty, gracious, compassionate God we serve!

The Bible and God's Sovereignty

If you want to further explore the topic of God's sovereignty, here's a few passages to plow through:

1. Isaiah 40
2. Ephesians 1:1-13
3. Ephesians 2:8-9
   
4. Romans 9-11

While you're at it, try to answer the following questions with as much support from these texts as you can muster:

1. What role does a human being play in salvation?
2. Where does the faith to believe come from?
3. How significant is human decision in determining the course of human history?
4. What role does human sin play in whether or not God chooses to adopt a person as His child?
5. How does a person receive salvation? To say it another way, what must I do to be saved?

God is Sovereign-Acts 4:25-30

What do we mean when we talk about God's sovereignty? Does it mean that God totally runs everything and that our freedom is just imaginary? Or worse, does it mean that God causes evil to happen? What does sovereignty mean if there is a real sense in which we have freedom as people and with it, responsibility for our choices?

A few years ago, I became familiar with part of the Puritan Jonathan Edward's writings on the subject and it has shaped my own understanding significantly. Summarizing, here's how I think the whole divine sovereignty/human freedom argument is best resolved:

Man's choices are freely made, but with a few caveats:

1. Man's freedom is not "final." That is, the universe is not a closed system. God can (and does!) intervene in it and can overrule both man's choices and the consequences of those choices. For example, if I jump out of a plane and my chute doesn't open, God can either save my life or let me die. As sovereign God, He can also ensure that my car doesn't start so I never make it to the airport, and thus, never jump. Thus, my choice was freely made, but it is not final in the sense that God can (and may) overrule both it and any consequences flowing from it.
   
2. Man's freedom is not "sovereign." A man does not have the ability to do anything that is possible. Both his character and his circumstances put limits on his choices.
   
3. Therefore, man's freedom is analogous (though finite!) to God's omnipotence. When we say God is omnipotent, we do not mean that God can do anything He wants to. What we mean is that God can do anything which He desires that is both possible and consistent with His nature/character as God. So, God cannot commit evil, cease existing, or do that which is a logical contradiction (such as create a rock too big for Him to lift). In a similar way, humans are capable of doing all things which are possible for humans (e.g., we can't walk through walls or levitate) and which are consistent with our nature.
   
4. The Point: Redeemed humans can choose obedience or disobedience to God; unbelievers can't. Redeemed humans have both an old nature and the indwelling Spirit of God. Thus, they can follow the flesh and it's lusts or keep in the step with the Spirit. But an unbeliever's choices are limited by his nature/character. Since all they possess is an "old man," they freely choose to do that which it desires: evil and sin and rebellion against God.

Jesus: Liar, Lunatic, Legend, or Lord? Part II

The books I suggested in my previous post are written from a pretty scholarly perspective and assume a certain level of familiarity with the debates about the "historical Jesus." Some other books that are not quite so challenging, but which are still worthwhile are:

• The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
• The Reason for God, by Tim Keller. This whole book is good, but the chapter called "The Reality of the Resurrection" is most germane to this discussion.
• Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison is a classic work on the truth of the resurrection and was written by a former skeptic.

Jesus: Liar, Lunatic, Legend, or Lord?

This week's (4/12) message is a challenge to discover the truth of Jesus' claims to be the Son of God in the flesh. Most non-Christian people who really investigate Jesus' life find it difficult to believe that Jesus was either a liar or a lunatic. The accounts of his life don't suggest a man who was a huckster like the old-time patent medicine salesmen or P. T. Barnum. Neither do they suggest a megalomaniac a la Jim Jones or Josef Stalin. Nor does Jesus seem like the crazy but essentially harmless folks now populating mental institutions who believe themselves to be famous people. But a great number of people, particularly in the West, are attracted to the idea of Jesus as a legend. There are great numbers of New Testament scholars who say that the "Jesus of history" was a Galilean peasant with many admirable qualities, but that the more "startling" claims about Jesus (i.e., miracles and especially resurrection) were later fabrications made up by the authors of the Gospels. There are good reasons to believe that the Jesus represented by the Gospel writers is historically accurate (that is, good reasons other than the fact that we already believe in the Jesus presented there). But to find the solid scholarship supporting the Bibles' historicity, you may have to do some digging. Here's a list of some the best books available from some of the best scholars of which I'm aware:

• Jesus According to Scripture by Darrell Bock
• The Missing Gospels by Darrell Bock
• Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham
• God Crucified by Richard Bauckham
• Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll
• The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith by C. Stephen Evans

This week's (4/5) sermon focuses on choosing Jesus as King. The point of Palm Sunday is that we all have a choice, between either receiving the Prince of Peace, who comes to us gentle and riding on a donkey, righteous and bringing salvation (Zech. 9:9), or receiving the Judge of all the Earth, who wears a robe dipped in blood and out of whose mouth proceeds a sharp sword (Rev. 19:13, 15). All those who have received Jesus as Lord and Messiah have received Him as King. But sometimes, even we who follow Jesus fail to grant full sovereignty to Him over all of our lives. Consider the following:

1. The nation's economy is the worst it has been since at least 1980/81. Does that reality cause you to fear the future, or do you trust the Lord's hand, since it is He who sets up kings and nations and takes them down (Isa. 40)? Do you continue to give to the church and other missional endeavors, just as you have always done, or have you scaled back figuring that "the Lord will understand"?


2. Is Jesus King of your tongue? How do you speak to your spouse and children in your home? Are the words of your mouth acceptable in the sight of God? Always?


3. How do your entertainment choices reflect the rule of Jesus over your eyes and mind? Even if your choices are good, or at least morally neutral, does the amount of time you spend entertaining yourself honor God? To what extent does "me time" eliminate time with family, fellowship with your church family, building evangelistic friendships, or even prayer and Bible reading?


4. Is Jesus King of your body? Are you keeping yourself pure? Do you by the Spirit rule over your body's desires (such as those for food, sleep, and sex) or do they rule over you?

Acts 3:19-21 and the "Times of Refreshing"

Given our abbreviated worship service down at the Cafe on Sunday, I didn't have time to elaborate on one of the more fascinating aspects of Peter's sermon, specifically the part of it in which Peter says that if Israel repents, then God's kingdom will come to earth. This raises all kinds of biblical-theological issues, but I believe that is what he is indeed promising for the following reasons:

1. The use of the word "restore" (Gk. apokatasteseos) is related to the use of a form of the same word in Acts 1:6 (i.e., "Lord, is it at this time you are going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?"). Both uses anticipate the restoration of Israel as a theocratic kingdom.
2. Restoration and regeneration are frequently parallel concepts (Isa. 65:17; Matt. 19:28; Rom. 8:20-22).
   
3. Grammatically, there are two different kinds of purpose clauses (i.e., "that" or "so that") in verse 19 and 20. The first one "so that your sins will be forgiven" is a near purpose. Then, if Israel as a whole would repent, the "times of refreshing" (i.e., the Kingdom) when God sends the Christ, would come. This is the more distant purpose (indicated by a different verb form and preposition).
4. The sending of the Christ, or the Messiah, means the coming of the Kingdom, which was foretold by the OT prophets (v. 21, 24). The Church was not foreseen by the prophets (cf. Rom. 16:25; Eph. 3:1-6), but the Messianic Age was frequently predicted.
   

Note: I did not come up with these reasons on my own. I relied on the "Acts" commentary by Stanley Toussaint in The Bible Knowledge Commentary to point them out to me. But I nevertheless believe Dr. Toussaint is correct.

If I understand this correctly, this means that, if Israel as a nation had repented of their sin and turned to Jesus, the Tribulation foretold by Daniel would have come relatively quickly afterward. Then, after 7 years, the Millennial Reign of Christ would have begun. Evidently, that was not God's purpose and plan, since here we are 2,000 years later. But it does raise some interesting questions to ponder:

1. If the repentance of Israel will bring about the soon coming of the Kingdom, in what sense is the coming of Christ "imminent" (i.e., an event that could happen at any time)?
2. Since Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of Messiah regarding his being the Servant of YHWH in Isaiah (plus many others!), why did the Jews not recognize Him as the Christ?
3. Since God loves His people Israel, what purpose is He serving by setting Israel aside so that He might build the Church? (Hint: read Romans 9-11).

Acts 3-4: The Healing of a Crippled Beggar

This Sunday, we're looking at the book of Acts, chapter 3, in which Peter and John heal a crippled beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. This chapter's events actually spill over into chapter 4, which records Peter and John's arrest and questioning by the Sanhedrin as a result of this healing. Claims of miraculous healing are always controversial, it seems, but as I study these two chapters, I see at least six characteristics of a true healing:

1. Immediate: "instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong." (Acts 3:7)
   
2. Complete: "He jumped to his feet and began to walk" (Acts 3:8). "It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing" (Acts 3:16). The beggar did not simply gain increased mobility. He was totally healed of his handicap.
3. Verifiable: "they recognized him as the man who used to sit begging" (Acts 3:10) and "as you can all see" (Acts 3:16). Anyone could go ask any one of dozens of witnesses, or the man himself, what happened and be told the same story the Bible tells.
   
4. Permanent: The man was healed from that day forward, with no relapse in his condition, despite being over 40 years old (Acts 4:22).
   
5. Obvious: Even the Sanhedrin, who did not believe in the Apostles' message had to say, "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it" (Acts 4:16).
6. God-glorifying: "all the people were praising God for what had happened" (Acts 4:21). Peter and John deflected all attention from themselves (v. 3:12) and onto God so that the people praised God for what He had done.
   

To the extent that all of these characteristics are present when a healing is claimed, to that extent, I think it must be regarded as being a true miracle from God. I believe the converse is also true.

Biblical Church Growth

As a pastor, I have occasion to read a great number of books about the Church-analyzing its problems, castigating its failures, and even occasionally, celebrating its successes (there are darn few of those books to read!). But as I lead our people through the book of Acts, here's what I find there:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
-Acts 2:42-47

Now obviously, there are some things about the early church's practice which cannot be replicated today (no apostles, for one thing; no temple for another; and we can debate "signs and wonders"). But many parts of this description remain doable, if difficult. We could still devote ourselves to the apostles teaching much more than is the case in the average American church. We could certainly be more devoted to prayer and relationships with one another. We could all decide to view our possessions less as "ours" than as "the Lord's" and use them to a much greater extent to relieve suffering in the Body of Christ. If we did this last thing, we might even experience the "glad and generous hearts" part, leading us to praise God and toward favor with all our neighbors. And if we did all that, can there be any doubt that the growth in numbers described in verse 47 would be far behind? After all, who could stay away from a community like that?