Author: Pastor Bob

We come to the end of the Acts of the Apostles with Paul still under lock and key and on his way to Rome since he appealed to Caesar.  Paul continues to swear his innocence to Festus and Felix and now King Agrippa enters the picture as well.  King Agrippa was really the next Herod in a long line of Herod’s who was in charge of that region and actually was pretty active in persecuting Christians.  It is surprising that he would sit still and listen to Paul since he was so active in persecuting Christians historically.  

Paul makes his way to Rome and his boat shipwrecks, but he ends up saving the lives of all of the sailors because and angel of God told him to take courage, not a one of them would die.  As the men tried to flee the ship, Paul encourages them to stay on, and as a result they are all saved.  He does make it to Rome where he becomes an instant celebrity.  The story ends there, but it is thought that Paul eventually dies while a “prisoner” in Rome.  We read that he was able to live on his own with only one guard watching him.  Sounds like house arrest where he doesn’t have to really stay in his house.

Psalm 2 gives us a reminder that God is over not only the heavens and the earth, but also over all the kingdoms and he is the one who makes them rise and fall.  Blessed are all those who take refuge in him.  Proverbs was once described as a cross country trip with your mother-in-law.  Here the advice we are given is to keep an eye open for fools and don’t give them the light of day or else you will be counted in their company.  Pretty harsh advice, but I didn’t write it.

We find ourselves at the end of the life and the story of Joshua and the end of the conquering of the lands which the Israelites had claimed.  As we had seen earlier there were two and a half tribes who were promised land on the other side of the Jordan, that would have been on the east side of the Jordan, but they had to send troops to fight in order to take over the entire land that the God had promised for the rest of the families.  Now that those battles are over those tribes were able to head home and claim the land and settle in the homes that were theirs.

On the way home they built an altar to the Lord for a remembrance.  But that was a problem and a misunderstanding broke out.  The rest of the Israelites saw the altar and thought that it was for idols and so they got ready for war against these two and a half tribes.  It was cleared up, no, no, no, it isn’t for other gods, it is to remind you that we worship the same God for if you ever try to come against us you will see this altar and remember that we worship the same God.  Joshua dies and the times of the patriarchs come to an end.

In Acts, Paul remains in prison as he will through the end of the book.  But it is kind of soft prison.  He is given permission to speak to the people of Jerusalem and he tells them his witness, this is how I came to know and love the Lord.  But the crowd turns on him when he says that he was sent to preach the good news to the gentiles.  Everything was fine until loving your neighbor and consider your neighbor to be worthy of being loved by God was brought into the picture. 

He is about to be whipped by the Roman guard when he tells him that he himself is a Roman citizen which provides protection until there is a trial against him.  There had been no trial, so he is protected.  Paul is brought before the high priest and things are going poorly until he throws in a theological conundrum which had separated the two camps of priests: Pharisees and Sadducees.  They almost get into a riot among themselves.  

The Jewish leaders plot to kill Paul, his nephew warns him, and he is taken to Felix and then Felix introduces his wife to Paul, his wife is Jewish and so the assumption is that she would be more sympathetic to Paul’s testimony about Jesus.  

In Joshua we finally complete the actual allotment of the land to the tribes of Israel.  Now this was no longer a hypothetical exercise but the people of Israel were actually given the land after they took over the towns and the people who were inhabiting those lands.  Chapter 20 gives us the towns where people who had killed others by mistake could flee and escape retribution.  The final chapter gives us the cities where the Levites were able to stay since they were the only tribe not given land as a result of their vocation, as the priests of the people.  

In Acts we find ourselves ping ponging back and forth from the third person to the first person in the description of what happens next in the life of Paul.  Remember the theme that we identified last time?  Arrival, preaching, beating, moving on, well that continues here as well.  This time Paul finds himself in Ephesus which is where the church sits that he writes to in Ephesians.  A riot takes place there because the silver smiths were furious that they were about to lose their livelihood as a result of Paul’s preaching against idols.  

Paul moves on to Jerusalem which his disciples and loved ones encouraged him not to go to because the Christian movement, or the Way as it is described a couple of times in our readings for today, has become so popular that it is affecting the Jewish population as well.  There is an accusation that Paul is telling people not only to love Jesus, but to give up all of their Jewish customs and traditions.  This was very serious and Jerusalem would have been the one place he would not want to go if this accusation was true.  But he goes anyway.

It is from here where we see that he is arrested and the rest of Acts plays out with him under arrest and in the hands of the Romans with the Jewish authorities looking for opportunities to finish him.  The rest of Acts has Paul in custody, but this is where it begins.

We continue along with our readings as they lay out the territories that are allotted to the Jews as they move into the promised land.  We begin with the allotment for the sons of Joseph which covers 16 and 17.  In 18 we see the division of the rest of the land by scouts going out and charting and mapping the land so that it could be divided evenly.  Not much more to say about Joshua in these chapters.

We can say a lot for these chapters in Acts.  We are introduced to Timothy in 16 who becomes an important figure in the life of Paul, as Paul becomes an important figure in Timothy’s life.  He considers Timothy his son in many ways and even writes two letters to him which we have in Scripture which are I and II Timothy.  These chapters are a series of events that seem to follow a pattern.  Paul and his entourage arrive in a city, they go to the synagogue and preach Jesus.  People believe in Jesus, the leaders get jealous and stir up the crowd and bring them to the authorities, the authorities do nothing about it and so the leaders gather a group of people and beat up Paul and the people that he is with.  Not a great routine, but at least it is a routine.  

Notice in chapter 18 when he gets to Corinth he ends up spending quite a bit of time there.  He loves the church there, but seems to consistently get frustrated with them.  That frustration comes out in his two letter to them: I and II Corinthians.  It is interesting that we now are able to see the beginning of the letters of Paul to churches and people and recognize how this man of faith was used by God to fill the majority of the New Testament that we have today.

These chapters may seem a bit dry but they are important in finalizing the promise of the Lord to the people of Israel.  It states that Joshua was getting old and the promise of the Lord had not yet been fulfilled and so you have a listing of the lands that God was going to give to the 12 tribes.  Notice, and this is important, that Joseph’s family actually had two tribes come out of it.  Look at Joshua 14:4 where we see the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.  But the tribe of Levi, who became the priests of Israel, did not have any land allotted to them.  They had to reside in each town and carry out their functions in that town.

In Acts you see the dynamic duo of Barnabas and Paul working together and bringing a whole bunch of people to faith.  It is interesting that later on this chapter you will see the two of them in a disagreement and they separate, that you will find in our reading for today 15:36-41.  We often think of the first century church as perfect in every way, but here we see that they had a dispute which caused them to separate.  Now, we know that they later reconcile, but at least here the dispute was sharp enough that they had to separate.

Paul comes very close to dying in 14:19-20, but he continue to preach and proclaim God’s word to those who would listen.  Chapter 15 is one of the most important chapters in Acts.  We find the council of Jerusalem where the leaders of the church had to gather and had to decide if they would require gentiles who had come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ to be burdened with the same Jewish laws and requirements that none of them were able to fulfill.  The primary example of that would be circumcision, and as you can imagine that would be a deal breaker for some people if the only way that they could become a Christian would be if they would be circumcised.  

At the end of the day the decision is made that gentiles coming to know Jesus did not have to take on the same Jewish requirements, and could in fact love Jesus period.  It was a time when the Gospel message was then allowed to flourish as a result of this decision.  It reminds us that Jesus is enough.

It is these types of chapters in the Bible that give God a bit of a bad name.  Granted, Joshua is carrying out the commands of God and fulfilling the promises that were given to him by God, but all of the slaughter and the killing and all of the countries that are overtaken without a single living soul remaining.  It is interesting that Joshua was able to stop the sun and he is described as someone who was in charge when: “there has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man.”  That pretty heavy praise.

At the end of the day we have 31 kings and their lands taken over and that translates to 31 groups of people, nation states, completely wiped off the face of the earth.  It is hard to swallow, but it is also something that we have to recognize as taking place in the old covenant which certainly was not a covenant of grace.  Thanks be to God that we now live under a covenant of grace and God would never call us to do something similar.

We then transition to Acts and Peter takes center stage once again.  Peter’s vision is crucial for two reasons.  One for its literal translation which allows us to eat all that God has created and we no longer have to follow the dietary laws which God had given to the Israelites.  While that is great news to us meat lovers, the greater news is how he explains his vision to Cornelius which is that God has chosen all of the humanity, including the gentiles, to be a part of his kingdom.  No longer is just a select nation God’s children, but rather God so loved the world…  Here’s an appropriate video that speaks to the love of God for all people.

We continue along in the story of the Israelite gobbling up the land in front of them as they take over the promised land that was a part of the covenant that God made with the Israelites.  Some of the regions that they conquer they are allowed to take loot, but others they are not.  When they take over Jericho they were not allowed to take anything, but Achan saw a really pretty robe and some silver and figured no one would know.  Well, the next time Israel went to battle they lost and armed men died.  Achan is discovered and he dies along with his family and his livestock and all of his goods are burned.

That does the trick and Ai is then destroyed with an ambush that was carefully planned.  Joshua then renews the covenant with God.  But wait, back in 7:7 we see Joshua complain after the lost battle just like the Israelites complained when they were in the wilderness: It would have been better if we had stayed in Egypt.  Not something you want your leader to say.  In chapter 9 the Gibeonites do their own bait and switch as they make a pact with Israel so that they would be protected.  It works, as they pretend to be foreigners from far away, but are actually a neighboring country, which means that Israel could not take over their land and slaughter them, but they can take over their land and make them wood cutters and water bearers, so that happens.

In Acts we find the first martyrdom of a disciple, and that would be Stephen, who graduated from a deacon to preaching the Word of God.  He dies quietly, after preaching the Gospel from beginning to end.  At his death we see this new character, Saul, approving of his murder.  Look at 8:1-3 where you see the persecution of the church which continues strongly even after Saul comes on board.  My favorite story in Acts is seen in 8:26-40 where Philip converts the Ethiopian eunuch, but not by his own initiative, but rather by the initiative of the Spirit and the eunuch.  He does not force himself, but rather simply answers the questions that are posed to him by the eunuch.  That is a great model for evangelism.

We then see the conversion of Saul which will be repeated a number of times in the Bible.  

We see the Israelites finishing up their crossing of the Jordan River with a memorial being set up on the other side.  Remember how important it is for the people and their children to remember the actions of God, especially the miraculous actions like the passover and now the passing over of the Jordan.  We then move to the people of Israel circumcising themselves.  It does surprise me that they would not circumcise their children while they were in the wilderness.  I would have thought that this crucial aspect of the covenant would have been done, even if they were terribly disobedient.  

This then takes us to Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho, but we see that it isn’t much of a fight.  Nothing like blowing trumpets in order to seize the victory.  Now that is the type of battle that we need.  We see that Rahab and her family are saved just as she had been promised.

In Acts we find Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, which would have been the governing body of the priests of the temple.  Peter and John were involved in healings and this really disturbed the religious leaders.  They commanded them to come before them and charged them with not speaking any longer in the name of Jesus.  But they replied, we have to do the will of God, not the will of man.  

We see the Christian body growing, now it is up to 5,000 people, a real bonified megachurch.  They begin to live together and share all of their possessions together, except for Ananias and Sapphira, of  course, but they didn’t last long.  The story starting in 5:33 is one to pay attention to, where Gamaliel states very wisely when he is speaking to the religious leaders who are at wits end to figure out what to do: “Leave these men alone.  Let them go.  For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail.  But if it is of God, you will not be able to stop these men, you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”  That is pretty powerful.

Moses dies and now it is up to Joshua to take the people into the promised land.  The Lord pumps Joshua up and encourages him to be strong and courageous as he prepares to enter the land.  He sends and expeditionary force out in front who happen to stay overnight at the home of a prostitute, not sure why this isn’t spoken about more.  It would not be where I would encourage my men to stay when they are on a top secret mission.  Rahab, the prostitute, is actually Jesus’ great great great so on grandmother.

Chapter 3 contains some of the most powerful didactic elements in the entire Old Testament.  God commands the priests to go forward with the ark, about 3,000 feet forward and to stand in the Jordan in order to dry it up, ala the Red Sea.  He tells the priests, you have to get your feet wet before the Jordan is going to dry up.  Isn’t that often the case with us?  We want to sea to part in front of us before we put our feet in the sea, if we have to risk it and actually put our feet in, well, then it may not be worth it.  God calls us to get out of the boat if we want to walk on water, he calls us to get our feet wet in order to see God’s miracles.  What a great lesson.

In Acts we have Jesus’ last words to his disciples where he sends them out into all the world.  We then have the day of Pentecost, also known as the birth-day of the church when the Holy Spirit falls powerfully on the apostles and all those who were gathered.  It is interesting that they were a group of 120 people and then once the Holy Spirit falls they swell into more than 3,000 people.  

We were set up in the previous chapter for these chapters where we were told that Moses had put together a song that was to be recited and sang by the generations to come so that they could remember how God had worked and how God would work in the history of the nations.  So his ditty begins in vs.32 where we find something more of a curse where Israel is said to be unfaithful and to turn their back on God.  As Moses calls them: “They are a nation void of sense.”  

After this song God tells Moses that he will take him up a mountain called Mount Nebo and there he would die.  The next chapter Moses blesses all of the tribes of Israel and names them by name.  This is quite a long chapter because there are twelve tribes that need to be blessed in this chapter alone.  In the last chapter we see Moses does climb Mt. Nebo and he dies there and was buried in the land of Moab.  He is one that is described as someone who saw God face to face.  That’s pretty impressive.  

Psalm 1 basically gives us the costs and benefits of following God or not following God.  There is the image of a tree planted along the river.  Each decision that we make either brings us closer to God or further away from God.