PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

Today we find ourselves in Paul’s farewell tour at least in regards to the leadership of Ephesus.  It is fairly clear that Paul loves the Ephesians and there is a special place in his heart for them.  You notice that in verse 5 the Christians are still celebrating the Jewish traditions.  They are celebrating the festival of unleavened bread, which would have been the traditional passover meal.  How many Christians today celebrate Passover as well as Easter and Christmas and all the other Christian holidays?  We see the same theme come up when Paul wants to quickly make his way toward Jerusalem and skip Ephesus because he did not want to miss Pentecost (vs.12) in Jerusalem.  The assumption is that this is the Jewish celebration of Pentecost, but you have to wonder if it has now become a very powerful Christian celebration in Jerusalem in Paul’s day as well.  How could they forget the day that the Holy Spirit had descended up on the church?  So maybe Paul wanted to get back in order not to miss the Christian celebration of Pentecost which by now may have become quite a big deal.

How do we celebrate our Christian Holy Days?  By the way, that is from where the term holiday came.  They were considered Holy Days.  I know, some of the holidays that we celebrate seem like anything but Holy.  But we celebrate Easter in church and maybe a special meal.  How much of a Christian take do we give to the time that we spend together on that day as a family?  Christmas is a bit different.  We certainly do emphasize the birth of Jesus and the exchanging of gifts follows along in that vein.  What about Pentecost?  We wear red…and we wear red.  There really is nothing done in society about Pentecost.  We don’t sell decorative flames, or bobble head dolls that speak in different tongues.  Pretty much Pentecost is one of the few Holy Days that is commerce free.  It has remained a Holy Day, and we should probably celebrate it as such in our families.  Not only has it been skipped by society, but it seems we have skipped it as Christian families as well.  For Paul, it was such a big deal that he wanted to hurry back to Jerusalem just so that he wouldn’t miss it.

I think it was a big deal that he skipped Ephesus on the way back to Jerusalem.  Follow along starting in vs.17 and following and we see that he sets up a special envoy of people to meet him in Miletus.  Now, if you look at a map, and below you will see Paul’s third missionary journey, you will see that Ephesus is not that far from Miletus. 

They are so close that Paul called for the elders and then waited for them to arrive.  He spends a good amount of time convincing them of his loyalty to them, of his work among them, and overall, how much he cares for them.  Personally, I think he was worried about going to Ephesus considering what had happened last time he went there and how he had almost lost his life to an angry mob.  Maybe, just maybe, he also didn’t want to cause trouble for the Christians living in Ephesus by going back there.  Sure it would have been nice to see him there, but with him there maybe they would become bigger targets.

In 2009 while we were serving in Russia we got word from the US Embassy that a FLOTUS team (in case you didn’t know it stands for First Lady of the United States) was going to make a site visit because First Lady Obama was considering visiting our soup kitchen when she visited Russia with her husband.  It was a big deal for us.  When the team arrived we talked through the logistics, and we had everything we needed to make it a safe visit and one where she could get in and out, no problem.  At the end of the visit we talked about our clientele which were elderly Russians who had fallen through the economic safety nets of society.  Perfect, that would look good with Mrs. Obama rubbing elbows with destitute elderly Russians.  Then we spoke about our staff and our volunteers, they were primarily African immigrants, most of them illegal, who were trying to scrape by and what we provided them was, for most of them, the only income that they received.  They asked us, how will that affect them when all of the attention of the nation is on them.  We quickly realized that for those of our staff who were illegal, it could mean arrest and deportation.  We asked our staff and they said they were willing to take that risk, but FLOTUS, understandably, simply was not willing to put us in that position.  She did not come.  

There is a sense that when you are in a position of leadership, in this case even a position of power or at the least a position of notoriety, it carries a certain responsibility that not all people have to face.  Paul, I believe, understood that, and so wanted to protect the community in Ephesus by not showing up there.  He says, and I believe him, that it is not about him being safe, but more about them being safe.

He meets with them and prays with them, weeps with them, and says goodbye to them.  We don’t know how he knew this would be his last journey, maybe he was getting old, but he was right.

Ephesus has to be one of my favorite New Testament cities.  The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time here, even just in these verses we find him spending two years.  John, the Gospel writer, also spent a lot of time there and it is thought that he wrote his Gospel in Ephesus.  When Stacy and I went there almost a decade ago I was absolutely enraptured.  So much of Scripture came alive.  Since John the Gospel writer is one of my all time favorite people, it was almost as if I had arrived at a place of God’s strong presence.

This is the burial place of John in Ephesus.  It is also thought that in the hillsides of Ephesus Mary, Jesus’ mom, lived and had her home.  Now most of this latter story is non-historical and more of legend than anything else, but it sounds good.  But remember when Jesus was on the cross when he said to John in the Gospel of John 19:27 that Mary would now be his mother, and he would be her son.  From that it is implied that because John settled and ended his life in Ephesus, so did Mary.  After all of that is said, I love Ephesus.  But the people of Ephesus did not necessarily love Paul, at least not those who were involved in making the idols for this town which was at the center of idol worship.

The chapter begins with those who, like Apollo originally, had only been baptized by John which would have been a baptism of cleansing in order to enter the temple.  They did not know who Jesus was, that he was the Messiah.  Upon hearing and receiving that news they then turn and give their lives to the Savior.  The Holy Spirit descends upon them after Paul lays his hands on them.  When we ordain, when we commission, when we baptize, when we send people off, we lay hands.  We believe so strongly, because of the example that we have in Scripture, that the laying on of hands is not just symbolic, but a powerful tool that God can use to indwell those who have hands laid on them with the Holy Spirit.  

I’ll never forget an argument that I heard from a student at my college that Paul was almost as important as Jesus.  I think you know where I stand on that statement.  I do believe that Paul was incredibly infused with God’s presence and power, but I’m not crazy about some of his statements or his character flaws.  But in vs.11 and following we see how God was able to work miracles through him.  Diseases and evil spirits left people who came into contact with Paul, or even his clothing.  That’s pretty powerful and also, if you’re not on that side, pretty scary stuff.  All of the residents of Ephesus were awestruck.  Verse 19 states that those who practiced magic burned their books.  Now, not to confuse the book burnings of days gone by where people burned books out of ignorance.  Here, these books were burned because they directly were teaching others in black magic.  We do believe in a spirit world.  One is of God, and one is not.  I don’t see much of a grey area in the spirit world.  It is either of God or it is of the devil.  My approach is never to get caught up in any kind of spirit world that is not of God.  I don’t understand it all, don’t believe all of it, but I do move cautiously because I don’t understand much of it.  When we talk about evil spirits, it is best to just stay away and not play around with it.

Trouble then starts in Ephesus.  Once again in vs.23 we see a reference to the name of this religious group with which we identify which we call Christians.  They were called the Way.  The problem was that because Ephesus was such a hot spot of idol worship, the temple of Artemis was located in Ephesus which was one of the 7 wonders of the world at the time, that those who created those idols were feeling an economic pinch because Paul’s words were actually effective and winning converts.  It wasn’t just those who followed the Way that were the problem, Jews would also have been a problem because they did not condone idol worship.  Now, the Jews would not have been as militant as those who followed the Way, like Paul, and in fact Jews and Greeks lived in harmony for quite some time in Ephesus.  The Jewish community allowed the Greeks to worship their gods without a problem, and the Greeks allowed the Jews to worship their one god.  But when Paul comes around, well, he tells people it is wrong to worship the idols and that we should probably get rid of them all.  That was a problem.

What could have potentially turned into a lynch mob is quieted down by the town clerk.  Originally a certain Alexander who was pushed forward by the Jews as someone to speak sense to the people, was shouted down by the people.  As a Jew he had nothing to say that would be of benefit to those trying to save their livelihood.  The town clerk, we don’t know who that was but he was obviously one of “them”, then quiets down the crowd.  He appealed to the law of the land and to allow that to play itself out.  The assembly disperses.  

Paul is on the road again, but he stays in a few places quite a long time.  We find him first in Corinth.  Now, keep in mind that many of the books in the New Testament are books written by Paul to these individual congregations addressing specific issues that may have come up.  We have I and II Corinthians which is Paul’s letters to this church in Acts 18.  Paul spends a year and a half in Corinth working together with a member of that Christian community making tents.  Have you ever heard the term tent-maker?  That is a term describing pastors who are bi-vocational.  It comes from these verses.  For example, many Mennonite pastors in this region are bi-vocational.  John Meck is a pig farmer and he is the pastor at the Mennonite Church here in town.  By the way, as an aside, if you have never seen a pig farm before I would highly recommend it.  I was incredibly impressed with John’s operation, the time, the care, and the love that he has for what he does and for those creatures.  But here in these beginning verses of 18 we find Paul seeks out a believer in Jesus Christ who was also a tentmaker and teams up with him.  This believer was Aquila who came to Corinth with his wife Priscilla to flee the persecution in Rome, Italy.  It was amazing to see the synagogue in Rome and know that on or near that location there has been a community of Jews since well before the 1st century.  It always gives me goose bumps seeing that synagogue and knowing that Priscilla and Aquilla came from that community.  

This Scripture tells us that every single Saturday Paul was in the synagogue at Corinth, for a year and a half, arguing that Jesus was the Messiah.  This is a common theme.  The arguments that people make that Jesus is the Messiah.  It becomes, it seems, a bit of a war of attrition.

In so many of these accounts we find conversions of some of the leaders in the society and in the synagogues.  We see Crispus, the official of the synagogue in Corinth who converts, and then at the end of the chapter we see Apollos who was African, probably a person of color, who was a God fearing man.  He did not know Jesus and was only baptized as John baptized for cleansing in order to be prepared to enter the temple.  Priscilla and Aquilla take him under their wing and the conversation probably went something like this: “Psst, hey, I love what you’re doing.  But, there’s one thing, Jesus, he wasn’t just a good teacher, he was actually God.  So next time you go out and speak, make sure you include something about Jesus being the Messiah.”  If you look at vs. 28 you will see that he was a powerful speaker who showed that Jesus was the Messiah.

We can’t forget Apollos.  Later on in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth he is mentioned as a key elder in that congregation.  Some, including Martin Luther, believe that he was responsible for the writing of the Hebrews in Scripture.  That’s appealing.  

I’ll never forget my very first Bible Study that I led for my small group in college.  We met informally around a dining room table in the dining hall and I had prepared a study on Acts 17:16-34.  In that teaching I laid out a plan for evangelism that involved being with people where they are and not forcing people to come to where you are.  Let’s go backwards through this chapter.  Let’s look first at Paul’s visit to Athens which for me contains such relevant approaches to those who do not know Jesus.  He went to Athens and found himself in the middle of the people and was not afraid to speak his mind.  When they invited him to speak openly and to the leadership of the city in front of the Areopagus, he used words and referred to people that they would know intimately.  He uses their material, the idols, to point to Jesus as the one who is the great Creator and who came so that we would be raised from the dead.  Many joined Paul as a result, including a number of the leaders of that community.

Let’s break down this interaction and apply it to today.  We have become a people who expect those whom we want to reach to come to us and become like us.  We expect to evangelize by providing the right programs and the right opportunities for those who might want to wander into our sanctuary.  We are capturing people who wander into our sanctuary, but this is not at all the strategy that Paul and other Christians used to wins people to Christ.  They were constantly on the go.  They had no office hours.  There were no bulletins and no courtyards with memorial tress.  They simply identified individuals, and groups of people, that they were exposed to and let them know about the truth found in Jesus.  This is the type of calling which is exciting and worthwhile.

The beginning of chapter 17 provides us with a continued stream of conflict and persecution that Paul and Silas faced.  You see in vs.2 that he was in the synagogue for three Sabbath days.  That is at least 3 weeks.  This was not something that he just came, tried, and if it didn’t work, he moved on.  No, he stuck to it.  The city officials of Thessalonica became concerned and drove them off.  But Paul and Silas just moved down the road to Beroea and continued their work.  The people of the much larger Thessalonica become even more enraged and pursue them there.  At this point Silas and Timothy stay while Paul moves on to Athens.  

Here is the map for Paul’s second journey.  Again, it is hard to follow but all the cities are there and you can at least see how close they are to each other.

When you read Scripture I hope you know that it is a compilation of material that has been gathered over time.  We do not have the original Acts of the Apostles as it was written by Luke, but rather scraps and bits and pieces that were gathered from the middle ages on.  As a result there can be some inconsistencies that might seem alarming to some.  Chapter 16 contains some elements in its writing that can seem a bit disjointed.  The narrative switches from the third person to the first person where the author goes from speaking about “them” in vs.7 to speaking about “us” and “we” in vs.11 and following.  Don’t allow it to bother you.  It is obvious that Luke got this part of his story from someone who was very close to the action and so the account we have includes some great details that otherwise we would not have had if it had been just Luke writing.

We are introduced to Timothy in these first verses.  I think it is interesting that even after the Jerusalem council where it was decided that gentile Christians did not need to become Jewish first, Paul still had Timothy circumcised.  Paul knew what would be required and what the people of that area expected.  How far are we able to go and what are we able to do even if we don’t want to do it in order for the Gospel to be proclaimed in such a way that it can be heard.  If Timothy had not been circumcised then probably those in Lysta and Iconium, even though they spoke highly of him, would not have been able to listen to him because it would have been an obstacle to their hearing.  What do we have that might be an obstacle to others hearing the Gospel and we just simply do not want to let it go?

Paul’s conversion of the jailer is a classic as well.  Before that conversion they meet Lydia who is the dealer in purple and she becomes an iconic figure in Scripture.  Just a few weeks ago we went to the dedication service of my daughter’s graduating class.  One of the speakers went on to say how Jesus was rich and self funded the disciples.  I don’t think that could be further from the truth, at least the part of self-funding.  Throughout Scripture we find that the primary benefactors to Jesus’ ministry were women who supported him and his disciples.  If you look at Luke 8:3, by the way remember it is Luke who wrote Acts of the Apostles, you see that there is a whole host of women who supported Jesus financially, and this continues in the early church with Lydia and others.

When Paul and Silas drive out the denom from the young girl who had become a real nuisance to them it nearly gets them killed. Beaten and stripped and thrown into prison they were still able to pray and sing hymns to God (vs.25).  The earthquake that shakes the foundations of the prison sounds like a similar earthquake that we find in Scripture: Matthew 28:2 and then also 27:51 show an earthquake that took place at Jesus’ death and then another one at his resurrection.  But this earthquake was one which opened up all the doors of the cells and even unfastened the chains of Paul and Silas while they were in the stockade.  So the jailer had one job do to, and only one job.  When he wakes up and sees all the doors open he assumes the worst.  

I love how Paul tells him to stop from taking his life and leads him to Jesus.  His entire family is baptized as a result of Paul and Silas’ action which were to show him love and not hatred for his role in their imprisonment.  Again, another example of how far would we go to spread the Gospel, even if it meant staying in prison with the chance that we would be killed.  Of course they were set free, but they didn’t know it at the time.  Paul, again not my favorite, demands that those who put them in prison show them the respect that is due to them.  They do, and then they go back to stay at Lydia’s home.  Don’t forget Timothy, he comes up later and he is a very important figure in the New Testament.  

Do you remember when I mentioned that the first century church was not a perfect church by any stretch of the imagination?  This chapter contains an account of a time when the church was not of one voice on an issue and their attempt to resolve the dispute.  This is the one and only council meeting in which we see the early first century church take part.  Here was the problem.  I think I mentioned it earlier.  There was a group of Christians, they were from the believers who were Pharisees by background.  Now when we call someone a Pharisee it is not a bad term.  A Pharisee was actually a very learned religious leader who followed a certain school of thought.  Today we understand that when a church body calls someone  a priest, or a pastor, or a minister, or a reverend it all basically means the same thing.  Each denomination has their own way of identifying their spiritual leader.  A Pharisee came from that school of thought within the Jewish community which was more legalistic than, say, the Sadducees.  They also tended to appeal more to the masses and were not considered the elite of society, like the Sadducees were.  Paul was trained as a Pharisee, and so this was important.  He would have been going against many who believe similarly to what he believed.

So on to the issue at hand.  The Christians who came from the Pharisee school of thought believed that anyone who came to know Jesus had to follow all of the Jewish laws which included circumcision, dietary restrictions, wearing of certain clothing…and other incredibly restrive forms of living.  Paul, Peter and others thought that all which was necessary was as vs. 11 states: “On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”  Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is all about the grace of Jesus, and not our ability to follow Jewish law, or any laws for that matter.

What is fascinating to me is that Peter says his thing and then the debate continues.  We have always been told that it is Peter who is the head of the church (Remember the picture with Peter holding the keys?).  But who brings this debate to a close.  After Peter speaks there is silence and then finally James speaks up.  Look at vs.19.  We find James saying: “Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God”  He reached a decision?  He made the final call?  Where have we ever heard in church history that James was the head of the church?  Here, in Acts 15:19 we find that it is not Peter who makes the final decisions for the church, but it is James.  There is no other debate after his declaration and the verses continue as if this is the end of the council and the discussion was finished and what James said was installed as policy of the early church.  It is absolutely stunning to me that James has not taken on a much more important role in the history of the church than what we have been taught.

So you would think after this council and people have made a decision that everything would work out just right.  Well, not so much.  Look starting at vs.36 and you will see that there is a bit of a disagreement between Barnabas and Paul.  Remember back in chapter 13:13 when John was accompanying them and then he abruptly leaves?  Well, apparently there is more to that story and it is continued here in chapter 15.   Paul and Barnabas decide to go back to the church that they had founded to check in on the believers.  Barnabas wanted to take John who had been instrumental in setting up the early churches.  But Paul says they should not take someone who had deserted them in the work.  I’m not the biggest fan of Paul.  He seems to carry a grudge.  I love Barnabas.  He decides that he is going to move forward with John even if it means that he and Paul have to go separate ways.  Vs.39 says that the disagreement became so sharp that they had to part company.

This week begins the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 222nd General Assembly.  It is a time when every two years leaders from our denomination gather to decide on issues that ultimately affect the life of the church.  Two years ago when the general assembly met it was a very contentious and difficult meeting.  It was one that produced a decision on gay marriage which I simply cannot and do not support.  But like the disciples I continue to believe in the church that was created by God and do not go off and sulk and take my toys and go home.  I believe that God is still working powerfully through our denomination as I see daily God working powerfully through our church in Strasburg.  If you wanted to livestream the General Assembly or just get information on what is going on here is the website that you can use: http://oga.pcusa.org/section/ga/222nd-general-assembly-2016/

Paul and Barnabas continue in their missionary journey and they bring a whole crew of Jews and gentiles to the faith.  As it did in other places, it caused quite a stir.  The scene in Lystra starting at vs.8 is an important scene.  We find Paul and Barnabas heal a man crippled from birth.  This is again a reminder to us that healings and miracles still take place after Jesus has ascended into heaven.  So miracles are still a part of the reality in which we live.  Don’t let anyone tell you that God  simply does not work that way any longer.  God absolutely does work in this way and continues to work in a way that astounds us and leaves us thinking: with God anything is possible.  But the people of that region had not seen anything like it before.  They reverted back to that which they knew, which was the worship of their gods, so they began worshipping Paul and Barnabas.  As you would expect, Paul and Barnabas turn their attention from their own selves to the resurrected Jesus Christ.  What a great strategy.  How do we turn the attention of people away from us and toward God?  A bit of time passes and the crowds turn on Paul and Barnabas and try to stone them but they slip away after they are left for dead.

Starting at vs. 21 we see a great model for church planting where at first they preached the Word and people were won over for Christ.  The next step after that which we find in these verses is they then appoint elders in each of the churches to oversee them.  They then went back home, recounted their missionary journey, and stayed with the disciples in the church for some time.  It was a fitting ending to a very, very successful missionary enterprise.

So today the worst mass shooting took place in the history of the United States.  The angry young white man is replaced by a radicalized twenty something with a cause.  Dylan Klebold has been replaced by Omar Mateen.  

Before we begin Paul’s journeys we must stop and reflect upon vs.1 because it is significant.  We find the believers of Antioch pointed out and some individuals lifted up as leaders in the church.  Out of these leaders Paul and Barnabas, we have seen them before, are called out to go forward on an overseas missionary journey.  But let’s look at those who were in the community and stayed home.  We have a Simeon who was called Niger.  What Luke does here, and we have already mentioned that he loves details, is that he lifts up the race of Simeon as something particular and distinctive.  Simeon was someone whose ancestry came from Africa.  This is not completely unusual, we have Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, remember where Ethiopia is…Africa.  But it is unusual enough to be able to comment and say this just might be the first reference to a church that is intercultural, interracial, and interethnic in the most positive of ways.  I’ll never forget the day that an elder in a church that I once served came to me and said flat out: “Black people have their place and it is a place that is inferior to white people.  They should not be in our church.”  It was a reality check for a very young pastor who thought everyone thought the way that I thought.  I wish I had mentioned Simeon called Niger (literally the black one) and the church in Antioch who casually mentions him along with Paul and Barnabas as leaders in the church.  

Now onto Paul’s journeys.  

His first journey we find is laid out above in a fairly comprehensive way.  Just beware, and I fell for this, the map above is a reflection of his journey which takes place over chapters 13 and 14.  So tomorrow you’ll have to cover the cities inland which chapter 13 does not cover.  All along the way they make friends and they make enemies.  I had a member of a church tell me at one time: “I just want people to like me.” I think I also mentioned that when I was in college and played basketball if we were up by a certain number of points then it would look promising for me to go in.  Once we were up by about 15 the crowd started chanting: “Bob is nice.”  It was kind of their signal to the coach that it was time for me to go in.  It was…nice.  But I have come to realize that no matter how nice we are, and we are called to be nice by the way, people are still not going to like you all the time.  I’m going to change a quote around that maybe you’ve heard in reference to fooling people but I’m going to substitute it with people liking you.  You can have some of the people like you all the time, you can have all of the people like you some of the time, but you can’t have all of the people like you all of the time.  Yeah, I think that works.  How about that for Biblical exegesis?

All of that to say is that Paul and Barnabas and John were accepted and rejected.  The both attracted and repelled.  Our goal should be to attract, but it simply is not going to happen all the time.  I want you to notice vs.13 where we have John leaving Paul and Barnabas.  This comes up later in Acts and it is actually a disagreement and one of the first times that we see a conflict in the church.  It doesn’t say that here, but we do learn about it later.  Keep it in mind.

Paul’s sermon is powerful, especially vs.39 which lays out for us the simple Gospel message.  Jesus came and died for our sins, all of our sins.  As  a result we have eternal life.  It doesn’t get any simpler than that.  We also have here a transition of the Gospel message from strictly being preached to the Jews to then being opened to the gentiles.  Are you sensing this theme being stressed repeatedly?  Look at the reaction of the gentiles in vs.48 as we get our first glimpse of predestination.  We will speak about predestination later when Paul addresses it in Romans.  My prayer for all of us is that we would live our lives as a reflection of vs. 52: “And the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.”  What could be better?

Who said Luke doesn’t have a sense of humor?  He begins with the tragic announcement that the brother of John, James, one of the original twelve disciples and the first of the twelve to die a martyr’s death, was executed by Herod.  Herod then arrests Peter and the assumption is that the general population was so pleased with the execution of James, that they would be equally, if not more, pleased with the execution of Peter.  This would probably be his last night in jail, and his last night on the face of this earth.  Then the humor starts.

Peter is so sound asleep in prison that the angel has to tap him on the side to wake him up.  Now, I’ve never been in prison, much less slept in prison, but I’m guessing that if you have a sneaking suspicion that this might be your last day alive, you just might have a wee bit trouble sleeping.  Instead, the angel comes, his light shines mightily, and Peter is still snoring away.  WAKE UP!!  He taps him on the side and then the details of his escape should not go unnoticed.  The angel explains to Peter how he should get dressed.  Fasten your belt, put on your sandals and make sure you wrap your cloak around you, would hate for you to catch a cold.  He leads him past the guards and then out the main gate of Jerusalem.  Just in case you were wondering, the gate opening of its own accord simply was a miracle.  It would have taken an act of congress to open that gate in the middle of the night.  No, seriously, it would have taken an act of the Roman congress to open the city gates at night. 

But the adventure doesn’t end.  Everyone is gathered at John’s house, the one who had just lost his brother at the hands of Herod.  That is where the disciples and the believers are gathered, down a country lane away from the general population so no one could see them or hear them worship.  Peter arrives at the gate and knocks.  The maid recognizes Peter’s voice and … leaves him standing out in the road to go and tell the others.  I absolutely love this scene.  I would love to see it depicted in Hollywood where you have a very irate and anxious Peter saying: “Rhoda, open the gate, open the gate Rhoda.  Please, open the gate.”  Eventually she does and there is a happy reunion.  There is much to laugh about in these verses, but certainly not if you are related to the Roman guards who did not experience a happy ending.

What you see above is the amphitheater in Caesarea Marittima which is where Herod went after this event in Acts 12, and then he dies after speaking to the crowd and the worms eat up his body.  No explanation.  Just don’t make yourself like a god.  Bad things happen. 

You never know how you are going to react in a crisis until a crisis comes upon you.  We received a phone call this morning at 6am from our eldest, Rachel, who said she had fainted and was feeling terrible and was worried.  We told her to call 911 and we rushed down to the emergency room in Springfield, PA.  She was fine, there is a little history with her and fainting which is a genetic trait she acquired from her mother, Stacy.  But as you can imagine the fear and uncertainty were pretty palpable as we made our way to see her.

The Apostles lived daily lives of fear and trepidation wondering who just might turn them into the authorities.  It reminds me so much of Soviet, and even now post-Soviet Russia with Putin in power.  You never knew if you had a bad day with your neighbor if he would call the secret police, make up a story, and they would ship you off to Siberia.  There is still today a fear within the Russian culture of your neighbor.  The feeling is that you have to be careful not to share too much with them out of fear that maybe, just maybe, they would use that against you.  The early Apostles were especially fearful of the Romans because they were the ones who could, and did, set you up for a death sentence.

So when the word got out that Peter had welcomed gentiles, or Roman citizens, into their family of believers, it was not welcomed with open arms in the church.  They ask Peter in vs. 3: “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”  There was real danger in getting too close to these people.  But Peter explains in detail the dream that he had and how God had spoken to him and how God has now opened up the kingdom of God to all people from all nationalities.  He says to those who asked him: “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  Those who questioned Peter were silenced, in fact they rejoiced that the family was now a broader family than ever before.

I think all of us would rejoice that God has cast the net wide and that we are all welcomed into the family of believers.  Now is that the same in regards to our nation?  Why do we want to make the net smaller so that only a limited number of people might come into our country?  In every country where I have traveled people want to come to our country, and most even want to stay here permanently.  I think it is an incredibly interesting conflicting reality that we live in as believers and Americans.  I hope and I pray that we want God to cast the net over everyone so that all would be covered by His grace.  What is our thinking as Christians, put aside your nationality and your patriotism, but what is our thinking as believers in Jesus Christ when we want to limit those who might be our neighbors, literally?  

Moving on, this chapter remains consistent and speaks about even more gentiles coming into the fold.  This chapter speaks very directly as to the cause of why the Good News proliferates as it does.  If you look at vs.19 the martyrdom of Stephen is lifted up as the cause for the Gospel having spread across the known globe.  When Barnabas came to check out the incredible growth in the church he celebrated because he recognized that the numbers were mind boggling and the vast majority of those coming to Jesus were very different from Barnabas and the Apostles.  They were uncircumcised gentiles. It is at this point that believers are called Christians for the first time.  Look at vs.26 and we see the first mention of this word in all of Scripture.  Pretty neat to be able to point to one time and place in history and say that the word Christian was first used in the first century in Antioch as the people described the belief system of those like Saul and Barnabas. 

We find in vs. 27 the first charity mission that the believers were involved in on a denominational wide basis.  I know, there weren’t denominations back then, but here we see all of the churches banding together to help the poor and the starving in Judea.  Barnabas and Saul were the disaster assistance heads of the church at that time.  I wonder if they saved some of the money for a rainy day fund when things might be needed a little later on.  I’m guessing that they did since it is very common practice in relief work to not spend more than is needed at the time and save for later what might be needed for later.  I love how Saul jumps right in there and is being used extensively by the Apostles for all kinds of work.