Through the Bible with Chad

      Awe yes, the famous Acts 9:       The first part of the chapter details the miraculous conversion of Saul, who later became the apostle Paul. Saul, a devout Jew and enemy of the Christian church, was traveling to Damascus to persecute Christians when he was suddenly blinded by a bright light from heaven. Saul fell to the ground and said "who are you, Master? “He said, “Who are you, Master?” “I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you’ll be told what to do next.””  Saul was then led to Damascus, where he was filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized.     There is a great example of faith in this story, when Ananias is asked by God to go and open the eyes of Saul he is rightfully scared, everyone knows that this man is the one who had been hunting down christians! Ananias obeys and goes to Saul and heals his eyes!       The second part of the chapter describes ...

  Acts 8      Acts 8:3-8 details the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, where Saul (later known as Paul) consented to the death of Stephen and was involved in a wave of arrests and imprisonments. However, many Christians fled Jerusalem and scattered throughout the surrounding regions, preaching the word of God as they went. Philip was among those who fled and went to the city of Samaria, where he preached the gospel to the people there.      I love the mayhem the early church is causing. "many who could neither stand nor walk were healed that day!"   The church is under attack and people are openly being murdered and arrested for being a part of the movement Proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah!      One common theme that was pointed out to me this morning was that Demons don't leave quietly.  This makes me curious about our culture today, and our perception of the spiritual realm, I don't think it's d...

  Stephen, Full of the Holy Spirit      In Acts 7, Stephen delivers a speech to the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, about the history of God's people and the coming of Jesus. This is such an interesting interaction and not the first or the last time we see an apostle lay out the Jewish history to the "history teachers". This is important, because these leaders know the Torah inside and out, they have it memorized, they should be capable of recalling all parts of the story and their own history. So having it recited to them with an emphasis on the prophecy of the Messiah and the leaders rejection of not only Jesus but all of the prophets!  Same thing Jesus told them. . .  ““And you continue, so bullheaded! Calluses on your hearts, flaps on your ears! Deliberately ignoring the Holy Spirit, you’re just like your ancestors. Was there ever a prophet who didn’t get the same treatment? Your ancestors killed anyone who dared talk about the coming of the ...

  Acts 6 The Word of God Prospered      In the early Christian community, some Greek-speaking believers (Hellenists) felt that their widows were being treated unfairly in the distribution of daily food. The Twelve apostles decided to appoint seven men to handle the food distribution so that the apostles could continue their responsibilities of preaching and teaching. The seven men were to be trustworthy and full of the Holy Spirit.      A Hellenist is a person who was influenced by the Greek culture and language, especially in the time after the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. In the Bible, the term "Hellenists" is used to refer to Greek-speaking Jews in the early Christian community in Jerusalem, as described in the book of Acts. These Hellenists had their own Synagogue and were separate from the Hebrew-speaking Jews, and had a different perspective and approach to the interpretation of the Law and the Prophets. -----> I foun...

  Acts 5     Ananias and Sapphira     So i gave a precursor to this yesterday, it's an odd and alarming story to start the chapter off with and as far as i know does not seem to have happened ever again, why here? I don't know. but lets dive in and see what we can learn.  (ill post the whole thing here and we can break it apart)  “But a man named Ananias—his wife, Sapphira, conniving in this with him—sold a piece of land, secretly kept part of the price for himself, and then brought the rest to the apostles and made an offering of it. Peter said, “Ananias, how did Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field? Before you sold it, it was all yours, and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to pull a trick like this? You didn’t lie to men but to God.” Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of i...

   Nothing to Hide     Entering into Acts 4 we are continuing on the story from yesterday, if you recall, Peter and John had entered the temple, healed a man by the gate and ended up with a crowd around them giving Peter an opportunity to start preaching about Jesus. Acts 4 starts off with the priests and temple police coming and breaking up this meeting and arresting Peter and John, But here is the cool part, and should give you an idea of how large these crowds could get in the Temple, it says "But may of those who listened had already believed the message -- in round numbers about five thousand." (perhaps many were there when Jesus fed the 5000)     So this was no small meeting, this was several thousand people gathering around to hear what Peter and John had to say, A lot of these people would have been around and saw Jesus with their own eyes and many of them probably saw Peter and John with Jesus. The temple is still having it's tables flipped....