Bible Survey - Acts 1-15

Well, this morning we're going to take a look at the Book of Acts. How many of you have ever been in a Book of Acts class, like a whole class on the Book of Acts? Several of you have raised your hand, and you've studied it. Well, the Book of Acts is a historical book.

It's a narrative that goes through a sequence of events of really key characters at the beginning of the Church, and as such, skipping over and around through it is kind It's kind of a silly highlight, but we're going to give a shot at going over the first half of the book, chapters 1-15, and we'll take glimpses at little parts and pieces of it. And then I want to circle back and actually take a look at chapter 2, verses 42-47. They're kind of a key crux in the history of the Church, and so there's some interesting observations that are there.

So does everybody have a handout? Everybody's who would like one. Everybody's set up there. Quick observations on Acts. It appears to be written by Dr. Luke. As you can see at the beginning of the book, he says, The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Well, that's in the Gospel of Luke. He says, Dear Theophilus, here's the history of Jesus. So there's no real argument that it isn't Luke that is the author of Acts. And the book appears to have been written somewhere between 64 and 67 A.D. There's arguments plus or minus a year on various things, but probably before 70 A.D. when the temple would have been destroyed.

I do want to point out one important thing because this does trip some believers up. Acts is a historically descriptive book and not a prescriptive book. When we look at Acts and we say it's a historical descriptive book rather than a prescriptive book, does anybody know what the difference between those two is?

Hopefully everybody does, but I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. Essentially when you have a descriptive, just like you say, it's describing a series of events, what happened, what followed, etc. Luke is very good at this type of reasoned, sequential work. But prescriptive is just like a doctor's prescription. He wants you to take something to solve some problem or he wants you to have a behavior based on his prescription.

So Acts isn't telling us we should get circumcised and we should do this and we should do that. It's just saying how the early church dealt with the problems, but not telling us that we should be doing things Yeah. There's arguments sometimes between different denominations and different groups about what the gospel is and how you should do baptism, because there's a recording in Acts that the baptism went one way, and then there's a concept of baptism elsewhere, and so people argue, well, no, no, you have to do the Acts baptism, or you've got to do the baptism... You don't do it like the Ethiopian eunuchs that are not doing it right.

Yeah, and they'll go so far as to question people's salvation and things like that. So it's descriptive of what happened and while there may be some theological things that we can derive from it, that's not the primary focus of the book and we should be cautious anytime somebody goes to axe to start proving a bunch of doctrinal things. It's not that there's not good doctrine in there, it's just that there's really good writings, like from Paul and Peter and John. It talks about the first blending together of Jews and Gentiles.

Yeah. This is a whole new concept. Yeah, depending on where you... The idea of what do the Gentiles have to do to be acceptable. Yeah. Depending on where you went into... Fellow believers. Yeah. Depending on where you go into Acts, you could have very different historically significant things happening. So it matters a lot. So let's dive in.

We'll take a look at the outline here and just kind of hit the high points of the sequence of events. The book starts out with verse one. I don't have it in the outline here because it's Luke saying, hey, this is for you, Theophilus, and here's what I'm writing about. But then he immediately jumps into the fact that Christ was taken up into heaven and then returned and for 40 days appeared off and on to the different disciples up until leading up right to the the next couple verses that come up where the disciples came to him and or he gathered the disciples to him and he said stay here in Jerusalem and wait. And if there's anything that human beings love to do, it's wait. So that must have been really awesome. They were like, wait! No instant gratification. You gotta wait. And so Christ told the disciples to wait. And in verse 6, so when they had come together they were asking him, saying, Lord is it that or is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? Why did the Jews want the kingdom? Why were they expecting the kingdom?

Did God promise some random people in the Old Testament some things? Abraham was given a promise. It was reiterated throughout the Old Testament. Moses had an understanding of a promise. David had an understanding of a promise. So they were waiting. They were saying, hey, you're the Messiah. You've resurrected. You're here on the earth. Is the kingdom coming? They were looking at the physical aspect also, because that would mean that the Romans would be kicked out and they'd have the land. Right. Well, yeah, very significant political change. To them, we've got the land. Yeah, but in verse 7 Christ says something I think is really significant because it stretches our understanding of how God operates, I think, or at least it stretches my understanding, I'll say it that way.

He said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.

And after he had said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? I love that. God sends angels, and they kind of poke and prod at him. Why are you looking at the sky?

This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven. So, when we wait for the Lord's return, He's going to come back in just the same way, at the same place, only it'll be a little bit more intense and exciting because He's going to come in victory. So that's a pretty significant difference there. So, after Jesus ascends up into the heavenlies, they do something that I personally think is kind of fun, or funny, maybe a little bit of both, they draw lots to see who's going to replace Judas' spot to be the twelfth disciple.

And as it turns out, Matthias is the one that draws the lot. Yeah? Why was it important that they replace the disciples? Was it because of the Trump tribes of Israel? Well, and that's the thing. They thought Jesus had the twelve. One of us screwed it up and we need to fix that. Yeah, and it's one of those things where even myself, I have kind of thought the significance of Matthias becoming the 12th disciple is almost none, because then he's not mentioned anywhere else afterwards. And it's like, OK, we got 12. Cool. Now what? Well, forget him. So that's why it's sort of funny. The other thing is that they draw lots.

If there ever was one of those things where you think, OK, God is going to send us an important message about who needs to be the next disciple, and this seems like a pretty big important position, they draw lots. It's like playing cards. You just don't expect that to be a method. The number 12 is significant throughout the Bible. It's a repeated pattern, but I'm hesitant to draw a parallel with the 12 tribes, because there's actually 13 with the split sons. So even that is kind of unique. So 11 or 13 seems to be the way that ends up playing out.

To me it's kind of similar to when Jesus was baptized and it said that it wasn't necessary that you do that, but it was to fulfill the scriptures. And I think having a disciple is to fulfill, like you said, what Jesus originally set out. Well, and in verse 25 there, just because going to scripture is always better than me guessing on something or just having a projection. or 24, and they prayed and said, You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two you have chosen to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And then they drew lots. Yeah. I have a friend who thinks that's really the way that we should choose most all of our officials. You know what's funny is that's that prescriptive descriptive thing.

Later on when we come to Paul and Barnabas being sent out, it's actually a different mechanism that the Lord uses and the Spirit does the appointing. But at this point in time, this is a sequence of events question, had the Spirit come on the disciples yet? And the answer is no. So, because the Spirit hasn't come on the disciples, they go, okay, Lord, use this mechanism, this simple, simple mechanism, and choose one. So, they get Matthias, and he's picked, and then they go the narrative moves on to the day of Pentecost and they were all there together in one place and there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting and then the Assemblies of God denomination was born no no and there appeared on them tongues of fire distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance And so they began preaching about Jesus in languages that they didn't know.

Now, why would that be significant in Jerusalem? There's at least two really important reasons, but there may be even more than that. Why languages that they didn't know in Jerusalem? Why would that not happen, let's say, in Nazareth? Jesus was from Nazareth.

So it was a trading hub. It was really critical as a trading hub that people would be able to hear the gospel in their language. It would be very remarkable and it would stand out. It would be a sign to the Jews, God's doing something here. If it had been one language, that would have been okay. Two languages, okay. But we have at least 12 languages suddenly being spoken. But all the people would have had probably a common understanding of the Hebrew at the time. I'm not sure. It doesn't say. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't say specifically. But yeah, the order of disorder is slightly uncertain there, although God seems to be orderly. So we could estimate and guess that maybe there was a sequence of things.

But they hear that. The second reason that it's significant that they're in Jerusalem is, well, first of all, it's important that they're, and I actually already said the second reason, the first one is that they're in Jerusalem, which is a training center, and the second reason, it was languages that were multiple and they were known that would reach people from all around the world as they knew it. Suddenly hearing the gospel in their tongue, that would get your attention and you could ask a lot more questions.

Yeah. Absolutely. Right. The Lord was using their tongues and using their mouths and their bodies and they were instruments to communicate who Jesus was and yeah it was fully miraculous but they knew that a helper was coming. and they knew the Helper was going to come to help them minister, there would be no question in their minds at this point in time that this, the Holy Spirit, was the Helper, and this was going to be a very significant help. It wasn't going to be just a mild help. It's not going to be slightly useful to have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. It's going to radically change the way that you think about ministry. That's a big deal. Al?

Well, if they were told to wait until they received power on high, they would expect that power on high to do something beyond their own capability. I think what an encouragement it would be if you were called to go start a church in a rural area in Nebraska. You go there, you would ask God to give you some kind of a witness, some kind of a person. Something to authenticate you, right? sort of kickstart you and give you the encouragement that you need because even though you have the promise of the power, we human beings are pretty susceptible to doubt.

Yeah, yeah, definitely doubt is a problem. You really say? Yeah, yeah. So after all these people, and there's a list in 9, 10, and 11 of different countries where they heard the languages. Yeah, Morgan. Sure. Well, it was those that were gathered there. Okay, so it would have been at least the disciples and it was possible that there might have been more people involved.

Exactly that's the we don't know there's it's not a I don't see a specific number in here. So we we could we could guess So but yeah there it caused a crowd and they come and Peter gets up and he preaches and he he begins to explain to them Old Testament prophecy and say God is fulfilling this prophecy here and then he begins to talk about who Christ is and he presents the gospel and and if there wasn't billy graham wasn't even there and three thousand people got saved that day can you believe that and and that's not meant to be disrespectful billy graham i'm just a three thousand people is a big number that would certainly again signify to the jews that are there maybe god's doing something now christ had done miracles already over and over right the life of christ he came in he did miracles and and what did the jews do that were seeking God. They followed Jesus. That's why he had 5,000 people he could feed at one time, and that was just counting the men.

So that's pretty significant. This is Jesus. He's doing miraculous, powerful things. He's turned the water into wine at the wedding, and they were like, what? That's crazy. He divides the fish and the loaves. He raises people from the dead. That would get your attention.

But the Pharisees had again and again closed their eyes and looked away and said, we reject who Christ is. The tongues come, the Gospels preached, and now 3,000 people respond just in Jerusalem. And the first church is born. We are descendants, by faith, of Abraham and the people that were in this church, and that's really cool.

If God is going to inaugurate something that's radically different, how did he inaugurate the law? What did he do to inaugurate the law and the separation of Israel unto himself? Yeah, with the law, he did giant, scary thunderstorms for 40 days, and if an animal touches the mound, it dies.

I think he had their attention. And you get here, and it's not thunderstorms, but it's the spirit coming down like tongues of fire, and people speaking languages that they didn't know minutes before. And Peter speaks in boldness, truth, and ties things together that they had maybe never expected.

That would get your attention. or at least you'd hope, that's the purpose of it. And so this inaugurates and sets forth the church. 3,000 believe that day. Yeah, well, what's the gospel? No, he mostly goes back to Old Testament prophecy and says, this is happening. Here's another Old Testament prophecy. This is happening. This is who Jesus was. And this is what you have to believe to be saved.

And they're like, okay, That is somewhat remarkable to us, but if we've got that much miraculous signs and wonders going on, you'd have some attention. Stan? How many people did Jesus appear to during His time? Did He appear to 5,000 people? I think it says hundreds here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. About 500, yeah. So even if all of those people were still there, which we don't know, then there's still 2,500 added to that number. Let me say one more thing here.

The gospel is simple, and they believe the gospel, the simplicity of the gospel, of Christ dying as fulfilled by Scripture. They had zero of the New Testament. They didn't have the gospels. There were no gospel books that they could go look at. They didn't have Acts. They had no other books from the Bible at that point in time. They only had the Old Testament. So their belief was in a very real, historically recent person, and the testimony of his disciples. And that's it.

Where was the 3,000? You said 3,000 are saved? Yeah. And that they... Yeah, and it says that Chapter 2, verse 41, so then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. Okay, Al, yeah. Yeah, the point that Pat made, that it was a simple gospel message, it didn't give a lot of theology, it didn't go through identification, truth, secret. It's a whole bit like here, you get explained so much material, but think of Paul. You wrote to the Corinthians. I didn't come to you with clever words and sober oratory, but I came to you with the simple message of Jesus Christ crucified, buried, and raised again.

And the key part to the gospel story that got people's attention was the resurrection. The power of God putting the seal of approval of the stamp of authority and truth. And the same thing happened in Athens. Paul preached his sermon there on Mars Hill. And when he got to the point about the resurrection of Christ, Some believed, and others said, let's talk about that more tomorrow.

We'll intellectualize that away. So the church gets started, and then in 42-47, the Holy Spirit immediately begins to work uniquely in the lives of the saints that believed, that would have been culturally unique. would spend time with one another. That was what God had told them to do in the law. Go walk together and always have the law on your tongue and be talking to one another about it. And so they would get together in those things, but it would become very formal and it would become very sterile and recited. And then the Holy Spirit comes and the body starts doing all kinds of crazy things from a Jewish mindset. that really makes them stand out.

And more people keep responding to the gospel after that, because it's like, wait, look at all these people. They all love one another. And loving one another would be pretty sad, well, sadly, would be pretty remarkable at that point in time. They love one another. They're spending time with one another. Check that out. They're giving to one another when they have need.

That's what, I mean, What is the one commandment, if you had to sum up the law? They asked Jesus, and what does He say? Love your neighbor as yourself. The Spirit is enabling to do that, but they're not doing it because of the law, they're doing it because of the Spirit.

They're doing it because of the new life of Christ. And it's pretty distracting to the Pharisees, and distracting to the Sadducees, but we'll get to that. So chapter 3, Peter and John are going to the temple, and where did the Christians of the time meet? The church is brand new. Where are they meeting? Well, they were meeting in one another's houses and breaking bread, but they met at the temple.

The temple was a really big open area, and the teachers, the apostles, would go and teach inside the temple. I think the best way I can think to describe that today is that if each one of these support beam corners had an elder at it, and people would just come, and they'd come, and, oh, Mike's teaching over here. And Mike would teach, and he's by the pillar, only it's a giant courtyard with a lot more pillars and a lot more rabbis and teachers teaching, and they're competing for followers.

So it's not insignificant there. But Peter and John go, and they see a man who's lame, and the Spirit moves in Peter, and they heal the lame man. And that gathers a crowd, as you would expect. He just comes in and boldly does this thing, and that definitely draws a crowd and gets attention.

Yeah. Yeah. Which would have been what, six o'clock? Ish. Yeah. About about that. Yeah. So it would have been six in the evening. Everybody comes to. Oh, yeah. Should be the afternoon. Yeah. Nine would be three. Yeah. So, yeah. But. So. So. So Peter begins to. to preach, again, another sermon different from the one that he had.

Now, there's been some time, apparently, between the Pentecost and this event here, and the Holy Spirit is constantly teaching them, at this point in time, revealing new truths to these saints and the apostles, and So by now, you can see the message has some clarity and some clarification. So you have to go back and read it because we don't have enough time.

Yeah, they were there at the temple. If you wanted to really irritate the leaders of Israel, do something rogue at the temple. And they did. And so they got their attention. So it's like these whippersnappers come in, they're not that young, quite frankly, but they come in with their new message, and they heal a guy, and they're getting followers, and this is definitely disruptive, so Chapter 4, Peter and John get arrested.

And I think it's funny here in the United States how really, ideally, we like the idea of a very Puritan, pure group of people leading, and the disciples were nothing like that. The disciples were fishermen. They were tax collectors. They were the despised and the hated.

And we get to this point in time, and now they're getting arrested. That's the kind of leadership you want for your meeting, right? You want to have leaders who have gone to prison. So the Lord allows them to be arrested. Then the elders bring them, and Peter, I love Peter. I identify with him too much. He's quick with his mouth. And he says, Oh, did you want to come get upset at me for healing somebody? Are you upset? Am I on trial because I healed somebody? And they were not happy about that.

But they said, You guys have got to shut up. Stop talking about this Jesus guy. We can't handle it. And so the the disciples go out and they keep preaching Jesus. There's no stopping them. It's not going to happen. As the chapter moves forward, we're still with almost an entirely Jewish situation here. The gospel has not really gone out to the Gentiles yet. Chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira.

This was really, really, really scary to me as a kid. It's still slightly disconcerting as an adult. But they sell their property and they lie to the Holy Spirit. It's not just that they lied to the apostles, it's that they lied to the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit takes them out.

And the funny thing is that they didn't have to lie. The problem was the lying. It wasn't that they didn't want to give all of the money that they received from selling the property. They could have taken 50% or only given 10% or 1% That was at their discretion. But they lied about it and said, yeah, this is all we got.

And the Holy Spirit sets an example. He says, let's not do that ever again, because I am inside of you. There's no other name under heaven that one can be saved. Ah, yes. In 4.12. I mean, I'd just like you to perform a statement today. People struggle with that. Yeah, and in 4.12, stepping back, Pat, that's good. ...lead to some weird philosophy, but that's not what this says.

Yeah, there's only one way to be saved, and it is through faith in Christ. John 14 says, I am the way, the truth, the love, no man comes from the Father. That theme is repeated over and over throughout the New Testament, that your salvation is always by faith in Christ. But definitely no other name. And the funny thing is that that also is where some denominations get their division, where they're like, well, you better make sure that you believe in Jesus or some more Hebraic pronunciation, and not just Jesus, which is the Latin converted to English and transliterated. You can't believe in Jesus, because there's only one name, and you better make sure you believe in the right name. That's not the point. It's the person and being of Christ. Yeah? You make the point that we're still in a mainly Jewish mindset. Yeah, at this point in time.

The incident with Ananias and Sapphira would strike the Jewish believers who knew the Old Testament, of thinking how God dealt with strange fire, the rebellion against Moses, and so on. There were a number of instances of immediate, severe judgment at his death. And that would remind them that they're not dealing with a different guy. Just dealing with a different aspect of God.

He's still holy. He's still just. He still demands righteousness. He's thinking about your theology. of who God is and how he operates. And to realize that just because we're now having grace up here on the scene and we have Jesus Christ as a supreme example and as our Savior, but remember it's still God. And they had a direct relationship with God. There was no intermediary priest.

And that's the fundamental issue with Ananias and Sapphira is that they would lie to the Holy Spirit and they would lie to God thinking that they would somehow be able to pull something off. I know that I have thought many times about after I sin and realize that I've been walking in sin in some capacity. Did I really think I was going to fool God? Did I think that, oh, no one else is around me, so I'll get away with whatever this sinful thing is? Oh, yeah, the Holy Spirit is indwelling you and is there presently, and He knows. He's not like, Oh, I had no idea Randy did that. He's like, I was right here. I'm sorry that you thought this was a good idea. David writing in his psalm, where shall I go? Yeah. Yeah. Where do I go? Or use the concealment of night? You're there. Yeah. So we're never going to get through this right. And that's fine.

We'll just keep going next week whenever where we pick up but the The disciples, again, there's another arrest because, hey, why not? And so, the latter half of chapter 5, Gamaliel's counsel, and I'm going to summarize this. Gamaliel says, these guys are doing miraculous things, so it's hard to argue that this isn't from God.

But if this isn't from God, it's going to fade away. It will go away. It won't last. But if it is from God, we can't stop it. So let's not be really ridiculous with what we do with this, because this is going to be out of our control, and we're going to obviously be squashed by God if we try to stop this.

So here's this priest from the Pharisees, and he says, hey guys, let's not be idiots. interesting that the Lord would move in the mind of someone who had up to that point in time rejected the gospel. Was he a false teacher? If I recall correctly, yes, but it's not recorded here and I'm not remembering directly. But that was definitely wise advice.

Chapter 6 starts with the apostles and the disciples just realizing that they're overwhelmed by the number of demands that the body needs, and so they ask for seven, and I'd hold up two more fingers, but they're under my Bible, seven deacons, basically, to start serving the body and take care of the widows and the people that are in need, so that the disciples can focus on expositing the Old Testament and teaching the new things that the Lord was revealing to them, and training and educating the body. That's their primary focus.

In our day, they were to seek out men of faith and full of spirit. So even though it's a physical job, a menial task as you were, to do it the right way with the right attitude still required the same kind of faith and spiritual Empowerment. As other jobs did. And some people who think, oh the pastors, the spiritual leaders, well, yes, but we're all to do our part in the body with that same spirit. The spirit should be directing our steps no matter who we are, whether we're serving in that capacity or another one. Yeah, for sure.

Chapter 7 and then chapter 7 is long there, we get Stephen and he is trapped or brought in as a malicious, terrible Christian by the conservative Sadducees and Pharisees. Well, not the Sadducees, the Pharisees. And they try to persecute him And he stands and he begins, by the Spirit, to preach the Old Testament and condemning those who are rejecting the Gospel. This is such a straightforward affront against what the Jews believed, but by using Scripture in ways that they couldn't argue, that they were moved to just utterly irate state, and they begin stoning Stephen. So he's the first recorded martyr here. And the last thing that he says, aside from 58 where Saul, who will later be Paul, is collecting the coats to hold the coats for those who are stoning Stephen. The last thing that Stephen says is in 59 and 60.

Or they went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Having said this, he fell asleep. So he died right there. That right there is really a tremendous showing of Stephen understanding that these people didn't understand and still wanting them to come hear the gospel.

The last thing he says to the person who's killing him is, I don't hold this against you. God, you don't hold this against them either. That'd be pretty remarkable, at least to me, if I was involved with doing something like that. And the guy I'm killing is going, hey, I understand that you don't understand. I'm not angry at you. God have mercy on him. This is pretty remarkable. Yeah? This is a good example of what power of the Holy Spirit an individual has. Sure. He changes our perspective. As fast as everything else. Stephen had an eternal perspective, even as young as the churches at the time. Stephen has an eternal perspective and he goes, these people need Jesus.

Don't hold it against them. Let them come to know you. Don't harden their hearts. So this is a pretty remarkable situation. In the very beginning of chapter 8, it mentions Saul again. He was in hearty agreement. We really need to kill these Christians. They're despicable and they're ruining our pure Jewish faith. Paul, in verse 3, is ravaging the church and entering house after house and dragging off men and women and having them put in prison. Paul is really not wanting to be associated with the murders, like he's just holding the coats, but he's super aggressive. Super, super aggressive.

Chapter 8 focuses in on the disciple Philip. Philip does a few things in chapter 8, one of which is preaching the gospel and people responding and other parts as the persecution raises the disciples get spread out and Phillips one of them and he's spreading the gospel and people respond there's Simon the magician who sees the spirit move and decides that would be awesome to get in the bottle how can I get it and he is rebuked for that and then in chapter or verse 25 we see the Ethiopian the Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah and the Lord tells Philip go out here and so Philip is there and then the eunuch shows up in a chariot and Philip's like hey what you reading there And the eunuch says, well, this is really confusing. And Philip's like, how about I explain that to you? And so Philip explains things and presents the gospel. The eunuch immediately says, I need this relationship with Jesus. This is true. And is saved, is baptized. And as soon as the eunuch comes up out of the water, the Lord takes Philip by the spirit, just literally gone.

He's out of the water and he's out off doing some other ministry thing. And I think that's one of, as a little kid, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I was like, that is like magic. It's like David Copperfield, only cooler because it's long distance, right?

But the eunuch is saved. Now, where's the eunuch going? Probably back to Ethiopia, where he's going to be able to share the gospel. And if he's a eunuch, that probably means he's in a position of power and authority, even if he is a servant. he's a servant somewhere high up where he gets to go preach the gospel.

So when you look at the Gospels, we see that John the Baptist, the first Baptist, goes out and he's baptizing people. And the baptism was an outward sign of an inward change. even though it wasn't a response to the gospel, it was Israel repenting, realizing that they were being either legalistic or carnal in their behaviors, and they weren't following the law for the right reasons.

There are places where there is a repentance that comes with a washing that's part of the law. And so it's not the same principle culturally. Well, let me rephrase that. It's not the same cultural event, but it's a similar principle where there's a repentance or a change of mind. And purification was part of the law system.

Yeah, but the baptism is this submersion underwater as a reflection of dying to your old thoughts and coming out with the new understanding. Yeah, and that's not in the scriptures per se, but it's one of those things that some churches have latched onto. In Acts, we see that baptism happens really quickly after salvation, again and again and again. Today in the church, I've noticed a general trend for there to be longer periods of time where people would be kind of like, well, no rush on the baptism because it's kind of an afterthought sort of a thing. I think there would be, and this is just supposition, this is not doctrine or exposition here, what I'm about to say, but I would say that when you do something like baptism quickly after someone is saved, it kind of sets in them a mental understanding that they have committed in front of the body this thing. Today, at least in the U.S. church, often it's like, well, if they don't take off and walk away from the faith in a few months, then maybe we might do this thing.

And I'm not saying that it's going to lock somebody into an abiding state with the Lord, but it may be that the pattern is like, well, of course you would do that. Of course we're going to keep one another accountable. Of course we're going to walk together and you're going to be baptized. So it's just a mindset that's kind of different from today's cultural scenario. Al?

The linkage is certainly direct. We don't believe in it as salvific, but it certainly is linked together because even in the Great Commission, teaching them and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You put it well, to set it in your mind that, okay, this is not just going to be an intellectual exercise, this is going to be something that has a deep impact in my life. And it may not make me perfect. being able to carry it out. Sanctification is done.

Yeah. But it emphasizes the commitment and the change of mind and attitude and heart. So, as you say, it was a sedative in place. Yeah. Stan? I was just going to say, I think it's interesting when 3,000 were saved, it says saved, which I assume is probably perfect tense. It didn't say 3,000 were being saved. Yeah, no, no, they're saved.

It's a done deal. You talked about baptism. It's exactly what you said. I mean, this has nothing to do with anything else other than the fact of the outward sign. This process has already taken place. Yeah. It's pretty significant. The salvation is internal. The baptism is an external reflection of that internal change. So we'll keep moving forward here.

In chapter 9 we finally get to Paul, or Saul as he is at this point in time. Saul was still angry. He's on his way to Damascus. He's ready to imprison more people and maybe incite a riot and get a few of them killed. That'll scare him and get him to shut up. Only the Lord shows up and gets his attention. makes him blind, talks to him, sends him off, and says, Why are you persecuting me? And Paul responds, Oh, it's you, Lord. Hey. Wow. Paul's a little overwhelmed and is blind.

And then what I love is that when he gets to Damascus in verse 9-10, Now there was a disciple of Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, Here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. But Ananias answers him, and he said in a vision, A man named Ananias come in and lays hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I've heard from many about this man. You're God, but just make sure we're talking about the right guy. How much harm he did to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call your name. Like this guy is going to be the enforcer of imprisonment. Are you really sure?

And in 15, But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized, and he took food and was strengthened." There's that baptism again. What a tremendous thing that the very man who wanted to make sure that this whole movement died, that it was gone and was eradicated as quick as possible.

God goes, no, we're going to use him. And I like to think that maybe whenever we think of ourselves as being a little lowly, and a little small, and a little less useful than the next guy, or I'm not a pastor, or I'm not an elder, or I'm not a whatever it is, that maybe we should remember that God could even use jerks like Paul. He could probably use a jerk like me. It's pretty significant. That's a pretty big deal. Pat?

The way I understand visions is that they are God taking over full capacity of our mental awareness and understanding and revealing something to us so that as our brain takes in neurally like we're seeing it and we're alert and we're aware. I've seen visions represented artistically in a number of ways, but the best way that I can perceive of it is that the Lord takes control of our neural pathways. It wasn't just like, oh, I had a weird dream. That was funny, but he's engaging and he's talking and he's fully aware of what's going on. Morgan? Based on the chronological sequence that Luke is putting together and how careful he is in orders, I think this is somebody else. The other thing that you find when you take a look at this passage here is we see some other names. For example, you go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man named Saul. Well, Judas hung himself. unless there's a lot of people named Judas. And unless, you know, there's more than one guy named Ananias.

I don't run into a lot of Randys, but there's more than one of us. And as I know, there's actually at least four Randy Petermans in the United States, based on what I found on the internet. So I know that it's possible for there to be duplicates. But there's only one guy that owns randypeterman.com, and the rest of them are sad. I'm just kidding. So, we'll keep moving forward.

So, Paul begins to preach Christ, which is obviously a pretty significant... change, and the Jews are freaking out, and now the rest of the Jews that wanted the Christians to shut up now really want Saul to shut up, because this is really hazardous, because now you've got another guy who was on your team who changed teams, and now you really can't have that. This is like the Mafia. I mean, frankly, that's the way this comes across to me. It's like the Jewish Mafia is like, we're going to get rid of Paul, he's going to go sleep with the fish paste. So, definitely not cool. They're just called zealots. Yeah, zealots. We're pure. That's what it is. So, chapter 10. We're going to jump straight into chapter 10 because we've got a few more chapters to wrap up.

Cornelius is a centurion, or works for Caesar, and he gets a vision, because he's a man who seeks after God, that says, go get Peter. So he sends a servant to get Peter. And in the middle of the story of Cornelius sending for Peter, we find out that we can eat bacon. And that is a very important thing in the New Testament doctrine, that Peter is shown a vision, again, with the concept of vision being that he was praying actively and the Lord took over his sense of what he was seeing.

And God says, eat these animals that were previously unclean. Kill them and eat. And Peter's like, not gonna happen. I know better than this." And God says, yeah, I know the law. And God says, no, don't call anything unholy that I have called holy. Don't call anything unclean that I have called clean.

So we find out for believers who happen to have a Jewish heritage that eating those foods and those meats is no longer an issue. And like I said, bacon, that's a good thing. Then, in the latter half of the chapter, we find out that the Gentiles start getting the Gospel.

Peter comes, he preaches the Gospel, Cornelius' household believes, and they start speaking in tongues. Again, this tongues thing really seems, at least in Acts, to be tied to the presentation of the Gospel and God signing off on what's going on. This is a legitimate move that I'm doing. It's known languages, and the people are seeing that God has signed off. Now, because the bell rang, I know that I'm out of time, so I just want to run over a few more things and we'll be done. Chapter 11, Peter reports back to Jerusalem and reiterates, Wow! I just preached the gospel to the Gentiles, and they received it, and the Spirit came on them just like He did on us in the beginning. Wow! That's pretty significant.

Then in chapter 12, Peter is arrested, and then the angels walk him right out through past the guards. The guards are there, and they don't see him. The angels just take him right out. Herod gets angry and takes God's glory for himself. So God kills him by way of worms. So worms eat him from the inside out. That's not awesome, but it would certainly show that God was done with what Herod was doing.

And then we see Paul going on his first missionary journey. So Paul goes on his first missionary journey with Barnabas, and then in chapter 15, which is the last chapter we were scheduled to go over, we see that Paul returns back to Jerusalem, or I'm sorry, the legalists come from Judea, and they start telling all of the Gentiles that believe, we have this tradition from where we come from where we do circumcision and you gotta do it too and so Paul and Barnabas and they head to Jerusalem and they talk to the other disciples and apostles that are there in Jerusalem and elders and they say not that Gentiles do not have to go be circumcised that's not what this is about this is a new thing that God is doing and they're not under the law so they send back a letter saying hey avoid eating meat that was sacrificed to idols, but don't worry about the circumcision thing. And it's a cliffhanger ending because we have the second half of Acts next week, which I think my dad will be back for. That is a whirlwind tour through Acts 1-15, and we didn't even get to go back and revisit 2.42-47.

But go back, please, this is pretend homework because we don't have homework in this class, but go back and read Acts 2.42-47 and look and see what the Holy Spirit is doing in this first church.

And just put yourself in their shoes and imagine yourself in the situation of, there's all these legalists around us, but we're doing this. What would that be like? So, alright, let's close in prayer. Fortunately, people aren't banging on the door. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just bring these truths back into our remembrance over the coming week. Thank you that you sent your spirit, that he indwells us, and that he enables us to preach your word at your time, and that we can be your vessel whenever you choose to use us. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.