Latest / Read, Do, & Tell / Ep. 33: Life of the Early Church Bible Reading Plan

Transcript

Ep. 33: Life of the Early Church Bible Reading Plan · Read, Do, & Tell

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Read, Do and Tell Podcast.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Becky.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Amy.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you all for joining us again.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're going over our next Bible reading plan, which would be for the month of October.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's through the book of Acts.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I have used one of the resources I have used is John MacArthur's book, One Faithful Life, as we work through the book of Acts and the life of Paul.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: We start today with where we ended last time.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Last time we ended with the ascension of Jesus.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's where Acts 1 begins with the ascension of Jesus.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right before he ascends, he tells them this.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And this verse is going to serve kind of as the outline for the book of Acts.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: He says in Acts 1.8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: After this happens, the apostles, as well as some of the women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus, they are united in prayer, and then they decide to choose Matthews to replace Judas.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then we have in Acts 2, where Peter is giving a sermon, and Acts 2 starts with saying that the day had come for Pentecost.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Pentecost in the Hebrew Bible is said, if I say this properly, Hagha Shavat.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: It means the feast of weeks.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Shabbat is one of the three pilgrimage festivals of the Mosaic Law.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the reason I talk about this is because I think it's really cool that in rabbinic tradition it marked the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: But in Acts, it marks the birth of the church.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus had said that he came to fulfill the law.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this same day is taking us from the law into the church, the spreading of the gospel.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So then Peter finishes his sermon, urging the people to repent.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the first converts post-Christ are approximately 3,000.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: In Acts 3 through 5, we see Peter and John going to the temple, and there is a lame man who's been lame from birth, and he is there begging for money.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they tell him, Look at us, and he's expecting money.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they say, We don't have gold, we don't have silver.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: But get up and walk in the name of Jesus of Lazarus.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the not Lazarus, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that's more that's more corrector.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: The people are amazed, and Peter begins to preach, just like he did at Pentecost.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he preaches really about the resurrection of Jesus.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And 5,000 people believe in the message that day.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now the priests and the Sadducees are upset and they call Peter and John in and they basically say, Stop preaching in the name of Jesus.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's really cool because Peter says he is filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is really a fulfillment of what Jesus had said of Matthew 10, 19 through 20, that when they're pulled before the leaders and they're they're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and He will, and the Holy Spirit will give them the words to say.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we see that here.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: They are released from this trial, I guess is what you want to call it, and they go back to the other believers.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really amazing to me as they pray.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is what they pray for.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think if it were me, I would have prayed that things would change, that the leaders would maybe be saved, or that they would stop persecuting them.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what they pray in Acts 4 29.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: And now, Lord, consider their threats and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty amazing.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: In Acts 6 through 7, it starts with showing us that there are ministries in the church.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we see that one of the ministries is teaching of the word, another is prayer, and another was actually serving food to the brothers and sisters in Christ.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But in that ministry, it said that the widows were being overlooked.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So they were going, We need to bring on more people so that we don't neglect the teaching of the word and prayer.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So they find seven leaders.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of the seven leaders that they bring in, Stephen is one of them.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter 7 of Acts is like one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so Stephen performs great wonders and signs.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit speaks through Stephen in such a way that all of those who want to argue with him about the wisdom and knowledge that he possesses about God, they can't win any of those arguments.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: So they begin to spread lies, and he is seized, and he is brought before the synagogue, the leaders of the synagogue, and he is asked, Are all of these things true that they say about you?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, what they were doing were presenting false accusations against Stephen.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Stephen doesn't say, like he doesn't go into this explanation of why what they're saying is wrong.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: He just begins to lay out for them the history, God's story.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he's he talks about all the ways that God has made himself known to them, how God has proven himself to be faithful.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about how the people have been unfaithful time and time again.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about how they killed the prophets, and then ultimately they killed a one, the Messiah, that was prophesied about.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so then Stephen is stoned.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: In Acts 8, we see Philip is one of those who is scattered.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: He goes to Samaria to preach.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: Peter and John join him there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: We also read about Simon the sorcerer.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then we read a story of the angel of the Lord coming to Philip and telling him to go to Gaza, go to a desert road.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: There we see that the Ethiopian eunuch, he is in his chariot riding along.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Philip comes up beside him, and the Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah 53.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: And Philip basically says, Do you understand what you're reading?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the eunuch's like, I don't.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody's explaining this to me.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Who is Isaiah 53 talking about?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: So Philip joins him in the chariot and he begins to say, This is talking about Jesus.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: He begins with that scripture and explains who Jesus was.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: The eunuch believes he asked to be baptized.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: They come to water in the desert, which is pretty awesome.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: The eunuch is baptized, and then the Spirit of the Lord, it says, carries Philip away to a different place.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me think of what heaven will be like.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Philip just goes to another place.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus just suddenly appears in a room, like, what would that be like in heaven?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I want to go visit so-and-so, and then you're there.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, anyway, yes, I think it'll be so cool.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So then we have in Acts 9, we have Saul's conversion.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: So Saul actually later on in Acts gives a testimony and he goes through in much further detail how he was involved in the stoning of Stephen.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: But after the stoning of Stephen, he actually goes on a mission to capture all the followers of Christ, put them in change chains, and punish them.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So he's on the road to Damascus and he has an encounter with Jesus.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: In that encounter, he loses his sight.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: God sends someone to him to tell him what his mission is going to be, which is going to be to proclaim the news of Jesus as the Messiah, the savior of the world.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, he regains his sight and he begins in Jerusalem to do exactly what he was told he was going to be commissioned to do.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: In Acts chapter 10, we see Cornelius.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this man is a Gentile, he is a devout man of God.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: An angel visits him and tells him to send his guys, his people, um for Simon, Peter.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And at the same time, Peter gets three visions.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're the same visions from the Lord.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in these visions, God is saying to him, What I have made, what I have said is clean, don't call it unclean.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so the men come to Peter, explain, you need to come see Cornelius.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's a Gentile.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: Peter goes to him.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Peter realizes, oh, I've been calling these Gentiles unclean, but but Cornelius hears, Gentiles hear, they believe, and they receive the Holy Spirit.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so we read in Acts chapter 10, 45, it says this.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: In Acts 13 through 28, we go through Paul's journey.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: He is on mission to share the gospel with people in the nations outside of Jerusalem.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes to Galatia, he goes to Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossi, Rome, Macedonia.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he stays very busy.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he does.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Planting churches and all kinds of things.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things we're including in the podcast plus membership specific to today's episode is a timeline of Paul's life and writings.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we read the book of Acts, we don't realize that, you know, during this part of the book of Acts, he was writing to the Galatians.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: When he was in this part of Acts, he was writing a certain book.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so this timeline is going to give you that the order of how things happen.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now there are some disagreements and some things that Bible scholars, historical Bible historians would disagree on, but we know Paul wrote them.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: So the disagreements are very minor.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that it talks about on the timeline, and we see in the book of Acts, we're going to back up just a little bit to after Paul's first missionary journey, he travels to Jerusalem, and we have what's called the Jerusalem Council.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: The reason this happened was we had what were called Judaizers.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: They were basically saying, unless you are circumcised and unless you follow the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So these Jews are basically telling other Jews, but is but specifically telling the Gentiles, you must be circumcised in order to be saved.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Peter stands at this council.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: We have his words.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: He basically says there's no distinction between Jews and Gentiles as to how we can be saved.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: All can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Paul and Barnabas share their experience that they've had with the Gentiles.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: James, who is the leader in Jerusalem, he decides basically this is what's going to be, and he sends a letter.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to read that part part of the letter.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's very and it encouraged the letter encouraged the churches that it was sent to.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: And in Acts 15, 28 through 29, this is what was decided.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: For it was the Holy Spirit's decision and ours not to place further burdens on you beyond these requirements, that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: You will do well if you can keep yourselves from these things.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Farewell.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Acts twenty-eight ends with Paul in chains in Rome on house arrest.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he has Jewish brothers who come to visit him.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them leave believers after he shares the gospel, and some of them leave as unbelievers.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: But to those who leave as unbelievers, he says to them, he actually quotes Isaiah 6, 9 and 10.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Isaiah is told, Go to this people and say, You will keep on hearing, but will not understand, you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: For the heart of this people has become dull or callous, and with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have shut their eyes to the truth.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise they might see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and return, and I would heal them.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is the message of salvation that Paul is giving to them when he's visited.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And later on, towards the end of chapter 28, he also confirms what Psalm 672 says about how the message of salvation goes out to all the earth, and he says the Gentiles will listen.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then verse 31 ends telling us that Paul preached and proclaimed the kingdom of God, and he taught about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness and boldness, unhindered and unrestrained.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: We hope that going through this storyline of the Bible helps you understand the meta-narrative of the Bible, especially the New Testament.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: We also hope it will encourage you to be in his word, to read God's word, to know God's word.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: We want to be described as Ezra in Ezra chapter 7.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: We want to read, do, and tell the word of the Lord.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.