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Re Verse reading Acts 28:17-31(day four)  Today is Thanksgiving Day!  We are reminded to give thanks for the blessings of life.  In today’s reading, we have the greatest reason to give thanks.  We find it in verse 28, “Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles;”  There is no greater blessing…God in His infinite grace and goodness, has extended to us…the Gentiles…His salvation.  As you spend time today thanking God for the blessings in your life, take time to thank Him that He included us in His infinite plan.  Just as Paul was faithful to share the Gospel with both Jews and Gentiles alike in every city he visited, find someone today to tell about Jesus.  Just like for Paul…some of those who hear will accept the gift of grace, some will reject it.  We are called to be faithful to share…and leave the results to the Holy Spirit.

RE Verse reading–Acts 28:17-31 (day three)  God used poverty and weakness for his own entrance into the world, but God doesn’t always work through such lowly means.  When the times are right for world-shifting movements, he often employs significant influencers of thought to herald his work.  Such an influencer was Paul.  Here was an intellectual colossus, holding forth at the world center for commerce, trade, and ideas.  Yes, he was a prisoner, but that doesn’t always mean a person is socially marginalized.  Some of history’s most profound shapers come to mind: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr.—no strangers to incarceration.  Paul changed the world in chains, God helping him.  Will you pray that God would usher more providentially placed highly influential disciples into the public square in our own society?

RE Verse reading–Acts 28:17-31 (day two) “It is spoken against everywhere” (17:22). Whether we realize it or not, we have entered a cultural climate that no longer favors historic Christianity as its dominate worldview. The basic truths upon which our faith rests are not just opposed by our culture. They are foreign to our culture. God exists. Sin deserves death. Jesus is a substitute sacrifice. Restoration is coming. These ideas are “spoken against everywhere” and require the kind of response that Paul gave…“expounding” and “witnessing” and “persuading” from dawn til dusk if need be (17:23). It’s not enough for pastors to be proficient in proclaiming these truths. Every believer must “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Can’t do it? Then find a pastor or teacher or trusted friend and “arrange a day” (17:23) to discuss these truths. Our culture won’t sit around waiting. Will you?

 

RE Verse reading–Acts 28:17-31 (day one)  “Boldly and without hindrance (akoluo) he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ”  (vs 31)  The Bible says a strange thing about the “confident Christian life”.  Philippians 1:28 says, “in no way alarmed by your opponents –which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you.”  What?  Believers who are filled with the Spirit experience an infinite supply of hope and joy.  Without taking any credit, we are not alarmed by our opponents.  Greater is He who is in us. . .  When non-believers see this LIFE, they are often angry or convicted that they are strangers to such hope.  LIFE, in this way, is a critique of world system and its failure to produce true righteousness.  This week our study is Acts 28.   The final word in the final chapter of this great book is akoluo, “unhindered, unrestrained, unconquered.”  Paul knew this LIFE.  It was (is) a gift from God and a sign of destruction for those who do not believe.

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34  (day seven)  “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening”  (16:25)  Worship today at FBC (I will see you in a few hours) will be this same story, told three different ways.  In preparation for the Lord’s Supper (eucharist translates two greek words which mean “good gift”), we will think about the last night of Christ’s life.  Before going out to face his own unjust arrest and brutal death, He paused with his disciples to sing a hymn. Amazing!  It is the same attitude that Paul and Silas had.  Not prison nor ill treatment was enough to silence their song or make their hearts ungrateful.  It will be the same on Thursday (Thanksgiving).  Our pilgrims founders did not focus on their losses or suffering.  They marked the goodness of God and gathered for the purpose of giving Him thanks.  May the Lord teach us all this lesson of life!

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34 (day six)  “At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized”  (16:33)  Salvation plants love in the human heart.  “We love because He first loved us.”  “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”  Acts 16 tells this truth in a tender story.  As the jailer listened to the good news of God’s love,  he suddenly became aware of Paul and Silas’ needs.  They were wounded.  The risk of infection was high.  At great personal risk, He took them out of prison to his home so that he could care for them, he could LOVE them.  And they returned the favor.  Having washed their wounds (skin) he became the recepient of baptism, a symbol of washing for wounds (soul)  How eloquent the gospel is when we love!  Friends, do we wash wounds?  Do we heal or do we criticize?

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34 (day four) I was drawn to the words in Acts 17, “According to Paul’s custom” (verse 2).  In the midst of all the tension, excitement, and opportunities, Paul was still focused enough to keep regular rhythms and priorities.   Luke writes that Paul’s friends and ministry partners knew where He would be on the Sabbath.  He would carve out time to be in the synagogue preaching/teaching/reasoning.  That ministry mattered to Paul and he must have sensed a real burden to remain faithful to that activity.  How about us?  What are the “non-negotiables” of our time and faith?  Meeting regularly with other believers?  Spending time in the Scripture each day?  Sharing our faith?  Having a home that places faith as the top priority?  Praying with and for our children and grandchildren?  Do the predictable patterns of our lives point to the power and promise of the Gospel?  Do our regular activities signal a growing relationship with The Living God?  According to (insert your name here)’s custom …

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34 (day four)  What was the response that Paul received in Thessalonica?  Chap. 17:4 tells us that some believed, but others were jealous and set the city in an uproar.  Paul and Silas moved on to Berea where they were more noble-minded and they received the word with eagerness (17:11).  It was not until the Jews from Thessalonica came to Berea and stirred up the crowds, that Paul and Silas had to leave the city.  Followers from each city…some believed, some rejected!  It is like that anytime the gospel is shared.  What were the long term results of these witnesses?  Timothy was later sent back to Thessalonica and gave testimony to a strong church thriving in the city.  More resistance, more persecution…but a strong church!  That is often the case…more persecution leads to strength of faith.  We don’t hear much about Berea after this experience, but Thessalonica is known to us all.

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34 (day three) The Sunday School answer was always “Jesus” no matter what the question was.  At least that’s how the joke goes.  But in Acts, the answer to the questions that welled up in people’s hearts as they negotiated their existence with what seemed to be a harsh or legalistic universe really was “Jesus.”  The difference between a Sunday School answer and a real-time answer, though, is revelation.  A Sunday School answer doesn’t really reveal anything.  It’s a canned, planned, and sanitized response to a question.  The people we meet in Acts—the jailer who’d seen it all, the synagogue faithful who’d seen nothing outside their religious tradition, the philosophers trying to see the invisible—these people’s questions hammered away at their minds: Will God rescue me?  Will God hear me?  Will God know me?  And the answer each time is the revelation of a person:  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

RE Verse reading–Acts 16:25-34, Acts 17:1-34 (day two) “What is our only hope in life and death? That we are not our own but belong to God.” So goes question one of the newcitycatechism.com (adapted from the Heidelberg catechism, 1563). Where do you rest when life suddenly becomes unfair, uncertain, unbearable? Where do you stand when the emotional and spiritual earthquake of losing a job, a friend, a life upends your expectations? Paul and Silas found not only solace but strength as they rested their hope in what was to come. After being unjustly accosted, accused, beaten and bound, they sang and praised God. Perhaps this was the moment when Paul realized what he would later write, “whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:8). If I belong to the Lord, then this world is not my home. My hope is in the “not yet.” Have you received the gift that the sting of pain, of loss brings as it reminds you that this is not your home? Have you found hope? I have.