Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Rejoicing about what?

Increasing Power and Influence (Acts 5:1-16)

    Ananias and Sapphira had decided that they would sell land and give it to the church fund like many others had done. I am not sure if they got a lot more for it than they thought they would or if they planned it from the beginning, but they decided to keep some of the money, but say they gave it all. They wanted the glory of being sacrificial and generous givers without it hitting their bank account so heavy. There was no sin in just keeping the land, or even selling it and only giving part of the money (4). The real problem was when they decided to lie about how much it sold for. It cost both of them their lives.
    However this and other events continued to add to the power and influence of the church. Great fear or reverence came upon the church members because of this event (11). Nothing like a couple of the church members dying for doing the wrong thing to get everybody else's attention. The same thing is happening today although not in quit so dramatic fashion. More than anything most church members are withering away spiritually and their church right along with them. God help us not to contribute to this problem. Even those who were not willing to convert esteemed them highly (13). But many new converts were being made (14). Their influence was also starting to spread geographically in that people of other cities were coming to them (16).

More Jail Time (Acts 5:17-42)

    The more the power of the church spread the more nervous the religious leaders got. The apostles are arrested again, but they are released by angels that told them to go right back to preaching. They obey and are brought back in the next day, but carefully and without force, because the work God is doing through them is becoming so powerful that the leaders are afraid the people might stone them if they mistreat the apostles.
    When questioned about why they continue to preach Jesus, in fact they said that had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine or teaching (Oh to God that we could be accused of the same thing), Peter said that it was still a matter of deciding to obey God or man (29) and repeats the message of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to provide repentance and forgiveness.
    When I read Gamaliel's advice, I get the idea that he suspected this was a movement of God and not man (34-39). But the council did not fully follow his advice as when they brought the apostles back in they threatened them and beat them. Verse 41 is a WOW verse for me. If we ever had to take a beating for the Lord, would we rejoice that we were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, or would we gripe, complain, and quit? They rejoiced and went right back to preaching and teaching.

First internal church problem (Acts 6:1-15)

    The church had, of course, been facing many problems from the outside, but this was one of the first real problems from the inside. They did have the situation with Ananias and Sapphira, but the Lord took care of that pretty quick. This problem was that the church had a ministry to widows and some seemed to be getting left out.
    Now problems will come, but when they do church people have a choice. We can be overcome by the problem or we can overcome the problem. It really is as simple as us choosing which it will be, because there is no way that God wants us to be overcome by the problem (none, nada, zilch). So when we are determined to love one another and God more than we love getting our way or being right, then we will seek God and he will give an answer, just like he did in this situation.
    Some say that these men that were chosen were the first deacons, although they are not called that in this passage. However, they certainly did the work of a deacon. Clearly from the scriptures deacons are servants and not bosses (although they will be very influential if they serve well). Interesting in this passage that the people chose qualified men, but the pastors told them what to do. That gets a little mixed up sometimes in churches.
    So solving the problem with a God given solution, allowed the ministry to the widows to continue to succeed, the apostles to give constant attention to pray and ministry of the Word, and resulted in the spread of Gods word, the multiplication of numbers of disciples, and even Jewish priest being converted in large numbers.

Praise God, when we do right great things happen.

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