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Week 43  Acts 6

I get the sense that in the early days the NT church categorized people in one of two ways:
There were people who believed in the Lord and were in the church.
There were people who didn’t believe in the Lord and were outside of the church.
A pretty basic divide. But things didn’t stay simple:
As the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke Greek complained against those who spoke Hebrew, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.
So an in-church sub-division had already began:
There were people in the church who believed (and spoke Hebrew).
And people in the church who believed (and spoke Greek).
(Soon enough there’ll be:
Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Hebrew.
Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Greek.
And non-Jewish people in the church who believed and spoke Greek.
And there’d be more subdivisions: nationality ethnicity language country-of-origin gender occupation age wealth/income status class vocation marital-status health and like that.)
So anyway…what happened with the inequitable food distribution?
The leaders listened to the complaint…
They knew they needed to re-equalize the inequity…
So they gave highly qualified people the job of restoring equilibrium.
Back in chapter two it sounded like the church was uncommonly wonderful. By chapter six there were signs the wonderfulness was degrading so the church took action to restore what it had had.

Note: quote from Acts 6:1 (NLT)

Week 43  Acts 5

The Ananias & Sapphira story is alarming & provocative.
I usually think of it as a stand-alone episode but it’s really more a story of contrasts because it goes together with the story of Barnabas from chapter four.
There are similarities and differences between Barnabas and A&S.
Barnabas:
owned a tract of land…
sold it for cash…
gave it to the church.
A&S:
had a piece of property…
sold it for cash…
gave it to the church.
In the actual-visible-financial world of real estate transactions and charitable-giving Barnabas and A&S are exactly the same.
But in the world of what’s happening behind the actual-visible-financial world of real estate transactions and charitable-giving Barnabas and A&S are pretty dissimilar.
Peter revealed that A&S had:
colluded on a plan to deceive people…
lied to the apostles about how much money they kept…
lied to the Lord…
put the Spirit to the test.
(Peter doesn’t actually say it but it’s a safe guess that Barnabas didn’t deceive people or lie about his gift or put the Spirit to the test.)
I remember a couple of similar instant-reaction stories from the OT. In the totality of events I figure they’re rare. But their bolt-from-the-blue suddenness is electrocutive. They’re frightening & devastating & unexpected.
My guess is that people regularly lie deceive & put the Spirit to the test without any outcomes.
So A&S are tragic reminders.

Note: the story is in Acts 5:1-11

Week 43  Acts 2

Number-wise the church was growing fast in the early days and I wondered how leaders managed the sudden growth. It’s like having 100 subscribers on your channel and then next day you’ve got 10000.
But a more important question for me is: what-all’s going on in the church?
Luke started answering that question in chapter 2. 3000 new people came into the faith and they:
Got together with the other believers
Devoted themselves to learning what the church taught
Shared in communion & in regular community meals
Prayed together
Spent a lot of time together
Shared what they had
Sold what they owned and gave to needy people
Worshipped together & praised God
Luke described more than a dozen things but I highlighted these since they seemed pretty important.
While I’m reading the bible I have a kind of general concept floating around that I think of as The Applicability Question (AQ). (Probably lots of people figure the bible is totally inapplicable to real-life circumstances in the modern world. But I look for applicability.)
The AQ subdivides bible content into three main categories:
A) bible things that I think are inapplicable
B) borderline bible things I’m not sure about
C) bible things that are applicable in the contemporary world.
I think that several of the features that Luke points out about the church in the ancient world are heavyweight principles that cross time & geography & cultures so that now ought to be a modern version of then.

Note: paraphrased verses from Acts 2:42-47

Week 43  Acts 2

I was noticing the numerical data Luke gave on how quickly the church grew.
In chapter 1 he said there were 120 loyal followers of the Lord (there were likely more than that in total but that was the core group in Jerusalem).
Luke estimated that after the sudden arrival of the Holy Spirit 3000 people came into the church.
And before too long 5000 more came to belief.
After that I found some more church-growth data but it was qualitative:
More and more people believed and were brought to the Lord
The (number of) believers rapidly multiplied
The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem.
I sketched out a rough graph. I knew that my axes were a bit shaky – I estimated some values on both my x (time) and y (numbers) lines (in fact I flat-out cheated with some numbers – the three times where Luke didn’t give exact numerical data I added an arbitrary 1000 people). But I figure the basic trendline was pretty obvious & indisputable. It was all up…up…up for awhile – maybe weeks or months.
Of course then Saul of Tarsus arrived with his religiously-sanctioned oppression and so the believers bugged-out en masse (except the apostles). So my graph stepped off a cliff.
Anyway the exercise got me thinking about a related question: how did the leaders manage the sudden growth? And another question in the back of my mind was: what-all was going on in the church as it expanded?

Note: see Acts 1:15 2:41 4:4 5:14 6:1 6:7 8:1 (NLT)

Week 43  Acts 2

I just finished reading the gospels in consecutive order. That’s been 179-pages of the life of Jesus. Now here in this long sermon Peter basically compresses those 89 chapters into ~25-verses.
I wondered if Peter’s synopsis could be boiled down even more and when I got rid of a few things I came up with this more-condensed version:
Listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
Abbreviated versions are usually good for two reasons. First is that they’re abbreviated. And secondly – if they’re any good in their selection criteria – they pick the most important ideas to highlight.
Peter gives public addresses again in chapters three four & five and these ideas keep showing up: A) Christ was from God. B) you assassinated him. C) God raised him from the dead. Key ideas. Repeater ideas. Ideas worth remembering.

Note: quote from Acts 2:22-24 36 (NIV)

Week 42  Acts 1

When the Lord left the earth there were eleven disciples who watched him go and Luke lists them in chapter one: Peter John James Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James (Alphaeus’ son) Simon (the Zealot) Judas (James’ son).
I knew that some of the gospels listed the disciples and so I checked them for comparison. There’s a couple of differences among the four lists.
Two of the writers call Peter Peter and two call him Simon
Two just call John John but two add family connections (James’ brother & Zebedee’s son)
Two add that James was Zebedee’s son
Two say that Andrew was Peter’s brother
All four just name Philip Thomas Bartholomew & Matthew. No differences & no add-ons
All four say that the other James was Alphaeus’ son and that the other Simon was the Zealot
Two identify the other Judas as the son of James and two call him Thaddeus.
So some writers call a person by one name and not another. Some point out family connections or make the point that there were two Simons’ & two Judas’.
There’s only a couple of minor differences or variations in the lists. No disagreement.
Well…there is one big difference. Acts’ list only has eleven names. Luke seems to be making the point: ‘we started with twelve but one defected’. The twelfth man – Judas Iscariot – had to be replaced. And most of chapter one tells that story.

Note: the lists are in Acts 1:13 Matthew 10:2-4 Mark 3:16-19 & Luke 6:14-16

Week 42  John 8

I’d been thinking about The Word being Light so right away I noticed when Jesus said I am the light of the world.
Whatever-all they took that to mean the religious leaders didn’t like it and told him: you are making those claims about yourself! (which was true). And they went on to say: such testimony is not valid (which wasn’t necessarily true). Since when was it not permissible to say something about yourself? Let’s say for instance that a guy tells me “I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro”. Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But I’m not going to tell him it can’t possibly be true because he told me about it himself.
I think the problem for the Lord’s opponents was that they really had no solid basis for knowing whether the Lord was or wasn’t the Light of the World. Even if it was an extravagant claim that couldn’t be the reason to deny it.
That’s why the Lord’s reply made pretty good sense: even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going…You have no idea where I came from or where I am going. You judge by human standards.
No disrespect to human standards – I think they’re a big help and can get me a far piece. But the question is can they take me as far as I need to go?

Note: quotes from John 8:12-15 (NLT NIV)

Week 42  John 1

A couple of days ago I was thinking about the person John called The Word. John said that in him was life. It didn’t make any sense to me to think that in The Word was life meant that “The Word was alive”. It more likely meant something like “The Word Embodied Life”. Or “The Word was the Origin and Source of Life”. A different version said: life itself was in him. Which I think sounds about right.
So anyway when John said that life itself was in him (i.e. in The Word) he added and this life gives light to everyone. When I read that it sounded like the light flooded everything and everyone. John the Baptist said that the true light gives light to everyone. It sounded like the light illuminated everyone…like flipping a switch.
But John says not quite: although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came.
The Word’s light was available everywhere to everyone. But it was a bit like ultra-violet light – definitely there on the spectrum but not always easily detectable.
John’s gospel seems interested in that question: the light is shining…but who’s seeing it? Some of the characters do: Nicodemus. The Samaritan Woman. The Nobleman. The Blind Man. Eleven Disciples.
But about the others John says: the light from heaven came into the world, but they loved darkness more than the light.

Note: quotes from John 1:4 9 10 3:19 (NLT)

Week 42  John 1

John has been laying down several pieces of data about the (mysterious) Word…and is leaving it up to the reader to jigsaw them together.
He’d already said that The Word was God. And yesterday he said The Word was Life.
It’d be simpler if he said The Word was alive. That would be normal life. Living. Eating breathing sleeping working recreating exercising talking and like that. A fusion of the different things we do that guarantee we’re not dead.
But with John life isn’t just eating-sleeping-breathing. He makes that pretty clear by using the phrase “eternal life” quite a few times.
And John also quoted the Lord saying things like:
You refuse to come to me to have life and
I am come that they may have life.
The Lord was talking to living people so verses like those are ludicrous if he was referring to normal breathing-and-eating life. But they’re not as ridiculous if the same word is used about two different things. Which is what it seems John’s doing. So reading his gospel I’ve been on the look-out for which ‘life’ he’s referring to: a) eternal life or b) non-eternal life.
My sense is that in John non-eternal life – eating breathing sleeping working recreating exercising talking and like that – is roughly equivalent to a state of living deadness. Dead except for being biologically alive. Which is a different domain altogether from Eternal Life.

Note: quotes from John 5:40 10:10 (NIV)

Week 42  John 1

Yesterday I was looking at how John described The Word.
He said that The Word was in the beginning with God.
He also said that The Word was God.
John doesn’t act as though he just said something that’s basically inconsistent. And my take on John is that in normal conversation he wouldn’t say something like: “I got a chance to visit with Pontius Pilate. And I am Pontius Pilate.” John knew he couldn’t be with someone and also be that person. Things don’t work like that. But in the specific case of The Word how things don’t work is the way they do work.
Anyway John adds a couple of more ideas about The Word.
Through him all things were made. So The Word is the creator of all things. Genesis says that God made everything. Now John says The Word made everything. But John already said that The Word was God. So if God made everything and The Word was God then The Word made everything.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men & women. I check a word book. John used the word “life” about 47 times. One tip-off that he’s sometimes using the word in a more-than-physical-life way is that he adds the word “eternal” to “life” about 17 times. So when John says that in him was life I keep in mind that he might not just mean he-was-alive.

Note: quotes from John 1:3 4 (NIV)