Author: admin

Week 42 Acts

Stephen’s historical synopsis of the OT comes in Acts 7 (too late for me to benefit since I finished the OT seven weeks ago). But it’s a tidy condensation to look at in retrospect.
Stephen gave the account because he was on trial for his life. His opponents were a group of men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen (whatever exactly that was and whoever exactly they were) and they called Stephen to account.
Anyway 52 of chapter seven’s 60 verses are Stephen’s OT-summary. It’s a good bird’s-eye view. I recognize a lot of the events and stories.  There’s at least a dozen quotes straight from the OT and the rest is accurate reporting (as far as I can see Stephen isn’t fictionalizing).
But one thing – a subtle thing – that Stephen emphasized in his narrative was Israel’s track-record of rejecting the Lord’s representatives. Stephen doesn’t beat the Freedmen over the head with it. But – for example – he does tell about the brother’s rejection of Joseph (near the beginning). And the people’s rejection of Moses (in the middle). And Israel’s systematic persecution and murder of the prophets (near the end). Finally Stephen goes out on a very thin limb and says that his audience followed suit. They had rejected and killed the Righteous One.
Stephen’s story of the OT was a helpful review for me.
But there was more to it than what I saw at first. And what I didn’t see at first is what got Stephen killed.

Week 42 Acts

Acts two picks-up-the-pace: suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where (the apostles) were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
I figure this event registered with the apostles as a big & unexpected surprise – i.e. unexpected in how the incident actually played out in actual life. It couldn’t have been a total-total surprise since John the Baptist had publicly said: after me will come one who is more powerful than I…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire… So it’s not like the Holy Spirit’s fire-baptism came out of the blue (and besides the Lord had personally told the apostles the same thing as he was leaving: do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about…In a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit).
So the apostles did have a theoretical expectation of what was coming. But the here-and-now practical & personal experience of the Spirit – the thundering gale-force winds & the incandescent tongue-like objects & the linguistic enhancements – those weren’t exactly anticipated.

Note: quotes from Acts 2:2-4, Matthew 3:11 (also Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33), Acts 1:4-5 (NIV)

Week 42 Acts

There’s a bit of a lull as the book begins. The Lord had miraculously left earth for the second-last time: he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Once the Lord was gone the disciples just stood there looking up at the clouds that were already reshaping in the breeze and drifting across a Mediterranean sky. They were kind of transfixed. Immobilized: looking intently up into the sky… Until they were interrupted by two men dressed in white who told them: this same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way. Then they went back into the city and waited.
One exercise they did in the meantime – along with the women who followed the Lord – was to devote themselves to prayer.
There was also a practical detail to deal with – that was to replace Judas (in a sombre note Luke said Judas had left his apostleship to: go where he belongs). The apostles used a pretty interesting and maybe unorthodox selection technique. They chose two men – Barsabbas and Matthias – who had known the Lord from the very beginning. So with two good candidates for one important position what-to-do-next? The early church drew straws: and the lot fell to Matthias.
There’s a bit of a lull as Acts begins but things pick up the pace in chapter two.

Note: quotes from Acts 1:9-11, 25-26 (NIV)

Week 41 John

Right near the end of his gospel John tells about the crucifixion.
Four soldiers crucified Jesus and then: divided his clothes among the four of them. They also took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said, “Let’s not tear it but throw dice to see who gets it.” The other gospel writers tell the same story but only John adds a sidebar to the OT: this fulfilled the Scripture that says, “They divided my clothes among themselves and threw dice for my robe.”
The cross-reference in my bible points to Psalm 22. When I look there it says: they divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments. It’s a psalm that David wrote. I see other things too:
My God! Why have you forsaken me?
Everyone who sees me mocks me
My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls
All my bones are out of joint
They have pierced my hands and feet.
The whole section sounds eerily like the Lord’s crucifixion.
Whatever happened to David must have been pretty harrowing since he described it like this. And even though he wasn’t crucified and he didn’t die his experience was scarifying enough he turned it into an uncannily accurate and explicit forecast that was actualized and came true in the Lord’s dying.

Note: quotes from John 19:23-24, Psalm 22:18, 1, 7, 12, 14, 16 (NLT)

Week 41 John

The Lord said to his disciples: I have told you these things so that you won’t fall away.
It’s disturbing to think about starting with sky-high hopes of following the Lord forever then gradually dipping to lowering-hopes and eventually quitting the Lord forever. I don’t guess people plan that they’ll be temporary followers. But none of us know how things will pan out.
Anyway the Lord anticipated the potentiality of a Follower’s Devolution and said: I have told you these things so that you won’t fall away.
So…what are the these-things that he told them? I figure there’ll be some in chapter fifteen so I look there:
Remain in me, and I will remain in you
Those who remain in me…will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing
Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love
Love each other in the same way that I love you…the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends
The world would love you if you belonged to it, but you don’t.
Not the easiest and most implementable list of things in the world. But it’s things like these that’ll a) help me not to fall away, and b) in the event I do stumble will keep me from free-falling forever.

Note: quotes from John 16:1 & 15:4, 5, 10, 12, 19, 26 (NLT)

Week 40 John

The blind man in chapter nine suddenly saw. And so some religious leaders began badgering the Lord…asking him to spell out in plain language who he was (did he think he was the Messiah?) The Lord didn’t answer the question. He said: I have already told you, and you don’t believe. The proof is what I do in the name of my Father. But you don’t believe me because you are not part of my flock.
There’s two pretty interesting things here. The First Thing is that the leaders want plain-language  talk but the Lord points them to the indirect language of miracles…The water-to-wine. The near-death resuscitation. The lame man walking. And now the blind man seeing. Miracles should have ratified the Lord. But they didn’t. And why they didn’t is the Second Thing.
The Lord said: you don’t believe me because you are not part of my flock.
Technically-speaking you’d think a miraculous event had power to convince. But the Lord implied that you had to get on board first to facilitate belief.
As though a guy had to trust first so he could actually believe.
Which maybe makes sense. For example I believe the universe is currently expanding because someone reliable told me it was. The confidence-trust I have was the start of my belief.
As though I come onside so things can clarify.

Note: quotes from John 10:25 & 26 (NLT)

Week 40 John

I’m impressed by how much travelling the Lord did.
I notice it here because I was tracking his movements in Luke. Up until chapter nine Luke concentrated exclusively on what the Lord was doing up-country in Galilee. Finally the Lord left for Jerusalem – and Luke spent the next ten chapters talking about that one trip. You’d get the impression from Luke that the Lord spent all of his public ministry years in Galilee and then in the end travelled to Jerusalem. But John clarifies that impression…
Right after the very first miracle it was Passover time and: Jesus went to Jerusalem.
Then a bit later: Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days.
He was back in Galilee in chapter six but then John said: it was nearly time for the annual Passover celebration.
Sometime later the Lord was on the road again: it was time for the Feast of Shelters in Jerusalem.
A couple of chapter later: it was now winter, and Jesus was in Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah.
From the sound of it the Lord was very familiar with The City.
Luke was a pretty scrupulous investigator so I figure he was well aware of the Lord’s frequent road trips and he had reasons for composing his gospel the way he did. But John helps by spelling out a more detailed itinerary.

Note: quotes from John 2:13, 5:1, 6:4, 7:2, 10:22 (NLT)

Week 40 John

John the Baptist…
Each one of the gospel writers mentions him. Some of them say more about him than others. Some give details that others skip. But there’s a unanimous point they all make – John the Baptist was the material realization of a prophecy Isaiah had forecast more than four-hundred years before.
I flipped back to Isaiah and looked at the passage that Matthew Mark Luke and John all agree went from fuzzy long-range forecast to rock-solid reality on the day John the Baptist began publicly teaching. Isaiah told Israel to expect to hear a voice saying: make a highway for the Lord through the wilderness. Make a straight, smooth road through the desert for our God. Fill the valleys and level the hills. Straighten out the curves and smooth of the rough spots. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
Matthew Mark & Luke say that John was The Voice that Isaiah was talking about. But in John’s gospel John the Baptist says it for himself…
Are you the Messiah? No!
Are you Elijah? No!
Are you the Prophet? No!
Q: then who are you? A: John replied in the words of Isaiah “I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, prepare a straight pathway for the Lord’s coming”. The wait is over.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 40:3-5 & John 1:23 (NLT). And see Isaiah references in Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2 and Luke 3:4.

Week 40 John

John begins his gospel talking about The Word: in the beginning was the Word.
It sounds at first like The Word is something non-personal. But right away John adds that: the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So The Word isn’t a thing. John says: he (The Word) was with God in the beginning.
If The Word was in the beginning with God it sounds like he was different than God.
But The Word was God – which sounds like he was the same as God.
So The Word and God were the same and also different.
Hmmmm… John adds a couple more things about The Word:
Through him all things were made
In him was life, and that life was the light of men
He was in the world…(but) the world did not recognize him
The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.
It’s only when John gets to verse 17 that the to-this-point-unidentified Word is given a name: Jesus Christ. So that helps.
John adds one more detail: no one has ever seen God, but God the only Son…has made him known. The Word was different than God – there was God the Son & God the Father – and that elemental difference meant that the Son (who visibly & materially became flesh-and-blood) could disclose the Father (who was immaterial and invisible).

Note: quotes from John 1:1, 3, 4, 10, 14, 18 (NIV)

Week 39 John

Each of the gospels tells the story of the Lord Jesus.
Different writers. Different ideas. Different points-of-view. Different objectives. It makes common sense that they’d be a bit different. If they were all the same I’d only need one. In spite of their differences it’s surprising to me that Matthew Mark Luke are as similar as they are. And then comes John.
John is different. Different enough that if I was on a flight to Mars and I could only take two gospels John would have to be one of them (for me it would be John & Luke. But whatever…one would have to be John).
John seems to think along different lines than the other three. Not on a completely different wavelength, and not to say the first three gospels aren’t unique. But I think MM&L are unique and similar. John has taken the less-travelled road. Sure…he has the same hero with the same awesome talents and the same fateful finale followed by the same oh-man-what-a-relief! revival. But all along the way there’s subtlety and novelty and singularity and originality.
Three songs written in a major key and then the fourth in a minor.
Three guys shooting baskets at one end of the court…the fourth one making free-throws alone at the other.
John’s gospel story is a great one. But I know I’m in the deep end of the pool right from the start.