Week 45 Day 5 – Paul’s Story

Acts 25:23-26:32

Where is Paul in this passage and why is he there?

In this passage Paul shares his testimony of how Jesus transformed his life. What was Paul like before he met Christ?

How did Paul meet Christ?

What were Jesus’ instructions for Paul?

How did Paul respond to those instructions?

In what ways did Paul carry out the mission on which Jesus sent him?

What is the simple message of the gospel as presented by Paul in this passage?

What effects did Paul’s testimony have on the crowd that was listening?

Take some time to think about your own testimony by answering the following questions.

What were you like before you met Jesus?

How did you meet Jesus?

What instructions do you feel Jesus has given you? In other words, how do you feel Jesus wants you to serve His Kingdom?

How has your life changed since you met Jesus?

Pray about a way that you could share this testimony with someone who does not know Jesus. Paul was in prison, standing in front of the most powerful people in the region when he gave this testimony. He was not intimidated by rank, social status, or circumstances. Paul saw everything in life as an opportunity to carry out the mission that Jesus gave to him. Pray about how you could transform your current circumstances into a way to demonstrate the good news of Jesus to the people around you.

Week 45 Day 4 – Tears on the Beach

Acts 20:13-37

This passage could be studied from a few different angles. It is often studied in reference to leadership training, since Paul was giving instruction to the elders of Ephesus (the hub church of the whole region of Asia) on how to be good spiritual shepherds of God’s people. While that is a noble study, and you should definitely put those lenses on with this passage if you are in any kind of leadership, today we will broaden the scope a bit and look at it through different lenses.

In many ways these could be considered Paul’s last words. At the very least, he believed this would be the last time he got to speak to these elders. Paul knew that he was about to face a very difficult situation in Jerusalem. It was very likely that the people in Jerusalem would kill him. Think about it. How would you feel if you knew that there was a city where everyone (at least the people with the power) wanted you dead? Would you want to go there? Would you have faith in God? Paul did. The point of this lesson is simple. Read v. 24 again. This is a picture of Matthew 6:33 lived out. Jesus told us to seek first HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness. Paul did that. Paul was not concerned for his own well-being. Paul was not concerned about how people felt about him. Paul was simply concerned about being obedient to the calling that God had placed on his life. Later, after Paul was eventually placed under house arrest in Rome, awaiting trial, he wrote these words to the church in Philippi, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

How is your attitude today? Ask God to search your heart and expose to you where your real concerns lie. Let’s set our priorities straight and live for the Kingdom of God.

Week 45 Day 3 – Know Your Audience

Acts 17:16-34

Paul was a master evangelist because he knew one simple truth: Know Your Audience. When Paul spoke to Jewish people, he reasoned with them from the scriptures and proved that Jesus was the Messiah that had been prophesied. This makes sense because the Jewish people were saturated with scripture and were anticipating a Messiah to deliver them. Yet, when Paul encountered Gentiles, he took an entirely different approach. In this passage we see that Paul began with language that made sense to the Greeks. He started with the idol to the “unknown god” that was situated among their myriad of idols. The Greeks believed that the gods were tied to nature. They had a god of the sea, a god of the Earth, a god of thunder, etc. Basically, they had taken the forces of nature, crafted them into human form, given them a name, and worshipped them as immortal beings. So, in light of this theological perspective, Paul referred to God in terms of nature. He spoke a “God language” that the people could relate to. However, he did not condone their God-concepts. He simply spoke in a language that they could grasp and led them into a new concept of God that matched the God of the Bible. Notice, though, that he did not quote the Bible, he actually quoted their own poet to make a point. Why? Paul knew that the scriptures of the Hebrew people meant absolutely nothing to the Greeks. In fact, the Greeks probably looked down on the Hebrew scriptures, if they even knew of them at all.

The lesson is this. In order for Paul to effectively present the good news of Jesus to the Greeks, he had to 1) know the Greek mind, 2) know the Greek language 3) speak in terms that the Greeks could connect with 4) using their own language, lead the Greeks past their own perspective and into truth. Many Christians fall into the trap of spewing Bible verses to pagan people on first contact, expecting them to be transformed (almost as if by magic) by hearing the words. It doesn’t really work like that. As a Christian, it is our job to know the truths of scripture, have them incorporated into the DNA of our lifestyles, and be able to communicate them to the people and the culture around us in a way that makes sense to their ears.

Ask yourself, how well do you know the truth of scripture? Do you know it well enough to explain it to someone without using scripture itself?

Week 45 Day 2 – Get Berean!

Acts 17:10-12

We live in a society where we, the common masses, are spoon fed sound bytes of information. We drive down the road and see a beautiful image on a billboard with a catchy phrase. We turn on the radio while we are driving and catch a thirty second news report on the latest scandal in D.C. We plop down on the couch at the end of the day and watch well-painted people with dazzling white teeth comment on the latest murders, scandals, accidents, local happenings, sports, and weather; all under 60 seconds per story, and all before the commercial break. We go to church and watch well-groomed people dance and sing to perfectly orchestrated music while the scripture is flashed on the screen for our convenience. Then we are told about the main thing...in thirty minutes or less!

The real tragedy of the above paragraph is that it is not a satirical exaggeration. It is the truth for 99% of our population. Our lives are so busy that we do not take the time to examine the claims that are being proposed to us; we simply consume them. What’s worse is that we are not convinced that it is necessary to take the time to examine what is being proposed to us. For some, the lack of motivation to stop and thoroughly examine truth claims that are being presented comes from a pragmatic necessity. Their lives are too busy and they have become convinced that all that really matters in life is to have the ability to pay the bills and have a comfortable existence. For others, the lack of motivation to stop and examine the truth claims that barrage us on a moment by moment basis is due to mental fatigue. We suffer from information overload. We take in more data in one day than the average person of 100 years ago would take in over the course of a week, or even a month. Our brains just can’t process the information. Many of us simply give up trying to sift through all the information that we receive and become jaded, skeptical, and cease trusting that anything is true. We then, out of despondency, numb out and watch TV to escape.

These are sad and disturbing words. So, what do we do about it? First, we need to understand that we are at war and that one of the weapons the enemy is using against us is that of overload. Several years ago there was a movie called Class Action where a small time lawyer was taking on a large automobile manufacturer and suing the company for a death due to faulty wiring in the car. The manufacturer knew that the small lawyer actually had a case, so, in order to discourage the small lawyer, they resorted to the following tactic. When the small lawyer requested documentation that would prove the truth of the claim the defense granted their request. They disclosed the information the prosecutor wanted, but they went one step further. Instead of sending the requested documents, they sent hundreds of boxes full of documents in which was buried the truth. They overloaded the enemy with superfluous information in order to bewilder them and cause them to give up trying to find the truth out of shear exhaustion at the prospect of sifting through all that data. That is what Satan is doing to our minds. The fact is that in our day and age the information regarding the truth of Jesus is more readily available than ever before in history. More people can read than ever before. More Bibles are in print today than have been produced in the history of the world. Television and radio programs carry the clear message of the gospel across the planet. The internet makes the Bible accessible to everyone with a computer. In light of the accessibility of information proclaiming the truth, Satan says, “if the truth is that accessible, let’s drown it out with 10 times more garbage data and overwhelm their minds to the point of frustration.”

So, what do we do? We need to get Berean. As Christians, we need to realize that the most important source of data that we have is the Bible. If we study scripture faithfully, intensely, and intelligently, then the Holy Spirit will be able to start building a data filter in our minds that will help sift out the white noise and junk data that floods our senses. It would serve us well to shut off the TV, unplug the internet, and take some extended time to read and study the scripture everyday. Then we can sing the Psalm with David, “Your Word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Week 44 Day 4 – The Stone that Shattered the World

Acts 6:8-8:3

As the stones hurled towards Stephen’s head and shattered his skull, they did more than end the life of a godly man. These stones were the tools of God to get His church unstuck. What?! The tools of God? Weren’t these stones a cruel act by a vicious and jealous mob? Yes, but they were not an accident, outside the control of God.

When we look at the death of Stephen, we could think that it was a pointless and tragic loss. Honestly, it seems terrible. Why would God allow a truly good man to be brutally murdered? Why does God let things like this happen? I don’t know why God lets terrible things happen, and I don’t know if there is always a definite purpose behind tragic events. But, in the case of Stephen, we have been privy to see the eternal purposes behind a tragic event.

The church in Jerusalem was already, even after only a short time following the Pentecost, becoming comfortable and lazy. They were content to sit in Jerusalem, in their very Jewish/Christian existence, and care for each other, without thinking about the rest of the world. When the stones shattered Stephen’s bones, they also shattered the complacency of the church and drove them into the countryside. Remember that Jesus said they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the Earth? Left to their own devices they would have stayed in Jerusalem. It took persecution to scatter them into Judea and Samaria.

There are two lessons to learn.

1. Sometimes God uses seemingly tragic events to bring about a greater good in His Kingdom. Stephen was a servant of God. If God said to die today, he died. It wasn’t about Stephen, or about Stephen preserving his ministry. It was about being obedient, even to the point of death, to the master.
2. Quite often, persecution is the best thing that can happen to the church. Humanity’s natural tendency is to find a place of comfort and sit there. One of Satan’s greatest tools for neutralizing the church in the West has been to give us everything we want and make it really easy to be Christian. It started with Constantine, the Roman Emperor who legalized Christianity in A.D. 325. Ever since then, in “free” Western civilization, Christianity has been enmeshed with human politics and warped with political power. In the United States we have freedom of worship where anything goes and everybody is right. That type of culture breeds nothing but apathy and complacency.

We should not pray for persecution, that is not the point. However, we should take a moment and contemplate the fact that the places where the church of Jesus, the Kingdom of God, is thriving is in the countries where the church experiences persecution. It is very difficult to internalize Jesus’ words to “seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness” when this Kingdom provides us with everything we need without a single glance to Heaven.

Let us thank God that He sacrificed a good man named Stephen to spread the Kingdom beyond the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem. Let us also thank God that we do experience freedom to openly worship Him in our country. Let us also ask Him to keep us from being apathetic and lazy in our focus on His Kingdom and His righteousness.