Insert Lame Title Here: Acts 3

Apologies for the title. I kept trying to find a good idea, and just could not escape the 80s/90s slang of “That’s just lame, dude!” So, all I was finding were lame titles. Ergo, I inserted a lame title. You want super-professional? Buy a book. Bloggers have days they’re a little strange :)

The departure of a leader changes the dynamic of any group. Whether it is as trivial as football or as crucial as a military change-of-command, leadership transitions are moments of great potential. Potential, though, goes either direction. It can be fulfilled with good or with bad.

Acts 3 (link) shows the church in its beginning, going through the opening phases of the leadership transition. Acts 2 was the impressive opening of this new era as the Holy Spirit came in fullness on the believers, the Word was preached and thousands came to the faith. That was a tremendous moment.

Yet what follows that moment? After all, we’ve seen the coach win the first game big and then implode. We’ve had a new preacher come to town and have a great six months and then turn train wreck. And don’t even get me started on Presidents that make great inaugural speeches and then make you question the sanity of millions of Americans.

We can all identify moments where a good first impression has given way to a mess. The question for the church is this: What next?

To answer that question, we turn the page to the next chapter, Acts 3. In that chapter, what do we find?

First, we find PRAYER: Acts 3:1 tells us Peter and John are headed to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Why is that significant? Because these two are the big dogs in the situation. Peter and John are the leaders of the church.Yet they are not farming out the responsibility to pray either for the church or themselves. You cannot outsource your own person spiritual growth.

Second, we find RISK: Acts 3:1 tells us Peter and John are headed to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Why is that significant? Because these two are the ones who were closest to Jesus during His trial. If anyone will clearly be identified by the Jewish leadership that opposes the Christian message, it’s these two. Yet they are not going into hiding, but they are publicly going about their business. You cannot live forever away from other eyes.

Third, we find UNITY: Acts 3:1 tells us that Peter and John are headed to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Why is that significant? Because these two could have been at odds with each other. Take a look back at John 21 and see that Peter and John might not have been on the best of terms at the time. Read through the whole of the Gospels and you will see that John is perhaps more contemplative, Peter more action-oriented. (Perhaps)

Yet these two are going, together, to pray. To pour out before God their concerns and their praises. It is quite difficult to remain at odds with a fellow believer when you are both seeking God in prayer. Why? Because prayer is partly about remembering our place before God and remembering the cost of that place. It’s hard to break unity with those who are convinced that God’s grace is all they have, when you know it’s all you have.

Fourth, we find HABITS: Acts 3:1 tells us Peter and John are headed to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Why is that significant? Because this means they had a set time in which to detach from other concerns and pray. Do we?

Fifth, we find EFFORT: Acts 3:1 tells us Peter and John are headed to the Temple at the hour of prayer. Why is that significant? Because they have had to put out the effort to be going up, to be on the move. They could not simply sit comfortably in the Upper Room and wait for the next big thing. It was time to move forward, to go on about the business of life and glorifying God in the midst of it.

Do we live with these five things?

Today’s Nerd Note: There’s an old story that the Pope was showing a monk around the glorious buildings at the Vatican and the two referenced this story. The Pope pointed out that no longer must the church say “Gold and silver have I none” (Acts 3:6) as he showed off the wealth and magnificence of the Apostolic Palace.

The monk replied that, yes, this was true. But also no longer could the church command that “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise and walk!” (Acts 3:6, again).

The story is likely untrue. I have seen a few times, and think it’s in one of my speaking illustration books. It’s been attributed to various popes and monks, and I think even once was attributed to a pope and a monk who did not live at the same time!

However, there is a valid point here: what are we doing now that we have silver and gold? Many of the old missionary biographies were stories of doctors and teachers that went out, not to spread ‘gold and silver’ or even ‘fund development projects’ but went out to heal and to empower through education so that people could walk for themselves and find solutions for themselves.

Neither did they go out to ‘plant churches’ but to make disciples. Those disciples, then, constructed, built, planted, their own churches under the Lordship of Christ.

What are we doing now?

Dress for Success: Exodus 39

If you’ve got a fully mobile worship center with all of the implements of sacrifice, what else do you need? You need people to staff it. You need security, maintenance, helpers, teachers, fire-builders, and someone to be in charge of this whole thing. You need, if you’re in Ancient Israel, priests. And one High Priest who is in charge of the whole lot.

The High Priest, though, is not chosen simply for his looks. In fact, he’s going to come from the same family as most of the other priests. He’s not going to stand out based on looks alone. He needs something to identify him.

So, God commanded in Exodus 28 that the High Priest be clothed in a specific way, and I touched on this issue when we looked at that chapter (link to that post). Here in Exodus 39 (link) we see that those instructions were followed.

I do not, personally, have the artistic ability to render a drawing of what this completed outfit would have looked like, but I can tell you this from the description: the High Priest would have looked funny. Funny may not be the appropriate word. Odd would work, or strange, or different--

But if you saw someone walking the streets today in that garb, you’d call the nice folks at Chumley’s Rest Home to come and get him.

The point of the outfit, though, was to signify the priest and to remind both the priest and the people just exactly who the priest was there to serve: the Lord God Almighty. The goal was not to be fashionable or even comfortable, as I don’t think this would have been either cool or relaxing to wear. Aaron, and his sons after him, were there to serve God, not to garner the approval of Sinai Today readers or make the Mid-East Best Dressed List.

Looking down at the end of the chapter, a spot that’s often easy to miss when the first parts are so detail-oriented, we see how the construction narrative finishes up. Moses inspects the work, pronounces that it has been done correctly, and blesses the workers.

What do we take from this?

First: Just because you are trustworthy does not make you above inspection. Bezalel and Oholiab were named explicitly by God to handle the work. Moses double-checks them anyway. It was necessary to be obedient to God’s commands and so a verification was helpful. Being willing to be examined.

Second: Admit when other people have done well. This is a hard one for people in leadership, it seems. The people who report to you, they deserve the praise when they do the work properly. Do not withhold approval when the work meets the standards that have been set.

Second (Part B): Set high standards and expect them to be met. Do not set low standards and then express frustration when they are not met. That’s nonsense. Also, do not set high standards and then waffle them away. Hold it. Require it to be redone if necessary.

Third: Bless those who do good work. The idea here conveys that Moses publicly praised the work of the workmen. This was the appropriate response.

Finally: Do not expect to be blessed if you do not do things “just as the Lord had commanded.” That is where the success of the workers of God is: obedience to what has been commanded.

That is how we dress for success as God’s people: through full and total obedience.

Today’s Nerd Note: These items would make for a great archaeological find, but no one can find them. It appears that they are lost to us in the ravages of time and warfare. However, it leads to this question: Would it be appropriate to simply remake the robe, ephod, and other garments simply by following these directions? Or was there something specific about the sources used then that could not be copied now?

And what happened to these things? Was the breastpiece taken as spoils of war, the linen disposed of and the jewels reset? That is entirely possible. Who knows, one of those jewels could be in the Tower of London.

Watch your language! Acts 2

All of Scripture is God-breathed and correct, and it is all useful for the purposes God has given it to us for (2 Timothy 3:16). This calls us to reject the idea that, for example, the “red-letter” portions of the Bible are more right than other sections. One can see, though, how certain chapters/sections provide critical highlights of the story. If you needed to pick only ten chapters of the Bible to know, to base the start of Christian discipleship on, Acts 2 (link) would need to be on that list.

Why would I count this chapter so important?

This chapter recounts the origin of the church. True, Matthew 16:18 contains Jesus declaration that He will build His church, but that’s where we find the building plans. Here’s where we see Him do the ground breaking.

In the groundbreaking, in the birth of the church here at Pentecost, we see:

1. The church starts off with unified followers of Christ. You do not have a church by yourself. It starts with a gathering of people who are committed to the same thing. In this case, the same person, Jesus Christ.

2. The church has always had preaching. It has not always looked and sounded the same as it does in Baptist churches today, that much is certain. However, a portion of the church’s existence consists in teaching and understanding the life and Resurrection of Jesus. This includes, as you see in Peter’s sermon, explaining and considering what Scripture has already said.

3. The church involves events and actions that the rest of the world will openly mock. In this case, as the power of the Holy Spirit is shown in the gift of tongues (more in a minute) the people question: Are these people drunk? To be drunk was to be foolish—it showed more than just a momentary slip-up, it was a mark of someone not wise and not worth listening to. It is to be expected that we be mocked by the world.

4. The church must remain aware of our history. Peter here presents not only the immediate past events of the crucifixion but goes all the way back into the Old Testament. He must know these events so that he can recount them in his message. We must never intentionally neglect our own history.

5. The church exists solely because of the power of God to establish and sustain it. We come to this passage and we see that the church does not start because Peter and the Apostles are highly persuasive. Rather than that, the church is birthed because God provides the ability to speak in the languages of the people. That is what the gift of tongues is in Acts: functional ability to testify to the work of God in a language not naturally one’s own. The church, if left to its own power, would cease instantaneously. Only through the Holy Spirit can the church exist and sustain.

6. The church must allow new converts to become a part of itself. While it is appropriate to both ensure that a commitment is real and to develop a new fellowship when it is practically impossible to only be one, it is not the goal of the church to make multiple churches just for fun. We ought to strive to build unity and grow together in fellowship rather than separation.

7. The church exists both for its own and to reach out into the world. The disciples are together in unity and out in public spreading the truth. This two-fold nature of our purpose cannot be escaped.

Today’s Nerd Note: My list of 10 Chapters would be: Genesis 3; Exodus 20; Isaiah 53; Psalm 136; Matthew 25; Luke 2, 22; John 1, 20; Acts 2; Romans 8. Obviously, that leaves a lot out. You’d want to start quickly into the next 10. Which of those would you leave out? What would you add?

Sermon Wrap Up for July 22

I honestly thought about not posting yesterday’s sermons, because yesterday morning just did not come off as the sermon I thought I should be preaching. Such is life, though, and rather than hide a dud, I’ll admit that some days are not so good.

Morning audio link (alternate here)

Evening audio link (alternate here)

Morning outline:

(The first story is the healing of the Centurion's Servant. I preached the parallel passage in Matthew back in January. ) (Alternate Audio here)

July 22 AM Luke 7:1-17

Worthy or not--who deserves the healing and provision of Jesus?

The miracles:

I. The Centurion: the healing of his slave at from a distance

II. The Widow of Nain: the healing of her son up close

The crowds

I. The Centurion: 

II. The Widow of Nain

Evening Outline:

Note: Much of the general idea of this series is drawn from J. Scott Duvall's Experiencing God's Story of Life and Hope. I would recommend you grab a copy.

Ephesians 4:20-25

Ephesians 4:17-27

I. Came to Christ not through sensuality or greediness

II. Cast off the old self

III. Commit to the truth

IV. Clear away falsehood and anger

V. Cling to the Lord

Becoming a person of truth

Truthfulness with God

Truthfulness with others

Truthfulness with ourselves

Book: The Jesus Scandals

First and foremost: the title of this book is The Jesus Scandals. Not Sandals. Every time I have looked at the title, I have misread the title of this book. It has nothing to do with the shoes of the Lord. Now that we have that cleared up, let’s look at the real book.

The real book, The Jesus Scandals,  is written by David Instone-Brewer. It’s published by Monarch Books and distributed in the United States through Kregel Publishers. Kregel provided the review copy of this book. If you think a free paperback will keep me from giving you an honest opinion, skip the review and move on.

Let’s break this down, short and sweet:

1. The author. David Instone-Brewer is Senior Research Fellow in Rabbinics and the New Testament for the Tyndale House Residential Centre for Biblical Research. That’s a fancy title, but it shows that he is specifically involved in continuing research regarding New Testament issues. Essentially, he has substantial training and exposure to the material. The link above will point you to his biographical information.

2. The overall scope of the book. The goal of the book is to support the trustworthiness of the Gospel by comparing various events to the social conventions of the day. The book is presented in short chapters, all of which are easy to peruse and contemplate. The writing, though done by a senior research fellow, is plainly written. Further, I saw no major concerns with translating the book from English to, well, English. There were few British spellings or idioms that were noticeable and none that interfered with comprehension.

3. Individual sections. The individual sections are well presented. Some of them, such as the discussion of Jesus’ acceptance of children, present similar arguments that I have heard before. The extension of the discussion of children to the Last Supper/Passover was new to me, and I found it intriguing. Other of the scandals mentioned were not familiar to me, and likely will be fresh to anyone without a strong background in that region of history.

4. Total impact. I found this book to be an excellent additional reading on the background of the Gospels in the New Testament. As with any text on religious issues, one’s presuppositions will affect one’s response: this may not convince the strongest of skeptics, but it will provide some fodder for discussion among the interested. Further, it will help strengthen an understanding of just how truly the ministry of Jesus ran counter to the norms of His day, and perhaps will provoke us as His followers to follow in those footsteps.

I would highly recommend this book, The Jesus Scandals.

Scratch that off the list: Exodus 38

After what has seemed like a long, long time we are finally finished with the Tabernacle. That may not be the biggest theological lesson in Exodus 38 (link) but it is still one worth contemplating.

If you go back to the start of the Tabernacle narratives in Exodus 25 and read back through the whole process, you will see that there is a great deal of detail and precision. Many of those details are technical and would be easy to get bogged down in the midst of.

This is not unlike many of the challenges put in front of us as followers of Christ today. The path of obedience is often more complex than we would like it to be. For example, someone determines that the goal of their life is to serve God as a pilot for missionaries. While the obedience goal is quite simple: be a missionary pilot; the path there takes a detailed process to achieve. After all, simply reading the Bible does not qualify one to operate a multi-engine aircraft on instruments at night. You have to learn all of the associated skills.

Too often, though, we get distracted by the details. We would not accept the idea that a physician should get to practice medicine without following the path of study and training. We would not even want someone to build our house that did not know the right end of the hammer to use.

Yet we think too often that following God allows us to skip striving for preparation. We try to cover that with phrases like “God does not want your ability, He wants your availability” to motivate people to commit to things they do not know how to do. That’s not a bad phrase, but for many of us the first step of availability needs to be our being available to develop the necessary skills and discipline to do what God has instructed.

We must not get bogged down, though, in following through with the details that are necessary. You do not need to fill out a lot of checkboxes to be a disciple of Christ or to be a witness to His truth. All you have to be is His follower. Yet from there, we must all begin growing in discipleship, walking with Him day by day to be more like Him.

The details are sometimes slower than we would like, the time does not always seem well spent, but we need to not give up. Keep up working toward the goal you know is necessary to fill what you are called to and for. You will find, in the end, that you are growing to be more like Jesus than you realize.

Have you backed off a difficult goal because the details were too much? Is it possible to recover it and get back going forward?

Pick A Lot: Acts 1

Last week, we finished going through Mark as we work completely through the Bible. Now, I’d like to skip Luke and John and go straight to Luke’s second volume, Acts. The longform name is often given as The Acts of the Apostles, but most of us know this book as simply the book of Acts.

Another title I’ve seen a few others and heard a few preachers attach to this book is The Acts of the Holy Spirit. While I can see the point they want to make, that this book is about what happens in the time after the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2) and how God works through people in His church, it is still about the people through whom God worked. We’re all about saving the pixels, though, so Acts will be the name I use.

What happens in the first chapter (link)? Initially, you get what reads like a Twitter recap of the Gospel of Luke:

“All that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles He had chosen.” 

That’s a quick reminder of what happens in Luke, and then Luke begins his telling of the apostles carrying out those orders. We see the final command of Christ as He is straightening out the disciples quest for a timeline. He tells them to wait for the power of the Holy Spirit to come and then they will be His witnesses.

While they’re waiting, though, Peter has something for them to do. I had one professor in college that was convinced that Peter was wrong for this: waiting means just that, waiting. I’m not so sure. I see Peter as taking the waiting time as the time to fix a few issues in-house. I think his process starts right, but I think his end-result might be mistaken.

A quick aside: I firmly affirm that the Bible contains no mistakes in the record of what happened. However, just because an event is accurately, infallibly recorded does not make the event a good thing. David’s sins with Bathsheba (2 Samuel) are not recorded as an example to follow, likewise with many sins. Just because an action is taken by a praiseworthy individual does not exclude that action from consideration or critique.

Oh, and neither am I saying that in the moment that I would make a better decision. I may disagree with Peter’s outcome, but he’s still likely holier and better than me. Any knucklehead can armchair quarterback, and occasionally there is useful information presented. Had I been in Peter’s place, I don’t know that I would have quit fishing.

Peter remembers, as they sit in the upper room, a few of his Psalms. As he considers the passages from Psalm 69 and Psalm 109, he reaches this conclusion: Judas has fallen from the company and needs to be replaced. So far, so good. We also see him using Old Testament Scripture to guide his decision making. That’s also a good thing.

Peter then wisely puts forward that the replacement for Judas should be someone who had been with the company of disciples the same length of time. This allows the replacement to be an equal witness to all of the life of Christ (from the Baptism to the Ascension) alongside the original Apostles. They find that Joseph Barsabbas Justus and Matthias were the two men present in the upper room who had been with them that whole time.

So, how do you choose between the two? The early church at this point drops back to the method of drawing lots. Essentially, this allocated a random element to a decision, and that randomness was seen as God showing His decision. (1 Chronicles 26, 1 Samuel 14 both show mention of the idea.)

This method of drawing lots was intended to allow God to make the final decision. Those present even pray that God would make Himself clear through the decision. Now, the lot-drawing will certainly be clear: only one of the two will have the lot marked. Clarity won’t be an issue.

Here is what happens: Matthias ends up the one chosen. Now, from a strictly Bible perspective, we don’t know much of the future of either of these two. In fact, Luke spends most of Acts on a guy named Paul who is not even mentioned here.

What do I think? I think Peter made the right suggestion when he brought up replacing the lost Apostle. I think, though, that he did not grasp the change that was coming in how the church would act. Keep in mind, he’s one of the crowd that just asked Jesus if now was the time to bring the kingdom back. They are still a little off-center.

The idea of a one-to-one replacement of Apostles was not where the church was headed at this point. The Holy Spirit is coming, and the power of God is spreading. The initial Apostles have a special place in the guiding and growth of the infant church, but as you leaf through Acts you see Paul, Steven, James, Luke, Timothy, Barnabas, Silas---none of these are part of the Twelve.

Peter was right to not want to lose ground by leaving an empty chair, but is it possible that he should have added a chair? One for both Matthias and Justus? The company of the committed is growing in the book of Acts. In Acts 1 it may remain stagnant, but the growth explodes from Acts 2 to Acts 28. This is the model of what, perhaps, should have happened.

It’s not, though, is it? It is possible that this chapter, the last chapter before the Pentecostal Outpouring of the Spirit, fits more with Old Testament method than with New Covenant method and that God revealed Himself one more time through lots. Even so, though, it is not instructive for us: as Believers we have the Spirit. We make decisions based on the Word of God, Bible-derived wisdom, and the guidance of the Spirit. Not by picking lots anymore…

Question: How have you made important decisions? Do you strive to seek the Word of God or do you default to a hope that random life will show God’s will?

Today’s Nerd Notes:

1. What happened to Judas Iscariot? Did he hang himself or fall in a field? Or what about the classic “hanged himself over a field and fell into and burst open?” It’s also possible that he hanged himself and his body was tossed into a field. This is one of those spots that people pick apart as a contradiction. It’s really not that difficult to consider a scenario where there is no contradiction, just differing points of view.

2. Acts has chapters numbered 1 through 28. Without being excessively whiny, God stopped there. It seems a bit flashy to claim to be picking up where He left off, especially some 2000 years later.

3. Theophilus: pick up three different books on Luke-Acts and you’ll probably get at least two views on Theophilus, if not three. One is that Theophilus is just the guy’s name, nothing more. Another is that it is a symbolic name for any “Friend of God,” which the name means. A third posits that it’s a code word used for a high-ranking Roman who wanted to know about Jesus but could not be called by his real name. The first two are the more plausible, with the first being the best option.

4. I know I did not do this, but you should read Luke and then Acts. They go together well. Almost like they were a two-part set.