You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Often when we say goodbye to somebody we love, we say, I'll see you later, or I'll see you again. Yeah, isn't that interesting? And today in what we're going to read, Jesus is going away and saying goodbye, but...
But not permanently. He says too, very strongly, I'll see you again. What a tremendous promise, and we'll read it today on More Than Ink. Well, gracious, good morning to you. This is Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are here looking at the Bible together on this little program we call More Than Ink. Were you expecting me to add that?
Well, I don't know, just to see if you could remember. But of course, even the name belies the fact that when we look at the Word, we think this is something that's more than just text on a page. It's more than just literary interest. This is something, what God has put on these pages, that's meant to change us from the inside out.
So we're looking at it. And what we do is we go through whole books of the Bible. And just as a coincidence, today we're starting a whole new book of the Bible. We're going to look at the book of Acts.
And it is one of my favorite things to read in the New Testament. Well, Acts is fabulous because it's such a close first-person accounting of what actually happened in the early church. And sometimes people get confused that what happened in Acts prescribes how it should always happen.
And that is really not the case. As we read through Acts, we'll see that God was doing things in a number of very creative ways. And almost everything that happens in the book of Acts is happening for the first time. So that does not mean that every time something similar happens, it has to happen that way from then on. And that, I think, is one of the reasons why the Acts account is so important. So that we see all the creative, different variety of ways that God began to work in the early church. Yeah, and it's breaking new ground on every front.
So it's just great that way. In fact, the book is, we call it Acts. In some Bibles they call it Acts of the Apostles. But when it was first published, it just went by this one word, praxis. And praxis, it's actually the same word in Latin and in Greek. It just means stuff you do. Or in Greek usage, they would say, when you talk about a free person in Greece, what a free person does is called praxis, it's what they do, as opposed to what a slave would be told to do.
Oh, that's interesting. So these are the free actions of people who've been freed. So it's just like, what did they do? What did they do?
Well, what did they do? And since it opens with the coming of the Holy Spirit, it's almost a better way to think about it. Is it not the Acts of the Apostles as the Acts of Jesus through the Holy Spirit? That's right.
Because that's new, right? Jesus had been acting in himself as the Son of Man up until the crucifixion. And then in the resurrection, he appears as the risen Christ and says, hold still until the promise of my Father comes true for you. And then the Holy Spirit will take the lead. Right. And in a real sense, and you'll see this unfold immediately as we read through this, the Holy Spirit is the central character in the entire book. It's not really the Acts of the Apostles. He's the action figure. Yeah, exactly.
So this is really, really fun. By the way, too, I had forgotten, I looked this up again. William Barclay, when he writes his commentaries about the Bible and stuff, he says it should not have been entitled Acts.
It should be entitled, How They Brought the Good News from Jerusalem to Rome. That's pretty much the whole story, isn't it? That's kind of it.
That's the whole story. So should we read it or what do you say? Well, we should, but we need to, well, okay, read the first few verses and then we'll set up why.
Why I know where you're going. Why we need to look back at the Gospel of Luke. You can read that part. I'll read this part.
I'll just start us out. So here we are in Acts 1, 1. So in the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
I'll just stop right there. So it's written in the first person and we know that the author of this book is Luke. Right. And he says, I already wrote to you what Jesus began to do. Did we lose that book? So apparently what Jesus said while he was in the flesh was not the finished whole thing that he was going to continue to do and teach, but in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Yeah. So since this is a companion book to the Gospel of Luke, Luke himself wrote both of those and they're tied together very tightly and some people think that they were published as a pair of books. So it probably behooves us as we come into the beginning of this second book by author Luke is to go back and see how he ended the first book.
Okay. So let me read that for you. So at the end of Luke chapter 24, this is after the resurrection and this is Luke's account of what happened there in the upper room or perhaps out on the mountainside.
It's a little unclear which. Beginning in verse 44, he's quoting Jesus. He says, Now he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things which were written about me and the law and the prophets and Moses and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I'm sending forth the promise of my father upon you.
But you are to stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. And now here are the last words of the gospel of Luke. And he led them out as far as Bethany. And he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came about that while he was blessing them, he parted from them.
And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God. So that's how Luke finishes his first part of the story. But I want to turn all the way back to chapter 1 of Luke. But I'll add before you go back to the beginning is that what you just read is an encapsulation of what we're going to read today. Right, it is.
It's an overlap. It's a summary of what we're going to look at through verse 11. So back to the first chapter. The first one of Luke, which is important because this is an introduction that he does not repeat in Acts. It just begins, Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as those who were from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, and have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the exact truth about the things you've been taught. So the reason I wanted to read that is because it tells us that Luke was a careful investigator.
Yeah, he interviewed people. He was not an eyewitness to Jesus in the flesh, but he carefully investigated and he talked to people who were. And so that is probably why the Gospel of Luke includes some really interesting details that other Gospels don't. And it has kind of a broader source material, so you get these broader kind of observations.
You get big picture. Yeah, so he's working like a journalist when he writes that. However, in this second book, this book of Acts, we suddenly find himself talking in the first person later in the book. So he actually is in the story later in Acts, and you'll just have to keep an eye out for when he starts saying we instead of they. So yeah, so in this opening, he's carrying on the ministry of Jesus, and he talks about this Theophilus. You know, a lot of people have debated Theophilus. Right, who is that?
Because it seems addressed, both books seem addressed to Theophilus. Is this a real guy or what? There's no reason to think he's not a real guy, but also his name is so suggestive, it could be kind of a nickname for all people who are interested in Jesus and God. Right. Because Theo is God and the phyllis means friend, so friend of God.
So he's writing, he's saying in my first book, oh friend of God. Right. So that could be the case. He could also be a real person.
But also it gives it more weight. Both could be true. Both could be true.
Both could be true. However, in the first, in Luke 1, he adds the phrase most excellent Theophilus. Right. Which is kind of a regal title that someone who has authority in charge, that gives a little more weight to that. He's an important person.
He's a real person. Yeah. But anyway, what Luke is doing is he's saying, I want to tell you all about Jesus. I'm going to tell you in the first book what he did in the flesh and in the second book what he did in and among his church as it grew. So that's where we're going. And what he's still doing.
And what he's still doing. Yeah. Yeah. So where do you want to pick up? I don't know where. Well, let's see.
Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, when you get down to verse three, it says he presented himself alive to them after the suffering. And we read a lot about this by many proofs.
And a lot of people say, well, did Jesus showed after the resurrection with many proofs? And we can send you a lot of places. But 1 Corinthians 15. That's where I was going to go.
Paul catalogs some of the most persuasive ones. Have you got it there in front of you? I don't have it open in front of me. Do you have it? Okay. I've got it.
Yeah. So he says in 1 Corinthians 15, five. Now this is in the category of many proofs. He says that Jesus appeared to Cephas.
That's Peter. And then to the 12. And then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time. At once.
Yeah. At one time. At once he did that. He was still alive.
Though some have fallen asleep. That means died. Then he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. So the point Paul's making is that, look, you know, he showed up and was around for a long time.
Actually 40 days is what Luke tells us here. And it wasn't just personal hallucinations. Right. He showed up in front of 500 people at once. All at once. And if you don't, if you doubt me, he says, a lot of these people are still alive.
So you go chase them down and ask them. So it's an instant thing. So yeah, many proofs is what Luke is talking about here. And he says it took place over 40 days. A lot of people don't realize that the resurrected Jesus was making these appearances for 40 days.
Well, okay. And 40 days is a biblically significant number. Important number.
You take your concordance and look up the occurrence of 40. And you'll turn up all kinds of interesting things that we won't take the time to look into now. Yeah. And he's speaking about the Kingdom of God. And that's significant.
Because if you remember, near the end of Jesus' life, the apostles were saying, is this when the Kingdom's coming? Right. So there was a lot of confusion at that point.
And during these 40 days, he sort of set that right. And he let them know what was going on. And they were still asking that question. They still were. Because we're going to come to it shortly. Yeah.
Yeah, they still were. And I might add, the 40 days is also significant. Because we know in the passage coming up here, we're going to get to Pentecost. Pentecost is 49 days.
So in that 40 days, it gives us time to get things squared away. And then the Holy Spirit's poured out. And you have great stuff happening. Well, we should push on. Okay.
Where did you quit? At the end of verse? Three, I think.
End of three. Okay, right. Speaking about the Kingdom of God. Okay.
Yeah. And so this is the assignment in verse four. So, picking up at verse four in Acts one. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me.
For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now. Whoa. Do you want to stop there? Yeah, we should stop right there. Yeah, that's a fascinating thing.
It really is. Yeah, because we actually have a snapshot of the Trinity there in verse four. I mean, you have Jesus, and you have the Father, and you have the Holy Spirit showing up. So that's just an important thing to note as you're going past. But the big thing is verse five.
I mean, this is interesting. John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. There's not much talk about baptizing with the Holy Spirit, but it's worth just lingering a second and talking about what that means. Well, okay, it's really interesting just right on the surface that he says, John baptized with water. So John was the one doing the baptizing. But Jesus says, in a few days, you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, implying that he himself will be baptizing them with the Spirit.
Clearly not a man doing it. Right. And he had spoken to them at great length before his crucifixion about the coming of the Holy Spirit. He will be in you. He'll be with you. He'll never leave you.
My Father and I will come and make our abode with you. That's all in John 14, 15, 16. Right, right. And when you look at the Old Testament in comparison, the Holy Spirit does show up in the Old Testament.
He does. But not in as, what do you want to say, a widespread pouring out like you see here that's coming. Well, and not in a permanent indwelling way. Yeah, exactly. So, this is really one of the gigantic characteristics of the New Covenant is this widespread outpouring of the Holy Spirit on a lot of people, not just the apostles, but anyone who professes faith in Jesus. And we'll see that in the text. And that's just remarkably different from the Old Testament.
And by the way, I might mention too, when he says baptized with the Holy Spirit, the general word for baptized was used in just ordinary household things. Right. If you take a dirty spoon and you put it in water.
Plunk it in the dishwasher. And you immerse it totally. Right. That's baptizing. It's being placed into something like that. So, in a real sense, if you use just that common idea of it, what he's saying is that pretty soon you're going to be placed into something much larger and deeper and more surrounding than anything you've ever believed before. Right.
And you're going to be swallowed up in the midst of it. Yeah, so that's interesting because water runs off and dries up. Yeah. Right? But the Holy Spirit never does. Yeah. Yeah. And so he's hinting at gigantic changes in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, I always like to use this parallel, you're going to be in over your head in many situations, but it's a good thing that you're in over your head in the Holy Spirit.
In the Spirit. Yeah. So that's what's coming up. That's a cool thing.
Oh, there's so much more we could say here. Yeah. Yeah.
But we really need to press on and we're not going to get to the end of the passage. Right. Right. And so far he's still covering what he's talked about in Luke 1. Well, and it did attract my attention that he says, wait here for the promise of the Father.
Right. It's not just I've promised you the Holy Spirit. The Father has promised you the Holy Spirit.
And Peter's going to pick up on that later on in Acts when he says, you know, this is what the prophet Joel was talking about. Yeah. Pour out my Spirit.
Pour out my Spirit. Yeah. Let's move on to six.
Okay. Verse six. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, is it this time you'll restore the kingdom to Israel? Oh, there they go asking that same question again. They're still in their minds. They're still thinking about the earthly kingdom. It's a big deal.
Yeah. And he said to them, it's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he'd said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And he stopped there for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're still wondering about, they sense something big has just happened.
Right, right. And in their mind, something big was going to happen with the coming of the kingdom. And that's not a wrong expectation because when you read through the Old Testament, there's a big changing. And in a simplistic mindset, they'd say, we know when we read the Old Testament, we know that when the Messiah comes, then everything will be different. We're convinced you're the Messiah.
Now is everything different? Well, yes, and he had given them those 40 days of seeing and talking with him to get their heads around the reality of the resurrection. So then they're thinking, okay, he's back from the dead. Great, the perfect king. Right. Bringing the kingdom. Right. And they thought he was going to walk in and establish his throne when he came in on that, you know, the day of the beginning of the Passion Week and he didn't.
But now he's back in the flesh. So maybe now, maybe now, is that what we're talking about? So Jesus spent 40 days teaching these guys about the kingdom of God. They didn't have any idea how far and extensive the kingdom of God in human experience was going to extend before Jesus comes back again to finally finish establishing the kingdom. Well, yeah, because if you at the time you asked them the extent of the kingdom that was promised, they'd say Israel, because the Messiah is the king of Israel. But what they're not getting in their heads, and it's actually going to take them several chapters and Acts to get through their heads, is the kingdom is going to include much broader than just the people of Israel. So he says, look, I'm not going to tell you when all that's going to happen. So clearly he's saying it's going to be future in terms of the fullest fulfillment of the kingdom. But he does tell them kind of the order in which it's going to spread out.
He does. Right? You're starting in Jerusalem, then all Judea, so that's all Jews, then Samaria, so that's the half Jews, right? The northern half of the kingdom. The northern part of the kingdom. Yeah.
And then to the end of the earth. Yeah. Which is very Gentile and very pagan. Yes. Yeah. So you can look at that geographically as a radius that's increasing.
You can look at it spiritually as a spiritual radius that's increasing from, quote, unquote, the holy ones in Israel out to the utter pagans in the end of the earth. Right. To every human being. Yeah.
It's incredibly inclusive. And it's fascinating because he says the purpose of you getting the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, is so that you'll be witnesses. To all those places. To all those places. Yeah.
And it's a fascinating thing. He doesn't say the Holy Spirit is going to come and turn you into majestic teachers of the Old Testament. He says you're going to be witnesses in really far off foreign places. And I might add as well, that's what the word apostle means when you take apart the Greek word apo means away, sto means to arrange by arrangement. So it means by arrangement to be away. Right.
Send away. So that's what they're going to do here. They're going to be sent away as witnesses about what they saw with the living Jesus and what's in store for the kingdom of God. Well, I think it never occurred to these guys that they might actually go farther than simply the kingdom. Remember when they were walking with Jesus in Galilee, he sent them out to all the towns. Yeah, that's right. That's right.
He says go and tell everybody. But here he's giving them this picture of the entire earth. And we know historically that they did. I mean, there's really credible evidence that Thomas got as far as India. Very credible.
So, you know, that's pretty interesting. Well, and Paul made it to Rome. Right. He made it simply to Spain.
Setting his sights on Spain. Right. Yeah.
So, I mean, these guys knew that they're being sent out to the whole world. Okay, but Paul's not standing in the crowd here. No, he's not.
So we'll get to that later. He's not included just yet. But he gets the scope. He gets the scope of the kingdom of God. He understands that. And his basic message is to tell people who are clearly outside of Israel that they can actually be part of the promised kingdom. And that is what really the rest of the book is about. And the Holy Spirit is going to give you the power. Right.
To go there and do that. Yeah. Yeah.
That's exactly right. It reminded me in Isaiah 43, 10. He says, you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I've chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he and before me know God was formed. Right.
Nor shall it be any after me. So he says, you're my witnesses. That's the clearest and simplest distillation of what our role in the kingdom is right now, is to be witnesses to these things. So I might point out too, it's a fascinating thing, when he says Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, end of the earth, he's actually giving us an outline for Acts. Because when you talk about Jerusalem, that's chapters one through seven in Acts. When you talk about Judea and Samaria, a little bit further out, that's Acts eight through 12. And then when you talk about the end of the earth, that's Acts 13 to 28. So it actually goes in this order as we look, as we see the church be witnesses. We see the story.
And that's actually in that later part is where Luke comes into the picture as an actual participant in Paul's travels. Start saying we. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's finish this off. We're running out of time here. So well, I'm going to pick it up with nine.
Yeah, nine. We'll read that again. And when he'd said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Well, that's an intriguing statement.
Well, it is. And you know, I've been familiar with this passage for a long time, but you know what suddenly caught my attention? Is the two men who Luke had told the account of the women at the tomb, to whom two men appeared and said, why are you looking for the living one among the dead? He's not here, but he's risen. So I, you know, it just suddenly I was wondering, is this easy telling us something? The same two messengers said, you know, why are you just gazing into heaven? He's coming back from here, right? He's not among the dead.
In both cases, he was saying you're looking in the wrong place. And you want to know another interesting speculative thing. There were two men that met Jesus on the top of the Mount of Transfiguration.
And that was Moses and Elijah. So it's total speculation, but wouldn't that be interesting if that's these guys? That's really interesting. Yeah, we don't know. But that's fun to kind of think about. It's fun to think about. Well, it's interesting because Luke told us at the end of the Gospel of Luke, that he opened their minds to understand the law and the prophets. Oh, right. Well, Moses and Elijah were the representative figures of the law and the prophets. The law and the prophets.
Both of which were speaking clearly of Messiah in their time and place. So that's an interesting thought. That's fun. That's just fun to think.
Gives me goosebumps. So in these last couple of minutes, what do you make of this fact that the way he's taken up is the way he's going to come back? Isn't that fascinating? Well, it's pretty interesting because in his first coming, he came humble as a newborn baby, right, when he took on flesh to walk among us. But when he comes back, it's going to be unmistakable where he comes from, and he's not coming back as a human. He's coming back as the one who reigns over everything. That's kind of what strikes me on the surface here.
Yeah, yeah. And there's other passages that talk about the coming of the Messiah and his feet touching down on the Mount of Olives, which is clearly where we are right here as well. So this actually echoes a lot of the prophecies about the Messiah coming in power, and he's going to be coming down from heaven, touching down on the Mount of Olives. And other accounts talk about the Mount of Olives being split when that happens.
We don't have time to get into all that kind of stuff. But what he's saying is that even though... This looks like a very final departing. Like for instance, at his death, he comes back and starts showing up in all these different places for 40 days, and it feels like, well, he's going to pop in and out for like forever maybe. Well, here, it's a very deliberate, no, this is the end for now. This is a big exit.
This isn't just popping in and out like the last 40 days. So in that, it looks very final. And so these two men say, well, it's not quite as final as you think because he is still coming back.
He is coming back. And he says specifically, this Jesus. This Jesus. This Yeshua. Right. This Savior.
This one who saves. Yeah. Well, and in some English translation it says, this same Jesus, and now that same is not in the text.
It's not in the text. But this is the emphasis in Greek that this is the same guy that you've walked with for three years. Right. That same Jesus is coming back. So we're not talking about a different Jesus. We're not talking about a different person altogether. We're talking about the same Jesus you were expecting to walk with.
And when I spoke before he's not coming back as a human, he will be recognizable as this Jesus. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
That's exactly right. But he is going to come back. So this is kind of to allay the fears when they see Jesus looking like he's making a major exit, a major final exit.
Will we ever see you again? Oh, yeah. And by the way, he's coming again, which means that the kingdom will come in its fullness when he comes again. And that idea is underscored throughout the entire New Testament and even in the Old that he'll come back.
Okay. And another thing that is underscored in the Old Testament is the presence of the cloud. Yeah.
Being the indication of God's presence. Yeah. Remember that cloud over the temple and in the temple? And the cloud that appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration. So here we have him going up, being taken up into a cloud and the angel says, he's coming back in the same way in the presence of the fullness of God. Yeah.
Yeah. We're out of time. Yeah, we're out of time.
But I love the fact that in this grand exit, he still underscores over and over again. He says he is coming back. So as witnesses tell people, he is coming back. This is not the end.
It looks like the end, but he's coming back. There's more to be. And in fact, that's when the kingdom comes in its fullness.
Well, we're totally out of time. I hope you're excited looking into Acts of this. I'm already excited.
Acts pretty well. The stories are just riveting and what we understand about the working of the Holy Spirit and God's intentions for us and how we can become witnesses. It's all going to unfold in front of our eyes. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're so glad you're joining us.
And we hope you are thrilled as we are, as we look at the early church and how God takes the gospel from Jerusalem all the way to Rome. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we'll see you next time on Morning. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Are we ready? We're ready. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
