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. You know, many Christians are astonished to find that the greatest critics of ministry are often inside the church. You mean those people who say, but you're not doing it right. Exactly, but they don't know the details of what happened. And they haven't seen that the grace of God is authentically at work.
And when they see the grace of God, they're speechless. Let's find out why that happened today in Acts on More Than Ink. Well, yes, indeed, this is More Than Ink. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And again, we continue in God's Word as we're reading it together across the dining room table from one another. And without comparing notes, we just sit here and tell you what we read in front of us.
And we hope you're joining us in that. We're in Acts, the book of Acts. And by the way, we're at a critical turning point in Acts. And it's best for me kind of illustrated by a book that I read years ago by Stan Telchen. And it's called Betrayed.
He wrote this early 2000s. But Stan Telchen was a good Orthodox Jew. And his daughter, the short story is his daughter called him from college and said she'd become a Christian. And he tried to tell her, no, look, you know, Christians and Jews don't mix.
Jews can never be Christians. And so she just pleaded with him to read the Bible. He read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, got into Acts, got into this very point we're in today and something changed. Because when he read what we're going to read today, he realized that the followers of Jesus were originally all Jews and excluded the Gentiles. It wasn't always a Gentile thing. And he said, you mean it started and it continued as a Jewish thing? Is Jesus for the Jews?
And at this point on in Acts, everything changed for him. So in a real sense, like Stan Telchen, we're turning a big corner here in terms of the story of Jesus and who is Jesus for? Is he just for the Jews, the King of the Jews?
Or is he also for the Gentiles? And that's part of the discovery we look at today. Well, and it's kind of fun as the story of Acts unfolds from this point on that to watch how shocked they were at the movement of God, the Spirit of God, simply being gifted to the Gentiles in exactly the same way he had been gifted to them. And there, you know, it's like Peter says, well, what was I going to do? Stand in God's way? So previously, before we came today, we were in chapter 10 and we looked at this Roman centurion up in Caesarea that Peter just talks about the gospel and the Holy Spirit moves in their lives and clearly without any debate at all, these people become followers of Jesus because it's displayed in the gifts through the speaking of tongues. I mean, there's just no way around it. Well, and the Holy Spirit had orchestrated that entire encounter.
The whole encounter, yeah. He had set Peter up, he had set Cornelius up and then arranged for them to meet. And so it's very clear that that's God's action. God is pushing forward this new agenda. And he's using Peter as a principle spokesman to tell the rest of the believing community that, hey, the Gentiles are in. And that's where we are today in chapter 11 because word gets back to the center of the Christian Church, which is in Jerusalem. And today, we're going to see what happens when that news reaches down there and how God deals with it in order to bring an understanding to the rest of the believers and not just Peter. So if you're joining us, we're in chapter 11 of Acts. We're turning this gigantic page in benefit for the Gentiles and we start in verse 1. You want to read for us?
I will. Let's see what happens when word gets down to Jerusalem. Okay, verse 1 of chapter 11. Now, the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him saying, you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.
Okay, let's stop there. So the news did get down to Jerusalem. That's the center of the believers of Jesus at the time.
And it's interesting here what they get bent out of shape about. They're called the circumcision party here. Now, this could very well mean that they're Christian believers.
They're believers in Jesus, but they still hold to Judaism in terms of it's the Mosaic law and stuff like that. So that's why it's called the circumcision party. So they get bent out of shape because he went to uncircumcised men and he ate with them. Right, which would imply that he was in a continual state of uncleanness, right? Unritual uncleanness because he stayed in their homes. He ate their food. He spent time with them without going through any kind of ritual cleansing process.
Yes. And you know, the traditional laws of the rabbis at the time is you just do not interact with the gentiles and you certainly do not accept like a dinner invitation. And you certainly, certainly squared don't go into their house. Which is really interesting because the law, the Mosaic law did not say that. That's right.
Anywhere. It actually implied the opposite. The opposite. But by the first century, this over layering of rabbinic teaching had interpreted that to mean this.
Total separation. So their first criticism is the fact that he's violating this tradition of the rabbis. Right. Not the law, but the tradition.
Tradition of the rabbis. And you'll find out in a second, it's a good thing that Peter brought with him witnesses. He's got six guys with him. That's right. Okay, six is an interesting number, right?
It is. Because that's three times the number of legally required witnesses. So it's important because this is a big deal because what Peter is going to say now, he's just going to talk as a witness, talk as a witness about what happened when he went into this house.
It's a good thing that these other guys witnessed it as well. So let's pick up what Peter responds to these people of circumcision and see how he defends what happened. Okay, verse four.
But Peter began and explained it to them all in order. I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air and I heard a voice saying to me, rise, Peter, kill and eat. But I said, by no means, Lord, for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But the voice answered a second time from heaven, what God has made clean, do not call common. This happened three times and all was drawn up again into heaven and behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were sent, three men arrived at the house in which we were sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them without, the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me and we entered the man's house and he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, send to Joppa and bring Peter who's called Peter or bring Simon who's called Peter. He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?
Should we stop there? I love this because this is Peter's own words recounting what Luke had already told us in the previous chapter. It's exactly the same. We just read it in the previous chapter, yeah. But Peter's telling the story and interestingly enough, he could have chosen to try and do like a theological defense. He really didn't. All he did, what does he do? He just tells what happened. He's a witness to what happened. This is really important when we read Acts, right?
Because Acts is an account of what happened, not the way it will happen or necessarily even the way it should happen, but simply what happened. Or necessarily the theory from heaven behind it. These are just people telling simple things that happened. Telling what they saw, what they heard, what they did. But they have obvious and profound implications. Yes.
Obvious and profound. So he tells, we just read this, sounds like a pretty accurate account. In this case, he does mention in verse 12, there were six guys that went with him.
It's a good thing that happened. Now we know there's six of them because we just knew there was more than one before. We just knew there were some guys from Joppa that came up.
Yeah, I think it mentioned in the previous chapter. So yeah, I think in chapter 10, yes, some brothers came with him from Joppa. So that's a good deal because if someone's going to question whether Peter's just making this up, he could point to the six guys and he does.
I mean, I see him sweeping his hand toward these guys as he's speaking in verse 12. These six brothers, they also accompanied him. Right, they were with me.
And we entered the man's house. Wasn't just me. Right. So it's not just Peter who's unclean. That's right.
It's all of them. And that's an in your face admission of guilt from their perspective. So you're not denying the fact that you went into this guy's house, all of you guys. And stayed there several days, multiplying the sin.
Yeah. However, he does a clever thing in verse 13 right after admitting that. He says that the guy in the house had told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house. And in a sense, he's saying, look, if an angel of God can stand in the house of a Gentile, I don't see a problem with me standing in the house of a Gentile. Isn't that interesting?
Yeah, it's a nice little inclusion right there. That's right. So he says, well, the angel was already in the house, so I went in. I laugh every time I read that. So the angel was in his house.
There you go. And then how does he know that the message was received? Well, he says in verse 15, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as on us. So exactly our experience was their experience.
And we witnessed it. And then I remembered the word that the Lord had said, John baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And you can find that a couple of places. I'll just mention one in Mark 1-8.
It says that very thing. Jesus says, I've baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That's John the Baptist. That's Acts 1-8. No, that's Mark 1-8. Mark?
Yeah, that's Mark 1-8. Oh, that's John the Baptist. John the Baptist speaking. Yeah.
I baptized you with water, but he, Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. So Jesus said the same thing to them in Acts 1-5. Exactly. Exactly. So Peter's just saying, I remember hearing this and boom.
More than once. It happened. I'm just saying it happened.
And so there you go. Well, isn't it interesting that he emphasizes the same way it happened to us, exactly the same way it happened to us. Well, how did it happen to them?
They weren't doing anything special to seek it. No. They were simply gathered together, praying, worshiping, listening to the Word, doing what they do. And the Spirit simply came. Yes. And anointed them all and enabled them all to speak in other tongues, glorifying God and speaking of His mighty deeds. That's what it says in the beginning of Acts. Yeah. Well, that's what happened here at Cornelius' house. They weren't saying, oh, Holy Spirit, come.
No. Right? They weren't doing anything particular. They were simply gathered to hear the message that Peter had for them. I recall from the narrative in the previous chapter, Peter's still winding up his message. He hasn't even gotten to his real salvation message yet.
And the Holy Spirit comes on him, and it kind of stops the momentum of his speech. Well, it implies that the process of belief was already well underway in these people. And the moment they believed, the Spirit validated it, and Peter validated it. They just needed to know the truth and embrace the truth, to worship God in spirit and in truth. Isn't it lovely if Peter says, I couldn't stand in God's way, right, on the basis of my being a better Jew. Right. And even as Peter describes his own firsthand experience here, Peter does not play a prominent role in the narrative, really. He was just there, and he saw it happen.
He said a few things, but clearly he did not engineer it. So it just happened. This makes me remember a passage that was read on the YouTube channel we watched, the So Be It channel, the Jews witnessing out on the streets in Jerusalem. And he quotes, I had to look it up, he quotes Isaiah 49.6, because what we see is Isaiah 49.6 happening right now. It's God saying, I will make you as a light for the nations. That's the goyim, that's the Gentiles. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
Right. And here it is. Here it is, the Jews as the proclaiming nation, proclaiming to the Gentiles that salvation is theirs as well. Okay, so now you just mentioned that YouTube channel, So Be It, those three words, and it's a channel that Jews for Jesus posts, and it is on the street interviews of Jewish believers in Jesus talking to people on the street in Israel about faith in their Messiah. So I would just encourage you listeners, you can see this in action. Oh, we're great fans of the channel. We love that channel.
Yeah, it's really, really great. So here's Peter doing it, the Jew, Peter doing it with the Gentiles. And he's telling the Jews in Jerusalem, it's okay. Who've got their knickers in a twist, because Peter's outside the ropes.
He's outside the lines. That's right. So at the beginning of this section today, we saw their emotional reaction condemning him. But in 18, we find out that their attitudes completely changed. And it doesn't take very long.
It's not really an argument at this point. Verse 18, he says, when they heard these things, they fell silent, no response. And they glorified God saying, then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. It's an astonishing turn. It's like, it's just settled.
It's like, oh, Peter's word is good. Yeah. Yeah. And it's this line right here that Stan Telchen really, you know, he really grabbed on to. Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.
Yeah. And I think we've talked about this before, but the plan with the nation of Israel was that God would glorify himself through the nation of Israel to the other nations. And that salvation and the Messiah Jesus wasn't meant just for the Jews.
It was meant for the entire world. But the nation of Israel was meant to be kind of the tip of the spear in the way, the front communication vessel that God was going to use to communicate and glorify himself. Deuteronomy says that the other nations watching around will see what it looks like for a nation to live in right relationship with their God. Now that's several places in Deuteronomy. I don't have the references right in front of me.
One I know of them is chapter four. So you know, that was laid down at the very get go. It was God's intention for his people living under his law to make visible to the world what it looks like to live in a relationship with a holy, righteous God.
And relationship in a larger scale as a community, as a society with God as its center. In order to draw them in. Right. Right. And as in so doing, making them a light for all the nations. Right.
Yeah, I think this is just, this is the beginning of this happening and this is why this is so thrilling. This is a gigantic page turn in the book of Acts. Indeed, if you've ever read Isaiah, I can think of half a dozen verses that speak of this light to the nations, light to the nations, light to the nations.
In Isaiah in particular, you can look that up with a simple concordance search folks. So I would encourage you to do that. Yeah. Well, we're going to push on here, but it's interesting that, you know, it sounds like everything's hunky dory, but this issue with the Gentile is still going to perk around for a couple chapters because there's going to be with wrestling with what exactly does that mean? I mean.
Okay. But the Spirit had already begun to do it. He had already sent the gospel up to the Samaritans.
So that's like halfway out. We already had the account of Philip with the Ethiopian. He's not a Jew, but he was interested in the God of the Jews. So you know, the Spirit is already doing these things kind of below the radar.
Been dropping examples all along. You know, Jesus goes up to present day Lebanon. That's right. Jesus himself went to Gentiles.
So I mean, yeah, he was coloring outside the lines even then. So this is just tough for the religious Jews who've come to Jesus to really accept generations of prejudice on the part of the people in the religious community that said the Gentiles are dogs. We should not associate with them. They're outside of God's plan.
Those are all just traditional prejudices on the part of the religious community. Here we're coming back to the fact that God so loved the world that he gave his son, not just God so loved the Jews. So it turns out, we'll stop the forward progress on Peter just for a second.
We find out that this actually has been going on in parallel. Just reaching out to Gentiles from other places at the same time, and that's where we pick up the story in verse 19. Okay, so if you remember, after the death of Stephen, persecution increased.
I don't know why my lips are funny today. Persecution increased, and so it told us back in chapter eight, or earlier, that the church was scattered because of that. So verse 19, now those who were scattered because of the persecution, yeah, why don't you read it?
Rented lips. That's what they used to call it. Okay, so now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, they traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. Huh.
Hmm. But, and there's the big change, but there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists. Those are Gentile Greeks. Gentiles.
Speaking to the Hellenists. Preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number, who believed, turned to the Lord. And the report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem. And so they sent Barnabas to Antioch, and when he came, well let me just stop right there.
Yeah, let's stop there. So here's another. Word comes down to Jerusalem that there are these guys from Cyprus and Cyrene. Cyprus is the big island off the coast, the Mediterranean coast from Israel.
Cyrene is in the top of Africa. So these guys are sending missionaries up to Antioch. Right. And they're actually talking about the gospel to Gentiles, to Hellenists. What gave them, who gave them the permission to do this? They're probably saying in Jerusalem.
But they're doing exactly what Peter had been doing as well. And so they come and they preach Jesus to the Gentiles, to the pagan Gentiles, and the hand of the Lord, not their own abilities, causes things to change, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Okay, so this is interesting because just like they had sent Peter and John up to Samaria to kind of validate what Philip had been doing up there, here they hear what's going on in Antioch and they send Barnabas up there to check it out. Now why Barnabas?
He's a good choice. Well, because Barnabas was from Cyprus. He's from Cyprus.
Right? A Jew from Cyprus. A Levite. Probably a Greek speaking Jew.
Yeah, yeah. So he's perfect. He's a Jew who came from Cyprus and so he goes up to Antioch to find out what those Cyprians were doing up there.
But look at you. It says, when he came and saw the grace of God. Yeah, let's read it from there because we stopped before that. When he came, verse 23, and saw the grace of God, he was glad. And he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people were added to the Lord.
Okay, stop. That's exactly the description that we had of Stephen back in chapter six. A good man, full of the Spirit, full of faith. He was glad when he recognized this grace of God. He didn't even miss a beat. He's like, this is the grace of God at work.
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting they did not send an apostle. They sent Barnabas. But like we said before, he's from Cyprus. He's a Levite. He knows the law. He knows the language also.
And he knows the language. So I mean, it was a pretty good deal for him to go up and this is a good foundation to understand Barnabas because he'll figure prominently in the rest of Acts. Well, okay. And remember a few chapters back, Barnabas is the one who came alongside Saul after his conversion and got to know him, introduced him to the apostles in Jerusalem. Chapter nine.
Back in nine. So Barnabas is an amazing fellow, let's just say that. Yeah, let's go on.
Okay. I'll read from 25. So interesting turn, he's an Antioch, but in 25 Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. So he recognizes something is going on here that this guy Saul can help with.
And Saul's been undercover for over a decade. And so when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians. So Barnabas goes and gets some help and he goes to his old friend that he stood beside back in chapter four as well before the stoning of Stephen, this guy shows up. That's when they said, he's the son of encouragement.
So he comes and he looks for Saul, brings Saul back and for a whole year, they're there teaching about who Jesus is, the context of the Old Testament, the Messiah, all that kind of stuff for a whole year and to a great many people. And so there is where his disciples were first called Christians, which actually the term started as a derogatory phrase. Right from people on the outside.
Yeah, from the people on the outside. But eventually the church itself embraced the title and said, yeah, it actually literally means little Christ. So they display the character of Christ in what they're doing. And so that's what they were called there. And by the way, I might add that Antioch was a wretchedly immoral pagan place in the world. In fact, it was many times thought of as the third most popular or biggest city in Rome. It was a big city.
Right. Because number one was Rome. Number two was Alexandria, the center of thought.
Number three is here in Antioch, which is in present day Turkey, right just to the west of Aleppo, Syria. But it was a big place and it was a wretched place and it was a place that was very needy to understand the gospel. And so it's fascinating to me that this place, Antioch, becomes kind of the incubator of a lot of action, both not just now, but further with Paul's travels as they come up pretty soon. And this is where this partnership between Paul and Barnabas really takes root, right? Because they work together here for a year and they will take missionary journeys together from this point forward. Maybe we need to just kind of linger on this part of this passage and save the next little chunk for next week. Yeah, because this does introduce some of that travel that's coming up.
It does. But Barnabas goes to look for Saul because he had recognized in Saul a zeal, a knowledge, an understanding, and it just needed to be seasoned over those years that we don't know exactly what Saul was doing. But we know that Barnabas recognizes him as valuable here in this ministry to these Gentile believers. Very purposeful from God's design. And possibly because he knew that God had told Saul, you're going to be my messenger to the Gentiles. Yeah, yeah.
So let's just close this out in 27. Now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch and one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world this took place in the days of Claudius Caesar. So the disciples determined everyone according to his ability to send relief to the brothers living in Judea and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
Okay, let's get this straight. This is a gift from a Gentile church to the original Jewish believers in Judea who were under persecution. Who originally voiced outrage and concern that the Gentiles were coming to Jesus. And this is initiated by the Spirit, apparently, when they heard of the hardships in Judea. And their trust in Barnabas and Saul is so great that this sizable gift is entrusted to them and they say, take these gifts down to Judea to help them. These are a remarkable kind of God-like showing of grace and giving and so this causes us to follow Barnabas and Saul to Judea and that's where we go to next. And they find themselves in Jerusalem and the story continues as this news about the fact that God's love and His grace extends not just to the Jews but beyond that to the Gentiles and the people who will be principal spokesmen to the Gentiles are Jews. Who are telling the rest of the world you're in as well.
So anyway we need to cut it off, we're out of time. By the way if you want to check it out Antioch in the scriptures, it's everywhere. In fact it's on Google Earth, look for Antakya. It's still there to this very day. Okay well and we can date this very precisely because he says all this took place in the days of Claudius. Claudius.
Claudius Caesar is well documented, you can look him up in the history books. So here's the history of God shaking things up and getting those who love him to understand that God loves more than just them. God loves the world. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us and we're going to continue to look as this spreads throughout the entire world. But interestingly enough it even came to Peter when he wrote his first letter to tell us don't be ashamed of being called a Christian. Don't be ashamed. Right.
But let the glory, glorify God in that name as a Christian. So we'll see you next time as we continue this saga here on More Than Ink. 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. The new year. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
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