Acts 1

Posted on May 5, 2017 in Bible (NT) in a Year |

Friday

Sequels are very popular in today’s world, but did you know that this book of Acts is a sequel to another book?

 Acts is the continuation of the Book of Luke.  The Gospel of Luke was written to share with us some insights into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, along with his miracles and messages and Acts is written to tell us about the growing community of believers that began after Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the work of the Holy Spirit. Their journey to spread the good news of Jesus in fulfillment of the Great Commission is written with an open ending. This book is still being written and our journey, which is not unlike their journey, continues the story.

We find in the beginning of Acts a sort of bridge between Luke’s two books. We don’t know for sure who this man Theophilus might be or if in fact he is symbolic of “all those who are friends of God.” (which is the literal translation of his name).

It certainly gives us the sense that this book was written not only for that time/era, but for ours as well and for future generations.

Jesus spends 40 days with the disciples telling them to wait in Jerusalem for the “gift my Father promised.” This assures them that they will not be alone and promising them that they will have the power necessary to carry out their mission – which is to go into the world sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus leaves them in a pretty dramatic way. I think He does this in order to help the disciples see that He is truly leaving them in the physical world. But we also learn that he will return in the same way. We won’t know the day or the time, He will just be here and that is why we are told to always be ready. “

But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows.”

(Matt 24:36 MSG) Like the story of the 10 virgins found in Matthew 25, those who are waiting and prepared for the hour will be the ones taken in. So we need to be careful not to be fooled by false teachers claiming that Jesus is here or there (Mark 13:21-23).

We also read today that another disciple needed to be chosen in fulfillment of the scriptures. So they had a few prerequisites for this person. First, he needed to be someone who was with them the whole time Jesus was living among us. Second, he needed to be a witness to the resurrection. One of the things that this tells us is that there were faithful followers of Jesus who were not part of the twelve, yet were with them the whole time. I wonder how many there were besides these two? Well, anyway, they chose Barsabbas and Matthias. They prayerfully considered who they should select but did you notice they still used “lots” to determine who was the one God wanted.

Throughout the Old Testament we read of several times, something being decided upon by casting lots. Jonah for example was one such place. Even though this practice was done numerous times in the Old and New Testament, the actual way it was done is not clear. These could have been different lengths of sticks or flat stones, maybe even some sort of dice. For us it would be like flipping a coin or drawing straws. But whatever it was, we now should not be using that sort of practice to make decisions today. That is the work of the Holy Spirit living in our lives. We don’t need to rely on the flip of a coin to make decisions.

But until the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples at Pentecost, they used this method and chose Matthias. We have been given this same power to help us with decisions. The Holy Spirit will communicate to us what God wants us to do, but we have to also be willing to listen. It isn’t as easy as choosing straws, but this act of leaning on the Holy Spirit to guide us brings us ever closer to God.

Feeling Challenged

Pastor Kathy