I've recently been thinking there basically have been all groups of people thinking different things through all times. You know, nothing new under the sun. So, I bet some default positions were ok with uncircumcised too.
2026 Bible Study Thread
- Thread starter GodfatherPartTwo
- Start date
Acts 12:
There are two big miracles in Acts 12 and more to come later in Acts. Here they are:
'Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.'
” 23;Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
This begs the question to me as why aren't angels appearing anymore? And why isn't the Lord striking down people anymore? What made God decide to remove his influence to this degree?
I have read some argue that anytime someone turns to Christanity it's a miracle but this isn't quite the same as an angel prison break scenario.
I suppose I just have to say 'God works in mysterious ways' but they were not so mysterious in Acts 12.
I guess a divine creator isn't someone I can attach a human thought process to. We don't really know how important intervention is to him compared and what his plans are. Still is frustrating. Father well he seems like an absent father.
It's curious to me why James is allowed to be executed here but again I guess we say God has different plans.
I sometimes wonder if I'd ever be able to accept that if I was to die early or have to live knowing I had not so much time left. Would I trust that God wanted this for me? The horrifying idea that I might suddenly not have time enough left to fully understand the word of God or repent for my sins. It's one of the scariest things for me to have a fixed end point but even more terrifying might be a sudden unexpected death where I have to face the consequences of my sin without any sort of effort to get things right.
I suppose this is why every day we need to do all we can to be the best verions of ourselves and to make decisions aligned with God's plan for us.
But what is it? And what if we get it wrong?
Acts 13:
';Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10;“You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11;Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”
Pretty interesting that Saul/Paul had the abilitiy to take out those tricking others with blindness here.
'44;On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45;When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.'
The J's certainly come across as the villains in this part of the Bible and really most of the NT. How do modern followers of Judaism even reconcile this?
I find myself a bit confused as it does appear like Judaism was the og version of Christanity and then with the NT it separated from that religion. I mean, even Peter and Paul were J's themselves as well as Jesus.
It sometimes makes me feel a bit down as a gentile myself how much controversy there is about gentiles being accepted and it does make me think modern J's perhaps maintain this early biblical dislike for gentiles.
Probably happens all the time and we are just in the group of people that can't see it. I don't think we moderns have a good lens. Essentially, once you attach meaning to anything happening it becomes a miracle. Otherwise, you can always explain anything away. You know, the "it's just..." phrase. We always do that, especially with our "science" type thinking.
I'm sure some of the people who witnessed (or were around) the jailbreak scenario could explain it away too. You can do that with anything.
Acts 13
Acts 14
Some people think that if you believe strongly in predestination, that it defeats the point of evangelizing. This text shows that is a false dichotomy. If that were logically necessary, then Calvinists would not be some of the biggest missionaries out there. Rather, I say that if you have a weak, sub-biblical concept of Election and predestination, your evangelizing will be weaker, since you lack any divine foundation and you must rely on your own wit and skill to convince men of the Gospel. You must become something of a salesman. But what you win them with is what you win them to. The biblical Gospel has the power to convert the heart of all whom God has ordained for eternal life.
Acts 14
This shows you that the Gentiles would worship anything. They weren't picky. What's another god to add to the pantheon? This is very much the spirit of our age, though they do not call them gods, there are many idols that capture the hearts and minds of the people in our day. Gone is the concept of covenant fidelity to one God and to Him alone.
This is God's common grace. His salvific grace comes only through Jesus Christ covenantally but His common grace goes to all men. Salvation is certainly not deserved but neither is common grace, yet God gives it according to His good pleasure.
Paul and Barnabas plant churches and appoint elders, that is presbyters or bishops in the churches to oversee them. More will be said on this later in Acts.
The real distinction is made between the baptism of John the Baptist and Christian Baptism. As for the necessity of baptism with water, it is not necessary in the sense that you'll go to hell if you don't receive it. However, it is an ordinance of God and should be sought for by any true believer. God's salvation does not depend on the ordinances, though they are a means of grace.
I believe God does still strike people down, but we view things in such a naturalistic mindset that we don't see it that way. Same goes for other activities of God. You may look at the sun moving in its orbit and think "that's just natural, that's just the way it is, gravity" yet God is the one who causes creation to operate according to His will. It's both/and.
That's the thing. God is no absent Father at all. Without Him, we would no longer exist even for one moment. Even if you can't see Him, all of this is His handiwork. It's perspective, but it goes deeper than perspective.
They do. Very much so. In fact, they dislike Gentiles more than the Bible portrays them since their post-Biblical tradition teaches them to be that way. I recommend that you do not repay hatred for hatred but repay evil with good as the Apostle Paul says: "Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."
Acts 13:
Gonna be honest, I don't see any references to predestination here. I did a bit more of a deeper dive and found this:
'When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.'
The use of the term 'appointed' suggests some are chosen and some are not.
This part is intriguing:
'46;Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47;For this is what the Lord has commanded us:'
It almost feels like Paul is saying 'we're only preaching to the gentiles since you guys weren't listening!' when actually it was cos of a dream of animals coming down to the earth on a sheet from the rock!
Acts 14:
What with making people blind and yelling at people to walk and making it possible, it seems Paul is almost Christ like in his powers at this moment.
'11;When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12;Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker.'
This seems somewhat understandable since Paul is basically working miracles.
@GodfatherPartTwo - What makes you say they are worshipping anything in this passage? They appear pretty focused on Paul and Barnabas.
Acts 15
Here began the Judaizing heresy. The Judaizing heresy in it's spirit is much broader and more encompassing than how it manifested here. At the heart of the Judaizing heresy is the idea that you are saved by works, the Law, rituals, legalism. In the Apostle's time, it took the form of the necessity of circumcision. Not circumcision only, but the covenant that circumcision signified, that is the Mosaic Covenant. The spirit of the Judaizing heresy is still alive and well today, though not under the form of circumcision, but always when men go beyond what is written and captivate men's consciences with what they deem necessary for salvation.
Much of Paul's ministry was spent against the Judaizers. Romans and Galatians especially. Whenever Paul preaches the grace of God, it is in opposition to human works. We are not saved by working for our salvation, we are saved by God giving us salvation for free. This wasn't just Paul's theology. All of the Apostles teach this, these are Peter's own words. If anyone would've been saved by works it would've been the Apostles, yet they were saved by grace.
To compare this council to the Ecumenical councils would be like comparing apples to oranges. Unlike the Ecumenical councils, this was an Apostolic council. It is binding and was inscripturated and convened by the Apostles themselves. The Emperor of the Roman Empire was the one who started calling the Ecumenical councils when they began 300 years later. As such, you would do well to recognize the social-political context of those councils and not anachronistically equate them to this Apostolic council.
Acts 15
Acts 16
Paul was a good leader. He didn't just plant churches but he wanted to keep maintenance on them, quality control. Barnabas wanted to bring John Mark but Paul didn't want him since he had left them earlier. Paul was a real ride or die kind of guy.
Acts 16
This is where Paul meets Timothy. He circumcised him not as a ploy to earn salvation but because he wanted Timothy to be "presentable" to the Jews that they would be evangelizing to. As Paul says, he became all things to all men to win them to Christ.
This section is interesting because the author, Luke, cuts to a first person perspective whereas he had been writing the narrative in the third person up till now. This woman Lydia was a seller of purple fabrics, that is to say she was a wealthy woman. God can use wealthy people for His kingdom too, only don't let it become a snare. Notice how her "heart was opened" by God. God takes the active role in converting people, He's not a bystander.
Paul and his crew get heckled by a woman with a python spirit, a demonic spirit, so Paul casts the demon out of her. Many ancient religions were about seeking to be indwelt by spirits. Christianity is not much different in that you are seeking to have a spirit dwell in you, but the Holy Spirit of God Himself. As for the heathen, the serpent was almost universally recognized as a symbol of divine wisdom, and no wonder, for Satan is the mastermind behind all idolatry. You've heard of kundalini rising, chakras and such, this is a demonic python spirit. Plato wrote about Socrates having a daemon. These things were done in the open back then, they are more veiled now mainly because of the prevalence of Christianity. This woman had her own handlers who used to profit off her, so they had Paul and Silas thrown into jail.
Paul and Silas were singing in the midnight jail and then God caused an earthquake to set them free. The jailer attempts to kill himself because letting a prisoner escape was a death sentence. But Paul preaches the Gospel to him and saves his life. People who believe in infant baptism usually point to these "household" baptisms in Acts as biblical proof for infant baptism. I don't find that argument convincing since no infants are ever explicitly mentioned in the text, a "household" could mean many things, it doesn't always mean our nuclear family conception of a household.
Paul had a sense of humor. The town arrested him in basically a fit of mob justice, ignorant of the fact that he was a Roman citizen and was entitled to a fair trial. Paul basically says that they should send him away with the same amount of publicity as when he was arrested. In Godfather 2, Michael Corleone says almost the exact same thing when he is accused by the Senate committee of being a mob boss.
Acts 17
Paul and Silas had a good run in Thessalonica but were chased out eventually. When they came to Berea, these Jews accepted Paul's Gospel because it accorded with the Scriptures, the Old Testament. Be good Bereans and check your Scriptures, don't just believe any old wind that blows.
Paul is taken to Athens and then to the Areopagus, Mars Hill. The Areopagus was where the Athenian elders would meet to govern the city. They believed their goddess Athena presided over the hill. In the great Theban plays, Oedipus' final resting place was near Mars Hill. If you know the history of the philosophical movement, from the pre-Socratics through Aristotle, you'll understand verse 21; every philosopher would come along and advance his new thesis, only for the next one to come along and "refute" the previous one, it was a never-ending cycle of new ideas, not unlike what you see in liberal academic circles these days.
Paul was provoked in his heart by their idolatry and one of the prominent themes of his preaching was to correct them of it. Away with the images. Second, notice Paul's proof for the judgment; it is the resurrection. Many people in our day ask what is the proof for the resurrection. This is all wrong. The resurrection is the proof. To them I say, show me the proof that Jesus is still in the grave.
Even though Paul went after their icons, the Greeks mainly had a problem with the concept of the resurrection. This is because a harsh dualism between the physical and the spiritual was a common theme in all Greek philosophy, which would carry over to the Gnostic sects. To them, the body was something to be escaped from, only the spirit counted. But the Apostles, and indeed the Prophets before them, taught both a physical and spiritual resurrection.
A few centuries after the New Testament, a spurious work came into prominence. It was alleged to have been written by Dyonysius the Areopagite. It is now known that this is a pseudepigraphical work called Pseudo-Dionysius. It was almost impossible to detect this kind of thing in the early church, unfortunately so, since this work became fairly influential and influenced Christian doctrine, and not for the better, into a solidly Neo-Platonic direction. One of the benefits of Sola Scriptura is that you don't have to believe in fraudulent documents just because they're considered as "tradition." It is very easy these days to look back and see what was pseudepigraphical and what was the genuine article.
Last edited:
Acts 15:
'Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood'
Just curious when did this chastisment of eating strangled animals switch?
DIsagreement between Paul and Barnabas is curious too. Even back then Christians were not aligned and it all continues now.
Acts 16:
'When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to'
This is fascinating. What exactly is the spirit of Jesus and how is it stopping them? Is this a mental block of some kind and if such things occur how do we reconcile them with fears and avoidance?
This is a wild section full of miracle not least this:
The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.
35;When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.”
Yep the jailer was converted and they were freed. As well as earthquakes and countless others. This is almost like a James Bond esque dodging peril espionage with God on side instead of Q gadgets.
I do get mad as I wrote before that we don't see such clear miracles anymore. But maybe that's on me.
Acts 18
Paul meets Priscilla and Aquila. These churches that Paul plants or visits in Acts, these are the churches that Paul's letters were addressed to. He mentions Priscilla and Aquila in some of his letters.
I love this guy, he was mighty in the Scriptures. He was something of an apologist, he could demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ from the Scriptures, that is the Old Testament. How many Christians today could do that? I worry that many do not read their Old Testament enough, not trusting that it is the Word of God just as much as the New Testament is.
Acts 19
Here Paul practices a "rebaptism." Now there is no such thing as rebaptism, only one true baptism. See how baptism is covenantal, and connected to a covenant mediator. A Christian baptism must be connected to Jesus. John the Baptist's baptism wasn't strictly the baptism of the New Covenant, as he was a prophet of the Old Covenant.
This is the only time the Bible describes an "exorcist." You may think of Jesus and the Apostles as exorcists, but I don't think that's biblically accurate. Jesus and the Apostles casted demons out by divine authority. Exorcists are not much different from witch doctors, almost every religion has them. This text goes to show that simply invoking the name of Jesus like it's a spell will accomplish nothing in this spiritual warfare.
Religion has always been a big business. Magic books are hard to find and are valuable on account of their rarity. The temple of Artemis in Ephesus began losing money because Paul was presenting the Old Testament worldview, that things made with hands are no gods but vain idols. There were people who stood to lose from this so they attempted to stir the crowds against Paul but were quieted down by the authorities. Even now, many people stand to lose a great deal from the true proclamation of the Gospel.
Last edited:
Acts 20
Paul raises Eutychus from the dead, then proceeds to hang out with his pals until the dawn. I like to call this the first church lock-in.
Paul was on his way to Jerusalem. There is trepidation in Paul here. Jerusalem was where the persecution of Christians began and where they killed James the Apostle. Christians were persona non grata in Jerusalem and Paul knew this better than anyone. So he called to himself the elders of the Ephesian church to instruct them in case anything should happen to him, he treated this as a farewell.
Notice how Paul calls them overseers (bishops) in this verse, and how he called them elders (presbyters) in verse 17. This is because in the Apostolic Church, bishops and elders were the same office. There were multiple bishops in the Ephesian church, not just one. The single bishop over the presbyters model would develop later but it was not the system that the Apostles founded. Also notice how he describes them as "shepherding the flock." This is where the term "pastor" comes from, it's another term for the bishops or elders.
Far from describing any infallible line of bishops, Paul predicts that there will be corrupt bishops after his time is up. Paul does not assume that the church is incapable of error and that there's nothing to worry about, rather, he commends the bishops to the Word of God so that they would have a means to stand against any false teachers. The means that the Apostle commended the bishops to, the Scriptures, are the same means available to us today. The Scriptures aren't commended to the bishops, it's the other way around, the bishops are commended to the Word of God.
Acts 17:
';But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd'
Even back in these times rebellious J's were causing havoc.
In Athens:
';A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. '
Appears to be some confusion here as Paul preaches in syangogues. Hard to pinpont the exact moment Christianity becomes something other than a jewish sect.
'When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” '
The point of delineation appears to be whether or not one accepts Christ. Those who do become Christian and those who do not remain jews.