…or is it?
This is really about the continuing acts of Jesus, in even more hair-raising ways. Expect upside-down-cake.
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From the blog
Acts Wednesday: Chapter 11, From Peter to Paul
Peter’s simple, straightforward logic, and God’s obvious affirmation, rendered them speechless. There was no tenable argument, no counterpoint could be made, God had made His desire and will abundantly clear. But this issue was going to crop again and again. Prejudice is hard to get rid of.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 10, Cornelius Born Again
Often, it seems, the way God does that is to shake things up with the unexpected, the unanticipated. Depending on how entrenched you and I are in the way we view something, will determine how willing we are to even entertain the new ways, new perspectives, and new challenges God presents.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 9, Breakthroughs
You know how it feels to be stuck? You can’t see any way out, and you sure wish you could get out. This onramp at the end of Acts chapter 9, leading to Acts chapter 10, is all about breakthroughs, Peter willing to cooperate with God as God began to expand the church and take…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 9, From Saul to Paul
Never underestimate the value of one person being brought to a saving faith. The only reason you and I know about Ananias is because of his willing response to God resulted in the conversion of this one man, Saul, who became the apostle Paul.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 8, The Ethiopian Eunuch
This is a word to you and me who have, at one time or another, felt permanently condemned by something in our past, knowing with a certitude almost as hard-fast as Deuteronomy, that we don’t belong, that we have been permanently scarred or mutilated by something (or someone) unspeakable. Or, we know in our hearts…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 8, Simon the Sorcerer
God working miracles through Philip drew the attention of a powerful sorcerer named Simon. He was the proud resident magician of Samaria, even considered by many people to be divine, and he had a wide and loyal following. But not, Simon was losing many of his followers to the gospel of Jesus Christ, so he…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 7, Stephen
I think, for me, this story means determining to see adversity and ordeals as opportunities to see the spiritual realm more clearly, and to expect God’s glory to be revealed in the moment, even in me. Growth is not the goal, it’s simply the side-effect. The goal is to incarnate Jesus, reveal Jesus, and to…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 6, Hungry Widows
There appeared to be racial, or at least cultural, discrimination in the distribution of food.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 4, Persecution…Prayer
Trouble came pounding, they prayed, and God answered powerfully with a fresh infilling of His Spirit.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 3, Prayer, Power, Preaching
In our lives today, you and I have to cope with much the same kinds of things that are in these chapters—meeting people’s needs, dealing with people who don’t like us or what we represent, who want to stand in the way, dealing with discord in our churches and relationships, dealing with lies, suffering, injustice,…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 2, Babel Reversed
This sign was a reversal of God’s judgment at the Tower of Babel. God’s judgment scattered and separated those people then, now He was uniting His people in the Spirit. At Babel no one could understand anyone else, but at Pentecost everyone could understand and hear God’s praises.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 2, The Holy Spirit
So, why did Peter choose Joel’s prophecy to explain what was happening? Yes, yes, he was saying what the Spirit was giving him to say. But, why Joel, in particular? Because of who were in that upper room, praying and waiting. Because of who were pouring out into the streets of Jerusalem, publicly prophesying and…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 1, Proof of Truth
One of my favorite books opens with the true story of an attempted murder case against a guy named James Dixon. Dixon was arguing with his girlfriend through the front door, so someone called the cops to break it up. When the police officer arrived, the girl’s father came to the door, there was a fight, the officer intervened,…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 1, A Segue
By spending about six weeks of intimate goodbyes with them, teaching, comforting, exhorting, relationship-building, and strengthening them for what lay ahead—one might say Jesus gave them, as His gift of leave-taking, one day for each month they had been with Jesus.
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Acts Wednesday
More than any other Bible author, Luke had a particular respect for women. Both in his gospel and in Acts, he emphasized the women, their presence, their leadership, and their service.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 28, A Cliffhanger . . .
The Acts of the Apostles is the only book in the Bible that remains unfinished, it’s a cliff hanger—and somehow that seems really appropriate as you and I continue to add chapters to what God is doing in the world today through us.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 27, Shipwreck!
God has a habit of meeting us within the storm, rather than sweeping the storm aside…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 26, Paul’s Rhetoric
But, how Paul told his story follows the rules of rhetoric, the means of persuasion and proof: Ethos, Logos, Pathos.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 26, Paul’s Second Trial
Paul was not about to launch into a defense that could release him from prison, or from his chains. He was about to launch into the story of his conversion and calling, one that would require a life-altering response from the dignitaries arrayed before him.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapters 24-25, Family Drama
Festus must have felt a huge wave of relief, knowing Agrippa and Berenice could give him the full story, tightly knit as they were with Felix and Drusilla. It made all the sense in the world for him to wait just a few days for their arrival, then have them help him adjudicate what was…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 25, Agrippa and Berenice
Philosophers have managed to prove God exists through logic – Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Pascal, and many others. Some of their proofs are famous. But in the case of faith, God is not an argument, or a concept. The Lord is a living being Who desires relationship with you and me. The question is,…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 25, Out With Felix, in With Festus
God showed Paul his destiny one step at a time. The process itself shaped him, and made him ready for his destiny. God molded Paul into the person he needed to be to fulfill what the Lord had planned for him.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 24, Felix and Drusilla
Felix was well-known for the corruption and cruelty in his administration. His penchant for bribes led to an increase in crime during his rule, yet his response to ensuing feuds and uprisings was swift and tyrannical.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 24, Governor Felix
When we pray “God, please get me through this suffering” He will actually walk with us through the pain and get us to the other side.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 23, Secret Escort to Caesarea
It’s crazy how things work out though, isn’t it! Randomly (or was it?), Paul’s nephew caught wind of their nefarious plan, and got word into the tribune, who kept it on the downlow, fully intent on protecting Paul.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 23, Paul Before the Sanhedrin
I think we expect God will either aspirin our circumstances (make it stop being uncomfortable) or sitcom our situation (fix it with a few laughs, a nice, pithy slogan or two, and move on).
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 22, The Temple Steps
Paul worked his lips together, feeling the dryness in his throat, feeling his tongue stick to his teeth. He could sense the Spirit helping him in his weakness, interceding for him as he sighed a prayer too deep for words.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 21, What Do You Say?
If you had the kind of audience Paul had, they’re furious with you, they think you are dead wrong, they’re—literally—so enraged they would like nothing more than to throw rocks at you until you are dead, what do you think you would say?
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 21, The Jews from Asia
Listen, if God has called you, and you are sure of it because of His confirming word and outward confirming circumstances, then sticking with God’s plan shows character, especially when the going gets tough.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 21, Paul and James
Paul was determined to illustrate with his life the truth about freedom in Christ, that he was as unified with them in Spirit and in God’s word as he had always been.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 21, Last Leg of the Journey
There are times when we absolutely know the voice of God has spoken, but…we’re not sure what to do about it.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 20, Ephesian Elders
With each group of Christians he had met, prayed with and wept with, the prophecies got more vivid, more alarming. Those who knew Paul, had such great affection him. No other man in Scripture except for King David has inspired the same level of intense love and widespread admiration.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 20, Eutychus
What a vivid portrayal of Jesus’ promise of salvation and eternal life. Now, they would forever link the memory of having broken the bread of sacrifice and drunk the wine of redemption with Paul’s words ringing out over Eutychus “His life is in him!”
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 20, Reconciliation
God’s intent is to restore the earth and its inhabitants, and to reconcile everything to Himself. In keeping with that great mission, Paul sought to bring shalom—peace, wholeness, communion—to the body of Christ by initiating reconciliation between Jewish and Gentile believers.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 20, Macedonia Revisited
Embedded in these verses is a lot of information found elsewhere in the New Testament, but not here—Luke was actually summarizing Paul’s activities in order to get to the part of the story Luke wanted to tell: the story of Eutychus and the elders in Ephesus.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 19, Silversmith Riot
God’s intervention is sometimes exercised in vivid and even shocking ways, huge displays of power that boggle the mind, visions of Jesus, miraculous healings, hair-raising stories of rescue and deliverance from the very teeth of evil. And sometimes God works quietly through circumstances He sets in motion long, long before the event where everything will…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 19, The Sons of Sceva
According to both the Lord Jesus Christ, and the apostles Paul, Peter, and John, spiritual warfare is very real and human beings are both the battle ground and the prize.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 19, Ephesus
Imagine Paul, outwardly road weary but inwardly growing warm with spiritual fervor as he neared the thriving metropolis and port city of Ephesus, in the height of its glory
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 18, Apollos
Apollos had everything you could possibly want to be effective: he had education, talent, skill and experience. But until Apollos had the Holy Spirit, his ministry was not effective.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 18, Third Missions Trip
Embedded so deeply you would just about miss it, Paul meets Phoebe in Cenchrea while making a vow.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 18, Corinth
When Paul was at his lowest, flat broke, homeless, utterly alone, and his spirits fallen, God was there to provide in six significant ways.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 17, Athens
Usually we don’t think of apathy and disinterest as opposition, but it is, perhaps the strongest kind. In fact, it nearly undid Paul.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 17, Berea
Luke, in all the rough and tumble of Paul’s missions trip, had been recording a very interesting development with particular implications for the 21st century church…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 17, Thessalonica
The believers at Thessalonica were to become among Paul’s most beloved friends and supporters, a living model to all the surrounding area of what it meant to belong to Jesus and live by faith.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 16, Demons and Jail
God sometimes allows something to happen, to put us in the position to be ready for the next step. Paul’s willingness to trust and accept even the really hard steps God took him through, the church at Philippi was establish—the only church Paul consistently received help from throughout his career.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 16, Lydia
One thing I am getting to learn about Paul, he loved powerful women, and he included them whenever he could in God’s great work.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 16, The Women of Philippi
ya gotta hand it to Paul and his crew. They did not skip a beat. Puzzled looks changed to pleased smiles instantly, and they sat right down to worship with these God-fearing women. The women, apparently, didn’t skip a beat, either. They welcome these four men into their gathering
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 16, Paul and the Macedonian Man
even with a vision from God, to not exactly know what’s going to come next. I may think I have every detail of the plan nailed down; but, with the Lord, that is rarely going to be the case. Where would faith fit in, in a scheme like that? Typically, God is going to give…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 15, Solutions
Anytime you or I try to relate to God through performance, we have forgotten the Gospel. But you and I are to do everything out of love, out of compassion, out of a humble desire to sacrifice our own comforts in order to build each other up. If you and I believe in Jesus Christ…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 15, “Iron Sharpens Iron”
In Ephesians 5, Paul wrote about the “Sword of the Spirit,” saying it was the word of God. The author Hebrews said this sword was living and active, sharper than any actual sword. There are times when iron must sharpen iron
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 15, Speak the Truth in Love
The bulk of Paul’s teaching was not about redressing wrongs and rebuking sinners. Instead, Paul talked about the vital necessity of protecting unity, building community, and caring for each other with such love, brothers and sisters in the Lord would rather absorb the cost for another than stand on their own rights.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 15, Unity
God was creating a new humanity – He was expanding the parameters of His chosen people to include all those who put their faith in Jesus. They would die with Christ and be born to new life, as a new person, a part of a new race of people who were all deeply connected to…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 15, Dissension
These divisions are pretty sharp. It’s hard to know how to keep integrity and still live koinonia with our brothers and sisters in the Lord whom we sharply disagree with.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 14, Disaster at Lystra
Imagine the hairs pricking up on their arms and necks as Paul’s impossibly broken and bloodied body began to stir, his arms and legs now shifting in shape until they were true and straight again.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 14, Prelude to Disaster
As the saying goes, anyone can start strong … but the victory is not to those who start. It is to those who finish.
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 13, Paul and Barnabas Commissioned
Expect trouble,” I would say to them, “Once you make a commitment to lead in the cause of Christ, you will be opposed. Now that you have taken up God’s call you have put yourself into the sights of God’s enemy. Do not resent it. The Bible teaches that successful work for God may involve…
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Acts Wednesday: Chapter 12, Herod, James, and Peter
Plenty of times you and I can feel imprisoned by our circumstances … there are all kinds of ways to find ourselves bound in chains, as Peter was, having to fall asleep between hostile guards.
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Acts Wednesday, Chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira
Having integrity means living what you truly believe, even if what you believe isn’t very popular.
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About Me
My passion for the Bible began when I was eight or nine years old, somewhere in there, when on occasion my dad would take me to synagogue, where he sang. I remember watching the men in synagogue pray the words of scripture, murmuring and weeping, lovingly touching and kissing the Torah, and I wished I could read what they were reading.
Imagine, then, my wonder when I was given a Bible of my own! Read more
Let’s hang out
[cover image: Mirta Toledo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]
