NOVEMBER 15, 2021 READINGS... Acts 15:22-17:15
What do you do in way of instruction when someone comes to faith in Jesus, but have no background in biblical truth, or biblical living? The Gospel is being shared with the Gentile’s, many of whom were pagans. Certainly, there were those who wanted to the Gentiles to become practicing Jews in order to become Christians…these individuals were called Judaizes, and Paul taught against their unbiblical teachings concerning the Gentiles coming to faith. The council at Jerusalem, which was the gathering of the Apostles and elders of the church, agreed with Paul and responded to this dilemma. They did not want to put anything unbiblical on the new Gentile believers, but they did want to give these new Christians instruction on living a biblical life. So, for testimony sake they instructed them to refrain from eating any food offered to idols…consuming blood from animals wrongly slaughtered…and keeping themselves for sexual immorality. This message from the council of Jerusalem encouraged the believers, and for a while silence those spreading false information in the early church.
Paul and Barnabas had different views of the value of John Mark being on the mission field. Barnabas decides to take John Mark with him, and Paul takes Silas with him. What is also clear from the writings is that there were others with Paul, including Luke…the human author of the book of Acts. Paul begins his second missionary journey, and soon meets a young man named Timothy, who joins with Paul and Silas. This is the Timothy to whom two of the epistles are addressed from the Apostle Paul. Paul and Silas come to Philippi where they free a young girl from the demons that had possessed her…her owner who was making money off of her became angry and turned the city against Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas were beaten with rods and thrown into prison…at midnight, in the inner dungeon where they were put in chains so they would not escape, they were singing hymns to God. Suddenly, the chains fall off and the doors of the prison open. The guard seeing this draws his sword to kill himself, knowing his fate for letting the prisoners escape. Paul stops him, and in the midst of all this the jailer asks what he needed to do to be saved. Paul and Silas shared the Gospel with him and his whole household…they believed and were saved. Paul and Silas go from there to Thessalonica and Berea…The Thessalonians were not as open to the Gospel as those in Berea.
Please share your thoughts from today’s reading.
TOMORROW’S READINGS… Acts 17:16-18:3 & 1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:13 & 4:1-5:11
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