Bible Questions & Discussion PAGE 470

Jag,

Luke 7:28 is a very important verse. Right in the middle of Verse 28 is an indicator to us that John the Baptist is the end of the Old Testament. Not at Malachi Chapter 4 in the books, but in time and history, John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament, and Old Testament Law and times.



After John the Baptist, through Jesus Christ, the person whose least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he. John never realized or knew or experienced or had the relationship that we have with Christ, though he was great in his time!

Part 6:

Here is a section outline of the book of Acts:



It is given to us in Acts Chapter 1 Verse 8. Jesus told the disciples that you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, (there's your first section), and in all Judaea and Samaria, (your second section), and into the uttermost part of the earth.



That term "uttermost part" or the extremities, or the ends of the earth is an idiom. It means from the nearest city to the farthest village.



Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 11 is the Prologue, the introduction for us. It is actually an overlap to Luke Chapter 24. I don't know of anybody that spends a lot of time reviewing like Luke does. There's a lot of overlap there!



But he wants to bring over that information from Luke Chapter 24 as he begins this second part of his gospel.



And then from there, Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 through Chapter 7 Verse 60, is the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem. All of our focus should be on the ministry in Jerusalem, as the Lord told the disciples in Acts 1:8.



In Chapters 8 through 12, it gives us the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria.



And lastly, in Acts Chapters 13 through 28, we have the proclaiming of the gospel in the uttermost part of the earth.

And again, if you take the apostles that are prominent, you see that after the prologue, the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem, the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria come under Peter's prominence.

And then the proclaiming of the gospel to the uttermost or ends of the earth, Chapters 13 through 28, is when Paul is emphasized and is the most prominent.



Tom, I know this is not very condensed as you asked for, but there is so much material in the book of Acts. It is my hope and prayer that some of what I've shared here with you might be of some help.

May the Lord bless you abundantly through His word!

Part 5:

The relationship to other books:



At first, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were one document on two separate scrolls. Luke and Acts were originally circulated as the gospel of Luke Volumes 1 and 2.



Later the two books were divided. And you can see why Acts would not have a title because it's the second half to the first scroll. The first scroll had a title but the second scroll didn't. Around the second century, they decided to give it a name too, and separate them!



Why it was written:



Luke was written to present what Jesus did and taught through His human body. In Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, it says that this was written to present what Jesus continues to do and to teach through His Spiritual body, the church.



It's still the Lord. One through His human body, and now He has sent His Spirit to continue His work through his Spiritual body the church.



To whom was it written:



It was written specifically to the most excellent Theophilus, probably a Roman governor, and in general to all Gentiles, non Jews, to understand the scriptures.



Now there are actually 2 outlines for the book. There are 2 apostles that are prominent. They aren't the only ones but they are the prominent ones.



From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 all the way to the end of Chapter 12, the prominent apostle is Peter. And from Chapters 13 through 28, the second half of the book, the prominent apostle is Paul.



Peter was the apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles.



It also tells you the timing when Saul of Tarsus was saved and he became known as Paul. He's the one that went on the missionary journeys and took the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Those are the Gentiles.



So the timing all the way through the book is very accurate!

Part 4 continued:

Talk about a lack of faith, I love this one. In Acts Chapter 12, Peter gets thrown in jail. So they get together for a prayer meeting. I would hope that if I got thrown in jail for preaching Christ that my brothers and sisters would get together and pray. You might be praying "please keep him locked up as long as possible!" But at least you'll be praying.



So they were praying "Lord, please deliver Peter." Well, Peter was delivered. He was walking down the streets of Jerusalem and he was looking for the fellowship to meet and he comes and knocks on the door.



And the gal that's in charge of the door, she goes and she says "who is it?" And he says "It's me Peter." She goes back in and she tells the prayer group "Peter's at the door." They said "It can't be. He's in prison. Lord, please deliver him." He can't be at the door, he's in prison!



Look at the faith they had. They had no faith at all! They didn't believe it was Peter. And in spite of what they believed or didn't believe, in spite of what they were aware of or not aware of, God's Spirit just used them! In fact, they were so clueless, that they didn't get in the way! Why did I even bring that up?



The title to the book as I'm relaying it to you, should be, and is according to Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, the theme is the ministry of the Lord, what He continues to do and to teach. The apostles are just vessels. It's not what they do. It is the ministry that the Lord continues to do and teach.



If you look at it from that perspective, you realize that as you read through, there are things that happened through the apostles that they didn't plan or weren't even expecting. God just did it! There's no formula.

Part 4:

Now about the theme of the book:



This is very interesting. If you take the title, in most English bibles, it will say "The Acts of the Apostles." Originally, this letter had no title whatsoever. So whatever title you have in your English bibles, it is not inspired. It had no title.



But the word Acts comes from the Greek word Praxeis that means practices. They added the word apostles from Acts Chapter 1 Verse 13 because they said this is all about the apostles. So they called it the Acts, or the Practices of the Apostles.



But this is very misleading. If I had any influential weight to change the title of the book of Acts, I would try to do it. And I think that a lot of people in their approach to the book of Acts, and in their approach to the teachings in the book of Acts, they do so because they say here are the Acts of the apostles.



It's not the Acts of the apostles. It doesn't record what the apostle did. It records what Jesus did through the apostles. There's a difference. Many people will look at the book of Acts and they'll say "Well, now that Jesus is gone, look at all the stuff they did for Him!"

No! As a matter of fact, if you take my challenge, as we go through this, just in your leisure time, start reading through the chapters that we study and you will find out that they did not have a clue as to what to do.



They had no "committee meetings," nothing! Even when they were waiting in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, they didn't know when He was coming.



The Lord had a specific day and a specific time. They didn't know that! After His ascension, they waited for 10 days before the Holy Spirit came upon the believers.



I say all of this because everything that's done in the book of Acts is the Acts of Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, through the apostles.



I will continue part 4!

Part 3:

Now about the book of Acts itself:



Luke and Acts express the highest level of Greek in the New Testament. Again, from a very educated man! In fact, point number 2, many scholars, not bible scholars, but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!



Putting Luke and Acts together with all the literature that they have found, it's the highest quality of Greek.



There are 312 Greek words in Luke that are not in the rest of the New Testament. There are 478 Greek words in Acts that are not in the rest of the New Testament. So he's got a big vocabulary!



Now some think that Luke and Acts are actually trial documents. Paul was on his way to Rome and it was required, to make an appeal to Caesar, you had to have documents that explain yourself, preceding any appeal before you stand before him.



Theophilus was thought of putting this together for Paul and Luke was doing this for him. So Paul was in Rome, and Luke's there, and he contacts Theophilus and he says if I write up some documents on the ministry of Christ, and the life of Paul, will you use these in your court appeal that goes before Caesar before Paul can stand before Caesar?



Now there are two things by way of characteristics of the gospel and the book of Acts that support the trial document theory. All uprisings recorded in Luke and Acts were caused by Jewish leaders.



At no time does Luke make anybody who's Roman the fault. The Roman soldiers are always good guys in the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.



They're not the bad guys! It's the Jewish leaders who are the bad guys. So it helps throw weight into this view that these were court documents because it would be favorably received by the Romans.

Part 2:

The recipient to the book of Acts:



We are told that the man's name to whom it is written is Theophilus, which literally means "Lover of God," THEOS for God, and PHILEO for love. He's a God lover.



It's either his name or his title. Theophilus was a common name at that time. Some people believe it might have been used as a title in order to hide his identity.



But in Luke Chapter 1, he's called "the most excellent Theophilus." The title "most excellent" is either a title of an officer in the Roman military or the title of an official in the Roman government, especially a governor.



The title is used three times in Acts, once it's for "most excellent" governor Felix, "most noble" Felix, and "most noble" Festus, addressing the governors of the Roman government.



So Theophilus was a Roman official. Tradition says that he was from Antioch of Syria. Apparently Luke and Theophilus knew each other. Luke and Acts, both of them were written to Theophilus.



We're told in Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 and 2, and Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 4, they were written to the same person.

Tom,

Here is what I can share with you and any others interested in an outline of the book of Acts:

Part 1:

Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke also wrote the book of Acts. He's only mentioned three times in the New Testament.

Colossians 4:14 tells us that He is a physician. Historical accounts tell us that he was schooled in Alexandria Egypt.



So we look at that and we see that God chose an educated man to do a very detailed investigation. Luke is a Greek name and therefore many believe that he was a Gentile.



From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1 through Chapter 16 Verse 9, Luke uses "they," third person plural in his writings.



Starting with Acts Chapter 16 Verse 10 all the way to the end, he changes it to "we." So at Acts Chapter 16 Verse 9 is where Luke joined up with Paul.



He joined up with Paul in Troas. He was probably converted in Troas by Paul. He becomes Paul's personal physician. In Acts Chapter 27, he's right there in the shipwreck with Paul, right before Paul reaches Rome, which will be his last destination before he dies.



Here is a general statement for you. The record of the Lord's ministry, from Luke Chapter 1, all the way through to the end of Acts Chapter 28, if you put those two books together, it is the most detailed account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.



Again, Luke is an educated man. Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 to 4 tells us that he gathered in manuscripts. He gathered in all the writings that he could find about Jesus Christ. He interviewed eyewitnesses.

And being an educated man, he used a lot of detailed words. He wanted to be accurate and detailed about his presentation.

Why does God say let US make man in OUR image? Who Is Us? Genisis 1

Thank you my dear brother and sister in Christ. It has been a while since I've been able to come on here and I have also missed all of you. This year has been a tough one but the Lord is good.

Anyways, I will share what I put together a few years back on the book of Acts. I gave an entire study of the entire New Testament. I put together introductions to each book that I presented and shared them online with a group of about 25.

I kept all my materials and this is what I am going to use to share what I presented on Acts. I'll start it in another post.

We are reminded in this Psalm a type of admonition that those who see God's wrath in the Tribulation and beyond in Isaiah 33:14 where it is said with fear "who can dwell with everlasting burning?" That; no doubt will be the result of viewing what is seen in the end of Isaiah 66; as well as the state of the land which becomes everlasting pitch in Isaiah 34:9. There will also be fire at Armageddon and the world will be aware of Antichrist's and the False Prophet's judgments at the end of the Tribulation. We are reminded that the wicked will not stand at the judgment in Psalm 1:5.

We see many characteristics of the 10 commandments here in these short verses. We see loving our neighbor in verse 3 (and verse 2 surely implies an attitude of loving God in all ways as the first commandment requires). We also see how other things like vows are kept; that would be the meaning here and we must remember at least in N.T. times that we are not to communicate beyond "yea and nay" whenever purely human agreements are made. ( Matt. 5:34). Such things between God such as marriage vows; and other promises are to be kept and we can see one painful example in Judges 11:36-39. We also see in verse 4 having the fear of the Lord which of course is the beginning of wisdom and found in numerous scriptures.

Finally; we see a statement on usury (charging interest on loans). This was warned against the Jews doing this to their own people in Leviticus 25:35-38. This of course would put many banks out of business today but of course anything like this makes the poor worse off and the rich gaining more for their own selfish interests. We may not be able to help what banks do but in our own loans we can.

Amen Adam.

I would like to add Revelation 1:8

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

I also like Malachi 2:17- Malachi 3:1.

"Ye have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, WHERE IS THE GOD OF JUDGMENT?

BEHOLD, I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER, AND HE SHALL PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE ME: AND THE LORD, WHOM YE SEEK, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

Now fast forward to where the prophecy was fulfilled.

Mark 1:1-3. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

As it is written in the prophets, BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE THY FACE, WHICH SHALL PREPARE THY WAY BEFORE THEE.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Matthew 11:7-10. And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?

But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

John the baptist prepared the way for God to as prophesied.

God bless.

Jesse,

I'd love for you to post it!

Been going to a seventh day Adventist church and they say we are under grace through Christ Jesus but still have a preparation day and then the Sabbath . I ask questions they say the Law is ceremonial law that the Jewish people had not the 10 commandments. So a little confused.

Thank you brother S. Spencer for your kind words. I believe we all bring something unique & informative from the Word that will be specially ministered to others by the Holy Spirit. May He also bless your life, family & ministry here & at your Fellowship. Hope to join you all soon in the Lord's Will.

Deut 18:10-13 kjv,

Isaiah 8:19-20 kjv,

Leviticus 19:31 kjv,

Acts 8:22 kjv.

2 Kings 21:6 kjv.

Hi Brother Jesse.

It's nice to see you post again!

you and others were being asked about and missed.

Brother Chris said you would pop up and here you go.

This reminds me of last year Chris went on a month vacation and you returned to the site and refreshed us.

I hope all is well.

God bless.

Amen Giannis.

The means by way we enter the Kingdom is one way. And that was preached to all ages starting in Genesis 3:15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

It also was preached to Abraham.

Galatians 3:8.

Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom, You have to be born again.

In the old testament teachings they was to look for a savior to come. All the services was a foreshadow of Christ. In the new testament teachings we look back and believe on him has come.

There's one way.

God bless.

True God: ( 1 John 5:20) - This is a direct assertion that Jesus, being the true God, is not only divine, but is the Divine. Because the Bible says there is only one God, this is describing His nature as part of the triune God.

Hebrews 1:8 "But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom." The Son is called "God."

I Am: ( John 8:58, with Exodus 3:14) - When Jesus ascribed to Himself this title, the Jews tried to stone Him for blasphemy.

2 Pet. 1:1 "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ:"

"our God and our Saviour"

Matthew 10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Severe penalty for denying Jesus.

Matthew 10:22, 2 Thessalonians 2:10.

Hello Spencer

I haven't got much time to write a detailed comment, so:

Luke 17:20-21

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

The Kingdom of God or of Heaven (only Matthew uses the term Kingdom of Heaven, which actually doesn't alter anything) begins within us since it is God who is our King and His rules that we obey. But after the second coming of Jesus Chist there will be a literal Kingdom on (the new) earth that God is going to create (also in the millenium).

How does one enters that Kingdom (the spiritual and the literal)?

John 3:5

"Jesus answered (to Nicodemus), Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

The greek for Gospel is Evagelion, it means Good News, the good news of salvation of mankind through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is unique, it hasn't changed and will never change. The same good news were preached by Jesus to Hebrews, the same by the disciples to the gentiles, till nowadays. I think that is a cornerstone doctrine for all christian churches (denominations), or for the majority of them. .

GBU

Is Jude the brother of james and jesus?

Isaiah 9:6 - For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Jesus is called the "mighty God" in clear terms. Amen. If anyone reading this is somehow not convinced in his/her heart and mind that this verse is true, there are dozens more in the Bible like it. I'm happy to share a long list of them.

Those who want to deny Jesus's divinity may a hard road ahead to continue denying God's truth throughout the rest of the Bible, because there's so many verses asserting Jesus's divinity. Beware of false teachers planting seeds of corruption. God's truth is already here in His Word. Pray, seek, and ask God directly to confirm what the truth is. Satan lurks like a lion ready to devour. I believe he devours people through planting falsehoods and tempting with the fruit of an attractive lie. How convenient that he even targets Christians to slowly step by step begin unravelling their faith through the process of denying Jesus. Clever tactic that unfortunately some have fallen victim of. Keep watch. We already have the truth in front of us in God's Word to help confirm what is true and what is a lie. We need the armor of God on and to stay vigilant. The end is drawing near. God bless.

For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he..

I need to understand the above

Tom, a few years ago, I put together and presented a bible study on the book of Acts. I gave an introduction to Acts which laid out the entire book. I can share that with you but there is no way I can do so in one post. Would you like me to share it with you?

Condense and Summarize the book of acts

Hello . I don't believe that we are turn to anyone for help in prayer , other than God , through the mediatorship of His Son Jesus Christ , who is our Sinless High Priest in Heaven . You will not find anyone doing that or advocating that in the Bible . Only God can help us , the saints are / were just humans like we are . Only God is all powerful and we should never be afraid to ask for His help . All things are possible with Him .

My special thanks goes to the great spell caster called i will forever in my life remin gratefull to this great man for bringing my love back to me ofter week of emotional tears and pains during the period i lost my love to another guy but this great man brought my man back to me just within 3days Try this great man and see for yourself the auto came driawrencespelltemple he

Dr Lyle Lee.

Part 2.

Now the day's coming after the church is taken out of this world when that gospel of the kingdom - "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" - is going to go forth again, because He's going to be coming shortly after the announcement has been made. Somebody may argue, "Well, maybe there are some people today who are preaching the gospel of the kingdom because they've got some inside information that maybe He's going to be coming in the next two or three years." Well, some of them have been preaching it since 1915, and, friends, He hasn't arrived yet. So I think maybe they ought to take that record off and put the record on of the gospel of the grace of God. The gospel of Christ. The gospel that saves men and women. That's the gospel that it's important for us to preach today.

I understand there's different views of this. I just wanted to show that this is not anything foreign!!

It's widely held and very important to understand, and is actually where a lot of confusion can be resolved.

Thanks for bringing this up.

God bless.

Hi Dr Lyle Lee.

I agree with you on the two Gospels being preached. Where some get confused is they think that means there's 2 means to salvation. But that's not so.

HERE'S A ARTICLE FROM J VERNON MCGEE ON THIS.

( This may take several posts)

Part 1.

The gospel of the kingdom is the preaching of John the Baptist: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" ( Matthew 3:2). We do not preach that gospel today. The Lord Jesus preached it when He first began (see Matthew 4:17), and He sent His disciples out, saying, "Goto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand" ( Matthew 10:6,7). These men went out and preached that, but the day came when that changed. After His death and resurrection He said, "Don't just go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but go now to the world" (see Mark 16:15). And to the world was to be preached the gospel of Christ. Paul mentions in Romans 15:19, "I have fully preached the gospel of Christ." Read his epistles and you'll find that the gospel he preached was that of the death and resurrection of Christ. He wrote to the Corinthians and said, "I delivered unto you first of all the gospel. And the gospel I preach is the one that you believed in, the one that saved you." Well, what is it, Paul? It's "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" ( 1 Corinthians 15:3). That's the gospel, it's nothing but the gospel, and nothing else is the gospel. Even if an angel from heaven appears to you and preaches any other gospel, Paul says let him be accursed! (See Galatians 1:8.) Because there's only one gospel that we are to preach today. We do not preach the gospel of the kingdom. I wish we could get that through today to a great many who are talking about the gospel of the kingdom.

See part 2.

You don't need a bible verse for healing you need to pray and ask Jesus to heal you

you need to remember the word is powerful and shaper than to egged sword.

Then stay your mind upon his words because they are health to your flesh.

please pray for understanding

Proverbs 4:21

20My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.

21Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.

22For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

23Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

24Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.

25Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

26Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.

27Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.