WHERE THE SPIRIT IS (4)
Scripture: Acts 4:23-36, Acts 5:1-42
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Title: Where The Spirit Is (4)
Series: Unstoppable
Author: Patrick Edward
Text: Acts 4:23-5:42
Introduction
Over the past month we've been in the book of Acts looking at how this rag-tag group of believers and followers of Jesus lived as witnesses to the risen Jesus. They represented Jesus to one another, becoming a family of faith devoted to the Scriptures, to mission together, to prayer, and to life together. But last week we started to see that witness go out into the culture around them.
This began, I hope you remember, at the Temple in Jerusalem. Through the healing of a lame man, Peter and John challenged the religious system of the city, showing its inability to bring reconciliation and peace with God, to bring to fulfillment the promises of God. Not that the Temple itself had failed; it was never meant to do these things, but as we saw last winter in the Gospel of Mark, the religious system and institution of the Temple had become all about the power and wealth of its leaders. Rather than bring people to repentance and faith, it held them at arm's length from God, as we saw with this lame man who could not even enter the Temple but was left to beg at its gate. The point is that the witness of the church began by exposing the inadequacy of the Temple system to save and pointing to Jesus, the only true savior and king.
Well, the leaders of the Temple were none too pleased about these claims, threatening and ordering Peter and John to stay silent and stop preaching the name of Jesus. They sense the threat of this new movement to their way of life, as the witness of the church undermined their authority in Jerusalem and throughout Israel. In other words, Luke is not just critiquing the Temple leadership here, but showing that its time has come to an end. This, naturally I think, begs then the question of what then. As these early Christians were breaking free from these old institutions and as they were inviting others around them ...
Series: Unstoppable
Author: Patrick Edward
Text: Acts 4:23-5:42
Introduction
Over the past month we've been in the book of Acts looking at how this rag-tag group of believers and followers of Jesus lived as witnesses to the risen Jesus. They represented Jesus to one another, becoming a family of faith devoted to the Scriptures, to mission together, to prayer, and to life together. But last week we started to see that witness go out into the culture around them.
This began, I hope you remember, at the Temple in Jerusalem. Through the healing of a lame man, Peter and John challenged the religious system of the city, showing its inability to bring reconciliation and peace with God, to bring to fulfillment the promises of God. Not that the Temple itself had failed; it was never meant to do these things, but as we saw last winter in the Gospel of Mark, the religious system and institution of the Temple had become all about the power and wealth of its leaders. Rather than bring people to repentance and faith, it held them at arm's length from God, as we saw with this lame man who could not even enter the Temple but was left to beg at its gate. The point is that the witness of the church began by exposing the inadequacy of the Temple system to save and pointing to Jesus, the only true savior and king.
Well, the leaders of the Temple were none too pleased about these claims, threatening and ordering Peter and John to stay silent and stop preaching the name of Jesus. They sense the threat of this new movement to their way of life, as the witness of the church undermined their authority in Jerusalem and throughout Israel. In other words, Luke is not just critiquing the Temple leadership here, but showing that its time has come to an end. This, naturally I think, begs then the question of what then. As these early Christians were breaking free from these old institutions and as they were inviting others around them ...
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