TODAY IN THE WORD

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 12:1-25.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Last Friday we outlined events at the Diet of Worms, the 1521 tribunal that forced reformer Martin Luther to go into hiding. After refusing to recant his biblical convictions, Luther set out to return to Wittenberg. But now he had a price on his head. Every subject of the emperor was ordered to seize Luther and turn him over to the authorities. So Luther’s friends staged a kidnapping and took him to Wartburg Castle, where he hid for more than a year, even growing a beard to help disguise his appearance.

Peter was rescued from his persecutors too, but in this case he didn’t need any help from his friends. His release came by divine intervention, although in the sovereignty of God his fellow apostle James was put to death by King Herod.

To many of us the story of Peter’s miraculous escape is so familiar that we almost forget the context. The name of the servant girl who answered Peter’s knock has become a Bible trivia answer. But this is not an isolated account of God’s deliverance; it’s part of the history of the church. Luke didn’t lose sight of this fact in his narrative.

For example, James and Peter were arrested because they belonged to the church (v. 1). These events pleased the Jewish authorities who sought to stamp out the church. Rhoda’s part was important because she was part of a church prayer meeting. And Peter’s concern was to keep the other church leaders informed of his status (v. 17). The arrogance of Herod is evident in his cruel command to execute Peter’s Roman guards, a move designed to placate his anger and deflect his embarrassment.

But Herod paid for his pride. The Jewish historian Josephus also recorded Herod’s death, saying he was struck down while in the middle of his speech and died after five days of suffering.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
The difficulty of the church in believing its prayer was answered makes us smile because we can see ourselves doing the same thing.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 13:1-52.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
John Mott was a sophomore at Cornell University when a speaker came to talk about world missions. John was interested, but didn’t want anything to interfere with his plans. Although he hesitated on that winter evening in 1886, something compelled him to enter the lecture hall. There he heard a stirring missionary challenge, and later he yielded his heart to Christ.

Mott poured his life into missions and became a statesman known around the world. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 but said, “When John Mott is dead, remember him as an evangelist.”

John Mott had the heart of an apostle Paul. From the moment of his salvation until his death, Paul never ceased preaching the gospel and doing the work of an evangelist. Today, as we trace the first of Paul’s three famous missionary journeys, we come to the text that tells of the launching of his missionary career.

Acts 13 is another pivotal text in this “history book” of the church. Here the spotlight shifts from the original twelve apostles to Paul and his companions. And in Acts 13:46 we have the first announcement of a major shift in the “target audience” for the gospel. Paul tells the Jews in Pisidian Antioch, “We now turn to the Gentiles.”

This chapter marks the true beginning of the worldwide outreach of the church. When Barnabas and Paul were set apart and sent out, the action started right away on the island of Cyprus, where they encountered and dealt with Elymas the sorcerer.

From there the trio (including John Mark) sailed to Perga, from where John returned home. (We’ll meet him again in Acts 15.) Then it was on to Pisidian Antioch, so named to distinguish it from Antioch in Syria, the city Paul and Barnabas had just left.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
By stepping out from the crowd and boldly preaching the gospel, Paul became a target for opposition and criticism.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 14:1-28.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Renowned 19th-century archaeologist Sir William Ramsay was a skeptic about the Bible. But on a trip to Asia Minor, Ramsay made an amazing discovery about Acts 14:6.

Luke says in Acts that Iconium and Lycaonia were in separate districts, but Ramsay believed they were in the same district. During his explorations, Ramsay discovered that although the two areas were in the same district one hundred years before Luke, they were in separate districts in his day.

Luke’s accuracy stunned Ramsay, who became a believer—probably the only person ever to come to faith on the basis of Acts 14:6! Ramsay’s experience is a welcome testimony to the truthfulness of God’s Word. Luke’s accuracy as an historian is vital to the account of the beginnings of the church. Every detail in Acts is important, recorded for a reason.

Today’s text is filled with such details, including not only Luke’s careful notations of districts but several accounts of God’s miraculous power in the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. The reaction to their preaching in Iconium is typical of the faith and the religious passions that the gospel aroused. The city was divided over those newcomers and their message (v. 4). There were many believers, but also fierce enemies—including some who plotted to kill the evangelists.

Paul’s miraculous healing of the crippled man at Lystra with the frenzied reaction of the people gives you some idea of the misguided religious beliefs of the pagan Gentiles to whom Paul ministered. The only thing more amazing than the people’s desire to worship Paul and Barnabas was their willingness to stone Paul a short time later!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul’s harrowing experience at Lystra reminds us that following Christ is anything but a religious game. It’s a commitment that demands all we have.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 15:1-35.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Few truces have been as hostile as the one that halted the Korean War. Truce talks began on July 10, 1951; but a series of disagreements over prisoners and stall tactics by the Communists all but stopped the peace talks.

The death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in March, 1953, spurred efforts toward a settlement. The armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, in Panmunjom. There were no handshakes, and a permanent peace treaty was never signed. Numerous hostile incidents have occurred in the years since the truce.

What a contrast to the Jerusalem council held by the early church! The issue was important and potentially divisive, yet it was resolved with an openness and a level of spiritual maturity that the church has sought to duplicate many times since.

At stake was the status of Gentile believers—hardly a new issue, but one that was still not settled permanently. The men from Judea who showed up in Antioch insisting that Gentiles be circumcised were believing Pharisees still clinging to the Law of Moses.

Paul and Barnabas challenged them because they knew that God had justified the Gentiles by faith apart from the Law, just as He had done with the Jews. Therefore, Gentile Christians were not second-class kingdom citizens.

In his speech to the council (vv. 7-11), Peter acknowledged the same truth. The generally accepted date of this council, 49 A.D., means that about ten years had elapsed since Peter’s ministry to Cornelius. But the apostle had not forgotten what God had taught him.

The problem with circumcision, as Paul later wrote to the Galatians (Gal. 5:2-3), was that accepting circumcision obligated the person to keep the whole Law. Not even the Jews had done that perfectly (Acts 15:10).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This formula for problem-solving from Acts 15 can also work on the individual level among Christians who disagree.

Last Tuesday we suggested three ways you could help to maintain unity in the church. Let’s expand on point one: what to do when you have a dispute with another believer.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 15:36-16:40.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Last spring a federal jury convicted an Arizona man of illegally selling Navajo religious artifacts. His case was the first to go to trial under a 1990 law designed to prevent commercial trade in tribal relics considered sacred. Prosecutors charged the defendant with purchasing twenty-two ceremonial masks from the widow of a Navajo medicine man. The masks were later seized from a gallery in New Mexico by federal undercover agents and charges were filed.

Turn back the date on this story about nineteen hundred years, change the dateline from America to Philippi, and you will see that profiteering from false religion is an ancient practice. The “owners” of the slave girl in Philippi were selling her fortune-telling services (16:16).

Their racket was broken up not by undercover agents but by the power of Jesus Christ. This incident triggered the beating of Paul and Silas and their trip to jail, where the Philippian jailer and his family became well-known converts.

Once again we are in a text that is filled with familiar names, places and happenings. It’s the start of Paul’s second missionary journey, but the names on several of the “passports” are different this time. Paul’s dispute with Barnabas over John Mark led to the choice of Silas (see 15:22) as the apostle’s new ministry companion. Paul also added a young man named Timothy to the traveling team (16:1-4), and Luke joined up soon after. We know this because in verse 10 for the first time he uses the pronoun “we.”
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
On Friday we will conclude our study of Paul’s great witnessing trips (called his missionary journeys).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 17:1-34.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Osaki Neesima was a bright Japanese student, sent to school to study the classics. One day he casually opened a Bible and read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Osaki was stunned. He had searched in vain for God. He read more and prayed, “O unknown God, if you have eyes look upon me, if you have ears hear me, and lead me to yourself.” Osaki heard that in America this God could be known, so he boarded a ship bound for Boston. The ship’s owner adopted Osaki and gave him an education—and Osaki came to know the “unknown God” through faith in Christ.

This all happened in the last century, but it still qualifies as a modern-day version of the ancient Athenians’ attempt to reach out to the true God, who was unknown to them. Making this God known was the reason Paul, Silas, Timothy, Luke and the other members of their missionary team set out in Gentile territory.

Thessalonica is another name that has a familiar New Testament ring to it. When Paul and Silas arrived, they headed for the synagogue, where they knew they would find an audience well-versed in the Scriptures. It was Paul’s custom to begin there.

Paul’s intention to go to the Gentiles did not mean he never shared the gospel with Jews again. In fact, he went to the Jews first in Corinth; and when they opposed him, he restated his plan to reach out to Gentiles (18:6). But Paul loved his people and longed to see them saved (Rom. 10:1).

The tenderness Paul felt toward the Thessalonian church (see 1 Thess. 2:6b-12) probably reflects the welcome he received among those who believed. But true to form, the unbelievers stirred up a riot. Paul and Silas moved on to Berea, where the real Bible students lived.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today’s text reminds us of how crucial it is to know our audience whenit comes to sharing the gospel effectively.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 18:1-22.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
According to the International Red Cross, there are some 110 million land mines buried throughout the world, waiting to kill or maim unsuspecting victims. About 10ꯠ people are killed by land mines each year; and another 20ꯠ are maimed, many of them children. But despite the grim numbers, participants at a recent U.N. conference on the problem balked at changing the rules for the sale and use of land mines. And those already in place remain among the most lethal weapons ever developed.

Each time he entered a new Gentile city to preach the gospel, Paul must have felt as though he was walking through a minefield. He never knew exactly what awaited or whether his next step would set off a blast of fierce opposition.

Paul did have one great advantage, however. The Holy Spirit was his divine “mine sweeper,” guiding the apostle safely through spiritual minefields such as Corinth. This was a pagan city, legendary for its immorality. But it also had a population of Jews, so Paul made his customary appeal to them to believe in Jesus as Messiah.

The Jews became hostile and dragged Paul before Gallio, the ruler of Achaia, the district in which Corinth was located. This move could have triggered an explosion such as the one in Philippi. But since the charge appeared to Gallio to be a squabble over Jewish law, he wasn’t interested.

Despite this, Paul found such a response to the gospel that he stayed at least eighteen months in Corinth. You may have noticed that two men are called synagogue rulers, Crispus and Sosthenes. The latter could have replaced the former, one indication of how long Paul stayed in the city.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This is our third in a brief series of witnessing tips and ideas you can use even this week to tell others about Jesus.

If you’ve done much witnessing, you know that people sometimes raise the objection, “What about those who have never heard the gospel?” This is often a smokescreen to avoid facing their spiritual need, but you can answer it.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 18:23-19:41.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
In some parts of the world, going to a soccer match can cost you much more than the price of admission.

A soccer match in Dublin, Ireland, was stopped after English fans began cursing and breaking seats, throwing pieces of wood and metal onto the field. A bloody riot followed. This ugly incident came just a few weeks after a fan was stabbed to death during a riot between fans of rival soccer teams in Italy. In Brazil, six fans were killed before or during soccer games in one eight-month period.

The riot at Ephesus wasn’t over a soccer game and no one was hurt, but it might just as easily have become violent. Judging from the text, it probably would have turned deadly if Paul had succeeded in his desire to speak to the enraged worshipers of the goddess Artemis.

The great Gentile city of Ephesus offers us another example of the tremendous spread of the gospel that is Luke’s focus in the book of Acts. Paul’s third missionary journey begins in 18:23 and ends with another riot in Jerusalem.

Today’s verse is one of Luke’s progress reports—summary statements that testify to the spread of the faith to the ends of the earth, in keeping with Jesus’ instructions to His disciples in Acts 1:8. The first two portions of the account also reveal the transitional nature of this book, a sub-theme we talked about earlier this month.

Both Apollos and the twelve men in Ephesus knew only of John’s baptism, and the twelve did not know the Spirit had been given. Apollos’ fuller instruction by Aquila and Priscilla and the reception of the Spirit by these men completed their transition from John’s ministry to the fullness of the promise in Christ and did not need to be repeated.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Often when we talk to non-Christians about their need of Christ, we discover that they have a light view of sin.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 20:1-38.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
For years pastor Henry Lyte battled tuberculosis, a dreaded disease in nineteenth-century England. Finally he was advised to leave his homeland for a warmer climate in Italy. For his final sermon, Lyte was so weak he almost crawled to the pulpit. He delivered his message in September and left, never to return. He did not live to see a new year.

But Lyte left his people with a comforting poem based on his final sermon. It was set to music, and we know it as the hymn “Abide with Me.”

If Paul had been a poet or a hymn writer, perhaps he would have left the elders of Ephesus with a song to comfort them after his departure. Actually, what Paul gave these men was better: a powerful word of exhortation and warning concerning the ministry he had established among them at such great price.

In Acts 20 we get several glimpses of the early church in action. First, we see the church meeting physical needs. The seven men accompanying Paul (v. 4) were carrying funds for the relief of the poor saints in Jerusalem.

Second, Acts 20:7 shows the church at worship. The early church had established Sunday as its regular day of worship in celebration of Christ’s resurrection. The incident involving Eutychus has been the subject of a lot of church humor. But it was a tragic event that gave rise to a great miracle and comforted the believers at Troas.

Third, we see the organization and leadership of the early church. Paul wanted to avoid another stop in Ephesus because he knew if he arrived in town, he would never make it to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. So he arranged to meet the Ephesian elders at Miletus, about thirty miles to the south.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Our final witnessing tip deals with one of the most common barriers keeping people from Christ: their trust in their own standard of goodness to get them to heaven.

Since we know that no one is saved by good works (Eph. 2:8-9), here’s how you can approach this issue in your witnessing. First, ask the person whether he always lives up to his own standards. Few people will say “yes” to that.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 21:1-40.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Hsi was a proud Chinese intellectual who hated foreigners. But in 1875 a severe famine brought missionaries with relief supplies to Hsi’s province. Hsi was hungry; so when a British missionary named David Hill asked Hsi to teach him Chinese, Hsi accepted.

One day Hsi picked up a Chinese New Testament and read about the Jesus of the missionaries. He was captivated. He read the story of Jesus over and over until he no longer saw Jesus as a foreign god, but as Lord. Hsi was saved and became a powerful witness in his province.

Unlike Hsi, the Jews of Jerusalem could not see the Christian faith as anything but a hated “foreign” religion. Their leaders were proud men who were determined to defend their religious traditions to the last drop of Paul’s blood.

Today’s reading brings us to the opening scene in what will become the dramatic climax of Acts: the arrest and trials of Paul and his trip to Rome.

Once again, Luke’s interest here is not only to relay historical detail. His emphasis is on the spread of the gospel, and that’s the focus as we follow Paul from Jerusalem to Rome. At each stop, Luke notes that there were believers. The gospel had reached the far corners of the Gentile world.

Some have questioned Paul’s actions in Acts 21. First, should he have gone to Jerusalem in the face of danger? There is no indication that Paul was being stubborn, and his friends eventually gave in to “the Lord’s will.” Plus, the Lord appeared to Paul and verified His will that Paul preach in Rome (23:11).

Paul’s second decision was to take part in a Jewish vow in Jerusalem, which set off a riot and led to his arrest. Was this a mistake, done to placate Jewish believers who were eager to uphold the Law?
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Proverbs 16:9 says: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” The key for Paul is that the goal of his plans was to serve and please the Lord.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 22:1-29.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Leopold Cohn couldn’t believe his eyes. The sign on the New York City church said in Hebrew, “Meetings for Jews.” All of his life, the devout young rabbi had feared and shunned Christ’s followers.

But, he thought, maybe these people know something about the Messiah. So Leopold visited the church. The pastor, a Hebrew Christian, gave Leopold a Hebrew New Testament. He raced back to his room, locked the door, and read for more than twelve hours. Then Leopold fell on his face and confessed Jesus as his Messiah. He began joyfully sharing the truth with others and formed the outreach group known today as Chosen People Ministries.

Leopold Cohn’s encounter with Jesus Christ echoes the experience of his fellow Jews almost 2ꯠ years earlier. The people of Israel were compelled to face the truth through apostles such as Peter and John, then through Stephen, and finally through the ministry of Paul. But instead of falling on their faces and confessing Jesus as Messiah, the Jews in Jerusalem flew into a rage.

Given the murderous intent in the hearts of the mob that attacked Paul, it’s a small miracle that they fell silent when Paul began to speak. He addressed them in Aramaic, the common language of the day. The apostle spoke clearly and forcefully as a herald of the truth.

Paul reminded his fellow Israelites that he was well-trained in the Law and more zealous than most for the Jewish traditions (cf. Phil. 3:4-6). The crowd listened quietly even when Paul raised the name of Jesus, the name that many of them were eager to stamp out. So why did the people explode with demonstrable rage when Paul mentioned the Gentiles (Acts 22:22-23)? Because Paul was suggesting that God had accepted the Gentiles on an equal footing with the Jews—the very issue that the church itself had struggled with years earlier.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This is the sixth time in Acts that Paul’s ministry started a riot. What a lesson in the power of words!

Our words are powerful too. We may not speak to multitudes, but the Bible urges us to be careful in what we say because the human tongue has the power to heal or to hurt (James 3:9-10).

Here’s an exercise that will help you get a hold on your words. Using a Bible concordance, trace what the Word says about words. Write down a few verses that will help remind you of the power of speech.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 22:30-23:35.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
A suspect had finally been arrested.

The April, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was met with such outrage that the entire nation buzzed with the news that police had arrested a suspect.

Cameras were rolling and a large crowd had gathered when Timothy McVeigh, shackled and surrounded by federal officers, appeared in public for the first time. The sense of anger that day was palpable. As McVeigh stepped into the sunlight, it was reminiscent of a day thirty years earlier when Lee Harvey Oswald first stepped before the cameras after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Judging by the angry reaction of the crowd, you would have thought the apostle Paul was an accused murderer. But he was innocent of any crime.

Luke makes it clear that Paul was on trial because of the gospel. In his hearing before the Sanhedrin, Paul was never able to communicate the heart of the gospel message. When the commander of the Roman garrison realized that the charges against Paul were Jewish in nature, he ordered Paul to appear before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.

It quickly became apparent to Paul that the council was in no mood to sit still for a reasoned defense of the gospel. So he shrewdly appealed to the doctrine of the resurrection, knowing that it would divide the Sanhedrin.

He was right. The proceedings became so violent that Paul had to be forcibly rescued. It was here that the Lord appeared to Paul with a message of comfort (23:11). Paul was human, after all. Perhaps at this point he was beginning to wonder if he would ever live to see Rome. The plot formed against him shows that humanly speaking, Paul was as good as dead.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
For Paul, a conscience that was clear before God and man was an absolute necessity.

It’s necessary for us too (1 Tim. 1:5, 19) for at least two good reasons. First, so that we do not wound the tender conscience of a weaker brother or sister (Rom. 14:15). Second, so that we do not give the world a reason to slander the gospel (1 Pe. 3:16).

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 24:1-27.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Earlier this year German millionaire and philanthropist Jan Philipp Reemtsma was kidnapped in front of his villa in Hamburg.

Reemtsma spent four weeks chained to a cellar wall while family and friends tried desperately to arrange for his release. But it wasn’t until $20 million in Swiss francs and German marks was left along a highway that Reemtsma was finally released unharmed. It was the largest ransom ever paid in Germany.

The Roman procurator Felix certainly didn’t expect that sort of king’s ransom from an itinerant Christian evangelist such as the apostle Paul. But Felix had his hand out nonetheless, hoping that either Paul or some of his friends would grease it (v. 26). He even gave Paul two years’ worth of chances to bribe his way to freedom. We can certainly credit Felix with persistence.

But that’s about all we can credit him with. And the same could be said of Paul’s accusers. There is little if anything about this opening trial in Caesarea that was credible. It was obvious by now that the man who stood before Felix was innocent of any wrongdoing, by either Jewish or Roman standards.

Paul’s defense to Felix was another clear and powerful statement of the falseness of the charges against him. Paul actually did a better job of detailing the accusations than did his counterpart Tertullus, a lawyer probably hired just for this purpose.

Tertullus spent most of his time flattering Felix, then made a series of wild and generalized accusations that Paul easily refuted. Felix listened to both sides, then adjourned the hearing without coming to a decision.

Felix was probably already convinced of Paul’s innocence, since he was “well acquainted with the Way” (v. 22). But he was eager to keep the peace in Jerusalem at all costs, so he kept Paul in prison (v. 27).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul knew that his ordeal was serving a greater purpose in the will of God, and he says so in Philippians 1:12.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 25:1-27.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Three years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his widow wrote this poignant plea in an attempt to gain a federal pension: “Surely the remembrance of my martyred husband will cause them to remember his widow in her ill health and sorrow!”

It took Mary Todd Lincoln two more years of wrangling to win her pension as the wife of a President—a benefit now granted to all former First Ladies.

Paul could tell us something about bureaucratic delays and government wrangling. By the time he appeared before Festus, the successor to Felix, two long years had passed with no apparent progress being made in his case. The imprisoned apostle was being held as an innocent man to keep the political and religious peace.

Today’s reading proves that some things never change. The Jews still wanted to kill Paul, and the Roman rulers were still committed to keeping a lid on things with their troublesome Jewish subjects. Festus wasted no time in going to Jerusalem (v. 1), which gave the religious authorities a chance to resurrect the charges against Paul.

Paul’s appearance before Festus was similar to his trial under Felix, with about the same results. Festus must have realized that Paul was innocent of the charges, but like his predecessor he did not want to get caught in the middle of a Jewish religious squabble.

Festus’ offer to transfer Paul back to Jerusalem for trial was more of a political ploy than a sincere effort at justice, and Paul knew it. Paul also knew that his chances for a fair trial in Jerusalem were nil. More than that, he knew that his chances of even making it to trial were also nonexistent. So he appealed to Caesar.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It’s safe to conclude at this point that life isn’t always fair—either to Paul or to us.

Have you been wronged lately? Maybe you’re the victim of bureaucratic red tape. Or perhaps you feel you’ve been wronged by another individual. If you’re nursing a wounded sense of justice, it may help to take another look at the situation from the standpoint we’ve been discussing the last few days: that of God’s larger purpose for you and the cause of the gospel.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Acts 26:1-32.
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TODAY IN THE WORD
Does a trial by jury guarantee justice? Not according to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn: “Juries can be wrong. Dead wrong. Panel members can assemble in a little room after trial and agree as one to illogical, bigoted, emotional or just plain dull-witted conclusions that result in the administration of whimsy, not justice.”

Citing dozens of examples, he continues: “Juries can and clearly have been known to acquit the guilty and convict the innocent. Sometimes they are overly skeptical, sometimes they are overly credulous. Sometimes prosecutors, defense attorneys or witnesses misrepresent the facts to them or hide facts from them.”

As Paul also found, human justice is an uncertain and often flawed enterprise. No charge was ever proven against the apostle, and in today’s reading Agrippa admitted that they had no reason to hold him except for his appeal to Caesar (v. 32).

Acts 24-26 are full of legal talk about accusations and hearings on guilt and innocence. But the overriding emphasis from Luke’s standpoint and from Paul’s was still the truth and the spread of the gospel.

That’s why the apostle’s defense before Agrippa was much more than just a protest of his innocence of the charges against him. It was a superb summary of the essence of Christianity in which Paul defended two key propositions.

First, he reminded the king that faith in a risen, divine Christ is the heart of Christianity (vv. 1-8). Paul was on trial because of his belief that God raises the dead, although such a proposition was actually part of the promise that God had made to Israel.

Second, Paul maintained that Jesus’ resurrection was attested by his personal encounter with the risen Christ and by the Scriptures themselves (vv. 12-23). Paul wasn’t alone in his testimony. Moses and the prophets also said that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Today’s text is an example of how a believer can weave Scripture and experience to make a compelling witness.

We’ve spent a lot of time this month talking about the importance of your personal witness for Christ. Every time you tell someone about Jesus you are helping to write a new chapter in the unfinished story of the church.