The last chapters of the book of Acts could all be called “The Sufferings of Paul,” because it’s just one bad thing happening to Paul after another. He is caught in a storm on his way to Rome. He has appealed to Rome and the soldiers have him in custody,…
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What we have here is Paul on trial. He had been charged with sedition, causing a riot, undermining the public peace. He had been charged with heresy.
At the very top of chapter 26, Paul gives a defense. He tells the story of his conversion, meeting Jesu…
Our passage comes from Acts 22 where Paul is facing a hostile audience and one life-threatening situation after another. In a way, there’s one overall theme, which is God can bring good out of evil and can show the power of the gospel through it.
We will…
In our passage today, Paul, after having ministered in tremendous ways in Ephesus for three years, is now taking leave to go to Jerusalem. He assembles the elders, who are the leaders of the church, to say farewell to them.
Usually when this passage is …
Our passage comes from Acts chapter 5 where things begin to look dim for the followers of Christ. Beginning around this time and spanning to around AD 300, the history of the early church is filled with persecution and suffering. Christians were systemat…
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Acts is about the origins of Christianity. Whenever you go to the origins, you learn something about what genuine Christianity is — authentic, original, real Christianity. That is important because many people base, to some degree, their non-belief on wh…
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Our passage today is on the first miracle the apostles perform after the resurrection of Jesus, which is at the very beginning of the Christian church. If you want to learn about the topic of suffering, you go to the book of Job or a lot of other places …
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Our passage from Acts 2 is about the birth of the Christian church. We’re going to look at how the birth of the church is intimately related to the birth of Christ: Christmas. In many ways, what happened at Christmas explains what happens in the early ch…
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Our passage is the first Christian sermon given by Peter on the day of Pentecost. It’s important that we consider the entire sermon for the context, but we’re going to focus our time on the last four verses (36–39) and what it means to be a Christian.
H…
We’re going to look at a very famous episode in the book of Acts today, the day of Pentecost. What makes this unique is the descent of the Holy Spirit. There’s a sense in which the Old Testament people of God became the New Testament people of God becaus…
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