The Book of Acts - 20240505_Review

[0:00] I have a video, but I did look up, this is one of his introductory ones. Actually, we didn't even watch ours as far as in our series, but it's, if you're wanting to know where or what video this little timeline that I wanted to share is, it's book 16, 3-4, okay?

[0:18] So that's how you can find the video if you look it up on YouTube. But we're just going to go over today a review kind of of what we've looked at through the last several weeks.

[0:29] And I'm just going to tell you, it's a rough, high-level overview, okay? It's not some scholarly study of the first three chapters of Acts.

[0:41] I had in mind to read through the chapters and sort of cover it that way, but when I started looking at it, it's too much. We actually covered a fair amount of ground, and it's just too many.

[0:54] I think it would take like 15 minutes just to read through it, and so having some commentary with that. I just assumed just through Peter's address, okay? And so if you think about kind of a contrast of what Peter is telling them there after Pentecost and when he addressed them, basically he's looking at Israel and he's saying, hey, Christ came and you killed him, okay?

[1:20] You need to repent. Repent. Believe in the name of Jesus, that he's the Messiah, he's the Christ, so that the kingdom can be set up, the times of refreshing can come, right?

[1:35] He doesn't, and this is after the cross. Notice he isn't talking about what Christ accomplished on the cross. Like, that's just not in there, and that's important to know.

[1:47] Like, if this is all one and the same, why doesn't he talk about Christ's death on the cross the way Paul does, okay? And so Paul says Christ died for you, right?

[2:01] And that he, you know, he paid for your sins, and he speaks of the resurrection power, okay? And that if Christ is raised from the dead, then we will too, and all that.

[2:11] And so every time that Paul is talking about Christ and the cross and what he's talking about, what he accomplished on it, and that basically the context is, look what Christ did for you. In these chapters, Peter is not saying that.

[2:24] Peter is saying, hey, he came and you crucified him. You need to repent. You killed your promised Messiah, okay? And he's not talking about, you know, but he did mention later on that they had done it in ignorance, okay, to a certain degree.

[2:40] But there's a very difference, there's just a big difference in the language there between Peter and Paul concerning the cross. Now, that doesn't necessarily stay true all along, right, later on with Peter's epistles.

[2:56] But at this point, at this point, you can just tell this is all directed towards Israel. And while I think the one thing that Les had brought up is that a lot of people assumed that God was done with Israel as soon as they crucified the Lord.

[3:13] And he wasn't, right? He wasn't. He continued to, you know, through Peter and through the disciples to ask them or to plead with them basically to repent, okay?

[3:27] And if they would repent, every one of them. That was the other kind of key thing. So repent every one of you so that these things can happen, so that God's program can be resumed.

[3:39] And that's what was needed, and that did not happen. The other thing that's kind of different, again, kind of going along with the difference between what we hear Paul saying and what we hear Peter saying, especially in these chapters, is that Peter's referring to Christ as, right, the promised Messiah and the King.

[4:02] Well, think about, Paul refers to Christ as the head of the body, right? And so we, the church, is the body of Christ. Christ is the head, okay?

[4:13] Think about the difference in connection of being part of a body and Christ being the head versus Christ the King, okay? So your relationship is going to be different there.

[4:27] Christ the King is not as, I don't know, what, intimate, not as connected. It's a very different, there's a lot of different things that come in mind. Just look at the Old Testament and how did you approach a king, right?

[4:38] Very different than being in Christ, right? And connected to him in that way. And that's the way that we're connected now. We are in Christ.

[4:49] Christ is the head of the body. We are part of the body of Christ. And so the more that you look at this, you just see, you know, that's not the message that Peter's talking about. And so, I hate to keep saying it, but that's kind of the main point as we're looking through these first chapters, is just that what's going on there is not what's going on now.

[5:07] There's a difference. And that's just another call out. Christ is King versus Christ, head of the body. And that's just another thing worth noting.

[5:23] And then ultimately here in chapter 4, and again, I know I'm going over, I'm missing probably lots of details and lots of neat things that he talked about, but I just want to kind of do a general recap.

[5:38] In chapter 4, we saw just the beginning of it that the arrest of Peter and John, right? And so, there was the miracle, the lame man that was healed, and you see that the leaders didn't, they couldn't deny it.

[5:56] I mean, they said they couldn't deny it, which is kind of wild. They know that it happened. They can't deny it, but they refused, right? They still refused to repent. They refused to accept.

[6:07] They refused to turn their hearts, right? And so, basically, we're seeing the rejection, and ultimately it's going to get to the total rejection of Israel, where Israel's rejecting Christ altogether.

[6:21] And so, that's kind of what we got started into in chapter 4. So, I guess as I look at that, I've got probably just a little summary thing here, but is there anything along the way that kind of stands out?

[6:37] Anything that I've said maybe needs to be altered or comments? So, I see Ron back here, but think about some things over the last few chapters or things we talked about along the way.

[6:49] If there's anything that stands out to you, and if it's just something you learned or something that maybe I missed, try to think about that and let me know here in the last few minutes. A lot of times you hear that Paul is really back here in chapter 1, where they're picking the apostles.

[7:11] Yeah, right, right. And, you know, there in chapter 1, it spells it out. God chose who it would, and he said the name. Yeah, yeah.

[7:22] So, Paul could not have been part of that. Yeah, yeah. It just doesn't fit. And there's a lot of things here in Acts that people try to make fit.

[7:33] Yeah, they just don't. But they don't realize that this is a growing book, and it's going against a timeline, which he pointed out very clearly of how that timeline goes.

[7:46] And Paul just does not fit until it's time for him to fit. Yeah, yeah. And when God saw that the people were not going to listen, he said, Okay, I'm changing plans.

[8:00] Right. And that's what happened. Right. No, that's true, because he did talk about the fact that the criteria for choosing a replacement, right, is all outlined there.

[8:14] That it had to be someone who witnessed and saw firsthand everything that Christ did, right? And that wouldn't have been Paul. Did you have something, Roger?

[8:25] Yeah. It's possible that Peter's speech there in the first couple of chapters at Pentecost, it's possible that his speech included what Christ did, because Isaiah 53 tells Israel that he was bruised for your iniquities, and by his stripes you are healed.

[8:51] But the big deal is it helps us in the church to see, Okay, why is there such a radical difference in the way they behaved in the early believers, sold everything, they all lived together, they all did this.

[9:12] But Paul's going to say later on, well, God, through Paul, is going to say later on, don't do that.

[9:23] He's going to say, number one, if you don't work, you don't eat. He's going to say, hey, don't put the widow on the roll if she has family.

[9:36] Don't support her. The family's supposed to support her. And he's going to say things that are radically different behaviorally. You know, so it's, I think we sometimes in the church have tried to force something into there that didn't belong.

[9:57] But the important thing is, if you're looking for marching orders for the church, it won't work to go to early acts, because you're going to always be messed up.

[10:09] No, and that's just a really good way of putting it. If you do go for the marching orders back here, it's not going to work out very well.

[10:20] And it's not supposed to. And I think, Roger, you kind of brought up the point that, you know, later on in Paul's ministry, they were taking up donations, right, to send back to these early believers who probably, who had sold everything, right?

[10:38] Which, it wasn't that they were wrong in doing that. That's what they were supposed to do. That was, those were, that's the way things were getting ready to work or going to work in the kingdom, right? So they were, they didn't do anything wrong.

[10:49] I think that's important to mention, too. At least I don't believe they were doing anything wrong. I think they were doing exactly what they were called to do. And so were the apostles, as they, as they continued only in Jerusalem, you know, waiting for, waiting for Christ's return and trying to accomplish what they were given to accomplish.

[11:12] While Paul, maybe while Paul, you have to look at it closely at the timeline, so I want to be careful here that I don't say something that maybe isn't totally accurate, but it would seem in a lot of ways that Paul's out, well, they were, he, Paul was out giving the message of the grace of God to the Gentiles.

[11:28] You don't have to be under law. Well, you know, the disciples were still doing what they were doing, but that was fine. That's what they were, they were called to do. But it's just very important, like Roger said, if you're looking here to early acts and trying to put that into practice, it's not going to work.

[11:47] And it's also not going to jive with, you know, if you don't work, you don't eat, right? It was a lot different than, hey, don't, don't worry about anything, right?

[11:57] Did Paul go to the Senegal first when he went into another country and explained, hey, Jesus was the Messiah? Yeah. And then he goes to the Gentiles with a different message.

[12:09] Right, right. And it, yeah, and it would seem, too, that he was, I'm thinking about this, because, you know, Paul began saying, and I'm thinking it began, at least this is the way this is in my mind.

[12:20] If the timeline's wrong, you guys just correct me. Some of you guys know this better than I do. But Paul kind of said, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. First for the Jew, then for the Gentile. And then he kind of, it seemed like he kind of changed his language later on.

[12:32] He said, now, therefore, there's no difference. And so the first for the Jew, now for the Gentile, he kind of dropped that. Now, I don't know if that's completely accurate with the timeline, so you guys can dig into that and let me know.

[12:43] But that's one of the things I just remember as I've, you know, you read through there, he talked like that for a while, and then it seemed like that kind of faded. But, you know, Paul had a heart for the Jews, right, didn't he?

[12:55] I mean, he said if it was even possible, he would sacrifice his own life, right? I remember him saying that. And so he certainly, yeah, Ron.

[13:06] He did have a heart for the Jews, but he was not teaching the same thing. Yes. He was teaching them this new stuff that Christ had told them about the resurrection and everything else and what it could be.

[13:20] Right. And he did that every place he went first. Yeah. They wouldn't believe it. Yeah. They kicked him out while he would. Yeah. No, and it just all fits in with the fact that they, unfortunately, Israel rejected God's people, right, whether it was the disciples or whether it was Paul.

[13:40] And one of the things that we hear a lot is, well, you know, I'm more interested in what Jesus said. Well, there's not any all scripture, right, is God breathed.

[13:50] And that means Paul. That means disciples. That means all of it. It's all God's word. And that's an important thing to remember. There isn't what Jesus was doing in his earthly ministry, you know, is not the same as what he is doing now.

[14:09] And it's what he is doing. And he raised up Paul. So something to keep in mind with that. It's all scripture. And so you can't say, well, you know, Paul, whatever. I just want to read what Jesus himself said.

[14:22] Well, there's no difference. Okay. Did Les think that 1948 and the creation of that nation was fulfilling prophecy?

[14:33] So he kind of alluded to that. There was a few times, and this is what's fun about watching a video that was recorded, what, 30 years ago? Something like that? It was in the 90s, so, yeah.

[14:47] 93 or something like that. So he did. Well, he said, I'm not setting any dates, right? But I think it was interesting as you listen to him talk about, hey, look, it could be.

[15:00] Well, now we've had 30 years pass from that. And so he kind of made this whole point about, you know, the 40-year thing. God uses 40 years a lot. And at the time, he said, it's been 40 years since Israel's become a nation.

[15:11] So I don't know. We're still in that 40. Well, hey, we're not anymore. Nothing happened. Use 70 for Judah. Yeah. And so, yeah, all right. So use 70 for Judah. So now we're in the 70s.

[15:21] So maybe it's, I don't know. It's just kind of a good thing to look back and say, you know, we just need to be careful of getting pulled into.

[15:32] And I hear this phrase a lot. And I don't, it's not wrong. They say, well, I know we can't set dates and times, but maybe the stage is being set. Well, it could be.

[15:43] Stage could be being set. But then what we kind of do is then we kind of go down this road of basically kind of saying, this is it. This is it. And it's like, well, we don't know that.

[15:54] And we have to be careful sometimes that we don't say, this is it. This is what's happening. And then it doesn't. And then what does that do for the credibility of our message of the gospel?

[16:07] Well, look at those dum-dums over there, right? They said this was getting ready to happen, and it didn't. And so we want to be careful of that. Now, that doesn't mean that if someone comes to you who's not a believer and they say, oh my goodness, I've heard about things in Revelation and the Bible, and I look around and I see it could be happening.

[16:24] And you can say, yeah, you know what? It proves the Bible's true, doesn't it? Right? The closer that we get, the closer that things look like, that's fine. But then you have to say, but listen, we don't know, right?

[16:36] We don't know when. We don't have anything like that. And we're looking for the rapture next. We're not looking for the kingdom next. So I think we've covered that pretty well.

[16:47] We're kind of, we're out of time. John, do you want to? Quick question. Yeah. Luke wrote Luke to Theophilus. Yeah. Yeah. And he wrote Acts to Theophilus.

[16:59] Yeah. I was just wondering if he actually understood the different dispensational fields. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[17:10] Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I mean, yeah, I know. I'm not going to wade into that one. I'm just, yeah. I would boot that to Nathan, but Nathan didn't come this morning. He texted me. I thought, ah, nuts. I can't punt stuff to Nathan.

[17:21] But, yeah, I mean, I, the one thing that makes me think of is sometimes I hear dispensational teachers, you know, kind of dog the disciples about stuff a lot.

[17:33] And I don't want to do that. I think they were doing exactly. And I think that if you look at their later writings, it seems that they clearly had come to terms with a lot of things that Paul had talked about, even though, like Peter said, it's hard to understand.

[17:44] Now, whether he was saying that it's going to be hard for you to understand or it's still hard for him to understand, who knows. But. For those that are interested, if you go to lesfeldic.org, he does have some timelines and charts.

[18:00] And there's a chart of Acts with all the biblical references through the various years. That's lesfeldic.org. Yeah, that's good.

[18:12] I'll tell you one thing, just going through the videos, I think he's made it through the whole Bible, right? And it's kind of, to me, I'm thinking, wow, you know what? I've got a new resource here for certain passages of scripture, because I really like Les' teaching, and I feel like he's pretty solid and all of that.

[18:29] And so, a lot of opportunity. So, opportunity there. So, check out the resources that are listed on his website. And I think we'll just wrap it up with that.

[18:40] Now, I've enjoyed the video series. I hope you guys have, too. We might resume it, you know, again, maybe next year. We'll see. But, be thinking about, there's something we could do differently about this.

[18:53] You know, let me know. Let me know what you liked and what you didn't like. And, because if we do it again, you know, I want to make it as good as we can. So, just let me know your thoughts and feedback on that. And then, but let's go ahead and pray and wrap up.

[19:06] Father in heaven, Lord, I just want to thank you for, again, for the ministry of Les Feldick and the recordings and what we've learned from it. And thank you for your word and the clarity that we can find by studying.

[19:22] And really, everything is in your word. You've spelled it out. A lot of times, we get confused and we get going down different roads. And it's because we're not spending enough time in Scripture.

[19:34] I know that's certainly true with me. And it surprises me sometimes how far I can go down a certain road sometimes. Just because I haven't been reading enough or consistently enough to keep my mind accurate according to Scripture.

[19:50] And so, help us, Lord, to be studiers of your word. Help us to know what are our marching orders for today. And where do we look to get those?

[20:01] It's because we want to do what you've called us to do. And it's important that we understand what it is you've called us to do. And what message it is you've called us to share with the world.

[20:14] So, again, we thank you for the class. Pray that you bless the rest of our day here and the services. In Jesus' name, amen.