SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/19/2017
8:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Persecution Manifest
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 4:1-4
Message of the
verses: “1 As they were speaking to the people, the
priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them,
2 being greatly disturbed because they
were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the
dead. 3 And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day,
for it was already evening. 4 But many of those who had heard the message
believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.”
As we look at the word “they” were speaking to the people
we may understand that to mean that both Peter and John were both speaking, perhaps
one would speak for a while and then the other would take over. Next we want to look at the priests and these
were just the ordinary priests who came in to do the evening sacrifice. These priests were divided up into 24 courses
and were chosen by lot to serve at a given time, something that can be seen in
Luke’s gospel speaking of when the father of John the Baptist was chosen by lot
to serve. One perhaps could see what
these priests were upset as Peter and John were out staging them, so to speak.
“The captain of the temple guard” was like the chief of
the temple guard, the one in control, and the temple guards were made up of
Levites. MacArthur writes that “He was
second in rank only to the high priest
and was responsible for maintaining order in the temple grounds. The Romans gave the right to police the
temple to the Jews, and this strategos
(a word meaning ‘commander,’ or ‘general’) ranked next to the high priest in
authority.”
We have written about the “Sadducees” in earlier SD’s, as
they were one of the sects that made up first century Judaism. They had arch rivals, the Pharisees, along
with the Essenes, and the Zealots. The
Sadducees were small in number but had a lot of influence and they were a
dominant religious and political force in Israel. The high priests throughout that period were
all Sadducees. The New Testament has
much to say about the Sadducees, as they had their run-ins with the Lord Jesus
Christ and even came together with the Pharisees to put our Lord to death.
John MacArthur writes “Ephistemi (came upon) has the idea of coming upon suddenly,
sometimes with hostile intent (cf. Acts 6:12).
The authorities were greatly disturbed with the apostles for several
reasons. First, they were annoyed that
they were teaching the people at all.
They had no reputation as teachers, nor sanction, or credentials, yet
had gathered a huge crowd and stirred up a major commotion. That was intolerable to the leaders since
Peter and John were ‘uneducated and untrained’ (v. 13); that is they had not
undergone rabbinic training. Worse, they
were from Galilee, from which nothing good could be expected (John 1:46; 7:41,
52).” Now if you put yourselves in their
shoes you could understand why they were upset, however these were false
teachers, and John and Peter were not.
In my Spiritual Diary from 2 Peter 2:17 this morning I looked at the
first part of the verse which speaks of the apostates, and describes them as
dried up springs of water, and you can put these leaders of first century
Judaism in that same category.
In our next SD we will look at more reasons why these “dried
up springs” were offended.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Jesus told the
woman at the well to have one drink from the well that He had and she would
forevermore be satisfied. I took that
drink Jan. 26, 1974 and have been satisfied, not having to look for anything
else to satisfy my worship, for Jesus truly is the One who satisfies my soul.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To tell others of the water that can only
satisfy so they too, can find what they truly are seeking.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The feeling of our
infirmities.”
Today’s Bible
question: “Who said ‘We have found the
Messiah?’”
Answer in our next SD.
9/19/2017 9:02 AM
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