SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/2/2018
9:14 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Concern”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 20b-22
Message of the verses: “and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many
thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all
zealous for the Law; 21 and they have been told about you, that you are teaching
all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to
circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. 22 “What, then,
is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.”
We begin
with a quote from John MacArthur due to the fact that he writes about the Greek
meaning in this first paragraph of his commentary on this subject of “concern.” “The joy of the Jerusalem leaders was mixed
with concern. A potentially serious
problem had developed, one they needed Paul’s help to resolve. The reminded their beloved brother of
something he himself had observed (‘you see’ is from theoreo, which means ‘to perceive, discern, or reflect on’): There were ‘many thousands’ (muriades, literally ‘myriads,’ ‘tens of
thousands’)… among the Jews…who had believed who were all zealous for the Law. The Greek text uses a noun and actually reads
‘zealots for the law.’ These were Jewish
Christians who remained devoted to the ceremonial aspects of the law. While not viewing it as a means of salvation,
they still observed its required feasts, Sabbath regulations, ritual vows (v.
23), and dietary restrictions.”
There are
a number of reasons that they were still clinging to the customs and rituals of
the Old Covenant:
1.
These
customs and rituals had been established by God. When the Jewish people came to know Jesus
Christ as their Savior their love for God grew and so they desired to obey Him
through obeying the old ceremonies.
2.
Those
who were the leaders of the Jerusalem church did not oppose the continuation of
these practices. There is nowhere in the
NT that tells these Jewish believers not to do the things they were doing in
keeping these different ceremonial aspects of the law. Paul called those “weaker brothers” who do
this but did not say that what they were doing was sinful or wrong. This can be seen in Romans 14:1 and
following, and also 1 Cor. Chapters 8-10)
This was a big thing for these Jews who had been brought up in Judaism,
and not became believers in Jesus Christ and God was tolerant during this
period of transition, as He knew how difficult it was for the new Jewish
believers. Once the Jewish temple was
destroyed in AD 70 these kinds of things stopped, or at least slowed down a
lot.
James and
the elders that Paul meet with told them of the specific problems that was
causing concern for them, as they warned Paul that “The zealots for the law ‘have
been told about you that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the
Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to
walk according to the customs.’ What
happened is that this large group of zealous Jewish believers were providing
fertile soil for the false teachers, and those false teachers were the
Judaizers who had dogged Paul everywhere that he had gone trying to undermine
what he was teaching which of course was the truth. They denied that salvation was by faith
alone, through faith alone and wanted to add to what was required for
salvation, that is that Jesus paid it all and we can add nothing in order to be
saved.
Last night
in our Wednesday evening prayer meeting our Pastor was talking about the
meaning of the word “saint” and the conversation came about as to what the
Bible has to say about who saints are and what different churches say a saint
is. My question that was going on in my
mind was why do people want to add to what Christ did in dying on the cross to
take away the sins of those who will accept that Jesus paid it all for our
sins. Do people actually think that God
sent His own Son into the world to provide salvation for those who will accept
it but then think that God is saying that is not enough you have to “keep the
law,” or you have to be baptized, or some other thing you have to do to add to
what Christ did? The truth is that God
does not need our help in providing salvation for us, as His Son provided all
we need to be saved. I am not saying
that after we are saved we are not to obey what is taught in the NT. That is a part of our spiritual growth, part
of sanctification. We are sanctified
when we become born again, we are progressively sanctified as we continue to
grow in our walk with the Lord, and we will be perfectly sanctified when we see
our Lord in heaven.
We will
continue looking at the concerns that Paul faced in our next SD.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “They wanted to be like other nations” (1
Samuel 8:4-5).
Today’s Bible question:
“What did Stephen, Prochorus and Nicanor have in common?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/2/2018 9:59 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment