SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/12/2018
11:20 PM
My Worship Time Focus: The Story’s
Incompleteness
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
28:30-31
Message of the verses: “30 And he stayed
two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to
him, 3 preaching the kingdom of God and
teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.”
Today
we begin to look at the last two verses from the book of Acts. The first thing we see is that Paul rented
the place that he was staying in, and so I have to believe that some of the
churches he began were sending money to him in order to pay for the rent on his
own house. We also know that he was
guarded there in his rental house, and this seems kind of strange to me, but at
least Paul had the freedom to continue to preach and continue to have guest
come and visit him while there. We can
see that he continued to carry out an extensive evangelistic campaign from
passages like Phil. 1:13; and 4:22 where Paul speaks of his stay in Rome.
We
have written a bit about what probably happened after those two years were
over, and stated that Paul was released as there was no one to came to take up
the case against Paul. I have also stated
that there was speculation that Paul did make it to Spain, and also I have read
that Paul went on a fourth missionary journey, but these are speculations, but
believable speculations.
John
MacArthur writes “Because Acts is preeminently a book about evangelism, it is
appropriate to conclude by drawing several principles of evangelism from Paul’s
example.
“First,
Paul preached the gospel whenever and wherever he had opportunity. Under house arrest (vv. 16, 20, 23, 30) he
nevertheless continued ‘preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness’ (v. 31).
“Second,
Paul’s message was clothed in humility and graciousness. In vv. 17-20, he was tactful, respectful, and
conciliatory to the Jewish leaders at Rome.
“Third,
Paul preached biblically (vs. 23) and doctrinally (vs. 31).
“Fourth,
Paul never wasted opportunity. He began
his evangelistic outreach only three days after arriving in Rome (v. 17).
“Fifth,
Paul preached tirelessly (v. 23) and incessantly (vv. 20-2`).
“Sixth,
Paul preached to everyone—both Jews (vv. 23-27) and Gentiles (v. 28).
“Finally,
and most important, Paul preached Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Messiah (v.
23).
“The
church in Acts faithfully carried out Christ’s charge ‘Be My witnesses both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the
earth’ (Acts 1:8). The church has passed
the baton through many hands down through the centuries to us. Will future generations find that we ran our
segment of the race faithfully?”
Well
that is a good way to conclude the book of Acts with that personal challenge
from the pen of John MacArthur. I can
say that it has been a pleasure to take the last 16 months studying this
wonderful book and my prayer is that those who have read some of the things that
I have written about the book of Acts have been blessed. In our next SD we will begin to take a look
at an introduction to the book of Ephesians.
I know that this will be a great challenge for me to study this book,
and covert your prayers.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The Word of Christ”
(Colossians 3:16).
Today’s Bible question: “Complete the beatitude “Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall…?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/12/2018 11:41 PM
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