Part of the Community Bible Experience experience is joining with others in a small group setting to chat about what we have been reading and what the reading has been saying to us. Our first small group time was yesterday and, for me, it was a good start. At my church we have decided to have these groups within the context of our normal Sunday morning Bible study structure (Sunday School). As I led the group in which I was entrusted, I actually imagined the first century believers gathering around and talking over the message that they were hearing about Jesus. I saw for a moment the look of those upon whom the Lord had come and was revealing Himself to them. For that moment, it was an inspiring thing. If you were in my class, you probably thought I was “spacing out.”
Today we have the first reading from the book of Acts. We begin the journey from Jerusalem to the rest of the world and we see the message of the risen Savior coalesce in the hearts of the Apostles and the rest of the growing Jerusalem community of believers.
Here is what I got from the reading today.
Power. The power of the risen Christ placed on the initially small group of followers changed everything! The boldness of the Apostles is quite evident in their preaching, teaching and confrontations with the religious leadership of Jerusalem. Having been empowered by the Holy Spirit living inside of them, they are cut loose.
Not much more than a month before this, they were all cowering in fear, as their leader, their Lord, their rabbi is arrested, beaten to a pulp, mocked mercilessly, crucified and buried. It had to have been over. But it wasn’t.
Power. The promised power from above, came from above and empowered the lot of them. Signs, wonders, foreign tongues (actually languages, not some unintelligible gibberish), boldness to speak the truth about the risen Messiah, who will come again, rained down on the unlearned gang of innocents. Those innocents who didn’t know they were going to be the start of a revolution that would fulfill the desires of the great “I Am” upon the earth.
They were so innocent and so empowered that they would stand before the very leaders and populace that had cried for Jesus’ crucifixion and declare that “there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Innocence empowered, that’s what they were. With boldness in the truth about Jesus, with boldness in the truth about their God given call, with boldness in the truth about the very King who now actually was living in them, they preached. They healed. They had all things in common (even their $). They began a journey to change the world.
The power has not changed in us. But, honestly, it sure feels like it some days.
I hope you will continue to read with me and my church. It is still not too late. Go to CBEresources.com/nt and download what you may need to join us, either the text of the Books of the Bible in eBook form, or any of the other resources there. You wont regret it.
Until tomorrow. Blessings.
Leave a Reply