Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Acts 28
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Acts 28
Well, here we are, at the end of Acts. Reading it through this way, it is pretty easy to see the point that many authors make, that this writing must have been halted while Paul was under house arrest and before Nero runs the Christians out of Rome. It just wouldn’t make any sense not to mention that in these writings, unless those events had NOT taken place yet. Further, and more immediate to this moment in chapter 28, we never get anything on Paul’s appeal to Caesar as to his innocence. That places all of this into a time context that is at the latest in the early 60s AD.
Looking back at Acts, as a whole, I think that the biggest idea that I come away with, given my nature as a believer who came to faith later in life and who rebelled much of the ‘systematic’ Christian living (ie, all of the traditions without the relationship elements), is how the early church fought hard against the church becoming a system of a rules and practices. The early church fought against the notion that the church, as an institution, should be a place where people rejected and pushed away for their sin. To the contrary, the church was all about reaching those people who lived in recognition that they aren’t perfect, that they need a Savior, and that had been rejected or marginalized by society.
Acts teaches us that our greatest offering as Christians is our influence and our relationship. Paul states it in other texts, but he clearly teaches it in Acts, along with James, that essentially all things are fine and acceptable as Christians, but not all things are useful. All things are ‘fine’ in that it isn’t our actions but our heart that determine our relationship with God. I love that. God clearly wants a relationship with us. Jesus came to restore that. Everything that we do that makes relationship with God harder is an undue burden. Everything we do that makes relationship with God more difficult for others is an undue burden. This is a huge idea. It is a personal idea. The only way to get to the exact application of this idea in my own life is to enter into relationship with God personally. ...and I think that is the point.
View all episodes
By Steve AndersonWell, here we are, at the end of Acts. Reading it through this way, it is pretty easy to see the point that many authors make, that this writing must have been halted while Paul was under house arrest and before Nero runs the Christians out of Rome. It just wouldn’t make any sense not to mention that in these writings, unless those events had NOT taken place yet. Further, and more immediate to this moment in chapter 28, we never get anything on Paul’s appeal to Caesar as to his innocence. That places all of this into a time context that is at the latest in the early 60s AD.
Looking back at Acts, as a whole, I think that the biggest idea that I come away with, given my nature as a believer who came to faith later in life and who rebelled much of the ‘systematic’ Christian living (ie, all of the traditions without the relationship elements), is how the early church fought hard against the church becoming a system of a rules and practices. The early church fought against the notion that the church, as an institution, should be a place where people rejected and pushed away for their sin. To the contrary, the church was all about reaching those people who lived in recognition that they aren’t perfect, that they need a Savior, and that had been rejected or marginalized by society.
Acts teaches us that our greatest offering as Christians is our influence and our relationship. Paul states it in other texts, but he clearly teaches it in Acts, along with James, that essentially all things are fine and acceptable as Christians, but not all things are useful. All things are ‘fine’ in that it isn’t our actions but our heart that determine our relationship with God. I love that. God clearly wants a relationship with us. Jesus came to restore that. Everything that we do that makes relationship with God harder is an undue burden. Everything we do that makes relationship with God more difficult for others is an undue burden. This is a huge idea. It is a personal idea. The only way to get to the exact application of this idea in my own life is to enter into relationship with God personally. ...and I think that is the point.