We’re approaching the end of our study in the Book of Acts. Join us for this session as we see Paul return to Jerusalem, where he is rescued by the Romans and then placed under arrest, beginning a new phase of his life and ministry. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

Why would Paul agree to go to the Temple and pay for these men sacrifices? People have debated whether he was right to do this. Certainly, Paul didn’t believe that Jews or anybody else could be saved by keeping the Law. Even James and the other Messianic believers didn’t believe that. It seems that Paul was willing to go along with this for the sake of unity.

In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul tells us his guiding principle: “…to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law… I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (See 1 Cor. 9:19ff.) For the sake of the Gospel, Paul would make accommodations if he could, so long as he didn’t compromise the message of salvation by the grace of Christ.

So, Paul agreed to go to the Temple with the men on the required days and go through the required rituals. It would show that he was a faithful Jew who still honored the ancient customs.

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Thanks for hanging with us as we begin to approach the end of the Book of Acts. In this week’s session of our study, we dig into the most fruitful period of Paul’s ministry, as he and his co-workers spread the Gospel in the occult stronghold of Ephesus, one of the Roman Empire’s largest cities. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

Apparently, Paul has already been receiving prophecies everywhere he goes to the effect that he will soon be in chains. However, he is determined regardless to go on and complete the ministry Jesus gave him, to share the Good News of the Gospel of grace.

Paul has done his best to share everything God gave him to share – the full counsel of God – so that he is now guiltless. Now it falls to the next generation to stand and safeguard the flock of God.

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In this session of our Acts Bible Study, we explore chapters 17 and 18, traveling with Paul and his team through the major cities of Greece: Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth. Be a Berean and join us! Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

At Corinth, Paul didn’t even have to defend himself. Proconsul Gallio decided that he didn’t want to bother with something he saw as an internal Jewish matter.

This was a momentous decision because it gave Paul freedom to keep operating. Remember that the Jews had a privileged status: the Romans saw Judaism as a religio licita – a permitted religion. That made Jews exempt from some of the religious obligations that others had to follow. By making this ruling, Gallio was saying that as far as Rome was concerned, Christians were not different from any other Jews. That gave Paul, for the time being, protected status.

That wouldn’t last very long, and we know that the Romans viciously persecuted believers in Jesus on and off for centuries. But for the time being, the plan of the Jews at Corinth had backfired, and the Christians were free to live out their faith without government persecution.

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In this week’s session of our Bible study, we discuss the momentous Church Council at Jerusalem, and see the beginning of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey in Acts chapters 15 and 16. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

The story of Paul and his team deciding to turn into Greece is a wonderful example of how we need to stay in close communication with the Holy Spirit. When we have decisions to make, we need to make it a matter of constant prayer, constant seeking of God's face. We don’t know how the Spirit told them not to remain in Asia, nor go towards the Black Sea, but somehow, He made it clear. Perhaps it was through an inner witness, a lack of peace, or through a prophetic word. In any case, Paul’s vision of a Macedonian leads them to make the fateful decision to bring the Gospel into Europe for the first time.

Next to the decision of Jerusalem Council, this is the most historic decision anybody makes in the Book of Acts. God ordained, for reasons known only to Him, that the Gospel should go first to Europe, and then spread from that base to most of the world across the centuries.

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In this week’s session of our Bible study, we look at Paul’s famous First Missionary Journey in Acts chapters 13 and 14. The Gospel begins to move out farther from its home in Jerusalem, and Gentiles begin to come to faith in large numbers. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

As you read Acts, notice that Paul's preaching varies depending on the audience and the context. Here in Acts 13, he’ll be preaching in a synagogue to an audience of people who already know the Bible. He will be using Scripture and presenting Jesus to them as the fulfillment of the promises God has made to Israel. This is very different from the way he will later present Jesus to pagans. However, as we’ve seen before in Acts, healings and miracles will often create opportunities for the apostles to share the Gospel.

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In this week’s session of our “Acts” Bible study, we see how believers began to deliberately reach out to Gentiles with the Good News for the first time, and Gentile churches began to be planted. We also get our final story focused mainly on Peter, as the emphasis shifts to Paul and his missionary activities. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus has his own version of this story, and it’s similar. According to Josephus, Herod didn’t rebuke the people who called him a god, and he was struck with intense pain in his stomach that gripped him for five days before he finally died. We do believe the Bible’s version, of course, but it’s interesting that even a secular historian of the time seems to attribute Agrippa’s death to this arrogant blasphemy. Agrippa was eaten by worms, but the Word of God grew and multiplied.

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In this session of our Bible study in Acts, we see the Gospel going directly to the Gentiles for the first time. See what happened when God opened the door of faith to those who were outside of the family of Israel. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

There were many people like Cornelius in the Empire, Gentiles who were not idolaters but who honored the God of Israel as the true God. These were known as "God-fearers." You will see the concept of a “God-fearer” coming up from time to time in Acts. They prayed to Israel's God but for various reasons didn’t go all the way and take the final steps to become a Jew. Being circumcised would mean isolation from friends, and not being able to share a table with your own flesh and blood. For most people it was too high a fence to jump over.

To reach Gentiles, even God-fearing ones like Cornelius, Peter would need to jump over some major fences of his own. Peter would have to overcome centuries of tradition and what he might have thought the Bible said.

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We began the second half of our course on the Book of Acts (on a very stormy night that resulted in roads being closed) by looking at Acts chapter 9 and the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus. Join us as we talk about this major milestone in the history of the Church. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

Perhaps the most likely answer as to why Saul was sent back to Tarsus from Jerusalem was his personal history, and how he was seen as a traitor by the religious leadership. This made it impossible for him to accomplish anything there.

Paul seems to back this up. Later on, in Acts 22, Paul is sharing his testimony to the Jews in Jerusalem who were trying to kill him, and he tells them this: “Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance and saw Him [Jesus] saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me’” (Acts 22:17-18).

Jesus is the One who is building His Church, and He only allows the Church to experience such dangers and trials as He wills, and for His purposes. It seems that after this time, Paul was mostly “put on the shelf,” as people like to say, and perhaps did very little ministry for as much as ten years, until Barnabas would go and bring him back into a full-time ministry.

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We conclude the first half of our course on the Book of Acts by examining the ministry of Philip in Samaria and his ministry to an Ethiopian official. We’ll see how the Gospel is beginning to spread now to the ends of the earth, as Jesus said it would. Watch with us, and if you enjoy these teachings, kindly share them to a friend.

Class notes are available here as a PDF.

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

Tradition tells us that the Ethiopian eunuch became the first missionary to Africa. The Church Father Irenaeus, writing in the 2nd century, tells us this: "This man (Simeon Bachos the Eunuch) was also sent into the regions of Ethiopia, to preach what he had himself believed, that there was one God preached by the prophets, but that the Son of this (God) had already made (His) appearance in human flesh, and had been led as a sheep to the slaughter; and all the other statements which the prophets made regarding Him."

Apparently, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church preserves his name as Bachos, and believes him to have been a Jew called Simeon the Black. This may indicate that he is the same man who was part of the team of elders in the church at Antioch, together with Barnabas and Paul. One of the prophets and teachers there, according to Acts 13, was Simeon called Niger, meaning, the black man.

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This was a brief message followed by a season of prayer during an evening prayer meeting at Harvest Time Church. What preparations do we need to make in order to reap a harvest of souls for God?

If you like, you can also watch on my YouTube channel.

EXCERPT:

Another attack the Devil brought against the Church in Jerusalem was the attack of disunity. One group of saints complained because they felt they were being treated worse than another group. There was grumbling and murmuring that threatened to divide the people of God.

We’ll never be effective laborers in God’s harvest field until we can recognize and deal with the spirit of complaining and grumbling. The antidote is giving thanks instead. The antidote is bringing our questions and concerns to people in a spirit of honest inquiry instead of a spirit of accusation. The antidote is walking in the kind of love that assumes the best of others instead of assuming a bad motive on their part. The spirit of complaining is running wild in our society right now, but it has no place in the hearts of God’s children.

If we’ve walked hand in hand with that spirit, it's time to repent – or else God will have to put us on the sidelines.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickuva.substack.com