Rooted Together

God triumphs over all opposition, even persecution and imprisonment lead to God's glory and growth of His kingdom! God's people will endure persecution. James is killed and others were violently attacked. Peter was arrested. The church's response was to pray. They do not pray as a last resort but as their primary weapon. Pray especially and initially in troubled times. 

Peter for the second time, escapes from prison. With the odds stacked against him, Peter sleeps. In fact he has to be nudged awake and even then he is in a daze. He then goes through a rather humorous episode of trying to get inside the building where the church was praying for him. 

Finally, we see that God has the final word in all things. Herod failed to stop the church, but God strikes him dead and the church continues to march on. 

What do we do when God is moving, but some of His people aren't? To make that clearer, what do we do with naysayers? You will have times of ministry that are going well, but some of the church people aren't excited to see God moving. What do we do with that? We see, that the gospel isn't hindered by naysayers. Our hope is that the gospel will change the hearts of those who don't get excited about the gospel. 

This chapter is much more than about food. It is about all of us. Who can be made pure? All people who believe in Jesus for salvation. Join me as I dive into chapter 10 of Acts and explore this much beloved, often perplexing and misinterpreted passage. 

We will see that Saul's encounter with the risen Jesus forever changes the direction of his life. How has Jesus changed yours? 

This is actually one of my favorite passages in the book of Acts. So much so in fact that I wanted it to be its own episode. In this episode, we glean what it means to truly listen to the Holy Spirit as He guides our lives. 

The church faces intense persecution and yet they do not shrink back but instead go everywhere preaching. In this episode, we will zoom in on one of those scenes. The gospel will overcome Simon's jealousy and continue to spread to the Samaritans. 

Stephen faces a difficult trial. He is thrown into a mob scene where the witnesses are false and the truth doesn't matter. He doesn't respond with anger, nor plead for his life. Instead, he doubles down on the truth of the gospel. He was never truly alone. God never left him. 

#Acts #NewTestament #Bible #God #Journeyingthroughscripture 

I feel that it is necessary to respond to a friend's class they have started to activate people's prophetic ministry. In this episode, I specifically want to lock in on how this friend used Acts 2:14-18 and applied to it a meaning that was not meant by the writer or Peter who is speaking. It is important to know how to read Scripture and not to simply read it to get what we want to see out of it. I think that when we read the Bible out of context it builds unbiblical ideas and practices that are not helpful for spiritual growth. Most importantly when we misread Scripture we miss all that God is saying to us. Also, teaching based on misinterpreted Scripture leads other believers into dangerous waters. I deal with this problem with respect for my friend and all those who will disagree with me. I do want to encourage all believers to learn how to meet with God in His Word and how to rightly apply it to our lives. Thank you again for listening. Feel free to contact me through Anchor with any concerns, comments, or questions. 

The early church saw exponential growth. Such growth was not without its growing pains. We look in today on a situation between the Greek-speaking widows and the Hebrew-speaking widows and how the early church solved the complaint. More importantly, we see how the church used this situation to continue to grow. 

#Acts #JourneyingthroughScripture #Bble #God 

There is a grave danger in spiritual hypocrisy. Such actions have deadly consequences in the lives of believers and in the life of the church. This is a difficult story. What do we do with it? How do we put feet to this text? 

#Acts #Newtestament #christianpodcast #hypocrisy