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Category: Acts for a 21st c. Church

Acts of the Apostles + a History of Christ’s Church

Acts of the Apostles 1-28

Acts of the Apostles:
+ The first century Church SHARED Christ while suffering severe persecution.
+ Luke records a historic account of the Church which gives 21c Christians a context to SHARE the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

Read more about the Early Church & add your COMMENT on Scripture.

ACT now.

+ SHARE the Gospel history witnessed in the CURRENT chronological SERIES from ACTS of the APOSTLES.

Jerusalem – a City Stirred Up
Then the whole city was provoked…
Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NASB20

CROWD REACTIONS with violence, retribution and vengeance, WAR between two opposing forces where some claim PEACE while others besiege it with competing claims of war and tolerance…

Nothing is new under the sun, most especially in Israel !

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!

~ In the year of our Lord 30

So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Gospel of Matthew 23:37-38 NIV {in context of vs. 31-39}

JESUS had testified against these same leading trouble-makers.

Now the Apostle Paul has returned to the same Jerusalem where many years before this up and coming Saul of Tarsus had stood with the leaders of the Temple who then stoned Stephen to death.

https://talkofjesus.com/stephen-indictment-of-our-founding-fathers

~ A.D. 32 – Stephen martyred in Jerusalem
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* ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.
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*approximately A.D. 54-55

https://talkofjesus.com/mission-to-macedonia-with-more-exhortation

Paul has also encountered these zealous Jews in many cities throughout the ten years of his three missionary journeys; including in Ephesus of Asia Minor from where the Apostle has just returned. And Jewish opponents of the Gospel have also traveled to Jerusalem for the festival.

Acts of the Apostles 21:
~ A.D. 57

Photo of door in gate of Jerusalem's wall from ~A.D. 1900
And all the city was disturbed; and the people ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut.
Acts of the Apostles 21:30 NKJV

Little doubt that the Apostle Paul, who had seen the Lord Jesus Himself along a road to persecuted Christians in Damascus twenty years ago (in ~A.D. 37) knew the similar intent of these same anti-Christs who had stoned Stephen.

Yet due to the prophesy of Agabus (Acts 21:20-21) Paul knew of a different outcome the Lord had in store for the Apostle.

Now as they were seeking to kill him, news came to the commander of the garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.
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Oh, did I mention that JERUSALEM is still UNDER the control and administration of ROME and NOT its appointed Jewish leaders (who incite the mobs to their own political advantage)?

Just like when Pilate governed JERUSALEM is controlled from beyond its oft-breached walls.
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He immediately took soldiers and centurions, and ran down to them.

And when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

Then the tribune came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. He inquired who he was and what he had done.
Acts of the Apostles 21:33 ESV – The arrest of Paul in Jerusalem
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SOUND FAMILIAR? 

Will an arrest in JERUSALEM to appease shouting crowds restore a pax Romana? 
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21st Century of the Common Era

MAY, 2021 of the Common Era

Observant readers of Talk of JESUS .com will have noted that the COVER PHOTO of today’s post is contemporary rather than from the time of the Apostle Paul.

Palestinians protest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City on May 21, 2021. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

7 October 2023 C.E.

Most of us recall an initial incursion by militant Islamists into a pax UN of Israel tenuously instituted in 1949 after an A.D. 20th century holocaust of the Jews.

Their own atrocities of war and proven provocation of Jerusalem has led to great evil perpetrated by both sides.

Although I take no side in this divisive war I would ask you to consider current outcomes in light of entrenched positions which have led up to these current events.

23 May 2021

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

OP-ED
Losing the war

2024 C.E.
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"Meanwhile, Israel celebrated the nation’s 76th anniversary on Tuesday." - IMAGE of Gaza (date uncertain) 
By The Bharat Express News
May 14, 2024
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‘What does all this have to do with Paul and ACTS of the Apostles?‘
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While you consider and compare  A.D. FIRST CENTURY JERUSALEM with a 2024 of the Common Era Jerusalem, Israel let's LOOK BACK at what 1st c. A.D. JEWISH leaders already knew about their City.
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Before Christ
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* ALL estimates of YEARS are provided for chronological comparison to other events and for historical context.
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~1000 Before Christ + David rules a United Israel for 40 years

Now Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice..

“However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”
1 Kings 11:9,13 LSB
- 930 B.C. Solomon dies. The Kingdom (which did not include Philistia & Gaza) had grown since David’s reign to influence all of the world from the Nile to the Euphrates. It now becomes divided between his sons.
- 721 B.C. Fall of Israel [Samaria] to Assyria
Assyria takes Samarian captives 722 BC & Babylon takes Judah’s captives 607-537 BC
- 661 B.C. on Yom Kippur (the day of atonement)
Now the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest; and he stood above the people and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you trespass against the commandments of Yahweh and do not succeed? Because you have forsaken Yahweh, He has also forsaken you.’”

So they conspired against him and at the command of the king they stoned him to death in the court of the house of Yahweh [the Temple].
2 Chronicles 24:20-21 LSB
- AFTER refusing to listen to Prophets sent to them by the LORD Judah also falls.
- 587 B.C. Jerusalem falls
Flight of the Prisoners, Artist: Tissot, Photographer: John Parnell, Photo © The Jewish Museum, New York

And Judah was taken away into exile to Babylon for their unfaithfulness.
1 Chronicles 9:1b LSB
- 559 B.C.
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia,

‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Ezra 1:2 LSB

331 B.C.

After having defeated Tyre, Alexander the Great seizes Jerusalem, Gaza and much of Egypt.
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We'll skip past the Seleucid Empire to the east and Egyptian Empire to the west of Jerusalem, BOTH threats to Judea and ROME, as well as a familiar Jewish political/religious tiff between the Maccabees and Hasmonaeans.
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63 B.C.

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus or Pompey the Great captures Jerusalem and creates an alliance with the part-Edomite King of Jerusalem, Herod the Great. – Source

48 B.C.

Julius Caesar (100BC – 44BC)

Roman Rule (Before & in the years of Christ)
- Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic – source BBC
- A civil war broke out, and Caesar’s soldiers were victorious against Pompey.
- Pompey escaped to Egypt in search of refuge upon losing the battle. Instead, he was assassinated in the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy XIII’s bid to win over Caesar. – source
August 9, 48 BC – Battle of PHARSALUS (in Greece)
- (Gaius Julius) Caesar went on to become the ruler of Rome, proclaiming himself to be the sole consul and dictator.
Paul: more than just a Jew
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Returning once more to  Jerusalem in A.D. 57 ... 

(where those present do NOT know that ROME will completely destroy Jerusalem and its Temple just 13 years from now...)
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Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, some another.

And as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.

And when he came to the steps, he was actually carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd,

for the mob of the people followed, crying out,

“Away with him!”
Acts of the Apostles 21:36 ESV (vs. 34-36 above)

Sound familiar?

NEXT, God-willing, we will continue with Paul’s troubles in Jerusalem

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
May 15, 2024
What God Hath Wrought 2
Paul’s Mission – 2 REPORTS
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A.D. 57

Previously:
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TO James and the Church:

And when he had saluted them, he rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles through his ministry.
Acts of the Apostles 21:19 – ASV – Paul’s account of his third mission to th

What God Hath Wrought

“Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them that have believed..” – Acts 21:20b ASV

James and the leaders of the church in Jerusalem then put forth a plan for Paul to prove his faithfulness to the LAW of Moses to the thousands of Jews in the Temple.

TO Jewish Worshipers including Proselytes in the Temple courts:

Followers of the Way of Jesus Christ are convinced, yet through the Spirit Paul will proclaim Christ to the larger multitudes of the Temple courts divided for Jews and separately set-apart areas for God-seekers among the Hellenists and pagans.

Acts of the Apostles 21: ASV

and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
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James, of course, does not receive the murmuring of those influenced by the anti-Christs among the temple leadership; however the issue at hand is for Paul and the Apostles to proclaim CHRIST TO JEW AND GENTILE ALIKE.
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The Lord Jesus had received the same sort of reception in the Temple as the Apostles do now.

John 5:

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that bear witness about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
Gospel of John 5:39-40 LSB – witness of the Lord Jesus to the leaders of the Temple

“How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the only God?

“Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.
Gospel of John 5:46 – The Lord Jesus challenging leaders of the Temple

“But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
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James knows how these same Temple officials some twenty ago had falsely convicted and then crucified his beloved half-brother, JESUS.

These will not believe Paul either.

Yet by God's grace some will believe the Apostle when Paul once again proclaims Christ in Jerusalem's Temple.
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What God hath Wrought through MOSES
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a Scriptural sample from the Torah from which PAUL or any of the Apostles could have preached on this or any day.
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מֹשֶׁה
מֹשֶׁה (mōšê), occurs 766x in 704 verses in the WLC Hebrew.

He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses^H4872 hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

– Exodus 3:6

Then Moses H4872 answered and said, “What if they will not believe me and will not listen to my voice? For they may say, ‘Yahweh has not appeared to you.’”

– Exodus 4:1

So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their weakness of spirit and hard slavery. – Exodus 6:9

Therefore the people contended with Moses and said, “Give us water that we may drink.”

And Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you test Yahweh?”

But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to put us and our children and our livestock to death with thirst?”

– Exodus 17:2-3 LSB

the Tabernacle & the Temple

Now it happened, in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected… He erected the court all around the tabernacle and the altar, and he put up the screen for the gateway of the court.

Thus Moses finished the work.

– Exodus 40:17,33 LSB

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle.
40:34 וַיְכַס הֶעָנָן אֶת־אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וּכְבוֹד יְהוָה מָלֵא אֶת־הַמִּשְׁכָּן׃
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Paul could have preached of MOSES and the Tabernacle. 

The Apostle could have witnessed SCRIPTURE recalling THE GLORY OF THE LORD filling the Temple during its dedication by Solomon.
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Paul legitimately could have asked Judea's leaders,
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‘WHEN HAS THE GLORY OF THE LORD EVER FILLED THIS TEMPLE REBUILT BY HEROD UNDER ROME? ‘

Yet Paul had no need to reiterate this truth that leading Jews under ROME seeking the Apostle knew all too well.

AND the Apostles knew all-to-well that ‘circumcision’ (the mark of the Jew) was NOT the real issue.

‘forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children..’
FALSE WITNESS against the Apostle to the gentiles, Paul.

Nor was Moses, against whom many had been stiff-necked.

περιτομή – Circumcision
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Earlier in Paul's missionary journeys:
(the matter settled by James and the A.D. 49 Council of Jerusalem)
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But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”

Both the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.
Acts of the Apostles 15:5-6 LSB

ACTS 21

Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them.

27 Now when the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon noticing him in the temple, began to throw all the crowd into confusion and laid hands on him, crying out,

“Men of Israel, help!

This is the man who teaches to everyone everywhere against our people and the Law and this place;

and besides, he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

MORE false accusations and lies

This latest stirring of the CROWDS in ROMAN JERUSALEM resembles earlier riots and controversies ignited against the GOSPEL of JESUS CHRIST which Paul and many disciples of The Way have now proclaimed throughout much of Asia and Europe.

Paul, a Jew among jews, has abandoned an old Covenant broken by the Jews many centuries Before Christ.

“So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer.
Deuteronomy 10:16 וּמַלְתֶּם אֵת עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם וְעָרְפְּכֶם לֹא תַקְשׁוּ עוֹד׃
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“Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh
And remove the foreskins of your heart,

Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

Lest My wrath go forth like fire
And burn with none to quench it

Because of the evil of your deeds.”

Jeremiah 4:4
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NEXT God-willing, we will return to the controversy unraveling in the Temple.

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
May 10, 2024
What God Hath Wrought
Jerusalem, Jerusalem !

And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. – Acts of the Apostles 21:17 ASV

That’s it, really – the end of a THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY OF PAUL (and many other apostles and disciples of the risen Jesus Christ).
- THE END of a FIRST MISSION beginning back in A.D. 47 had been about fourteen years after his conversion before Christ.
  - 1400 miles through CYPRESS and skirting GALATIA.
  - Paul and Barnabas return to the church at Antioch, Syria to ‘report all that God had done.‘
- In ACTS 15, Peter, James, Paul and other leading men of the church meet to resolve issues of JEWS and GENTILES eating and worshiping together, after which apostles were SENT out to the churches.
- These apostles of a SECOND MISSION then departed from Jerusalem to SYRIA and GALATIA in A.D. 49,
  - then crossing into Europe (THRACE, MACEDONIA, GREECE & ACHAIA);
  - Paul returns to ASIA MINOR, establishing an important church in Ephesus.
  - Paul returns to Antioch, via Jerusalem, having travelled a distance of 2800 miles
The Connection of Christ’s Missions

A.D. 52 – Apostles’ Missions so far..
- A.D. 57
  - Paul is about to give an account of his recent 5-year, 2700 mile THIRD MISSION to the church in Jerusalem.
Prophesying the unseen future

previously, a prophesy in Caesarea

Acts of the Apostles 21:
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NOTE: Due to the seriousness of ongoing issues of the Church formally considering Paul's report from mostly Gentile Hellenist Roman cities, please consider the gravity of a more formal Scripture of the American Standard Version (revision of 19th c. English update of the A.D. 1611 King James Bible.) - RH
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More People, More Problems

18 And the day following Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.

And when he had saluted them, he rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles through his ministry.
Acts of the Apostles 21:19 ASV
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Let us PAUSE here to consider what witness Paul has 'rehearsed' to this council of Jerusalem Elders. 

It's been some seven or eight years since James and and the leaders of the CHURCH SENT this Apostle to the Gentiles with specific anointing and instruction.
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The things which God hath wrought !
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FIRST: defining a verb made archaic to Common Era ears
Wrought [121x in the ASV]
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- Thus all the work that Solomon wrought for the house of Jehovah was finished. – 2 Chronicles 5:1a
- And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah; and he wrought that which was good and right and faithful before Jehovah his God. – 2 Chronicles 31:20
- And it came to pass, when all our enemies heard thereof, that all the nations that were about us feared, and were much cast down in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God. – Nehemiah 6:16
But he that *doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.
Gospel of John 3:21 ASV [context John 3:19-21]
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* ποιέω - is the SAME word Luke uses as 'rehearsed' om ACTS 21:19  - ..he rehearsed one by one the things which God had wrought among the Gentiles..
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What hath God wrought, might Isr'l say
Author: Thomas Gibbons AD 1720-1785
Published in 4 hymnals
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WROUGHT ! archaic to Common Era worship perhaps, but having a GRAVITY of TRUTH required of Paul to make his case for the Gentiles to cultural Jews.

And they, when they heard it, glorified God; and they said unto him,

Thou seest, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of them that have believed;

and they are all zealous for the law: and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou teachest all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs.
ACTS 29:20b-21 ASV

James tells Paul why he must address many new believers providing truth and evidence overturning false accusations against the Way made by zealous Judeans.

What is it therefore?

they will certainly hear that thou art come.

Remember back in Caesarea?

Thus saith the Holy Spirit, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles. – Acts of the Apostles 21:11b ASV – prophesy through Agabus for the Apostle Paul

This leader of the Jerusalem church once an unbelieving Galilean Jew (biological half-brother of Jesus) suggests a plan for Paul to convince them.

Do therefore this that we say to thee:
- We have four men that have a vow on them;
- 24 these take, and purify thyself with them,
- and be at charges for them,
- that they may shave their heads:
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These purification rites relate to Levitical Law & ALSO required completion of a VOW to the LORD.
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and all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof they have been informed concerning thee;

but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, keeping the law.

Clear PUBLIC evidence of TRUTH !

AND in true leadership form JAMES reminds of their decision already made earlier regarding GENTILE customs:

But as touching the Gentiles that have believed, we wrote, giving judgment that they should keep themselves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication.

Paul receives their advise humbly (even knowing somewhat of the outcome), as the Apostle has been counseled by the Holy Spirit.

26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them went into the temple, declaring the fulfilment of the days of purification, until the offering was offered for every one of them.

ACTS of the Apostles – To Be Continued…

What God Hath Wrought 2

Talk of JESUS . com

Comment on Scripture – Share the Gospel
April 26, 2024