Tag: acts

  • The Holy Spirit IS that I AM

    The Holy Spirit IS that I AM

    The Holy Spirit IS.
    I am the Spirit of God.
    I am the LORD.


    The HOLY SPIRIT of Trinity

    Glory be to God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit

    Who IS God?

    It’s a question we all ask and a familiar question asked by many souls before us.

    Moses said to God,

    “If I go to the Israelites and tell them,

    The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’

    and they ask me, What is his name?’ – what should I say to them?”


    JESUS asked His Apostles a rhetorically similar question:

    And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

    τὸν Χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ

    And Peter answered and said, “The [Messiah] Christ of God.”


    The Apostle Matthew’s Gospel witnesses this same relational answer of his fellow Apostle Peter:

    God our Father and Lord

    Trinity = God the Father + God the Son Jesus Christ + God the Holy Spirit

    We get it humanly – the relationship of a son (or daughter) to a father (or to our mother).

    Human AND ever-existing SON

    Mortal men and women can relate to a Son of THE FATHER.

    We understand, in part, that JESUS was flesh and blood, body and brain a perfect human son of man (Mary, actually: ‘man‘ as in human like all of us).

    John, the Apostle who speaks so well relationally in the witness of his Gospel tells us:

    But these [signs, proofs or miracles] are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

    The Twelve, having loved their friend and Master whom they followed willingly, understood a relational link between JESUS and each of His disciples personally.

    When the Lord in so many ways showed His Disciples His ever-existing relationship to Almighty God our Father — HIS Father from before the beginning — they could not have been more awe struck that GOD stood in their human presence.

    My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

    My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

    I and my Father are one.

    We get that - in a human sense of relationship.

    Jesus and Spirit

    Yet think from the witness of any of the Twelve of the impact of JESUS, the living Christ they follow, telling His disciples: “I and the Father are One.”

    Just like all faithful Jews, these disciples had recited the Sh'ma since their childhood:

    Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad

    שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד׃

    Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:


    Even so, the Disciples had heard their Master instruct Nicodemus, a leader of the Sanhedrin:

    Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

    That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    John’s Gospel continues with Jesus’ further explanation of the Spirit:

    • Although mankind is flesh and blood, created from dust and water,
    • and Man is created in God’s image;
    • Man, LIKE GOD, is also spirit.

    What is Spirit?

    John begins his Gospel with Jesus (the Word) and the Spirit.

    John’s clear reference is the beginning written in the word of Moses:

    בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃

    וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם׃

    JESUS, THE WORD, WAS WITH GOD AND WAS GOD — ‘hovering over ‘a waste and emptiness,’ in the darkness over a face of the deep



    Spirit [spirit] – rûaḥ – רוּח

    • The KJV translates Strong’s H7307 in the following manner: Spirit or spirit (232x), wind (92x), breath (27x), (various additional)
    • Two additional uses in Genesis show both the Spirit of God and His quickening spirit in His creatures, including mankind:
      • And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; – Gen. 6:3a NKJV
      • And they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life.. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. – Gen. 7:15,22 NKJV

    COMMENTARY


    Man cannot grasp the whirlwind or the unseen breath of God, yet JESUS, who IS One with the Father tells us:

    God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”


    πνεῦμα – pneuma in the New Testament

    Spirit in the New Testament – basically has the same meaning AND is just as mysterious, illusive as the breath of angels. – RH

    spirit in a living soul
    • the spirit, i.e. the vital principal by which the body is animated
      • the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides
      • the soul
    How do you think of your own spirit? 

    “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    Gospel of Matthew 5:3 LSB from the Beatitudes of Jesus Christ

    Consider a mysterious ethereal truth: observable, yet beyond measure of man's contemporary thought. 
    
    spirits apart from your own mortal soul
    • a spirit, i.e. a simple essence, devoid of all or at least all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting
      • a life giving spirit
      • a human soul that has left the body
      • a spirit higher than man but lower than God, i.e. an angel
        • used of demons, or evil spirits, who were conceived as inhabiting the bodies of men
        • the spiritual nature of Christ, higher than the highest angels and equal to God, the divine nature of Christ

    spirit and soul alike, yet distinct

    Before proceeding to the more powerful and most mysterious Holy Spirit of God, 

    consider beyond flesh and blood, mind and spirit --
    that which is the same in Old and New Testaments, yet having subtle ungraspable distinction: spirit and soul.

    We hear it also in the heart of Isaiah, a Prophet of God:

    With my soul [nep̄eš] I have desired You in the night,
    Yes, by my spirit [rûaḥ] within me I will seek You early;
    For when Your judgments are in the earth,
    The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

    • soul – psychē – NT Greek
    • soul – nep̄eš – נֶפֶשׁ – OT Hebrew

    the HOLY Spirit

    Although related to spirit, we cannot examine the soul today as part of our brief topic of the Trinity and Holy Spirit.

    Spirit – rûaḥ or pneuma

    Spirit of God, the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal with the Father and the Son

    1. as inspiring ecstatic state of prophecy
    2. as impelling prophet to utter instruction or warning
    3. imparting warlike energy and executive and administrative power
    4. as endowing men with various gifts
    5. as energy of life
    6. as manifest in the Shekinah glory
    7. never referred to as a depersonalised force

    Gospel of Matthew 1:18 NKJV

    Simply the human beginning of the son of man (Mary, a virgin, that is; bearing a second adam in the line of God’s created ones).

    Certainly mysterious, controversial to this day to the psyches and spirits of mortal men and women who resist the Spirit of God.


    πνεῦμα – pneuma – spirit OR ghost


    As mysterious as Ghost or the Spirit may be to mankind, its root word [Strong’s G4154 – pneō] directs our thoughts

    • to breathe hard, i.e. breeze:—blow (of the wind)

    Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

    Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’

    The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

    The HOLINESS of God

    GOD IS HOLY text of Deuteronomy 6:13

    NO mention of Trinity is absent the key concept of HOLY in reference to the HOLY GHOST or the HOLY SPIRIT.

    We have examined the doctrines of Holiness previously:

    DOCTRINE: GOD IS HOLY

    I encourage you in the spirit to pray with ears to hear the Holy Spirit of the Lord God, who IS ONE with the Father and the Son our savior Jesus Christ.


    Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

    God has raised this Jesus to life, to which we are all witnesses.

    Exalted, then, to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

    God LORD Father JESUS Son Holy Spirit

  • Paul’s Letters to Churches he Loved

    Paul’s Letters to Churches he Loved

    From time to time Talk of Jesus .com shares sermons from other media which may help connect our current series.

    Paul sends two Epistles to the Thessalonians from Athens
    Epistles to the Thessalonians
    TRUTH FOR LIFE PROGRAM  

    Faith, Hope, Love (Part 1 of 2)

    https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/faith-hope-love


    Listen to this helpful overview of the same journey of the Apostle Paul we have outlined in ACTS of the Apostles.

    Soon we’ll take a look at Paul’s next letter to the church at Corinth but READ this overview and listen to Alistair Begg’s description of where Paul has been so far in his introduction to I THESSALONIANS.

  • Thessalonians and the Righteous Judgment of God

    Thessalonians and the Righteous Judgment of God

    Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus,

    unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

    grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians

    WHY are the Thessalonians so special to Paul that the Apostle would write not one but TWO Epistles to their church from Athens?

    After all, hadn't Paul recorded that the Bereans were 'more noble than those in Thessalonica?' 
    
    Actually, this much overstated passage from Acts of the Apostles 17 refers ONLY to the Jews.

    In addition to several Jews, including Jason who had been a leader of the local synagogue, the Church of the Thessalonians had many Macedonians (and perhaps Roman citizens as well.)

    archeological site in Thessaloniki of ruins of a Roman forum where the crowds of Acts of the Apostles 17 would have gathered

    And some of them were persuaded, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

    Acts of the the Apostles 17:4 – Thessalonians during Second Missionary Journey ~ A.D. 50

    ACTS 17:5 But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6 And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying,

    These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7 whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Cæsar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. 8 And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. 9 And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.

    10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea..

    Jason and other Jews have undoubtedly continued in Christ as members of the church in Thessalonica.

    And they [Berean believers] that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus [who had remained in Berea] for to come to him with all speed, they departed.

    Acts of the Apostles 17:15 AKJV
    Paul writes to the Thessalonians from Athens

    18 After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth.. 5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.

    How was our first epistle received?

    PAUL, TIMOTHY, SILAS (Silvanus), Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others [from Athens and other cities] COMMUNICATED with the Church in places where Paul and Silas had proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ. Timothy, Jason and others became part of church leadership in cities throughout Asia Minor, Macedonia and Achaia.



    The Apostles must have sent AND RECEIVED letters and brief messages much more frequently than these exemplary New Testament Epistles record.


    Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians

    Once again PLEASE endure a most appropriate formality (17th c. King's English) of the KJV & Authorized KJV for this Apostolic Epistle. 
    - RH

    ~ A.D. 51 (a few months after Paul’s First Epistle)

    .. we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

    II Thessalonians 1:4b AKJV

    Silas, Timothy, Jason and others had delivered first-hand or second-hand accounts of events in Thessalonica after Paul had escaped.

    Paul knew that the Thessalonian believers were suffering. So the Apostle encourages the faithful:

    5 which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

    Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us. ..

    11 For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. 12 Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.

    HOW did Paul, Silas and Timothy know about these serious challenges to the Thessalonians?

    COMMUNICATION between church leaders and the Apostles.

    IF you are SUFFERING on account of your witness of the Lord JESUS Christ GOD has chosen you and GOD will repay those who trouble you.

    BUT IF some in your church DO NOT OBEY the commands and example of the Apostles they DO NOT and SHOULD NOT represent Christ as a member of your church.


    When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed!

    Paul preaches clearly about the Judgment to come.

    II THESSALONIANS 1:7-12 AKJVPaul’s Points concerning Judgment

    • .. and to you who are troubled rest with us,
    • when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
    • taking vengeance on them
      • that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
    • who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord,
      • and from the glory of his power;
    • when he (The Lord Christ JESUS] shall come to be glorified in his saints (all believers),
    • and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.
    • with his mighty angels, 
    • in flaming fire

    Let no man deceive you

    Paul continues in encouraging these faithful Thessalonians currently enduring persecution to look forward to THE DAY Christ will return and draw the saints unto Him in victory over death.

    .. by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    and by our gathering together unto him,

    be not soon shaken

    in mind,

    or be troubled,

    neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

    Don't believe such things.

    .. for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,

    and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

    2 Thessalonians 2b-4 AKJV

    ἄνομος ánomosWicked

    And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

    2 Thessalonians 2:8-10 AKJV

    We can hardly overlook Paul’s warning of Satan’s deception which will precede the returning of Christ for those He has saved.

    Persecuted Thessalonians would obey the Apostle – having received the Holy spirit AND to whom Paul had already written in his first epistle:

    • He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. – 1 Thessalonians 4:8
    • Quench not the Spirit.1 Th 5:19
    • And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Th 5:23
    ONCE MORE PAUL ENCOURAGES BELIEVERS IN THE TRUTH OF THE RETURN AND JUDGMENT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

    Pray that we might be delivered..

    • .. pray for us
    • ..that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men:
    • for all men have not faith.
    • But the Lord is faithful,
    • .. and keep you from evil.

    • And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you.
    • And .. into the patient waiting for Christ.

    Walk away from evil men

    I have already addressed [above] Paul's concern from evil influencers who claim to be 'christians' AND Paul's COMMAND to stay away from such men.

    But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing.

    And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

    11 Thessalonians 3:13-15 AKJV

    And so, my dear brother or sister in the Lord, WHY NOT respond to Paul’s Epistle by your COMMENT?

    The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

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