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Commandments of Relationships in the Church 1 Corinthians 7
The Apostle clearly states both his authoritative advice AND commandments from the risen Christ Jesus.

I say this to give you permission. It is not a command.

1 Corinthians 7:6 ICB

Commandments for Christians from the Lord

Now I give this command for the married people. (The command is not from me; it is from the Lord.)
A wife should not leave her husband.
1 Corinthians 7:10 International Children’s Bible

Paul previously has already conceded to those who are single, ‘..because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.’ – 1 Corinthians 7:2 NKJV
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The New King James Version HEADS this section of Paul's Epistle: Keep Your Marriage Vows
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NOW Paul must address how a corinthianized saint of Christ’s Church in Corinth ought to apply such commands of the Lord.

‘Do NOT be unequally yoked’ is good pre-marital advice from the Bible.

Roger@talkofJesus.com

– referring to Paul’s Second letter to the Corinthians 6:14

Divorce

A wife is not to depart from her husband. 11 But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

And a husband is not to divorce his wife.

Let’s be clear on this command:
- For most of history ONLY the HUSBAND could sign a certificate of divorce.
- In this Common Era a WIFE is JUST AS LIKELY to sue her husband for divorce.
OR a ‘liberated‘ woman may simply leave (or evict) the husband of her vows, rather than seeking to reconcile their marital relationship as commandments of the Lord and scripture clearly state.

Any Exceptions or Advice?
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(In deference to our own vows before the Lord, sometimes the hardness of a heart is that of our spouse.)
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12 To the rest I say (I, not the Lord) that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

13 If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

The Apostle also makes clear his desire for fidelity in marriage between a CHURCH MEMBER and an unbeliever.

Scripture is clear: DO NOT commit adultery applies to HUSBAND and WIFE alike.

What about the kids?

The husband who is not a believer is made holy through his believing wife.

And the wife who is not a believer is made holy through her believing husband.

If this were not true, then your children would not be clean. But now your children are holy.

1 Corinthians 7:14 International Children’s Bible

Sanctified, the King James Version instructs.
ἁγιάζω – Strong’s G37 – hagiazō – From ἅγιος (G40) the same word scripture uses for ‘Holy’ and for ‘saint,’ the name identifying members of Christ’s church.
- to separate from profane things and dedicate to God
- to purify by expiation: free from the guilt of sin
- to purify internally by renewing of the soul
MARRIAGE is HOLY, ITS TWO SAINTS ONE with each other and with CHRIST.
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The saints of the church are Christ's SANCTIFIED ones, yet are our christian MARRIAGES a HOLY witness of CHRIST?
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The Good News About Marriage also reveals the divorce rate among those active in their church is 27 to 50 percent lower than among non-churchgoers.

Jeff Feldhahn, husband of Shaunti Feldhahn, marriage researcher in 2019 CBN interview

Which spouse claiming to be christian while embracing adultery is NOT ACTIVE in worship in their local church?

So they divorce, often calling themselves, ‘single mom’ or ‘single dad,’ as if they had never been bound to any vow.

And they witness falsely to the world that they are ‘christians‘ (though in name only) who DIVORCE as FREELY and frequently as the rest of the world, those who vilify Christ our Lord, His Church and every Christian family.

but IF the ..

ἄπιστος apistos – (note some meaning from various translations)

[departs, insists on leaving, leaves, separates, wants a divorce],

χωρίζω chōrizō – let him depart

.. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

1 Corinthians 7:15b KJV

ἄπιστος apistos
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And what does the Bible call this person breaking their vows of marriage by divorce?
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- unbelieving or unbeliever, KJV & NKJV
- the husband or wife who isn’t a believer, NLT
- unbelieving one, LSB
- unbelieving partner, AMP & RSV
- infidelis, VUL
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In fact, since 
they trouble Christ, 
divide the saints and
cast chaos into the world of witness in Jesus Christ, 
those church members who DIVORCE become anti-Christs in the eyes of the world.
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Let it be so. – 7:15b NIV

Concerning Change of Status

When this happens, the brother or sister in Christ is free. God called us to a life of peace. 16 Wives, maybe you will save your husband; and husbands, maybe you will save your wife. You do not know now what will happen later.

1 Corinthians 7:15c International Children’s Bible

This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.

Each of you should continue to live in whatever situation the Lord has placed you, and remain as you were when God first called you. This is my rule for all the churches.

1 Corinthians 7:17 New Living Translation
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Paul addresses the men - Jewish saints of the church as well as Greek or Roman converts to Judaism, now also saints adopted into Christ.
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Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. 20 Each person should remain [abide] in the situation they were in when God called them.
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This, of course, opens another relational question for women, as well as questions of status of Jews the circumcision, Greek Corinthians and Roman Corinthians, both the uncircumcision.
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Slaves – δοῦλος –doulos

Rome had slaves.
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(Most Bible translations prefer the less-offensive word, servants), but even employee labor is bought by your employer.) Some are slaves to their work. Others, slaves to
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Lose a war, as the Greeks had to the Romans, and your citizens become subject to a government over which you have no control. Jews, whether in Corinth or Jerusalem were also either Roman citizens, free aliens or slaves to a Roman, Greek or other master, their lord.

doulos
1. a slave
2. metaph., one who gives himself up to another’s will those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men
3. devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests
For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord.

Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.
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So note here Paul's all-important metaphor:
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You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants [doulos] of men.

So, brothers, [v.29 meaning ‘brothers and sisters’] in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

1 Corinthians 7:23 ESV

The Apostle uses ABIDE once again in v.23, his fourth of five times in 1 Corinthians 7.

Situation of the unmarried and widowed

25 Now I write about people who are not married. I have no command from the Lord about this, but I give my opinion. And I can be trusted, because the Lord has given me mercy.

Remedies for this present distress

I suppose therefore that this is good because of the present distress—
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Paul's advice is both personal AND circumstantial: to the single (virgins and unmarried men), engaged (betrothed), married, widowed (no longer bound to a spouse), divorced (once again single and unbound to another).
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- 27 Are you pledged to a woman?
  - Do not seek to be released.
- 28 Are you free from such a commitment?
  - Do not look for a wife.
- 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned;
- and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned.
  - But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.
    
    NIV
The time is short
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We do not have much time left. So starting now... 1 Corinthians 7:29b International Children's Bible
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What’s the historical context of which Paul speaks? (This seems somewhat prophetic, but certainly the handwriting on the wall is whispered in every province of the Empire.)

AD 55 – Six years ago Caesar Claudius had expelled some of the Jews from Rome. And now Nero has succeeded him as Emperor.
- ‘Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus was self-indulgent, cruel, and violent as well as a cross-dressing exhibitionist.’
- Nero planned his mother’s death with great care
- After Nero and [his second wife] argued late one night (Nero liked to stay out late), he supposedly kicked her in the stomach, killing both her and the unborn child.
  - READ more from our source
And, of course we know Nero’s evil reputation best from an incident about to take place in the burning of most of Rome just nine years from now [AD 64] and more malicious persecutions of Christ followers, including Paul, who viewed Nero as an anti-Christ.

The Apostle writes twice to the Corinthians during turbulent times.

..the time is short, so that from now on

even those who have wives should be as though they had none,
- those who weep as though they did not weep,
- those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice,
- those who buy as though they did not possess,
- and those who use this world as not misusing it.
For the form of this world is passing away.

Paul’s first Epistle to the Corinthians 7:29-31 NKJV

Free from earthly cares
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Again, a list from Paul confirming motivations of men and women in their relationships - freedom apart from the commandments of the Law and rules concerning marriage.
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A wife is bound by law as long as her husband lives;
1 Corinthians 1:39a NKJV
- The unmarried man is concerned about the work of the Lord, how he can please the Lord. – 1 Cor 7:32b BSB
  - But the married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, – v.33
- The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit:
  - but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. – v. 34b KJV
cautions for your profit and not restraint

to promote propriety and undistracted devotion to the Lord.

If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. – v.36 ESV

But if he has decided firmly not to marry and there is no urgency and he can control his passion, he does well not to marry. – v.37 NLT

So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better.

1 Corinthians 7:38 NIV – Paul’s advice for uncertain times

.. but if her husband dies, she is at liberty to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 7:39b NKJV
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Once again, from the KJV, Paul's fatherly Apostolic opinion:
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40 But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.

NEXT: a Corinthian Culinary Conscience
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November 5, 2024
Sanctification and your Walk Toward Holiness
WHAT IS SANCTIFICATION and WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Walking instructions to please God more

Not ME – the deception of SIN

Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. – 1 Thessalonians 4:1 KJV

SOUNDS LIKE GOOD FATHERLY ADVICE, doesn’t it?

Allow me to tell you a story about a letter.
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ONCE UPON A TIME there were some gentile pigs (as Jews supposed them to be) 
who having fled their straw and stick houses to a brother's brick-built house where these young believers thought they were safe from the enemy.

BUT did some young saint slip out through a wider door of their former sins?
And won't the unclean pig only to be barbecued by the enemy?

Paul, a father of these tender believers, knows that the enemy may deceive them. 
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The apostles Paul and Silas have recently received good news about the Thessalonians from Timothy.

ἀπόστολος – Apostles of Christ
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and communication with the Church
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1 Thessalonians 3: .. we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, 2 and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith..

BEFORE Paul’s speech to the idol worshipers of Athens — BETWEEN the two missionary journeys (the first with Barnabas and this with Silvanus) — the risen Jesus sent out JEWS and GENTILES with clarification of the GOOD NEWS (Gospel) of ALL believers becoming sanctified by the blood of the Cross and a call to holiness and righteousness in Christ.

Epistle from the Council of Jerusalem – Acts 15:20

.. we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,
but should write to them
to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.
Acts 15:19b-20 ESV

Letters from other Church Fathers about Sanctification

In the sense that Jesus’ biological half-brother James sends out this apostolic instruction and another letter to the Church, for he too is an apostle (although not by a personal journey into the nations).

In A.D. 49 James writes:

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:4

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
from a recent letter from James 1:21 ESV written ~A.D. 49 ~ the same time as the Council at Jerusalem

Galatia was a large Roman province which at that time included the region north to the Black Sea but most populated along the Mediterranean and included Cypress, Pamphylia and other regions.

Paul has already written a general epistle to the Galatians in A.D. 49 which includes churches founded during his first missionary journey.

Sanctification of children learning to walk in Christ

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,

how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Paul’s letter (epistle) to the Galatians 4:8-9 ESV

“Abba! Father!” WE ARE NO LONGER SLAVES of these things!
Now the works of the flesh are evident:
- sexual immorality,
- impurity,
- sensuality,
- idolatry,
- sorcery,
- enmity,
- strife,
- jealousy,
- fits of anger,
- rivalries,
- dissensions,
- divisions,
- envy,
- drunkenness,
- orgies,
- and things like these.
I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul’s letter (epistle) to the Galatians 5:19-21 ESV
A.D. 50 –

Paul, so pleased with his Thessalonian children, now warns of dangers before them.

1 Thessalonians 4:

2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
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The Apostle sent by Christ our Lord to the Nations commands his beloved young children.
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3 For this is the will of God,

your sanctification:
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Before we continue with Paul's command through the Lord Jesus and God the Father let's DEFINE a term sometimes omitted from some English translations of the Holy Bible.
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ἁγιασμός – Lexicon :: Strong’s G38 – hagiasmos

a word used only by Biblical and ecclesiastical writings signifying:
1. consecration, purification, τὸ ἁγιάζειν.
2. the effect of consecration: sanctification of heart and life, 1 Corinthians 1:30 (Christ is he to whom we are indebted for sanctification); 1 Thessalonians 4:7; Romans 6:19, 22; 1 Timothy 2:15; Hebrews 12:14; ἁγιασμὸς πνεύματος sanctification wrought by the Holy Spirit, 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2.
It is opposed to lust in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 f. (It is used in a ritual sense, Judges 17:3 [Alexandrian LXX]; Ezekiel 45:4; [Amos 2:11]; Sir. 7:31, etc.) [On its use in the N. T. cf. Ellicott on 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:13.]
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The King James and other versions of the Bible generally translate this as SANCTIFICATION or HOLINESS. Paul will use it 3x in the next few verses of his Epistle and uses its root word in his benediction [5:23], as well as later in a second letter.
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God has chosen you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.
2 Thessalonians 2:13B

that you abstain ἀπέχω

from sexual immorality

Here’s a HOT TOPIC in Thessaloniki now OR anywhere in every generation.

πορνεία

porneia

“fornication” is the old word for this “porneia” behaviour nearly no one remembers.
- illicit sexual intercourse
  - adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
  - sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. 18
  - sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; Mk. 10:11-12
- metaph. the worship of idols
Each must control our body

4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.
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"..possess his own vessel" [acquire his OWN wife, referring to fornication or adultery, states the King James] 
"..in sanctification and honor,"

THERE IT IS AGAIN - SANCTIFICATION of the flesh (for HOLINESS of the vessel of our spirit).
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WHY CONTROL IT?
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Again, from the KJV, the reason lies at the end of Paul's single long sentence which began back in v.3.
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For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter:

because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.
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Remember v. 2 pointing back to their previous instruction in Christ?
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OR ELSE!

For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.

ἀκαθαρσία – UNCLEANNESS?
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 (Isn't there a better way for a 21st century Christian to read this?)
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Of course we could use other words to describe those who refuse to wash their flesh in the sanctifying cleansing water of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible almost always points toward an imagery of walking in the way Christ would be recognized by OUR witness.

Lexicon :: Strong’s G167 – akatharsia

ἀκαθαρσία, -ας, ἡ, (ἀκάθαρτος) [from Hippocrates down], uncleanness;
a. physical: Matthew 23:27.
b. in a moral sense, the impurity of lustful, luxurious, profligate living: Romans 1:24; Romans 6:19; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:19; Ephesians 5:3; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:7; used of impure motives in 1 Thessalonians 2:3. (Demosthenes, p. 553, 12.) Cf. Tittmann i., p. 150f.

⁸Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
1 Thessalonians 4:8 ESV

Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy then return to their opening praise of the Thessalonian church.

9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.

But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
1 Thessalonians 5:27 KJV – conclusion of the first Epistle from Paul to the Thessalonians

Next (or should I say, LAST) – eschatology

I have already detailed Paul’s praise for this church with the enemy at the door of its brick house, BUT we won’t want to overlook the Apostle’s warning of later times like these…

Some commentators believe Paul’s principle purpose in writing to the Thessalonians is warning about last times.

.. the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

Stay tuned.
July 17, 2023
Acts of the HOLY SPIRIT
“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.”
Gospel of John 3:8 – Jesus Christ teaching on the Holy Spirit
Introducing the Third Person of the Trinity:
Acts 1:
Ascension of the Lord Jesus
The Holy Ghost – In AWE of the Spirit!
The Holy Ghost in Acts – KJV
ACTS in the Spirit
Introducing the Third Person of the Trinity:

Acts 1:

Luke tells us that his first book, the Gospel, was about Jesus Christ and that this second account, Acts, will be about what Jesus accomplished through the Apostles AFTER His ascension into heaven.

We look for the actors (so to speak) who Luke records doing the crucial early works of the Church. Peter immediately comes to mind as well as Paul.

What most Christians may have missed in Luke’s chronicles of the first three decades of Church history is that mysterious Person we first met in the Gospels, the ungraspable Image of God in the Holy Spirit.

Luke tells us that during forty days after His resurrection Jesus appeared to many (in addition to the Apostles).

4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, …

Here, mentioning the Father and the Person of the Son, Luke records the words of Jesus to the Apostles as they must have testified to our author of Acts:

“Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water,

but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Acts 1:4b NASB
- https://www.youtube.com/@talkofjesus/videos
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” – Gospel of John 4:24 ESV

Baptism

And I remind us that baptism [baptizō] ‘produces a permanent change.‘

The Apostles and others are about to be overwhelmed by a permanent change of the Spirit, a baptism receiving the third Person of God, the Holy Spirit. Luke records this cleansing baptism like no other, more that a baptism of water for repentance only.

Ascension of the Lord Jesus

The palpable tension of the Apostle’s encounters with the risen Christ, their beloved friend and Master which concluded Luke’s Gospel now builds once again. Luke records what happens next with this risen Jesus (who they could touch, who shared bread and wine with the Eleven), even the same Jesus who now continued to teach them more for the past forty days.

Christ Jesus again establishes the providence and authority of the Person of God the Father.

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.
Acts 1:7 CSB

but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses^G3144 ..
Acts of the Apostles 1:8a NASB20

μάρτυς – Witness – (to the ACTS which Luke is about to unfold)
- martys [gk.] [Strong’s 3144] Definition:
- a witness
  1. in a legal sense
  2. an historical sense
    
    one who is a spectator of anything, e.g. of a contest
  3. in an ethical sense
    
    those who after his example have proved the strength and genuineness of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death
Luke is witness through the Apostles not only of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, but a convincing witness to the Holy Spirit as Luke records God’s great acts of power only possible by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God.
Roger@talkofJESUS.com

Jesus was taken up as the Apostles watched!

Luke records that this Son of Man, risen in flesh and blood from the grave, had been with them — forty days — and then powerfully and mysteriously Jesus rises into the clouds as they look on (actually, up) in awe!

The Holy Ghost – In AWE of the Spirit!

How would your have reacted to this powerful, yet unexplainable rising of the Lord Jesus into the clouds?

You may find Luke’s account from the King James Version of the Bible helpful in describing your FEAR and AWE of this historical event which also includes angels of God.

The Holy Ghost in Acts – KJV

The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:

To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:

And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.

Luke records what fear and expectation Jesus planted in their hearts prior to the Lord’s ascension. Jesus compares this power with what they had received from John the Baptist.

For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
Acts 1:5 KJV – Jesus promising the Apostles a baptism of the Spirit of God (the Holy Ghost)

ἁγίου πνεύματος – hagios pneuma – the Holy Ghost

Unless you have a question for me by way of comment, we cannot get into some of the more mysterious depths of discussion about that which we cannot see and understand even less, the Person of the Holy Ghost. For to speak of the Spirit yields little fruit in the hearts of those ‘christians’ who have not yet received the Holy Spirit.

So allow me to define BOTH GREEK WORDS and you can take it from there.

hagios – HOLY
- from ἅγος hágos (an awful thing) (compare G53, G2282); sacred (physically, pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially, consecrated):—(most) holy (one, thing), saint.
pneuma – spirit

KJV translate this as:

GHOST
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(May I just add that our imagery of the Holy Spirit descending sometimes obscures the awesome power of the third Person of the Trinity, that is, the Holy Ghost.)

READ just some of these definitions from Strong's G4151 for Pneuma below:
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Outline of Biblical Usage
1. the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, coequal, coeternal with the Father and the Son
  1. sometimes referred to in a way which emphasises his personality and character (the “Holy” Spirit)
  2. sometimes referred to in a way which emphasises his work and power (the Spirit of “Truth”)
  3. never referred to as a depersonalised force
2. the spirit, i.e. the vital principal by which the body is animated
  1. the rational spirit, the power by which the human being feels, thinks, decides
  2. the soul
3. 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
  1. a life giving spirit
  2. a human soul that has left the body
  3. 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
4. the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one
  1. the efficient source of any power, affection, emotion, desire, etc.
5. a movement of air (a gentle blast)
  1. of the wind, hence the wind itself
  2. breath of nostrils or mouth
ACTS in the Spirit

Luke will have much more to say about this mysterious Person of the Trinity and crucial character in his historical account of Acts.
- And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
  - Acts 4:31
And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
Acts 5:32
- And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us
  - Acts 15:8
- And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
  - Acts 19:6
Although contemporary ‘christianity‘ characterizes the Holy Ghost less fearfully, in order to see his emphasis on the Person of the Holy Spirit let’s close Luke’s AWE–filled [awesome] introduction to ACTS from the KJV:
- Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. – Acts 2:38
to be continued..

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September 21, 2021