SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/19/2017 8:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Persecution Manifest
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 4:1-4
Message of the verses: “1 As they were speaking to the people, the
priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them,
2 being greatly disturbed because they
were teaching the people
and proclaiming in Jesus
the resurrection from the dead. 3 And they laid hands on them and put
them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. 4 But many of
those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be
about five thousand.”
As we look at the word
“they” were speaking to the people we may understand that to mean that both
Peter and John were both speaking, perhaps one would speak for a while and then
the other would take over. Next we want
to look at the priests and these were just the ordinary priests who came in to
do the evening sacrifice. These priests
were divided up into 24 courses and were chosen by lot to serve at a given
time, something that can be seen in Luke’s gospel speaking of when the father
of John the Baptist was chosen by lot to serve.
One perhaps could see what these priests were upset as Peter and John
were out staging them, so to speak.
“The captain of the
temple guard” was like the chief of the temple guard, the one in control, and
the temple guards were made up of Levites.
MacArthur writes that “He was second in rank only to the high priest and
was responsible for maintaining order in the temple grounds. The Romans gave the right to police the
temple to the Jews, and this strategos
(a word meaning ‘commander,’ or ‘general’) ranked next to the high priest in
authority.”
We have written about
the “Sadducees” in earlier SD’s, as they were one of the sects that made up
first century Judaism. They had arch
rivals, the Pharisees, along with the Essenes, and the Zealots. The Sadducees were small in number but had a
lot of influence and they were a dominant religious and political force in
Israel. The high priests throughout that
period were all Sadducees. The New
Testament has much to say about the Sadducees, as they had their run-ins with
the Lord Jesus Christ and even came together with the Pharisees to put our Lord
to death.
John MacArthur writes
“Ephistemi (came upon) has the idea
of coming upon suddenly, sometimes with hostile intent (cf. Acts 6:12). The authorities were greatly disturbed with
the apostles for several reasons. First,
they were annoyed that they were teaching the people at all. They had no reputation as teachers, or
sanction, or credentials, yet had gathered a huge crowd and stirred up a major
commotion. That was intolerable to the
leaders since Peter and John were ‘uneducated and untrained’ (v. 13); that is
they had not undergone rabbinic training.
Worse, they were from Galilee, from which nothing good could be expected
(John 1:46; 7:41, 52).” Now if you put
yourselves in their shoes you could understand why they were upset, however
these were false teachers, and John and Peter were not. In my Spiritual Diary from 2 Peter 2:17 this
morning I looked at the first part of the verse which speaks of the apostates,
and describes them as dried up springs of water, and you can put these leaders
of first century Judaism in that same category.
In our next SD we will
look at more reasons why these “dried up springs” were offended.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Jesus told the woman at the well to have one
drink from the well that He had and she would forevermore be satisfied. I took that drink Jan. 26, 1974 and have been
satisfied, not having to look for anything else to satisfy my worship, for
Jesus truly is the One who satisfies my soul.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To tell others of the water that can only
satisfy so they too, can find what they truly are seeking.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:
“The feeling of our infirmities.”
Today’s Bible question: “Who
said ‘We have found the Messiah?’”
Answer in our next SD.
9/19/2017 9:02 AM
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