SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2018 10:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Spiritual
Leaders
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 13:1
Message of the verse: “1 Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”
A godly church will have strong leadership and as you look at the names of these men, some you will recognize, and some you won’t, you can see that there was strong leadership in the church at Antioch. As we look at the middle of this verse we see that Luke calls these men prophets and teachers. Prophets played a significant role in the apostolic church. “28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues (1 Cor. 12:28).” “20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, (Eph. 2:20).” “5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; (Eph. 3:5).” “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, (Eph. 4:11).”
“ 4396 προφήτης
prophetes prof-ay’-tace from a compound
of 4253 and 5346; n m; TDNT-6:781,952; { See TDNT 673 }
AV-prophet 149;
149
1) in Greek writings, an
interpreter of oracles or of other hidden things
2) one who, moved by the Spirit of
God and hence his organ or spokesman, solemnly declares to men what he has
received by inspiration, especially concerning future events, and in particular
such as relate to the cause and kingdom of God and to human salvation
2a) the OT
prophets, having foretold the kingdom, deeds and death, of Jesus the Messiah.
2b) of John the
Baptist, the herald of Jesus the Messiah
2c) of the
illustrious prophet, the Jews expected before the advent of the Messiah
2d) the Messiah
2e) of men filled
with the Spirit of God, who by God’s authority and command in words of weight
pleads the cause of God and urges salvation of men
2f) of prophets
that appeared in the apostolic age among Christians
2f1) they are
associated with the apostles
2f2) they
discerned and did what is best for the Christian cause, foretelling certain
future events. (#Ac 11:27)
2f3) in the religious
assemblies of the Christians, they were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak,
having power to instruct, comfort, encourage, rebuke, convict, and stimulate,
their hearers
3) a poet
(because poets were believed to sing under divine inspiration)
3a) of Epimenides (#Tit
1:12)”
This quote came from my Online Bible Greek/English
dictionary, and now I want to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary on this
word because as believers we need to understand what prophets were in the early
church. “Like the apostles, they were
preachers of God’s Word and were responsible in the early years of the church to instruct the
local congregations. Sometimes they
received new revelation from God, as in Acts 11:28 and 21:10-11. Both of those incidents recorded that the
prophets, in contrast to the apostles, received practical, not doctrinal
revelation. The prophet’s function as
receivers of the divine revelation ended with the cessation of the temporary
sign gifts. Even their office, like that
of the apostles, was replaced by pastor-teachers and evangelists (cf. Eph.
4:11-12), who were the elders and overseers (1 Tim. 3:1ff; Titus 1:5-9).”
When the church began there were gifts and positions
that, as John MacArthur stated, were temporary and were used to get the church
started. There are no more apostles or
prophets, and there are no more people who can bring about healing like what
was going on in Jesus’ day or in the early church. There are some who claim they can do this and
are getting rich, but if they were people like we see in the early church why
don’t they go into hospitals and heal everyone in there. I am not stating that God does not heal
people, and I have stated that when I was a young believer that the man who was
mentoring me told me that God heals you every time but the last time. I have not forgotten that and believe the
truth found in that statement today like I did when he told me it.
Paul writes the following in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-21 a
series of short exhortations and in verse 20 he writes “20 do not despise
prophetic utterances.” One of the issues
that were going on in the early church was that the Bible was not completed and
so the apostles and prophets were getting revelation from the Lord and some of
it was written down which is now a part of our Bible. Neither Luke, nor Mark were apostles, and yet
they were used by the Lord to write a part of our New Testament. Now with this said think about how difficult
your walk with the Lord would be if you did not have a Bible to read in your
own language. Baptist Mid Missions has
an arm called “Bibles International” who is working on getting Bibles into the
language of every known language in the world.
A few years ago in our Missions conference we heard from some of their
leaders who stated that in their lifetime they hope to have Bibles in all the
remaining languages. Our church is
helping out with a project in Africa for the Day (pronounced Dye) people and in
May we hope to be giving a very large check to Bibles International for the
completion of the OT in the Day people’s language. Doing a translation in another language is
difficult as people have to go and live with the people who speak the language
that the Bible is going to be put into.
I remember that one of the people working on the Day language talking
about how hot it was in this country and it was so hot that they had to set up
a room for their computers to be in otherwise they would overheat and not
work. For those of us who have several
copies of Bible on our smart phones, on our computers, and other ways of reading
it like a regular Bible we should take some time to thank the Lord for His
Word. (We will continue to look at this
subject in our next SD.)
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful for
what those before me went through so that I can have the opportunity of reading
the Word of God each and every day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord for what He wants to do
through the Sunday school class that I am teaching at this point.
Memory verse: Psalm 143:10 “Teach me to do Your will, for
You are my God; Let Your good Spirit led me on level ground.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The Edomites.”
Today’s Bible
question: “What idols did Jeroboam
make?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/6/2018 11:39 AM
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