SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/18/2018 12:22 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 Caring
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
14:21-23
Message of the verses: “21 After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, 22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." 23 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”
Let us go back to the first chapter of the book of Acts
to look at what the Lord told the Apostles they were to do after He went back
to heaven. “6 So when they had come
together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are
restoring the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He said to them, "It is not for
you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; 8
but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even
to the remotest part of the earth."”
This is a similar statement that we see in Matthew chapter 28:18-20 “And
Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to
Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching
them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age."” Now as we
look at these two statements, one from Acts, and one from Matthew we see as we
look at our verses for today’s SD that Paul and Barnabas were doing this exact
same thing Jesus wanted them to do.
Paul and Barnabas went to Derbe after what happened to
Paul in Lystra as we mentioned in our last SD.
After being there for a while we read that “they returned to Lystra and
to Iconium and to Antioch.” Paul and
Barnabas were returning to see how the disciples that they had made were doing
after they had left them, and I imagine to see if they were growing in the
Lord, and also to encourage them to walk with the Lord. We do not read of any trouble that they were
having similar to what they had experienced before, but perhaps they were only
visiting the believers and so were not really exposed to those who gave them
trouble before.
John MacArthur writes that “Paul and Barnabas’s nurture
of their children in the faith involved at least four elements.” Now we will look at the first two elements in
our SD today and then look at the last two in our next SD.
Their first task is seen in verse 22 “22 strengthening
the souls of the disciples.” MacArthur
writes that “Strengthening’ is from episterizo
a word used elsewhere in Acts to speak of strengthening believers (15:32, 41;
18:23).” This is one of the functions of
every good Pastor to do, and that is to strengthen those in his congregation as
he preaches and teaches the Word of God to them each week.
The second task they were doing has to do with
encouraging them to continue in the faith.
Sometimes when things get hard for a person they may want to take
matters into their own hands, and that is exactly what they should not do, for
these are times when we need the Lord more, and so Paul and Barnabas were
encourage them to walk with the Lord.
Barnabas did a lot of encouraging as seen in the book of Acts. This is one of the functions of the Holy
Spirit as He comes along side of people to encourage them.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “To Zion” (Isaiah 35:15).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who replaced Felix as
governor?
Answer in our next SD.
3/18/2018 12:50 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment