SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/12/2018 10:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “Boldness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 14:1-7
Message of the verses: “1 In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and of Greeks. 2 But the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren. 3 Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands. 4 But the people of the city were divided; and some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. 5 And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers, to mistreat and to stone them, 6 they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding region; 7 and there they continued to preach the gospel.”
In verse three we see the word “boldly” which is actually
the theme that we have been looking at throughout these first three SD’s for
these seven verses. When we look more
closely at this verse, as there is a lot packed into verse three we see that
Paul and Barnabas were speaking boldly as they relied upon the Lord for
strength to be able to speak boldly even though they had many enemies in that
city who did not want them there doing what they were doing, and yet while they
were their speaking boldly the Lord enabled them to do signs and wonders for
the people in that city. We have talked
a lot about sign gifts that were given by the Spirit of the Lord to the
apostles and leaders in the early church in order for the church to get
started, and I believe that they gradually stopped and once the Scriptures were
completed showing people of what they had to do in order to be saved that these
sign gifts finished. John MacArthur
writes that “These amazing acts of divine power through them affirmed that they
spoke for God. The designation ‘the word
of His grace’ is appropriate, since the message of the gospel is about God’s
grace granted to unworthy sinners so that they might be reconciled to Him. That grace is the heart of the gospel. Miraculous ‘sings and wonders’ were the
confirmation that the message of grace for sinners that Paul and Barnabas spoke
was truly from God.”
Now
I want to focus in on verse four where Luke describes both Paul and Barnabas as
being apostles. Now we know that Paul
defended his apostleship in his letters to the Corinthians, but we want to find
out in what sense was Barnabas an apostle.
The Scriptures gives qualifications for who the apostles were and we
know that Barnabas did not qualify as one of the apostles so why would Luke use
this word to describe him? The
Scriptures state that the apostles must be eyewitnesses to the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and also called by Him.
Paul saw the resurrected Jesus Christ as described in Acts chapter nine
and was also called by Him in that chapter:
“15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of
Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16
for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake’ (Acts 9:15-16). Barnabas qualified on neither of these points
that the Scripture speaks of as far as being an apostle. One more point I want to make here and that
after John died there are no more apostles, so if anyone says that they are an
apostle of Jesus Christ you know that they are not telling the truth. John MacArthur writes concerning
Barnabas: “He was commissioned not by
Jesus Christ directly, but by the church (cf. 2 Cor. 8:19) He was therefore an
apostle only in the general sense of the word.
Because of that, it is best to translate ‘apostles’ here not as an
official title but as ‘messengers’ (cf. 2 Cor. 8:23; Phil 2:25). ‘23 As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow
worker among you; as for our brethren, they are messengers of the churches, a
glory to Christ.’ ‘25 But I thought it
necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow
soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need.’ The verb apostello,
from which apostolos (‘apostle’)
derives, means ‘to send.’ Paul and
Barnabas were both apostles, or sent ones, of the church at Antioch. In addition, Paul was officially an apostle
of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:1, 5; 1 Cor. 1:1; 9:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:1;
Col. 1:1; 1 Tim. 1:1; 1:7; 2 Tim. 1:1, 14; Titus 1:1), and Barnabas, by serving
with him, come under the shadow of Paul’s apostolic authority.”
There are still a lot of things to discuss in this
section of Scripture like talking about the opposition they face and eventually
having to leave Iconium, and so we will continue looking at these things in our
next SD.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: My thoughts are
that in my life I must have more boldness to talk to others about Jesus
Christ. I don’t mean to put a lot of pressure
on people or bug them but to be bold in talking to people about the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give Sandy and I wisdom in
helping her day recover from his broken hip.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Obadiah” (1 Kings 18:4).
Today’s Bible
question: “What Hebrew measurement
signified the distance from the point of the thumb to the point of the little
finger when stretched as far as possible?”
Answer to this difficult
question in our next SD.
3/12/2018 11:03 AM
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