Catholic Bible Study: The Acts Of The Apostles- Intro

name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen lure God as we attempt to enter once more into your presence to the study of the Scriptures I ask you to renew our covenant with you by giving us yet another portion of your beautiful Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into the truth that's here - the goodness that you have for us to enrich our lives and help us to be better disciples can I ask you to pray for us all along the way Blessed Mother as well and all the saints that will be mentioned by name in this work help us to follow in their footsteps and to complete our mission as they completed theirs in Christ's name I pray amen the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit all right I ordered some study guides but I waited too long so they're not here yet I'm going to use the Ignatius Study Bible which we've been using pretty regularly lately when we did Luke's last time the Ignatius Study Bible wasn't out yet believe it or not I don't think we've done Luke since 2003 best I could recall so it's been a while it's 2019 I'll just record for the video all right so it's been a while and the last time we used it I found the study guide we used it was this one so if you have this on your bookshelf from way back when when we were all children you might dig it out and use it because it's actually quite excellent but it only it's in two fits in two volumes chapter 1 through 15 and then volume 2 is the rest of the acts and so it it just seemed a little too expensive for me to get all that recommend so if you still have it you can use it but I'm gonna get the Ignatius Study Bible to use as a group I should have them by next week okay the book of Acts very interesting and in many ways unique book in the Bible written of course by Saint Luke it is his second work he also wrote the Gospel of Luke but in many ways that was the prequel to what his main work is which is the book of Acts Luke was not an apostle he was not an eyewitness of Jesus Christ he was he's the only Gentile author in the whole New Testament even though he wrote a lot of it because acts and Luke are so large that about 40% of the New Testament is written by Luke even though it's just two of them okay so he's very significant and unique in that way he is an eyewitness to part of what he writes about in acts it's easy to see where he comes into the picture in chapter 16 he stops from talking about they went there and they went here and they did this all sudden he starts saying we went there we did this and we saw that he doesn't name himself but if you're a careful reader you can see exactly where Paul picks up Luke Luke doesn't mention himself as being the author or anywhere in the book of Acts but Paul writes about him in other of his letters and so we know he is and also by the process of elimination we know the other compatriots of Paul and a lot of times when they're listed as not being there we're listed we're left with knowing that that's Luke right so from the first and second century the author has always been Luke and I I don't think it's ever been seriously contestant unlike most of the other books of the Bible it's a transitional work in many ways it sits right between the Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John and the epistles Romans Galatians Ephesians Philippians all those letters of Paul Peter and John Jude James alright it's right in between those two and it's interesting because the story he tells with any any he tries to write with precise history though that's not his primary goal but with precise history that gives us the backdrop the place where these other works were probably written you know where Paul was when he wrote this letter to the Philippians or the Romans and that sort of thing so it's very helpful gives us that dating the work as all the books of the Bible are is contested but I don't see why this was very contested let me tell you why he follows the story of the new church all the way up to the first imprisonment of st. Paul in Rome and it ends there the book the book of Acts his story ends there well that's 64 I think ad maybe 65 we know that Paul got out of prison that time from history then he went to Gaul which is France ended up with two three years later back in prison in Rome and this time he's executed alright and in 65 ad or so so if Luke wrote after the first imprisonment of Paul why wouldn't he include the rest of the story alright for one thing also he doesn't include the destruction of Jerusalem which we know happened in 70 AD that would have been the most cataclysmic event in this entire era and would actually be a great proof to a lot of his points that he's trying to make in this book but he doesn't mention it so I think by what he doesn't mention shows us the ended his work and sending it out sent it out to be read before they happened the only reason I can think he wouldn't write it just hadn't happened yet right so we can date it pretty early like he was with Paul he probably wrote this work when Paul was in prison in Rome wrote the story maybe he thought Paul was gonna be done then maybe he thought that was gonna be the end of their story right so he wrote it and sent it out to Theophilus who he writes this letter too just like the Gospel of Luke we don't know if Theophilus was an actual person or that was a literary device Theophilus means God lover so if it was a real person he was probably a Gentile probably a Roman probably a fairly well situated Roman in some authority or he might have just been to all the lovers of God out there read this this letter is for you I want you to understand the story as I've come to know it's important to chronicle it and put it down now he writes as I said with some historical precision he goes to some lengths to try to place the story in time' they didn't they didn't date years like we date them now so he would say when such-and-such was in authority here or such as such was in authority there that's the best he could do but we know from history wouldn't that was right then we also know he also tries to put places with some accuracy not just cities but streets and not marketplaces and public forums and all these sort of things not so where it is in time in space but it's not just that he's trying to be historian he thinks those have theological significance all right he is a it's a it's theological history or historical theology however you want to put it it's not right to read it solely as one or the other because he thinks he has come to understand now he's I don't think all the apostles initially understood all they were becoming to understand and that he was now coming to understand when he wrote this letter that they were in a very significant dramatic period of time this is the backdrop that I want to place us in before we begin to read the book of Acts of what was going on in their mind and in histah the story of salvation during this period okay remember at the Olivet discourse which we read in Luke chapter 21 when Jesus was standing on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and explaining to them that this glorious temple was going to be destroyed as a judgment judgment had come just like Jeremiah was preaching before the first destruction of Jerusalem when the when the Babylonians came Jesus was saying because of their lack of conversion their lack of accepting the moment of opportunity that I have brought by and large they're going to reject it and because of that destruction is coming and I think it's very specific with some of those prophecies he says therefore when you see the armies surrounding the great city run for the hills right don't don't take time getting ready either within an hour or two or be ready to go all right so they lived with the backdrop of that and I think we'll see that by and large they concentrated their there that work initially in and around Jerusalem specifically I think they thought their mission and their hope was to convert the rest of the nation to save them right to convert the rest of the nation so maybe this judgment that would come could be averted maybe they would be judged as found worthy and especially after Pentecost which is really when the story really begins Peter gives up and gives his first sermon and it says 3,000 people are converted well they probably thought well this isn't even gonna take that long go three thousand a day take one day off and you know we'll have the whole thing done in a month or two right well that's not exactly what happened here's a here's a curiosity that we'll see early on to when the Apostles of course set up camp in Jerusalem after Pentecost and the Ascension as people converted they all seemed to come together and live in common like kind of like a covenant communities that you see around today he said they sold all their possessions and gave it to the Apostles who took care of the group in general nowhere else in acts or anywhere else is to say nowhere else in the world that they went and started churches did they do that so that I wasn't to be the model for the church everywhere this sort of quasi socialism sort of commune way of working it was but it's what they did in Jerusalem why huh safety all right there's that but they were groups everywhere else they went to what did I just tell you that Jesus told them in the Olivet discourse you know it happened that Jerusalem was destroyed 40 years after he gave that prophecy but he didn't tell them what's gonna be 40 years he said within this generation which is 40 years it could have been tomorrow so they looked at it as an impending prophecy to be fulfilled somehow and it ended up being pretty literally right when Titus and Roman legions came in and actually they said my god it's actually exactly that way but but but they knew it was coming and they are working hard to avert it primarily through the conversion of the nation of convincing the rest of Israel what they were convinced of that Jesus was the Messiah right but they knew they believed this judgment was coming and he said and when you see this happening get out of here I'm just saying as a practical decision they needed their assets to be liquid what good was it gonna do for you to own property or a home or a farm or a vineyard or anything when you knew it was all going to be destroyed right Eusebius well I'm just saying it doesn't seem to make sense Eusebius tells us a Christian historian that when the Roman armies arrived in Galilee and started conquering their way and coming down to Jerusalem all of the Christians living in Jerusalem which were now under the head of the bishop the bishop was Simon because James is not recorded in the scripture but we know he's martyred and about 68 ad okay he's thrown off temple mountain and stone they out down there in the Kidron Valley and they appoint Simon his younger brother I think to be the new Bishop but Eusebius tells us when they heard the Romans were coming Eusebius says Simon got all the Christians and they left and they went to the hill country of pehla pehla is the city in Jordan modern-day Jordan okay they got up and they left but they had been expecting that news for 40 years all right so I'm just putting that out there they said look when we get the news we're supposed to get we're not supposed to then go out and put a for sale sign on our home you know what you call a fire fire sale or whatever is literally okay so that's that's part of the backdrop that all of this dramas taking part in another backstory behind this whole thing is the growing awareness as the Apostles are in the school of the Holy Spirit of what church is because it's very obvious initially and and for a decade or two they thought the New Covenant people of God the church was for the Jews only maybe an aberration or two here or there but primarily it's just for the Jews so we're gonna read in here an important story that Luke understands because he's not Jewish is that they came to believe it was for everyone the whole church and that prophecies in the Old Testament that they had read but not really understood suddenly became a lot more prominent to them as a Holy Spirit put that little yellow highlighter on things as they were reading them if they hadn't up passed over you know like in like in Jeremiah 31 that becomes important to them or I will I will establish a new covenant with you and I'll place my law in your hearts Pentecost is so important Pentecost is so important to this whole event really the story of the church begins at Pentecost at the Ascension which is where this gospel leaves off and the book of Acts begins Jesus said oh calves giving you the teaching I set up an authority structure I've given you the Gospels the Sermon on the Mount you now understand that I died and rose from the dead to break the curse of Adam offer an opportunity for restitution before God for all that would receive it in faith and now I'm going back to heaven you now are going to carry out my work but don't you go anywhere because even with all that you will fall flat on your face tomorrow morning because I haven't thrown the power switch yet alright it's difference between a corpse in a living body the life power has not been given to the body of Christ the church yet so he says go into the city I submit there on the Mount of Olives he'll say that specifically last week I pointed out to you one of the Gospel says that they were on a mount in Galilee but I gave you my hypothesis of that from the teaching of a historian and archaeologist and father bar Gill pixner primarily you pointed out one of his works that we now know even though it doesn't seem to be widely accepted that people in that at that time called mount Olive's little Galilee because when the Galileans would come for their their festivals for a year they would camp on the Mount of Olives and just like now if you go to New York or Chicago or San Francisco they have Chinatown they have Little Italy the town that I grew up had Germantown as a suburb because that's where all the German immigrants came when they got when they worked in the steel mills back in the early 1900s and they weren't part of Germany or Italy or China it's just they've called that because that's that's where those people gathered so while the pixner said there are documents that say that in that time they commonly referred to the Mount of Olives as little Galilee now Matthew Luke maybe didn't know that so he calls it the Mount of Olives Matthew who did know that would have stated it like perhaps it was just common knowledge but it may have been common knowledge but has been lost over the centuries so when he says Jesus said go to Galilee to the mountain that's where I'll meet you for the ascension so if you just want to have something that maybe for that apparent discrepancy so they go to the Mount of Olives they experience the Ascension and then like Jesus told them they go back into the city they go to the Upper Room and they stay there a hundred and twenty of them that the Apostles other disciples all gathered around the Blessed Mother who's there - waiting for whatever was going to happen and it happened on Pentecost nine days later if you've ever wondered where the tradition of having a novena of nine days before a feast day or a holy day comes that's where it happened so he stayed in prayer nine days trying to get prayed up they didn't know there's going to be nine days but at the feast of Pentecost we didn't invent Pentecost Peter coughs already existed right that's when they had the experience what did they celebrate and commemorate at Pentecost this is part of the historical theology remember Luke was also taught by Saint Paul the master topologist who saw connections between Old Testament events in New Testament realities but do you know what the festival the religious significance of the festival of Pentecost was the giving of the law at where Mount Sinai so they came out of Egypt went immediately to Mount Sinai where God gave them the law the Ten Commandments and what was the the experience what was this what what happened on that mountain the mountain shook fire the whole fire that's right so they had this incredible experience of God this theophany accompanied by events in the physical world around them right that was the giving of the law and God just happened to pick that day of course not so now at Pentecost what happens to them in that Upper Room right there's an earthquake and then what came down on them tongues of fire are we supposed to make a connection here of course we are at Mount Sinai he gave them the law and established the Covenant right at Pentecost he gives them the spirit which ratifies the New Covenant which completely changes them even though they didn't get a new teaching at all they experienced and how good it was that the Blessed Mother was there she had to been a stabilizing force and I miss because she knew the Holy Spirit remember I mean they're sitting around what's gonna happen what's gonna happen she says relax it's all good here I have faith trust my son if what I think he's going to send is what he's gonna send it's going to be amazing all right I could just see that so quietly probably more in her attitude than in her speeches I don't think she ever got up on a podium and gave you know it's attempted to take leadership of the group but I'm sure they looked at her as being the heart the bedrock of the whole thing okay no but just her station and her authority as the mother of Jesus Christ you'd have to just be an idiot to not recognize how essential she was to this whole scene right now that here we are in this Upper Room and there his mother is most fit the first disciple the most faithful disciple and just being a bedrock of peace and wisdom right I'd want her right there all right so but let me ask you this because this is part of the contextual background I'm trying to get in mind so you're one of the disciples in the upper room you've been praying you've seen Jesus's miracles you've heard his teaching you saw him crucified you witnessed him resurrected from the dead you've seen his ascension now you've experienced tons of fire and the earthquake and this amazing experience of the Holy Spirit which allowed you to go out and speak to strangers who understood you in languages that you never learned they're being converted in droves you spent a whole day maybe two just baptizing people and then a day or two wait later you wake up you go what happened really I mean let's just say humaneness of this now okay Oh what happened so let's take a deep breath and more than that what do we do now right because that's what they had now I had to figure out what do we do now expand I mean what's on your heart what would you put yourself there you would know something epic life-changing world-changing had happened but what do you do with it all right pray pray pray I mean do you think that now they knew Jesus has said I want you to take the message to Jerusalem Judea Samaria and to the ends of the world well I think they're so much concerned on Jerusalem and Samaria and Judea they probably think we're maybe I'll maybe we'll get to that somewhere else eventually or did they sit down with a map of the world carve it up and say Thomas you go to India I'll follow me you go to Armenia which history says those that happened to those two there they're not followed in Acts only a couple of the Apostles are followed in Acts we don't we only know from other sources some are more reliable than others what happened to all these other apostles but we know they ended up in North Africa perhaps Great Britain India Armenia places like that did they just carve it up and said okay I tell you what we'll take we'll take Germany and you take India you think they did that maybe maybe well Peter now stayed in Jerusalem that's very clear he stayed in Peter he stayed in Jerusalem quite a long time spent some time in Antioch too but eventually after about twenty years he ends up going to Rome by the way here's another thing I don't know how much they understood but when they set the first Bishop of Jerusalem they didn't make it Peter even though in Acts he's clearly the head of the Apostles he's one organizing them leading them speaking for the whole group it's very clear this apostolic Authority that he had amongst the other fossils have all had apostolic authority but they didn't make him Bishop of Jerusalem seems like they would have doesn't it they made James the Bishop of Jerusalem Peter would end up being the first bishop of a place but where was that going to be ro because even if they didn't understand it now somehow the Holy Spirit led them into making a good logistic decision at this point Peter was left to become the first Bishop of Rome which was not the major city of Israel was the major city of the capital of the world the Roman Empire okay maybe sent them on purpose maybe it was that organized maybe they just said Peter I feel like you know there's enough going on in Jerusalem I'd like to take the gospel give me your blessing I'm heading wherever God takes me I'm getting on this boat to Alexandria or I'm joining this Caravan and we're going to Asia Minor I don't know I we just don't know it's not listed they went somewhere during this period but it's not clear and Luke doesn't follow them not because he doesn't think they're important I'm sure because the main story he wants to get the cross he's following through the Ministry of Peter pretty much Peter alone for the first 15 chapters or so and then he picks up with Paul and follows him almost exclusively from there after to the rest of the story a few of the other apostles John James are mentioned sort of as sidebars but they're not central figures to Luke's purpose okay there's another backdrop I think that begins to emerge with them hold it in Daniel the second chapter of Daniel now this is after the the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple and the people have been taken back to Babylon ok Nebuchadnezzar is the is the king and it says and Daniel was a young Israelite who's in his court he sees him as being an intelligent young man and he tried to take the most intelligent and promising of all the people he conquered and trained them to be scholars or people that work in his administration alright he saw it in Talent alright so in Daniels one of these young men but it says in the second year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar had a series of dreams and it troubled him tremendously so he calls his own wise men magicians in said I've had this dream it's making me crazy I want somebody to interpret they said just tell us a dream surely will interpret it he said now he says you tell me the dream and then you interpret it so I know that you're not pulling one over my eyes right you tell me the dream and if you can't I'll have you put to death pressures on so that cushy job they had in the in the castle suddenly didn't seem so great right they said wait a minute nobody can do that you have to tell us that and then Daniel says I can't my God will allow me to do that so he tells him the dream in the dream was this I'm gonna summarize it he said you saw a great statue a great colossal statue the head of which was made of gold and then I think the the arms and the shoulders the chest made of silver I think then our trunk made of bronze then it had then had a thighs and eventually two legs of iron and then iron mix was sand so each progressive layer was less glorious than the one before and he says then at the end he sees a small stone come out of heaven and hit the feet of this statue and it all falls and crumbles into dust that is blown away there's not a trace of any of it left and Daniel says Nebuchadnezzar here's the interpretation these are the kingdoms of the world with yours being the first than the most glorious I'm sure he liked that here the golden head after you will come various empires kingdoms less inferior and glory those still strong and that would be the truth at the Jewish rabbis had already interpreted this the next Kingdom was the medo-persians then was the the Greeks and the Seleucids that came after them they also Greek and then the Romans which eventually split into East and West Roman Empire he said those are all those are all the kingdoms but eventually from heaven will come some small unnamed force that will strike it they will all crumble and nothing will be left of any of these great kingdoms but the pebble will grow and consume the entire world I think the part of what they understood is that they you ever wonder why Jesus renamed Simon Cephas Rock Petra those are all names for Peter right maybe it was to help them make the connection the part of the context of the time they're living in is the time of the little stone the time of the Roman Empire the mighty Roman Empire and that this small insignificant side sect of Judaism was sent from God with the power to inhabit the whole world and to outlast every one of these great dynasties and kingdoms of history one day there'll be nothing left at any of them but this church the God is sending and establishing and the Apostles with Peter sort of symbolic of all of them would be the what would strike the Roman Empire bring it down in essence and then grow from there to inhabit the whole world I think that's part of the backdrop that they're operated they think and understand they're in that era okay that they that they even though they were so small in number they had no economic authority they had no army obviously they're they're treated as being insignificant by everyone but they go out with all this confidence assuming I have the authority to debate with any great religious authority any great secular authority to stand up here with the authority of God has given me and pronounced truth that you can either accept or be destroyed by the cornerstone either the you'll be built on it or it will crush you right and to go out and to preach with that kind of authority to stand out numbered by gazillions right and to go out into the world even alone if necessary walk into a city stand up in the Arrakis as Paul did and debate all of the scholars of the time a few will accept most of them will laugh him away and yet he goes it comes and does it again the next day I mean what confidence what holy spirit-inspired grace-filled courage and confidence they must have had to think I have that kind of authority right because I'm part of the little rock the rest of the world doesn't recognize but we're going to consume the whole world and destroy what apparently is the invincible Empire that controls the world right now questions about that or comments maybe I'm going too far I don't think this is what they understood day one I think that as time went by they began to grow up in their understanding of what they had experienced and known when we get to the Council of Jerusalem which is so important in this drama where they debate this question once and for all is there going to be a Jewish Church and a Gentile Church or is there one church that's for everyone or do we just condemn Paul and his Gentile followers as illegitimate or what one of the key factors that made Peter make the decision Paul must be right even though he's the minority opinion here amongst all of us this guy who never even met Jesus who wasn't an apostle who wasn't at the Last Supper right he wasn't at the resurrection or the ascension this guy standing here there's once persecutor of the church I think he's right and I think he's right Peter will say because I'm remembering what happened with Cornelius about 10 years ago so I mean by they begin to understand some of the experiences and teachings that they aren't had catalogued away with but had not unpacked yet and you remember that event we'll get to it when Peter's gonna say I was in Haifa on the Seacoast and I was asleep I had lunch and I'm asleep taking a nap and I had a vision and a dream that men would come from Caesarea maritima the the Roman military colony just up the coast and asked me to come no no no excuse me that's what actually happened in his vision he saw write a sheet let down and in it were animals that were considered unclean and a voice from heaven say kill and eat he says not me I'm a good Jew I don't eat that stuff and it happened again and finally the voice is what I have called clean you will not call unclean there's new wineskin for this new wine Peter you got to begin to understand this a little bit so therefore when the Envoy came from Caesarea maritima and asked him to come because Cornelius the Centurion the Gentile sentir in there wants to hear the God and so Peter goes because this dream makes him think I was supposed to go it makes you think if God hadn't given him that dream he might just go away I'm busy converting Jews I don't have time for you right but he went preached a gospel I don't know how energetically or how enthusiastically but then he says while I'm preaching the Holy Spirit got on them the same way it did us in the Upper Room this is the Gentile Pentecost and he said so I thought I better hurry up baptize these people God's Way ahead of me here right he's confirming them and I hadn't baptized him yet so hey he got criticism when he got back for doing that what are you doing Peter he said I was I denied them baptism the Holy Ghost was just all over him right he said they were legit so who was I but for all we know Cornelius and his family really remains some sort of aberration to the whole thing they might have last curious or maybe he's just like such a good Gentile that we you know you know we had that outer court at the temple that was for the Gentiles they could at least get up there where the the animals were sold and all the clanking of money was exchanged you know they're on the periphery maybe he's the periphery of the new people of God the New Covenant people of God his whole family's whole household children servants maybe the men in his command whoever so it was a big group right compete Arno after the his first sermon and three thousand were converted thought he was pretty good but he probably really thought he's good after this one because he probably thought I wasn't even trying I was really trying the first time this time I'm here against kind of make against my will and I'll tell me on Jim I'll give him the given of speech and then it worked on them no I'm sure he understood the power of the Holy Spirit and that everything he did his success depended on that and but the Holy Spirit showed up in this unexpected place at this unexpected time and taught him something he wouldn't understand the full impact of for about ten years so at that then at that Council of Jerusalem he start to remember that he says you know what and I remember jesus healed that syrophoenician woman a Gentile and others he preached to them he accepted and let that man he says you know my lord Paul's right this is way bigger than we ever thought it was we're gonna let the Italians and the Irishmen in we're gonna let the Greeks and the Africans and the Indians and they're all okay and we're gonna let them in and they don't have to become Jewish first either that was one some were saying you know the Judaizers as Paul calls them they say well if you Gentiles want to become Christians you have to become a Jew first you get circumcised if you're a male observe all the kosher laws and everything cars so that's it that's the backdrop that we're looking at here - I need a little sip of water in my mind just give me I didn't get my thank you George just a half a sip would be great I'm drying out and surprise you yeah maybe so I don't know if he I don't know if he prayed for this Cornelius and these people he went because he had this dream and God kind of said if I call it clean you don't call it unclean son needs to just her and he realized that's what it was about all right what about this the other backdrop is they understand they're in a swing generation I think is a good way to put it between the Ascension 30 ad and whenever this generation was going to be over and if a full 40 years would make it 70 AD I think God in His mercy made it that long they didn't know how long it was be but how long was it between Mount Sinai and the Promised Land [Music] how long did they wander around in the desert after thank you 40 years 40 years so then they because immediate no it was only they probably could've got there in a week or two even with large numbers thank you very much sure appreciate that I'll just put it there thank you so right 40 years and in one of the Psalms God says I had to endure that generation for 40 years they disobeyed me and ticked me off over and over and over again because they weren't just disobedient once that the golden calf thing they kept on being moaners and groaners and complainers and just wouldn't believe so I waited 40 years until that entire generation of adults almost all of them Joshua and Caleb a very few survived so now we have Pentecost and it's going to be 40 years to the destruction of Jerusalem where the so they understand they're in the last days working frantically to make us successful of the Old Covenant era and they're in the first days the blossoming of the new covenant era awaiting what Jesus said would be at the end of it was judgment and then the age of the Gentiles that's what Jesus said of Mount all Mount of Olives they understand they're in that period and they got the full 40 years so what conclusion can we draw with Luke pointing that out to us well he didn't tells us 40 years because he didn't even know it by the time you finish tax but we know from history it was exactly 40 years so what is that just coincidence what parallels Bible scholars can we draw between knowing the Israelites the people of God were in the desert between the time God established a covenant and the guy that came the time they came into the promise for 40 years and this generation between Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem they really are the pilgrim people of God the church in the Catechism describes the whole church is the pilgrim people of God it's vividly displayed in the forty years of that first generation but it's really the context that all of us are living our life between the time we're baptized and we enter into the promised land is our pilgrim journey here on earth the church has always seen that and we're being challenged to go back or to change our mind or to grow in faith our life is basically the way we live out our baptismal promise and either achieve what we were baptized and save for or not and we're supposed to see that both in the lives of the Israelites in the desert but I say perhaps also in the lives of the world in this first generation this 40-year of decision-making for the Paul and Peter and the other apostles are trying desperately to get the word out and to convert if not the whole nation in avert instruction at least as many as possible and then they decide it's also for the whole rest of the world as well all right somebody get my little voice a rest and make a comment more question [Music] here just talking all the time not all of us you're right and I'm glad you said spirit because really the Gospel of Luke you could say there's a chronicle of what God the Holy Spirit did through Jesus Christ the book of Acts is what God the Holy Spirit did through the followers of Jesus Christ more than being the Acts of the Apostles which is a traditional name of this book it really should be the Acts of the Holy Spirit for instance what do I say that what marked the beginning of Jesus's public ministry hmm his baptism is that what you said yeah it was his baptism and what happened at Jesus's Baptist now he's 30 years old we don't have him ever work in a miracle or picking an apostle or preaching a sermon or anything but then he's baptizing when it comes out what happens the Holy Spirit came on the Holy Spirit came on him and then he begins to the power of the Holy Spirit his earthly ministry now he begins to preach and he's so changed the people in his hometown didn't even recognize who he was sort of they said who is this guy preaching all these sermons and doing all these miracles he's the carpenter's son he grew up right here nice kid but I mean come on right so was that dramatic I've changed even in Jesus and now we have the age of the church and Jesus's ministry continuing on through his body the church but it's inaugurated by the coming down of the Holy Spirit are we supposed to see that connection Luke goes to great trouble to explain it to us you know he wants us to see that for sure I was looking for that Psalm 95 I think it is yes he said he was asking questions of the other teachers he was in their mist and say he was preaching but he was talking with them and they were astounded by his questions and is in his insight intelligent kid maybe more than that but they recognize he was something special but no he wasn't he wasn't preaching sermons right we don't have we don't have any record we don't have we don't know much about Jesus that we do have that one event 2012 but between coming back from Egypt and going to John the Baptist's in the desert we don't have anything except the when he got lost going to the temple probably for his bar mitzvah when he's 12 huh right well Anna the prophetess and the Simon Simeon Simeon yeah Simeon's Kootenay right they recognized him through the Holy Spirit Luke mentions to us that he was the coming Messiah look we know and we now know how they figured it there was a lot of Messianic expectancy at the time of Jesus when he was born there were people expecting the Messiah about now right that was fundamental teaching of the essence which we talk about a lot lately all right we now know in the Qumran scrolls that they had deciphered chapter 9 of Daniel which talks about a prophecy Daniel had of seventy weeks a week is seven years so it's 490 years and it said in I gotta go back to Daniel name he said in chapter 9 of Daniel seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city for putting an end to transgression for placing the seal on sin for expiating crime for introducing everlasting righteousness for setting the seal on vision and on prophecy for anointing the holy of Holy's know this then from the time there went out this message return and rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed Prince seven weeks and sixty-two weeks now that doesn't make sense to you does it seven weeks and sixty-two weeks is 69 weeks when the decree of Darius went out to rebuild Jerusalem so Nebuchadnezzar is gone the medo-persians now have taken control and they let all these captive people go home the ones that wanted to go home okay and he also gave orders for the Jews that they could rebuild their temple so that's the interpretation here so 483 years BC what we would call BC from that time it says will come the anointed priests well this happened we know in 446 BC their years were slightly different than ours but if you do the math you can see how the essence and the teaching was fairly widely known had calculated that the anointed Prince the Messiah was show up somewhere around what we call the year 30 ad okay so that's why no excuse me it right so that's why they were expecting it I think I did the math right to say I should have worked on a harder before today but that's that's where that came from the prophecy of Daniel in the seventy weeks and they had calculated and taught there for the time of the site must be now and some people believed it Simeon and Anna that explains why they were people sitting around waiting for the Messiah who believed they would see Messiah before they died the Holy Spirit told me this all right otherwise you think well they've been sitting out for hundreds and hundreds of years I mean people but no this was it this was a time of a peak excitement and expectation at the time of Jesus and obviously they got it right what yes we've gone from it but since I went all the trouble to find that song I'm gonna read it to you anyway Psalm 95 if only you would listen to him today do not harden your hearts as at Meribah as at the time of Messiah in the desert when your ancestors challenged me put me to the test and saw what I could do for 40 years that generation sickened me and I said always fickle hearts they cannot grasp my ways then in my anger I swore they would never enter into my place of rest 40 years all right so doesn't seem as relevant now that I've read it but they did a couple minutes ago when I wanted to read it but there it is hmm okay so where are we I've tried to set the backdrop of the spiritual and historical stage that acts is going to be written on I don't want to super spiritual eyes that we need to also put ourselves into place of these real human beings who don't suddenly know everything they're trying to figure it out as they go along trusting the Holy Spirit as Jesus told them would be faithful to help them understand it when it came time to unpack a particular truth or settle a particular question that was his promise to them right but it's so important for us to understand all of this is for the action of a Holy Spirit even though Jesus had told them to baptize he told them to confetti Eucharist he breathed on them given the ability to forgive sins still he told them don't do any of it don't preach a gospel the only thing they did was replace Judas before Pentecost I got to the upper room and his Peter when we read about it next week said we got we have an empty seat here and was supposed to be 12 he understood that much they had gotten she just had gotten that to them because he said you twelve will judge the 12 tribes of Israel remember he said they're supposed to be 12 of us we need to replace Judas who's now gone and they replaced him with Matthias so that's that so we'll get to that but other than that they didn't do anything except stay and pray right strengthen I'm sure by their experience than what they had seen but they still didn't have the essential thing which was the motivation and the power of grace which is the indwelling Holy Spirit and I just don't want us to miss for a minute that everything stood or fell on that Missy I [Music] don't think that was their thinking Missy I don't think I don't think they stopped thinking of themselves and Jews and all they were very faithful Jews it says they have still observed the Sabbath and all the Jewish laws they also did the Lord's Supper on Sunday the first day of the week I think they saw themselves as Jews who had experienced the Jewish Messiah and now they weren't a sect they were Jews that had experienced Messiah and now they were desperately trying to convince the rest of them who he was I don't think they saw themselves as going off somewhere else at this point at all okay after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Gentile church probably so but they're all by that point except probably for John they're all gone I think they're thrust was they never considered themselves not Jewish all the apostles all the original disciples those three thousand converts the 120 in the Upper Room the Blessed Mother Jesus Mary and Joseph for all Jews right so of course the Apostles he competed in his whole ministry basically in June 2008 here and there but basically it was all there he didn't drop on a boat and go to Rome right so no no I don't think they thought of themselves they stayed in Jerusalem they still wanted to be part of it and they wanted desperately to get what they knew into the minds and the hearts of their kinsmen the Messiah was very much a part of Judaism at that time they were just trying to convince him we he came we saw him we know who he is in proof beyond proof and that's what we want you to get they work signs and wonders just like Jesus did to try to help them come to faith all right so know that thank you for saying that because it's very important they're struggling desperately to get this across Paul himself says I do all this work amongst the Gentiles but my heart is to convince my my fellow countrymen if anything else I want them to be jealous when they see all the Gentiles come into the church so that they will - I write he says I would give myself over he says to utter destruction if it would mean they're coming to faith so that's their heart alright so we'll end there please read the first chapter or two of Acts so that you're primed and ready and we can make a running leap into the actual book next week we'll actual read the first line of chapter one next week and begin our study Baptist Church from 7:00 to 9:00 the rabbi who trained oh really interesting all right let's pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit God we thank you that in your goodness in your mercy your heart is so big to include everyone including us we ask you Lord to fill our hearts with gratitude and we'd accept that divine invitation to be part of your great big family let it give us joy on days that were otherwise down healing on days that were otherwise sick hope and days that were otherwise in despair help it to lift us up and sustain us Lord Dirt during our pilgrim journey and to give us the strength to help an aid as many others as possible to successfully traverse their own pilgrim journey in Christ's name I pray amen the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit

Channel: St Teresa's Catholic Church- Albany GA

Views: 5,032

Rating: 4.9120879 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic bible study, St Teresa Church Albany GA, Bible Study, The acts of the apostle

Id: 10-2BQm2B6c

Length: 55min 29sec (3329 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2019