Acts 18
In Corinth
1After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. 4Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.
5When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.[a] 6But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."
7Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. 8Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.
9One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city." 11So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.
12While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him into court. 13"This man," they charged, "is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law."
14Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, "If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. 15But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things." 16So he had them ejected from the court. 17Then they all turned on Sosthenes the synagogue ruler and beat him in front of the court. But Gallio showed no concern whatever.
Priscilla, Aquila and Apollos
18Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchrea because of a vow he had taken. 19They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. 20When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined. 21But as he left, he promised, "I will come back if it is God's will." Then he set sail from Ephesus. 22When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.
23After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
24Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. 25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor[b] and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. 26He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
27When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. On arriving, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. 28For he vigorously refuted the Jews in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion:
Isaiah 60:17-22
17 Instead of bronze I will bring you gold,
and silver in place of iron.
Instead of wood I will bring you bronze,
and iron in place of stones.
I will make peace your governor
and righteousness your ruler.
18 No longer will violence be heard in your land,
nor ruin or destruction within your borders,
but you will call your walls Salvation
and your gates Praise.
19 The sun will no more be your light by day,
nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
20 Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end.
21 Then will all your people be righteous
and they will possess the land forever.
They are the shoot I have planted,
the work of my hands,
for the display of my splendor.
22 The least of you will become a thousand,
the smallest a mighty nation.
I am the LORD;
in its time I will do this swiftly."
May 26, 2008
Gone The Sun
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READ: Isaiah 60:17-22
Your sun shall no longer go down , . . . for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended. —Isaiah 60:20
In 1862, during the US Civil War, General Daniel Butterfield wanted a new melody for “lights out.” And so, without any musical training, he composed one in his head.
Years later, the general wrote, “I called in someone who could write music, and practiced a change in the call of ‘Taps’ until I had it suit my ear, and then . . . got it to my taste without being able to write music or knowing the technical name of any note, but, simply by ear, arranged it.” General Butterfield gave the music to the brigade bugler, and the rest is history.
While there are no official lyrics to the hauntingly familiar strains of “Taps,” here is a commonly accepted version of one verse:
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the lake, from the sky;
All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
What a comforting lyric as faithful members of the military are laid to rest! And what hope in the acknowledgment that God is near, even—especially—in death!
At a time when death and evil reigned, the prophet Isaiah anticipated a day when death itself would die. “Your sun shall no longer go down,” he wrote to Israel, “for the Lord will be Your everlasting light” (60:20).
For those who follow Jesus, the strains of “Taps” are not a funeral dirge but a song of hope. “The days of your mourning shall be ended” (v.20). All is well. God is nigh.
— Tim Gustafson
Sunset in one land is sunrise in another.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers:
May 26, 2008
Thinking of Prayer as Jesus Taught
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READ:
Pray without ceasing . . . —1 Thessalonians 5:17
Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues "without ceasing"; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. "Pray without ceasing . . ."— maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer. He had the unlimited certainty of knowing that prayer is always answered. Do we have through the Spirit of God that inexpressible certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when it seemed that God did not answer our prayer? Jesus said, ". . . everyone who asks receives . . ." ( Matthew 7:8 ). Yet we say, "But . . . , but . . . ." God answers prayer in the best way— not just sometimes, but every time. However, the evidence of the answer in the area we want it may not always immediately follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. But if it were only common sense, what He said would not even be worthwhile. The things Jesus taught about prayer are supernatural truths He reveals to us.
"A Word With You" by Ron Hutchcraft
The Scary Picture of the Real You
Monday, May 26, 2008
It really wasn't fair. But some friends of mine in youth ministry used to carry out these dreaded Saturday morning raids on teenagers from the local high school. By the way, those raids got those kids to an event that they eventually ended up enjoying, but they didn't enjoy how it started. A few leaders would show up early on Saturday morning at the house of one of their student leaders. When a parent came to the door, they would tell them what church group they were from and asked the parents' permission to "kidnap" their son or daughter to a "come as you are" breakfast they were having for student leaders. Most of the parents actually went along with it with a bit of amusement. The invaders went to the door of that teenager's room and gave them one minute to throw something on before they came in for them. Sixty seconds later, people of the same sex went in to that room and snapped a picture of the Saturday morning self back in the days with Polaroid cameras, before digital. Well those pictures were of course posted at the breakfast to the horror of those kids, especially the girls. No makeup, bad hair, your real skin, they didn't seem to be too excited about everyone seeing what they were really like.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Scary Picture of the Real You."
There's the dressed up, fixed up version of ourselves that everyone sees. And then there's the not-so-beautiful picture of what we really look like. A lot of us struggle with that one. One of the writers of the Bible, actually a man named Paul sure did. But as you hear his description of the gap between the person he wants to be and the person he is, he seems to speak for all of us.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 7:18, "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing." There's the picture of how I want to look and then this candid picture of what we are. There's this dark side, I guess. It may be anger, selfishness, or a bitterness, or prejudice that's in there. The ugly picture may be something sexual, or an addiction, a past that continues to haunt our present - a dark secret. God calls it by that one ultimately ugly word - sin: rebellion against our Creator's ways, and against our Creator.
And these sentences from the Bible capture how powerless we are to change the picture. The Bible goes on, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" He's sick of being this person he hates. One mother I know, who has been agonizing over her teenage daughter, recently confronted her with the ugly things that she knew her daughter had been doing. The daughter said, "Mother, I'm not like that!" And she sure didn't want to be like that, but she was like that! We're all caught in between the person we want to be and the person we really are.
But then comes the hope, "Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" There is hope of changing the picture, but only one. We don't need a religion, we don't need a self-improvement program, we need a Savior. We need a rescuer who will do for us what a lifeguard does for a drowning person, deliver us from the thing that we cannot deliver ourselves from.
That is what the cross of Jesus Christ is all about. God's one and only Son loving you enough to absorb all the guilt and all the hell of all your sin, so you can finally go free, if you grab the lifeguard with all the faith you've got.
Maybe you've never made this awesome Savior, your Savior and you're ready to be rescued. I hope you are. Would you tell Him that right now? He's alive; He came back from the dead. He's walked out of His grave. He's where you are now waiting for you to put all your trust in Him. There's some help for you; some great information to help you at this important moment if you'll go to our website. And I would invite you to go there as so many others have. It's yoursforlife.net.
The Bible promises that, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone; a new life has begun." That miracle for you may be one prayer away.