Bi. AS 1. 2: Bible, Prophets and Profits in Zimbabwe (edited by Ezra Chitando/ Masiiwa R. Gunda/ Joachim KГјgler) | Shakespear Hamauswa, Bias Series, Joachim Kuegler, Zimunya Tendai, Charity Manyeruke, Bernard Obert Mlambo, and Nisbert Taringa. Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. The People God Uses (Acts 8: 1- 4. And Saul agreed completely with killing him. Now on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were forced to scatter throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was trying to destroy the church; entering one house after another, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word. Philip went down to the main city of Samaria and began proclaiming the Christ to them. The crowds were paying attention with one mind to what Philip said, as they heard and saw the miraculous signs he was performing. For unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, were coming out of many who were possessed, and many paralyzed and lame people were healed. So there was great joy in that city. Now in that city was a man named Simon, who had been practicing magic and amazing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great. All the people, from the least to the greatest, paid close attention to him, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called ‘Great.’” 1. And they paid close attention to him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they began to be baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed, and after he was baptized, he stayed close to Philip constantly, and when he saw the signs and great miracles that were occurring, he was amazed. Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. These two went down and prayed for them so that they would receive the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) 1. Then Peter and John placed their hands on the Samaritans, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now Simon, when he saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, offered them money, 1. Give me this power too, so that everyone I place my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.” 2. But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could acquire God’s gift with money! You have no share or part in this matter because your heart is not right before God! SAMPLE CHAPTERS BY TITLE. We are pleased to provide you with introductory chapters from many of our recent books listed below. Some files are in Adobe Acrobat PDF. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Modern Essays, by John Macy, William Allen White, Rupert Brooke, Don Marquis, David W. Bone, William McFee, Joyce Kilmer, Joseph Conrad. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that he may perhaps forgive you for the intent of your heart. For I see that you are bitterly envious and in bondage to sin.” 2. But Simon replied, “You pray to the Lord for me so that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.” 2. So after Peter and John had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many Samaritan villages as they went. Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 2. So he got up and went. There he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, 2. Isaiah. 2. 9 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 3. So Philip ran up to it and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. He asked him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” 3. The man replied, “How in the world can I, unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture the man was reading was this: “He was led like a sheep to slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In humiliation justice was taken from him. Who can describe his posterity? For his life was taken away from the earth.” 3. Then the eunuch said to Philip, “Please tell me, who is the prophet saying this about – himself or someone else?” 3. So Philip started speaking, and beginning with this scripture proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him. Now as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, there is water! What is to stop me from being baptized?” 3. So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any more, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through the area, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Introduction. 2In the Old Testament, God seldom used those who appeared to be the “most likely to succeed.” He used Moses, who was an escaped fugitive and who made all kinds of excuses as to why he was not the one God needed to deliver the nation Israel from its Egyptian bondage. He used David to kill Goliath, in spite of his youth and the disparaging comments of his brothers. He used Samson and Balaam, and even Balaam’s donkey. God used Pharaoh and his hardened heart to demonstrate His power over the gods of Egypt. 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the NET Bible. The NEW ENGLISH TRANSLATION, also known as THE NET BIBLE, is a completely new.The New Testament is no different. He used “foot in mouth” Peter to play a major role in the proclamation of the gospel, and yet Peter was a man who denied his Lord publicly. The Apostle Paul summed up God’s amazing way of using the most unlikely people when he wrote: 2. Think about the circumstances of your call, brothers and sisters. Not many were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were born to a privileged position. But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something, 2. He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 3. Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1: 2. The Book of Acts is no exception. God has already used Peter to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah to crowds of people in Jerusalem, as well as to the Jewish Sanhedrin, the highest religious and civil court in Judaism. God used Stephen to preach in Greek- speaking synagogues, which led to his arrest and trial before the Sanhedrin. Instead of defending himself, Stephen indicted his accusers, showing their charges to be inconsistent with Old Testament teaching, and their resistance to God’s Spirit to be entirely consistent with Israel’s rebellion against God and His appointed servants. Our last lesson ended with the stoning of Stephen. Acts 8 is a description of the spread of the gospel following Stephen’s death. In our text, God will employ several unlikely individuals to promote the preaching of the gospel. Who God uses and how He uses them will prove instructive and encouraging to us. Let us listen to God’s Spirit as He speaks to us through this great text. Saul, the “Father of Missions” in Acts. Acts 8: 1- 3. 1 And Saul agreed completely with killing him. Now on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were forced to scatter. Judea and Samaria. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was trying to destroy the church; entering one house after another, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison (Acts 8: 1- 3). Just a couple of verses before this, we read these words by which Luke introduced Paul to the readers of the Book of Acts: When they had driven him out of the city, they began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7: 5. At first glance, it might look as though Saul played but a small part in the death of Stephen. But this was hardly the case, as we begin to discover in the introductory verses of chapter 8. We are told Saul was in wholehearted agreement with those who killed Stephen. This appears to have whetted his appetite for more aggressive opposition to the saints dwelling in Jerusalem. We now find Saul going house to house, seeking to identify those who were Christians. He then arrested those who believed in Jesus and hauled them off to prison. Opposition to the preaching of the gospel seems to take a turn here. For whatever reason, the manifestations of the opposition to the gospel have changed. Initially, opposition was directed against the apostles and not so much toward the church as a whole. Thanks to Gamaliel’s counsel, the Sanhedrin seems to have significantly reduced its overt opposition to the apostles as they took more of a “wait and see” approach to their preaching. Now the opposition seems to come more from the unbelieving Greek- speaking Jews, and it is focused on the new believers, rather than on their native Hebraic leaders (the twelve). This resulted in the scattering of the church with only the apostles remaining behind in Jerusalem. Notice how Luke contrasts Saul (Acts 8: 3), who had a hand in Stephen’s death and who is persecuting the church, with those devout men who mourned over the death of Stephen and gave him a proper burial (Acts 8: 2). In the Old Testament, godly men retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons and gave them a proper burial, for which David commended them (1 Samuel 3. Samuel 2: 4- 7). Those who buried Stephen were surely putting themselves at risk by identifying with him, especially since a great persecution had broken out against the believers in Jerusalem. Success in Samaria. Acts 8: 4- 8. 4 Now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word. Philip went down to the main city of Samaria and began proclaiming the Christ to them. The crowds were paying attention with one mind to what Philip said, as they heard and saw the miraculous signs he was performing.
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