Consider the specificity with which God spoke to Philip, Saul and Ananias in Acts 8:26-9:19. First Philip had an angel tell him to go to a certain road. Then the Holy Spirit told him to go over to a particular chariot. Paul, not even a believer in Jesus, heard Jesus speak to him: "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do" (Acts 9:6). And then Ananias heard the Lord tell him to go find Paul in "the house of Judas on Straight Street" (Acts 9:11). Ananias had the temerity to have a little back-and-forth conversation because he didn't want to do it! What boldness he had to argue with God. For reflection: How clearly do I hear God speak to me? Do I only "sense" that he is saying this or "feel" that he is saying that? Let us pray. Jesus, just as you spoke clearly to Philip, Saul and Ananias, I ask you to speak clearly to me. If I'm going to do your specific will in my life, I need to hear your specific directions. Open my ears to hear you every day.
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What else do we know about Philip who witnessed to the Ethiopian? He was one of the 7 men chosen by the apostles to handle the daily food distribution for those who needed it. These 7 deacons (another of whom was Stephen) were chosen because they were "known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 8:3). This administrative matter of the food was obviously important, but it was not all they did. Stephen preached and worked miracles (and was later stoned to death). The persecution following Stephen's murder caused the new believers in Jesus to spread out away from Jerusalem. Philip went to Samaria where he proclaimed the good news about Jesus, worked miracles, cast out demons, and healed people with physical disabilities. Many Samaritans became believers and were baptized. As we've already seen, one day Philip heard the Spirit speaking to him, followed the Spirit's leading and witnessed to an Ethiopian, led him to Christ and baptized him. When Philip finished that divine appointment, he was miraculously transported to another town far away. He preached all around that area, eventually settling in Caesarea. He is mentioned once again in Acts 21:8-9 where he is called Philip the evangelist. By that time he had four unmarried daughters who were prophets. Philip is a relatively minor figure in Acts and yet look at what he did. He began his service as a deacon in charge of the food pantry but had to flee persecution. He settled in Samaria among people not his own where he had to start over in life. Still he found time to speak about Jesus. God found he was movable. First to Samaria, then in one day to where the Ethiopian was and after that to the western area of the country. So in one day he was moved many miles and again left everything behind. He evangelized and worked miracles in that new area, eventually settling in Caesarea where he established his family. For reflection: Am I movable? If God called me to move, would I? How attached am I to my current situation? Am I movable on any given day to be able to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Let us pray. Lord Jesus, I want to be attached more to you than to things or to places. I want to have a movable spirit each day so that you can move me to do what you want. How did Philip witness to the Ethiopian man (Acts 8:26-40)? Being divinely guided to meet this man, how did Philip proceed? First, he began from where the man was. The man happened to be reading from Isaiah. So Philip knew the man was a Jewish believer. If he got to know him at all, which he must have or we would have no details in this account, he found out that he had traveled all the way from Ethiopia to worship in Jerusalem. So the man is a devout Jew. Philip starts the witnessing conversation with the passage from Isaiah that the man is reading. Second, from that starting point he led the conversation around to Jesus and the good news that the Messiah had come. We don't know exactly how long this conversation lasted. Possibly it lasted several hours. Even so, it was a "quickie". In only one meeting, Philip brings the Ethiopian to belief and even baptizes him. Philip's divine appointment led another person into the kingdom in one day. No doubt the man went back to Ethiopia and told others what had happened. So the Gospel spread even further from that one encounter. Earlier this year at my regular appointment with my hairdresser Thomas, I noticed that he had a large lump on his right wrist. I asked him what was wrong. He said it was a type of tendonitis and that it was so bad he was only cutting hair for two people a day. He had rescheduled all of his other customers with other hairdressers in the salon. He didn't know what was going to happen or how he would continue to support his family. His wrist was not getting significantly better with therapy. Knowing that Thomas is a believer in Jesus, when we finished I asked if I could pray for healing of his wrist. He took me into a small room in the salon and we prayed for a minute or two. Twice it felt like electricity passed between us. When I returned for my next appointment, Thomas's wrist was healed and he was back to cutting hair all day long. This was not a divine appointment, but a regular appointment, used for divine purposes because I was able to step out in faith. I didn't know if Thomas would be healed, but I knew prayer wouldn't make it any worse! I met Thomas where he was - in need of healing. Jesus took it from there. For reflection: Have I missed opportunities to meet people's need for God, for healing? What is holding me back? Let us pray. Holy Spirit, I don't want to miss any more opportunities that you provide. I give you my fears of reaching out to others, of being rejected, of not knowing what to say. I don't want those fears any more. Many of the early Christians seemed to hear God clearly speak to them. Monday we looked at Saul who heard Jesus speak to him on the road to Damascus. Today (Acts 8:26-40) we see that Philip hears the Lord tell him to take a certain road. Taking that road, he hears the Lord again speaking and telling him to go over to a particular chariot. In the chariot he finds an Ethiopian Jew reading from the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. Some people refer to this as a "divine appointment". It's an appointment God has written on his calendar, but we don't have written on ours. The way to learn of these appointments or opportunities is to be listening to God on a daily basis. It also takes guts. Philip had to trust that he was hearing God, leave what he was doing, and act on what he heard. If he wasn't hearing God, he might have felt foolish going off somewhere else, waiting by the road and wasting time. But if he hadn't followed the first instruction, he never would have heard the second one, and he would have missed the appointment. For reflection: Am I listening for possible divine appointments? When I hear an instruction from the Lord, will I follow it? Let us pray. Holy Spirit, move in me. Move in my spirit. Open me to your voice, your promptings. I want to be accustomed to the sound of your voice guiding me each day. How would you like it if someone called you "stiff-necked?" Or referred to you as "you people?" Stephen didn't mince words when he spoke to the Sanhedrin. He is giving them a scolding. In fact, he sounded just like my mother when he said, "You are just like your fathers!" (Acts 7:51). Let's tune in to his speech: "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him -- you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it." Stephen has pulled out all the stops in his criticism. He has brought up the covenant with Abraham (uncircumcised), the covenant with Moses (the law and the deliverance from Egypt), and the prophets. He may even have brought up the teaching of Jesus when he said, "You always resist the Holy Spirit" (see Mark 3:29; also see Luke 20:9-19). The Sanhedrin are angry enough at this tirade when Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, has a vision of an open heaven: "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). It is more than they can bear. In their eyes he has blasphemed. They drag him outside the city gates and stone him without a trial. For reflection: Have I been stiff-necked? Am I not hearing God? Am I not listening to someone else? Have I criticized my child by saying, "You are just like your father/mother!"? Let us pray. All-loving Father, I want to be just like you. Help me to hear you when you speak to me directly and when you speak to me through others. Stephen, Peter and the other disciples were following Jesus' instructions in going out to preach and heal. But it was not only after Jesus' death and resurrection, and the empowerment of Pentecost, that the disciples began to go out to fulfill the gospel command. They got some practice while Jesus was alive. In Luke 10 Jesus sent out 72 of his followers to preach and to heal. (Perhaps Stephen had been one of the 72.) He sent them out two by two as his advance men to prepare the people where he would be going. You could say they went into the towns to stir up interest and get the people excited about Jesus' arrival. Jesus authorized them to do this. The disciples were operating under his authority. And in his name great things happened: not only were people healed but even the demons submitted to the name of Jesus. What is the difference between the 72 who were sent out while Jesus was alive and the many disciples who went out after his death and resurrection? Jesus had told them to wait until they were baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). They received the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and were authorized and empowered to pass that on to all who would come to believe. They are not acting solely under the deputed authority of Jesus, who was acting on the authority of his Father (John 5:19-23). The entire Trinity is now backing them up. For reflection: If the Trinity has my back, what can I do to preach, to heal, to defeat demons, to bring the kingdom of God on earth? Let us pray. Father, thank you for creating me in your image and likeness. Thank you for adopting me into your family through baptism. Thank you for saving me through Jesus' death on the cross and authorizing me to do your work with the power of the Holy Spirit. May I always be a good ambassador for you. It strikes me as odd that the first martyr for preaching about Jesus was not one of the 12 apostles. Instead it was Stephen who is not even mentioned in Acts until 6:5. He is one of the men chosen to handle the daily distribution of food for widows, orphans and any others who had been cut off from their families. Stephen is full of faith, God's grace, the Holy Spirit and power. He did "great wonders and miraculous signs among the people" (6:8), and the Spirit gave him the words he needed when he spoke and debated with Jews and their leaders. In this short story (Acts 6:8 - 8:1) we see the fulfillment of promises made by Jesus. Jesus said, "When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say" (Luke 12:11). And at his ascension, Jesus said, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Stephen experienced the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit enabling him to preach, debate and witness in addition to working wonders and miraculous signs. Also, the stoning of Stephen led to the followers of Jesus being scattered from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria. The promises had not been made just to the 12, but to all those who would come after them. Stephen's tongue had been stilled, but 100 more tongues set afire. For reflection: The promises have been made to me as much as to the original 12 apostles. How have I experienced them in my life? Let us pray. Come, Holy Spirit, fill me as you filled Stephen. Yesterday at Church we sang the song in the YouTube feature below. It summarizes much of what we have been considering and praying about for the last month - the disciples earliest attempts to live out the commands of Jesus after they were empowered at the Ascension and Pentecost. For a Scripture to meditate on with it, I suggest Luke 4:18-19 There are several versions of this song on YouTube. I liked the pictures with this one the best. Song and lyrics of 'The Summons', or 'Will you come and follow Me'. Words, John L. Bell & Graham Maule, copyright (c) 1987 WGRG, Iona Community, Glasgow G2 3DH, Scotland. Website: wgrg.co.uk. So the temple courts is where the guards found the apostles preaching. The guards brought them back to the Jewish leaders without the use of force. The apostles did not resist. The full Sanhedrin was gathered (70 men) ready to pass judgment on the apostles. (The apostles in this account remain unnumbered and unnamed except for Peter.) The trial is going against the apostles (the majority wanted to put the apostles to death) when Gamaliel urges caution. "In the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God" (Acts 5:38-39). His speech was persuasive and the apostles were only flogged, not executed. And, of course, the Sanhedrin told them again to stop speaking in the name of Jesus. The apostles' response? "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ" (for the whole story see Acts 5:17-42). Telling the disciples to stop preaching about Jesus had no effect. Throwing them in prison had no effect. Flogging them had no effect. For reflection: Am I as determined as they were? Would what they went through stop me? Have I ever invited someone to my home to talk about Jesus? Let us pray. Holy Spirit, I'm afraid these things would stop me. I need more of your strength to stand up to threats, imprisonment and violence. Also, help me to open my home and my heart to others who need to hear about you. We are working our way through the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. Healings and miracles accompanied the apostles preaching and people began to follow them and believe in Jesus as the Messiah. This caused the Jewish leaders to be jealous so they had the apostles arrested and put in jail. But an angel set them free during the night without disturbing the guards (Acts 5:23), and told them to "Go, stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of this new life." At daybreak they were back in the temple courts preaching again. Daybreak was a busy time in the temple because people stopped in at sunrise to worship. For reflection: Has an angel ever brought me a message from God? Have I ever been miraculously delivered from a bad situation? How would I feel if I had been arrested and thrown in jail for witnessing about Jesus? Let us pray. Holy Spirit, the apostles went from being fearful to being fearless. I want to do the same. I want to tell people about you with the same certainty, the same assurance, the same boldness that they had. |
AliceI started this website and blog on May 1, 2012. I am a Catholic who has been in ministry for many years. I first developed what I would call a close relationship with Jesus in the early 1970s. Ever since then I have been praying with people for healing and other needs. It is because I have seen so many of these prayers answered that I am so bold as to offer to pray for you individually through this website and phone line. Archives
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