More Than One Might Guess

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                Acts 1:21 – 22

More Than One Might Guess

by Robert T. Cooper

If you study the Bible for very long, you quickly come to understand that the biblical writers under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit did not record every detail of every incident. Modern writers are mostly careful to give plenty of details in every scene, particularly if one of those details is going to matter later in the story. That is simply not the case in the Bible. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Let’s start with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. And let’s look at it particularly from the perspective of the Gospel of Luke, since Luke is the one who also wrote the book of Acts. Luke says that when “all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized too. But Jesus hasn’t been tempted yet. He hasn’t begun His public ministry yet. He hasn’t selected His apostles yet. The women aren’t yet following Him, not that Luke will quickly get around to mentioning them either.

Comparing Luke’s Gospel with John’s, the first two men who would eventually become apostles didn’t start following Jesus until the next time John the Baptist saw Jesus after His baptism.

For the second example, let us consider Luke’s account of the Ascension. The way the Gospel tells that incident, Jesus has just appeared to the apostles (plus Cleopas and Cleopas’ companion) on what we would call Easter Sunday night. We learn elsewhere that Thomas was not with the other 10 apostles that night. The very next thing Luke tells in his Gospel is that Jesus took this group out to the vicinity of Bethany for His Ascension.

The book of Acts begins with the Ascension. In this case, Luke only indicates that Jesus took the apostles (presumably the Eleven) to the Mount of Olives. It was there that He ascended.

Having laid all of that groundwork, let’s look at what Peter says later in Acts 1.

Acts 1:21 – 22 NIV

²¹Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, ²²beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”

Acts 1:21 – 22 NIV

They were going to select someone to replace Judas as an apostle so there would once again be Twelve. To qualify to be a candidate, this person would have to have been with the apostles the entire 3½ years of Jesus’ ministry, just like the Eleven. The candidates would have to have been there for everything from Jesus’ baptism to the Ascension.

What does this mean? It means that all of the original Twelve, the two who were nominated to replace Judas, and presumably some others were present at Jesus’ baptism. It means that the two who were nominated to replace Judas, and presumably some others, were present at the Ascension. It means that the two who were nominated to replace Judas, and presumably some others, were present during virtually the entire ministry of Jesus between His baptism and His ascension, particularly for the post-Resurrection appearances.

Now tell me. When you were reading the Gospels, did you pick up that Matthias and Barsabbas were present at most all of those events? Did you pick up that there were others besides these two who were present at most all of those events? Did you even pick up that the ten besides Andrew and John were present at Jesus’ baptism? I confess I didn’t.

So when you are reading the Bible, understand that we are not getting all the details we would expect from a modern author. But understand that by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we are getting everything we need to know for a proper spiritual understanding of what God is saying to us. Thanks be to God!

Which of these things have occurred to you previously? Which were new ideas to you? Do you indeed have confidence that God is communicating to you all you need to understand for your spiritual benefit? I look forward to reading your comments.

Someone to Follow You

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                Acts 1:15 – 22

Someone to Follow Youby Robert T. Cooper

In Terry Brooks’ novel, Bloodfire Quest, an ancient person has selected one of the heroines for a quest. Brooks has this ancient to say, “The elders of a species always measure the fitness of the young to take their place.”

I don’t know how old you are, but I am now in my sixties. As my life has gone by I have worked in lots of places and volunteered in lots of places. It has sometimes been my concern as to who could take over when the time came for me to leave. It has sometimes been my concern as to who could simply cover if I had to be out for whatever reason. My philosophy was that things should be able to continue without me as with me.

I have spent my life investing in others, discipling others. It has always been an honor when some person would permit me to invest in his or her life. Now as I get older, I am concerned with leaving a legacy of even more dedicated followers of Christ. I don’t simply want someone to replace me; I want to leave a whole host of people to carry on where I eventually leave off.

The time came quickly and unexpectedly when the Apostles felt the need to replace Judas Iscariot, who had committed suicide. They wouldn’t continue to add Apostles throughout time. It was done just this once. But there has been a need for the church to continually have leadership.

The Apostles looked around to see who was prepared to step into the gap. They proposed two people who fit the bill, but one gets the idea there were even more that might have met all the qualifications. Jesus had done well anticipating the need and seeing that there were people prepared. Of course, the Lord made the final choice.

The point for us is that we ought to anticipate the need for additional leaders when we pass from the scene. We ought to be seeing that there are people prepared.

In the comments, please share whether you are investing in the lives of those who might possibly replace you, if necessary. What are you doing to prepare them?

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:14

Just Sort of Slips Them in There

by Robert T. Cooper

 

I had been a member of this Glee Club in college. Now I was a graduate, attending one of their concerts in Dallas. There was a fellow still in that choir who had been in the choir at the same time I was. When the concert ended, this fellow made a beeline for me. He wanted to let me know that he had in the intervening time placed his faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. My friend is still walking with Christ today. Sometimes we “accidentally” discover that someone has become a fellow believer in Christ.

 

Acts 1:14 mentions some people who were in this 24/7 prayer meeting during the days between the Ascension and Pentecost. We aren’t surprised to find the Apostles there. We aren’t surprised to find Mary, the mother of Jesus, there. It isn’t even particularly surprising to find “the women” there. (This was a substantial group of women who traveled around with Jesus and His disciples during the 3½ year ministry of Jesus. They frequently were the source for funding for the ministry.)

 

But we are surprised to discover that Jesus’ four brothers were part of the prayer meeting. The last we had heard of these brothers, they had been taunting Jesus about how He behaved as a public figure, taunting because they were not believers in Jesus or in His mission. In fact, at the crucifixion, Jesus gave a verbal will as He hung on the cross. He gave the care of His mother to John, the youngest of the Apostles, rather than to any of His brothers. Yet here, not two months later, the four brothers are with the Apostles at the prayer meeting.

 

What had happened? How had they turned from mockers into disciples? Frankly, the Bible does not tell us. It is a mystery, and will remain so until we see them and can ask them for ourselves. Yet they were converted. And when Luke mentions they were participants in the prayer meeting, he doesn’t make a big deal of it. He just sort of slips them in there. Moreover, two of those brothers ended up writing books of the New Testament. One of those brothers ended up being the Senior Pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, pastor of the Twelve Apostles.

 

It is not an uncommon thing. The person it never occurred to you would eventually come to faith in Christ does become a believer. In fact, God seems to enjoy bringing salvation to unlikely candidates. So don’t give up on people. Perhaps all won’t be converted, but you never know. Only God knows.

 

In the Comments section, we’d love to hear any stories you may have of someone who came to faith in Christ, someone He just sort of slipped in there.

They Might Have Been Angels

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:10

They Might Have Been Angels

by Robert T. Cooper

So the apostles are looking intently up into the sky as Jesus ascends until a cloud hides Him from their sight. They are looking so intently that they do not notice that two men dressed in white have joined their group.

You understand that the group was at the summit of the Mount of Olives, at least on the ridgeline, and probably on or just off of the path as it crests over the ridge and drops into the village of Bethany just on the other side. Either way, the group is quite visible to travelers along the path.

Now it is possible that there just happened to be two men dressed in white who were traveling along the path when the Holy Spirit prompted them to join the group of apostles and deliver the message recorded by Luke in verse 11. But there is this intriguing verse in Hebrews that informs us that some angelic interactions amongst humans occurs with the angels disguised as humans. The traditional interpretation has always been that these two were indeed angels. Just understand that the text does not say so.

I have never been aware of a personal interaction with an angel either in its full glory or in human disguise, neither during an interaction nor upon reflection after the interaction. However, I have known of a couple of people who reported their conviction that some particular interaction of theirs had to have been angelic.

What is important in this biblical passage is not the identity of these beings as angels or humans or even one of each. What is important is that whoever these were had a message from God and delivered it. Telling others what God says is something we all can do.

1.      If you have a personal story of an interaction with someone you are convinced was an angel, please share it.

2.      What message from God can you deliver to whom in the next or two?

Looking Intently

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                        Acts 1:10

Looking Intently

by Robert T. Cooper

According to Dictionary.com, the word intent means “firmly or steadfastly fixed or directed.” Acts 1:10 makes the point that the apostles were looking intently into the sky as Jesus ascended. As a result, two men joined the group without being noticed until they spoke. That’s pretty focused!



But this is not the first time the apostles had their eyes firmly and steadfastly fixed on Jesus. It had been their custom for over three years to keep their eyes on Him. They weren’t looking intently because they had never seen an ascension before. They were looking intently because it was Jesus.

Now, the Holy Spirit must enable our eyes and our understanding if we are to see Jesus Christ at work in our daily lives and in the world around us. We must be watching for Him. Once we see Him, we must keep our eyes fixed on Him.

Once I served a church in another part of the country. Certain events occurred in the life of that church. Some young adults came to me one day saying that they were amazed for they saw the Scriptures being fulfilled in these events. They were seeing Christ at work in the events. However, it seems those young adults did not keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, for they did not continue to see Christ at work nor did it have any impact on their own consequent behavior.

God moves across the stage of modern politics (that which will in a few days be considered history). Sometimes we see Jesus Christ at work in this or that. Yet we must stay focused to follow the continuity.

God moves through what happens in weather: rain, sun, storms, and more. Sometimes televangelists are unwise in what they say about such things and in how they express what they say. Yet we know that God reveals Himself through nature. Sometimes we can see Jesus Christ at work in one way or another. But we must look intently as we do so. Practice helps. That is why some include time meditating on the observation of nature as a spiritual discipline.

God moves through our finances, our health, our relationships, and more. Sometimes we see Him as The Lord our Provider, sometimes as The Lord our Healer, and sometimes we don’t quite have a ready name for Him as He is engaged in our daily lives. One must keep a sharp eye to see how His activity relates to His plan to grow each of us in Christlikeness. After all, it is our relationship with Him that is ultimately important.

Where is Jesus around you right now? Look intently. He isn’t going away, but you will lose sight of Him if you aren’t intentional about it.

Share a story of a time you or someone around you reported seeing Jesus at work.

Power: Dynamite or Dynamo?

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:8

Power: Dynamite or Dynamo?

by Robert T. Cooper

When most preachers speak on Acts 1:8, they will mention that the word for “power” is dunamin. Then most preachers will mention that this is the word from which we get our modern English word, “dynamite.” Some preachers are quite comfortable with this comparison. In their minds, the Holy Spirit gave the first believers an explosive power that resulted in the spread of the Gospel across the known world in one generation.

Other preachers are quite uncomfortable comparing Holy Spirit power to dynamite. These preachers find dynamite to have a bad connotation. They find it a symbol of destruction. One might say that in many places the Gospel destroyed the old worldview and the old way of living. It destroyed idolatry and false religion. It was destructive to immorality. But that seems to be grasping at straws in order to hang onto an analogy that does not quite work.

With the construction of modern turbines and electric-generation facilities, a better choice of a modern term might be “dynamo.” When one reconsiders the spread of the Gospel during the years immediately following Pentecost, the Gospel did not exactly explode across the known world. The year in which Pentecost occurred, it is not apparent that any of the new disciples left Jerusalem for several months. When they finally did leave, it was because of the persecution instigated by Saul of Tarsus. At that time, while Luke doesn’t report foreign disciples finally returning to their homes, most must have done so. But the domestic disciples didn’t scatter far, perhaps in a radius of 100 – 200 miles. And still the Apostles were hanging back in Jerusalem.

No, the spread of the Gospel in that first generation was more like a dynamo than like dynamite. It may have taken a couple of decades, but the Gospel did make it from England to Ethiopia, from Iberia to India, and perhaps beyond.

Still, what the verse says has more to do with the manner in which the Holy Spirit will empower disciples than with the speed of the spread of the Gospel. The witness of the disciples would be empowered.

Which brings us to the crucial questions. Why is it that in our sight there are only a few people whose witness appears to be empowered by the Holy Spirit? Should we not expect the witness of every disciple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, to be empowered? Shouldn’t my witness be empowered?

The first couple of decades of my Christian witness, I considered myself to be a 30-fold disciple. In Jesus’ parable of the Sower and the Seed, the seed sown on good soil produces crops, some 30-fold, some 60-fold, and some 100-fold. I figured that over the course of my life, if the Lord blessed, perhaps 30 people might come to a saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But then a few years ago I found myself in a situation in which there were several people coming to faith. It seemed to me that the Lord had blessed that I might be a 60-fold disciple. I am so grateful for what the Lord has done, and I give Him all the credit, all the glory.

What about you? If you are only a 30-fold disciple, that is still a witness empowered by the Holy Spirit. Face it! There is no getting out of it! You and I might not be 100-fold disciples, but our witness is still dynamic; the message of salvation is still spreading. Perhaps it is like yeast in a lump of dough, hard to realize what is happening until the whole lump is leavened. And still the Holy Spirit is empowering our witness.

Questions: Can you tell at all that the Holy Spirit is empowering your witness? In what ways?

Don’t Forsake the Assembly

Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation                                          Acts 1:6

Don’t Forsake the Assembly

by Robert T. Cooper

I’ve been hurt at church and by church people. It seems that many of the people I talk with have had hurtful church experiences. There are even those who say the election of President Obama to a second term is the direct result of so many having been hurt by church people. When we began the church of which I am a part, one of its distinguishing characteristics was (and is) that it is a church for people who have been hurt by churches.

Lots of people will not attend church services because of those hurts. Others will not attend because they have simply allowed themselves to become too busy with other things in life they deem to be more important. Some people don’t see what the big deal is; they believe one can be a fine Christian, or at least a fine person, without the commitment.

Acts 1:6 deals with a special time in the lives of the Apostles. Jesus had risen from the dead. He was meeting with them frequently to give them final instructions. The Apostles didn’t realize the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth would not take place in their near future. They didn’t realize Christ’s Ascension was to come before Pentecost. They were simply fixated on continuing to meet with Jesus and with one another as often as possible.

After the Ascension, 120 disciples set up an around-the-clock prayer meeting. They kept the meetings they had with Jesus before His Ascension going. Jesus was no longer meeting with them in the flesh, yet they knew they were supposed to keep on meeting. After Pentecost, the meetings continued. Many of the meetings were regularly scheduled meetings—at the Jewish prayer hours and at set times between the prayer hours. Many of the meetings were spontaneous as they kept inviting one another to spend time with each other—for the Teaching of the Twelve, for fellowship, for meals, and for prayer.

As the decades went by it became evident that some people were not keeping up with the meetings. Perhaps they were hurt. Perhaps they were overscheduled. Perhaps they were frightened by the persecution that came their way. In fact, the unthinkable happened. Some people were getting to where they didn’t attend any of the meetings at all. Using the terminology of the author of Hebrews, they forsook the assembly.

I know how it is. The situation is such that if something were to happen to my current church or if the politics there drove me away, I don’t know that there is any congregation left in our county I might attend. It would be hard to find a place where I might fit in with the fellowship.

And yet I need to continue meeting with believers. There is a special sense in which “where two or three are gathered” Jesus continues to participate in meetings of believers in ways beyond the manner in which He meets with individuals. It isn’t just me; all believers need to participate in the life of a local congregation.

Questions: Have you ever been through a period of your life in which you didn’t meet regularly with a local church congregation? Why do you think it is so important for disciples to meet together? What can you do to prevent yourself from dropping out?