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?

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?