Daily Liturgy and Scripture

The raising of a believer named Tabitha would have been a pretty big deal among the early Church. Not only because it was quite a thing to see, but because God’s purpose must have surely been in it. She was certainly not the first to die, so it wasn’t regular practice to bring everyone back from the dead. In this, though, God shows himself faithful to his Church. As Ananias and Sapphira had their...

Sometimes, God seems to have a real sense of humor. Take Paul (called "Saul" at this point) and his hunting down Christians. God could have struck him dead and removed him from the picture as a threat, but there was a different purpose for Paul. God wanted to make an enemy into an apostle, and that is just what God did. Perhaps he could see that, in Paul's heart, there was a genuine zeal for God t...

The baptizing of the Ethiopian is fantastic news for all of us. He was about as much an outsider as you could have been during this time. Ethiopia was far away, he certainly was not Jewish, and he only had part of the scriptures. But he was also a sincere seeker of God, and God honored that seeking by sending Phillip (not the apostle) to help steer him in the right direction. If an outsider like t...

Simon the Sorcerer is a good example of what NOT to do. Don’t think that the Spirit of God is yours to control or use for your own fame. Don’t think that you can buy your way into being an apostle. And perhaps most importantly of all, DON’T think so little of God that you put yourself ahead of him. The church was growing through persecution during this period, and God wasn’t going to change course...

Stephen’s sermon ends almost abruptly by mentioning Jesus, probably because he knew that bringing up the topic would abruptly end his speech. This is certainly what happened. Before this Jewish audience, though, he has laid out more of what Jesus is than most of them probably realize. He is the new temple, he is the new priest. He is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, and he is the an...

As Stephen boldly continues his speech, he comes to the time of Moses and the Exodus. This is not by mistake. God said that he would set the people free, and this initiative was of God's doing. Moses was an important part, but it was still God's work. Not to spoil the next point in Stephen's sermon, but what Jesus did was the same: God came to do the work of redemption, and it was God's own work t...

When Stephen begins his defense of the Gospel, it starts in the story of the Old Testament. While that was essential to address his high-profile Jewish audience, the same is true today. The story God has been creating did not start in the Gospels. God created a world and set in in motion with a plan, and God’s plan has not been derailed.

God’s challenge to Ezekiel and the call of the apostles in the face of the Sanhedrin are very much aligned. When God gives us an assignment, we are never working alone. Along with the body of Christ which is the Church, the Spirit is with us just as it was with Ezekiel and Peter. Don’t take that lightly, and let it encourage you. God has a plan, and it includes us.

Was it necessary for these two stingy givers to… die? It seems a little excessive, but remember where we are. God is doing something new. It’s a new era, and it centers around a humble Savior. There is no room for puffery or pretending, and God is building his Church strong from the beginning. That’s no comfort for the family of this couple, but it let the early believers know that God was among t...

We combine the passage from Hebrews with a passage from Luke today for a very good reason: Luke reminds us that Jesus ascended, and Hebrews reminds us what he is now doing. When Jesus ascended, he didn’t do it for a fun trick. He did it to sit at the right hand if the Father, serving forever as our High Priest. He is familiar with our struggle, and there is no greater ally than someone who knows w...

The message of Jesus is truly bizarre without the understanding given by the Spirit. Peter preaches it, though, and the Spirit that showed up at Pentecost began opening minds and hearts. This isn’t just a story told to impress people, this message has meaning. That meaning brings wholeness, just as the bodily wholeness of the lame man was given.

Jesus is the first, last, and best Word we have to offer. I have heard it said, "The Word of God is the only way for us to know and see God, so the Word became flesh." This was surely true for Peter as he stood up at Pentecost and testified. That power that came through Jesus was what enabled the apostles to do what, at other times, they had been unable to do.

Pentecost is the work of God just as the Tower of Babel was in the Old Testament. As Babel was made to divide the people, so is Pentecost made to bring the people together in the Spirit. This was always God's plan. Making a community in the Spirit took time, but God's timing is always right.

The body of prophecy surrounding Jesus goes beyond just him, it extends to his team of apostles. Jesus was intentional in assembling that team, and so it was important to preserve its structure after he ascended. While there is no "book of Matthias," it must have been amazing to have been Matthias and be added to the twelve apostles. 

The thing that makes Christianity unique is Jesus. Not just that he came and taught the people and died on a cross, but that he lives again. He lives now, as we say now, "seated at the right hand of the Father." This is his position of Lordship forever, and it cannot be taken from him. This is the Savior we serve.

The little book of 3 John has a neat glimpse into one aspect of the early church: traveling teachers. With John’s calling out of those who receiving them both poorly and well, we also get an idea of the way churches needed to work together in those days. There was no email, no telephone. Letters such as John’s were expensive to write and commoners probably seldom did this. To correctly pass along...

2 John is one of the shortest books in the Bible, but its repeated themes from 1 John really reinforce the struggle that the earliest Christians faced: who Jesus was. It probably became somewhat fashionable to come up with an alternate version of Christianity, especially one that might have been easier to understand than the Jesus that has come to be understood through the centuries. Don't take th...

The life in the Spirit hinges on our belief in Jesus. Not only as a person who actually lived and died on earth, but as the giver of eternal life. That life has started now: it is eternally in the Spirit, through the Son, with the Father.

Love is the thing that God most richly gives us, so of course we are called to share it as his people. Of course we should love God, but as this verse points out, that's empty if we don't love others. Not only because we are God's creation, but also because the love of one we can't see is practiced on those we can.

Not being an "antichrist" requires being filled with the Spirit of Truth. That is good for more than just making us correct. If we are filled with the Spirit, the acts of the Spirit become our own. Just as sin cannot live with the Spirit, neither can ignoring those around us. God is love and the Spirit is God, so we have access to those divine qualities in addition to the truth.

If we are in Christ, we are under a different standard. No longer are we following the rules for the sake of the rules, but for the sake of Christ. Living in harmony with others isn't about looking like a good person, it's about recognizing the life of Christ and aligning ours with the help of the Holy Spirit. This is the reason that sin cannot live in us. Not because we should be flawless, but be...

John talks pretty freely about Antichrists in this passage, but he's not talking about world rulers who rally massive armies. He's talking about people who claim to speak for God, but don't include the Lordship of Jesus in their teaching. This is critical. Without Jesus, there is no path to God. Jesus is God, and he cannot be subtracted from the picture.

This book, written by one of Jesus's apostles, is addressed to believers who were in the area of Asia Minor. Today, this area is the heart of the Eastern Orthodox Church. At this point in history, however, the church was young. It wasn't wildly popular, and it was still growing. We open the book with the basics of evangelism: what we have been given from God, we have given to others. This is the w...

The little book of Jude kind of comes out of nowhere. Landing right before Revelation, it is thought to have been written by one of the biological brothers of Jesus, and he seems pretty concerned about false teachers who had found their way into groups of believers. They sow seeds of discord instead of harmony. They are arrogant instead of humble. They ridicule instead of trying to understand. The...

The "Day of the Lord" talk in this verse is certainly apocalyptic. There are a lot of different takes on this verse, but the kernel we need to keep our eyes on is consistent: God will judge the world, and God will purify the world. The world was his, always has been, and always will be. If we are obedient and following our Saviour, the Day of the Lord will be a reason for rejoicing, because we are...