GRINDIT podcast

Why do we worry so much? Why do we panic and stress over so many things? Peter has been arrested, he knows that James, the brother of John, has been beheaded and unless the Lord intervenes he will meet the same fate in just a few days! But when Luke turns the spotlight on Peter as he is in prison waiting for Passover to be over with so he can have his trial we find Peter sound asleep as he is chai...

Persecution started in Acts 4 after Peter and John healed the lame man at the gate called Beautiful. They were given a stern talking to by the religious leaders and told not to preach or teach in the name of Jesus any more. From there it escalates until people began to be killed for their faith! In Acts 8 Stephen is stoned to death while Saul is going from house to house dragging men and women to...

Word gets back to the church in Jerusalem about what happened with the Gentiles at Cornelius' house and the believers there aren't very happy about it. They couldn't believe that Peter would go in the house of a Gentile and even eat a meal with them! However, after they got the facts first hand from Peter they changed their minds and were delighted that God had chosen the Gentiles as well...or so...

Cornelius was a God fearing Gentile who was an officer in the Roman army. He prayed three times a day, was devoted to God, and helped the poor om a daily basis, but he lacked something...he didn't have Jesus! After talking with an angel he sends men to get Peter in Joppa and bring him to his home in Caesarea. While the men were gone to get Peter, Cornelius invites his friends and family over to he...

Acts 10 is a game changer when it comes to the kingdom of God, then church. Up until this chapter the gospel has been preached mainly to the Jews but when persecution got so bad, the followers of Jesus fled Jerusalem for safety. As they fled to Judea, Samaria, and other places, they shared the gospel to the local Jews. In Acts 10 there is a divine appointment that takes place between a Roman offic...

Luke finishes Acts 9 by turning his attention to Peter. Peter travels to a couple of towns and works some miracles that blow the people's minds and many put their faith in Jesus. He heals a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years. People see him walking around town see him up and walking and after discovering what happened to him, they put their faith in Jesus! Then, some people hu...

Sometimes the Lord wants us to do something that, in our mind, sounds crazy, maybe even dangerous. Saul, the persecutor of Jesus followers, has been sent to a man's house where he is to stay until a man named Ananias comes to visit him. Meanwhile, Jesus is having a conversation with Ananias and telling him he is to go lay hands on Saul. Naturally, as we all would be, Ananias is freaked out by what...

Want to see what happens when someone has a real encounter with Jesus? Look no further than Saul. He was at the stoning of Stephen and he completely agreed with what happened to him. He was so amped up he started persecuting those who followed Jesus going from house to house dragging men and women to prison, busting up families, and he wasn't finished. Saul was on his way to Damascus to do the sam...

Jeff Palmer is the new lead pastor at Partnership Christian Church in Maryville, TN. He joins the GRINDIT Podcast for an interview so you can get to know a bit about who he is and he shares a little of his personal testimony to encourage those who have a similar struggle. Jeff and his wife, Indra, were missionaries in New Zealand for the past four and half years. While there they started The Vine...

The believers are scattered because of persecution so the church flees Jerusalem for safety. Luke shines the spotlight on a man named Philip. Philip goes to Samaria on his own accord and shares Jesus with the people there. Men and women are converted to Jesus, joy fills the city, a sorcerer becomes a Christ follower, Peter and John come down to see what's going on and they lay hands on the believe...

We continue the thoughts from Part 1 and take a look at James 1:19-26. James just lays it all out there and says, "This is what you ought to be doing as a Christ follower and if you're not, then you may want to rethink your faith!" *Be slow to get angry *Get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives *Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says *Control your tongue *Care for orphans...

When Stephen was stoned by the religious leaders, there was a man present who completely agreed with the stoning...his name was Saul. This is the same Saul, that later became Paul, and wrote two thirds of the New Testament. He was one, if not the, greatest missionaries that ever lived. Before his conversion he wreaked havoc on the church, going from house to house, dragging men and women from thei...

Have you ever been ostracized? Have you had someone lie about you, run you down behind your back, and try to get people to turn against you? That's what happened to Stephen in Acts 7. He was a man full of faith and the grace of God and all he did was preach about Jesus and work miracles. He did absolutely nothing wrong and yet by the end of this chapter, he would be stoned to death! Why? Because s...

Stephen was one of the seven chosen by the church to help with the distribution of food. Luke tells us he was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. He was preaching or teaching one day when he was confronted by some Jews who wanted to debate him but when they couldn't stand up to the Holy Spirit speaking through him, they became jealous. They told lies about Stephen and he was brought before th...

The enemy of the church has tried his best to destroy it from the outside and since that hasn't worked he is going to try from the inside. Why not just cause a riff on the inside, a division, that way it will become weak and easier to dismantle...or so he thought! I mean, Jesus himself said a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The Greek speaking Christians feel like they are being snubbe...

It's just one little lie. What's the big deal? A lie cost Ananias and Sapphira their lives. They had sold their property and kept some of the money for themselves but when they came to give it to the apostles to help the needy, they lied about how much they had sold the property for thinking nobody knew what they had planned together. The only problem was they didn't think about the fact that God...

The apostles are arrested for a second time for telling people about Jesus but this arrest had a different motivation behind it...jealousy. The Sadducees were jealous and their power was being challenged by some "unlearned and ignorant men". People were coming by the groves to get their loved ones healed from sickness or delivered from a demon. They were being converted to Christ and the message w...

If you know Bob Mader then you know what a great guy he is. He is witty and he will have you laughing until you're crying, He is a great man of God who has had some life challenges and he shares a little bit about them in this interview. He has a son that he hasn't seen in quite some time because a drug addiction has taken his life over and his wife, Ann, passed away last year from cancer. Bob lov...

God used Peter and John to heal the lame man and a crowd gathers to see what had happened. Peter takes the opportunity to preach Jesus to them and many believed. However, as they were preaching the religious leaders show p with some temple guards and arrest Peter and John. The next day they are called in for questioning and the religious leaders try to intimidate them but since they were filled wi...

Acts 3 starts off with the healing of the lame man. On a daily basis this man was brought by someone, perhaps his family, in order to beg for money. With the hundreds of people that would be walking through the gate of the temple to worship, his chances of collecting some money were great! Peter and John decided to go to the 3 o'clock prayer meeting at the temple but they never made it. They saw t...

Around ten days had past since Jesus ascended to the Father and the disciples are doing what Jesus commanded them to do...waiting. They are waiting for the promise of the Comforter that Jesus talked about in John 14. Who are the "They"? Is it the 120 or the 12? We dive into some scripture to support the answer in this episode of GRINDIT as well as discuss a little about Pentecost.

We finish up Acts 2 by covering verses 43-47 and discussing various points in this text. Why did the apostles perform miraculous signs and wonders? Why did the sell their possessions? Church buildings didn’t exist. The long lost forgotten thing called the Lord's Supper. The sharing of meals with joy and generosity. Where was their focus?

The Holy Spirit falls on the apostles and it causes a great commotion. A crowd gathers and they think the apostles are drunk. So Peter stands up and we see the display of the power of the Holy Spirit as Peter quotes, with great confidence, the prophet Joel as well as some Psalms as he preaches the very first sermon given by the Spirit. It convicts many of the Jews that were present and they are ob...

Jesus has died on the cross, was buried for three days, and came out of the tomb alive...just like he said he would do. He shows himself to his disciples several times in a forty day period to prove to them he is really alive and he wants them to try and grasp the concept of the kingdom. After those forty days were over he is talking with them on the Mount of Olives and he starts ascending into he...

Peter had denied Jesus three times before he died on a cross. After the resurrection he sits at a fire with Jesus watching the fish cook and Jesus asks him three times, “Do you love me?” In the English language we miss what Jesus is really asking Peter. Jesus is trying to get Peter to realize that he will have to love him unconditionally to make it through the days ahead when persecution starts. A...