The New Testament in 90 Days

Paul and his companions have dodged a bulletin with church-dividing implications.  The Gentile and Jewish believers have found a way to be in fellowship with one another.  Still, Paul and Barnabas somehow couldn't fix a rift that developed between the two of them.  We really don't know much about the rift, except that it had to do with John Mark.  Barnabas wanted to take him along with them; Paul did not.  On the basis of something as simple as this, Paul and Barnabas part ways.  Paul teams up with Silas, and eventually Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman and a Greek father (interesting that he has Timothy circumcised because of the company with whom he expected to be traveling). It's sort of sad that the church could come to an agreement with respect to the first controversial issues they faced, but that Paul and Barnabas couldn't come to an agreement with regard to John Mark.  But that's the way it is in churches sometimes, isn't it?  It is the...

There's a turning point in this chapter, and it begins with two men praying and seeing angels and having visions.  First, there is Cornelius, a pious Gentile, who is praying at around three in the afternoon (one of the hours of prayer, by the way), when he sees an angel who tells him to go and summon a man named Simon (who he never met).  This Simon will tell him Something. In the meantime, Peter is also praying.  It is noon (another hour of prayer) and he sees a vision while he is on the roof.  In the vision, he sees a sheet full of animals that are considered unclean by Jewish law.  The voice in the vision says to Peter, "Get up!  Kill and eat!"  Peter refuses, but the voice persists.  "Never consider unclean what God has made pure." Peter does receive a visitor, who invites him to Cornelius' home.  He finds a surprising welcome when he gets there.  There are many people waiting for him, waiting for the word that he will give him. ...

Luke and Theophilus are back for the second volume of writing, often called, simply, "Acts."  Have you ever thought about that?  But the full title is really, "The Acts of the Apostles, and this second volume written by Luke is about many of the miracles, healings, and other things the disciples did in the name of Jesus and in the power of Jesus. But it begins with Jesus eating with his disciples, teaching his disciples, and, after 40 days, promising them that he would send the Holy Spirit, so that they could say the things he wants them to say and do the actions he wanted them to do. During that ten-day waiting period, one of the tasks that the disciples face is choosing a replacement for Judas (the gory details of his demise are also included).  They have two candidates and pray and cast lots to discover the right choice.  What do you think of this means of electing an apostle? Then, in Acts chapter 2, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down and f...

I can't help noticing now that the Sermon on the Mount has bee preached, that Jesus gets busy healing all kinds of illnesses, and exorcising demons.  There are many healing stories, and no two are exactly like.  There is leprosy, a fever, demon possession, paralysis, death, hemorrhaging, blindness, inability to speak. But somehow the healing can't be reduced to the names of the illnesses -- we need to know the people who were healed, and something about them:  so there is a centurion's servant, healed by command from a distance, a twelve year old girl, a man lowered on a mat through a roof by four of his friends, a man who was made an outcast by his skin disease, a woman who touches the hem of Jesus' robe.  Oh, and Peter's mother-in-law.  Among others. In the middle of all these things, Jesus finds times to quiet a storm (my translation says that the waves were "sloshing over the boat"), to call another disciple (Matthew, from his tax booth), to answer...