Acts 17:21 (NIV)
21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
Jesus was a doer. He talked much about the Kingdom of God and did what He talked about. When He sent the disciples out in Luke 9 and 10 He told them to preach the Kingdom and do the Kingdom. In Acts 1 Jesus told the disciples to wait for the promised Holy Spirit (that he would baptize them with) so they could be “able” (with power) doers (witnesses). There needs to be plenty of teaching on our identity, who God is and what the Kingdom is about. However if it doesn’t lead us to DO then what is the point? We are like the Athenians and foreigners who spent their time talking about things and listening to others talk. That is not who we are. We are not people who talk about worship, we worship! We don’t talk about sharing Christ, we share Christ with others, we don’t talk about healing, we invoke the healing power of Jesus over people! We will not be held back the false picture of the Bereans who searched the scripture to see if what Paul said was true and then acted on it. Some have made Bereans out to be people whose life is study or who are the watch dogs of Christianity. (Not watchmen but watchdogs who bark at everything!) They, like the other believers, were willing to be persecuted and rejected by others to serve Christ. They were doers and so are we!
Paul = Doer
Silas = Doer
Athenian = Talker
Us = Doer
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thank you Pastor Terry! What you said, spurs me on to be a doer. One other thing that jumped out at me and I'm still not even sure why so maybe you can elaborate if something hits you on this but...in the 6th verse talking about how the mob went looking for Paul and Silas at Jason's home. "But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, 7 and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”
ReplyDeleteThe part that jumped out at me was "all over the world". It's funny because their world was so small to them. Had Paul and Silas really been all over the world or just what they knew to be their world? Did they really assume it was even possible for these men to travel the entire world?
Do we sometimes get so small in our thinking that we assume we are bigger than what we really are in, what we know to be, our world? Maybe this jumped out at me because it was just for me or maybe someone reading this has further insight?