Understanding

Acts 23: The Lord Stands Near

Acts 23:11 begins by saying: “…the Lord stood near Paul…” Imagine! Paul was undergoing trial after trial with far more to endure, and yet the Lord stood near him!

The Apostle was on a course to preach the Gospel in Rome - of this Paul had the direct assurance from God Himself (Acts 23:11). With this assurance, Paul could undergo all that was about to befall him – attacks and plots against his life by the Jews, Roman chains and the rest – with confidence that the Lord’s purposes through him must and would be served.  

Acts 23:11, in fact, is a key verse for the entire chronicle of Acts, as God goes on to tell Paul: “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” Paul’s mistreatment was all part God’s “Gospel delivery system,” and it is noteworthy that while Paul underwent abuse and finally execution, we find in the very last verse of the Book of Acts that in Rome, Paul preached the Gospel and taught all about Jesus Christ “…with all boldness and without hindrance”! Things may not have been “convenient” for Paul, but the Gospel was nevertheless preached by him, and the Lord certainly stood near him.

Now is a good time to skip over and read Acts 28:24-28, Paul’s final recorded speech to Jewish leaders in Rome. This is Paul’s final summation of the main theme of Acts: carriage of the Gospel to the Gentiles and to “the ends of the earth.” This very theme was introduced at Acts 1:8 – “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Thus, Acts 1:8 and Acts 28:28 form textual “bookends” between which the Great Commission is chronicled in detail.

With these observations in mind, we can more readily discern purposes and meanings of the intervening chapters and passages, and we can look to Acts for vital instruction on:

 

The nature and “look” of the Great Commission

The nature and articulation of the “Gospel”

The definition of “preaching the Gospel”

The movement of the Kingdom from ‘exclusive’ Judaism to ‘inclusive’ Christianity

The great costs of preaching the Gospel and carrying out the Great Commission

The roots of the Church – how, where, when and why it was established, and

The historical framework for the rest of the New Testament.

 

Generally and simply, the Good News (Gospel) and Great Commission can be seen in the following components:

 

Who Christ is, what He did, & what He is doing – Law, Prophets and Four Gospels

Go preach the Gospel to all nations – Acts

Explain & expound on Jesus’ work & commands – Matthew, Gospels, Epistles

Finally: Take heart! Persevere! Christ is the Ultimate Victor! – Revelation

 

How grateful we should be that the Bible is so much more than a mere collection of moral instructions. We can reflect with great awe upon the fact that God – the omnipotent, holy, all-knowing Creator and Sustainer of the universe – saw fit not only to save us from ourselves, but to “stand near us,” in part by providing us with His written word - a detailed explanation of His plans and actions of redemption.

As we follow His instructions, however weakly and imperfectly, the Lord stands by us and says “Take courage!”

I think it will be a good thing to pause here and consider that while God promised to sustain Paul through the trials of his calling, there are some things God did not promise. It is good to think through some of these, because we have a great propensity for reading self-serving promises and reassurances into Scripture that are not really there. When it comes to reading scripture and understanding its lessons, truth is far better than fiction.

Here are a few examples of promises which were never given:

 

If you preach the Gospel faithfully, all will come to faith.

Fact: Most did not; some did. Many hated the Gospel messengers and did not come to faith.

 

If you are faithful to proclaim the Gospel, God will keep you from harm.

Fact: Paul endured whippings, stoning, threats, shipwreck, chains, and more as he faithfully carried out the commands of God. All the other original Apostles (except John) were violently martyred for their faith.

 

God will give you victory over your enemies.

Fact: The ultimate victory is Christ’s, and our victory (like Paul’s) is secure in Him; Paul did, however, have his head cut off by the Roman authorities after enduring years under Roman arrest; so in the temporal, worldly sense, his enemies prevailed.

 

You will sow peace wherever you share the Gospel, because it is the Gospel of Peace.

Fact: Jesus said He came not to bring peace but a sword; we know also that the Gospel is offensive to most. Wherever Paul went, and wherever he preached the Gospel, hatred and violence erupted against him and the Christians. This allegation that Christianity incites violence at times is, well, correct sometimes.

 

It is up to you, Christian, to figure out how to package and present the Gospel in such a creative and inoffensive way as to ensure it will be acceptable to the people hearing it.

Fact: Paul relied on the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, preaching only Christ and Him crucified and resurrected – he did not change the message, think of creative slogans that everyone would find soothing and empowering, and then write books with catchy titles proclaiming his uplifting message. He simply preached the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit regenerated those who received the gift of faith by God’s grace.

Acts 21 – Law & Gospel Revisited

 

Pastor Gary points out Paul’s loyalty to Christ and to his calling as the Apostle to the Gentiles. To Pastor's point, Paul did not sell the Gospel out by people-pleasing or by taking measures to avoid personal ridicule and rejection. These are temptations that bother many of us today, holding us back from sharing the Gospel honestly, openly and completely.

Why Observe the Law? (Acts 21:20-26) - Paul went along with Jewish law and ceremony as requested by the Jerusalem elders, even though he taught clearly that the Law was nailed to the cross and replaced. (Col. 2:14-17; Eph. 2:14-16; Heb. 7:18, 8:13, 10:9; etc.) In Galatians, Paul strongly denies Christians are bound to any Jewish law, teaching that no one is saved by the Law, and believers are not under the Law.

Why then did Paul agree to observe these Jewish legal ceremonies?

First, Paul voluntarily helped four Jewish men keep a vow. There is nothing in the biblical text stating that voluntary observance of the Law is wrong. Freedom in Christ works both ways - it frees us from enslavement to the law, which can neither save nor sanctify us, yet it also frees us to observe the Law - even as in Paul’s case the Jewish ceremonial Law - when the love and wisdom of Christ call for it.

As another example of this, at Acts 16:3 we read that Paul circumcised Timothy, in order to make it easier to preach to unconverted Jews. Timothy’s circumcision was not a statement that salvation requires circumcision, or that believers should be circumcised. The Law of circumcision, like the rest of the Jewish ceremonial and civil Law, had become obsolete for believers and followers of Christ. Paul's law-keeping and Timothy's circumcision were done in freedom to avoid offending Jews unnecessarily, so more of them might hear and receive the offensive message of Christ, and so more of them would refrain from influencing others against the Gospel. (Gal. 5:11-12, 1 Peter 2:4-8, John 15:18-21).

Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers (1 Corinthians 9:19-23): “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. NOW THIS I DO FOR THE GOSPEL’S SAKE…”

For the Gospel’s Sake - We are to wisely accommodate unbelievers FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL. After all, the Gospel is inherently offensive to many, starting as it does with the fact we are all lost and dead in our tracks, then continuing with the fact there is only one solution, and His name is Jesus. We cannot and must not attempt to remove the offense from the Gospel. If we do, we will likely preach a false message and a duplicitous, watered down message that is no gospel at all.

However, in bringing the message, we need not be personally offensive; we do well to follow Paul’s example instead. We need not go into a Mormon area, for example, and begin our evangelism by announcing with loudspeakers that Joseph Smith is a fraud and a false prophet. By the same token, we might approach a thinking atheist with words of reason and invitation to dialog, rather than starting out by wagging a judgmental finger at him. After all, our personal approval or disapproval has little or nothing to do with it. It is the Gospel, and not us, that is the “power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16).

In other words, we like Paul (and Peter, see 1^st Peter 3:15) are to employ “gentleness and respect” as well as common sense in our evangelism. The Bible nowhere says we are to conduct ourselves as stupidly or offensively as possible.

In being as personally inoffensive as we can be, let’s not forget to put the Gospel into our delivery system. Let’s not leave it out in an effort to be acceptable. In other words, like Paul, let’s share the actual, factual, historical, truthful Gospel, though we do so as tastefully as we can without wrecking the good news. We are to share the truth in love, not lose the truth in false love; if the truth of the Gospel is lost in people-pleasing and rejection avoidance, then real love disappears with it.

For Paul, Peter and the others, the Gospel was the main thing, and everything else was the delivery system. For a significant part of the modern (or if you like, post-modern) Church, the delivery system is now the main thing, and the Gospel is optional, if not completely lost in the shuffle.