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- [00:01]
Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango, and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Our second day in the Book of Acts, we're going through Acts, chapter 4, 4, 5, 6, and 7. We got four chapters of the Bible, four chapters of Acts to go through today. Hey, this is a great time to pause the episode. If you need to do the reading, you can do the reading in whatever translation you like. All right? But make sure you do the reading before you listen to the episodes. Acts, chapter four immediately starts with. With Peter and Jane. Peter and John. Arrested. Immediately arrested, straight to jail. Verse 3 of chapter 4 says they seized Peter and John and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. So they are immediately facing persecution. And I want to jump down to their prayer. The. The church's prayer in the face of being thrown in jail, of being witnesses, and. And the result of being witnesses being persecution. It says this in verse 29 of chapter four.
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Unknown
Okay.
- [01:23]
Dr. Manny Arango
Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness, stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. So the church is receiving persecution. Their leaders are getting thrown into prison for preaching, for bearing witness to the risen Jesus. And they are praying for more boldness to stand up under the pressure of being persecuted. They're not praying for bigger houses or cars or scholarships for their kids to go to college. I mean, they're not praying anything that's selfish. They are praying for boldness so they can be witnesses for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to ask you a hard question now. I want to ask myself this question. If God were to answer all of your prayers, would it make his kingdom any stronger in his church any bigger? If. If God were to answer all your prayers, would it just make your life better or would it actually make a kingdom impact? I think that it's time for us to pray some bold prayers. And a bold prayer is a prayer for boldness so that we can actually stand in the face of persecution. Acts chapter 4, verse 33 says this with great power. The apostles continue to testify. They continue to be Witnesses to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I want you to see here that what they're preaching is not the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, but the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Okay? Because the fact that Jesus got crucified and, and that he forgives sins is not the dominant message. Especially when you look at the book of Acts, the dominant message is that Jesus is king, that he is Lord, and that God proved that he was actually the Messiah by vindicating him and by raising him from the dead. So we, we see persecution and we see a prayer for boldness. And now the, the believers were in one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything that had.
- [03:40]
Unknown
Okay?
- [03:40]
Dr. Manny Arango
There's great unity in the church. They lay, they, they brought the money from the sales of their homes and put everything at the apostles feet. Okay? This is important context for what's going to come next. Okay, Chapter five. We get a man by the name of Ananas and his wife Sapphira. They also sell a piece of property and with their, with his wife's full knowledge, he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles feet. So he's trying to flex, he's trying to be like everybody else. Everybody else is selling their property and laying the money, the proceeds from the sale, at the apostles feet. And he's doing the same thing, but he kept some of the money for himself. Peter said ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit? He don't even say you've lied to me. How is it that you've lied to the Holy Spirit, okay, and have kept for yourself some of the money you received from the land. Didn't it belong to you before it was sold and after it was sold? Wasn't the money at your disposal, bro? You didn't have to give any of it. It would have been better for you to not give any of it. And the issue here is not about finances. The issue is about deception. The fact that he has a lie to the Holy Spirit, that he has tried to deceive Peter and the rest of the apostles by presenting this money as if it is all of the money from the proceeds of his house, but it's not actually all the money. What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings, but to God. When Ananas heard this, he fell down and died in great fear. Seized all who heard what had Happened. Okay, now his wife comes, his wife dies too. In verse 11 says this great fear sees the whole church and all who heard about these events. Fear sees the church. Now why does Luke think that it's important for us to get this story? Because this is kind of an odd story. And I think that the reason that this story is in the book of Acts is so that it would do to us the same thing that it did in the first century, which is to cause fear. I'll say two things. The first is I heard John Bevere speak a couple summers ago and he was saying it's kind of recounting a story of a famous evangelist, like a famous, like televangelist who had a worldwide ministry and had a very, very public moral failure. This moral failure in involved, you know, drug usage and cheating on his wife and embezzlement of money and just, I mean, kind of the worst possible scenario that you could want. And someone asked him, like, man, when did you fall out of love with the Lord? Cuz clearly you have to not love God in order to kind of behave in this way. And with tears in his eyes, this, you know, fallen. This televangelist who had fallen into like a moral failure said, I never stopped loving God. I still love the Lord. It's that I stopped fearing the Lord. And when I stopped fearing the Lord, oh man, that's when I started to compromise. I started to lie to the Holy Spirit. I started to lie to the leaders and the pastors and the elders in my life. I started to operate based on deception instead of based on truth. Not because I didn't love God, but because I did not fear God. And my sneaky suspicion is that we have a lot of people in church who love God, man. We sing worship songs and they cry and they're emotional. That stuff's not fake. That's not simply emotionalism. They really do love the Lord. The problem is they have no fear of the Lord. There's no fear of the Lord. So they are cool with not tithing or living a life of unrepentant or unconfessed sin or sleeping, sleeping around or living with their girlfriend or boyfriend. And I'm not, I'm not trying to say that I, I'm promoting legalism or promoting a, a life that, that doesn't involve grace.
- [07:42]
Unknown
Okay?
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Dr. Manny Arango
If you're trapped in sin, here's the keys. Repent and confess. Confess and repent. Like, but unrepentant, meaning I don't even acknowledge that what I'm doing is Wrong and unconfessed. Meaning I'm not even going to confess my sin to anybody else. Unrepentant and unconfessed cycles of sin. It means that there is a lack of the fear of the Lord. Second thing, I'll say my father, who has struggled with addiction my entire life. My dad took me to a crack house for the first time when I was five years old.
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Unknown
Okay?
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Dr. Manny Arango
So my dad has struggled with an addiction for since I can remember. I would describe my dad as someone who's not scared of anything, just a fearless individual. And you want to know why he's never gotten free from drugs? Because he wasn't scared of losing his wife. He wasn't scared of losing his son. He wasn't scared of losing his family. He wasn't scared of losing his wealth. He wasn't scared of losing his property. He wasn't scared of losing out on a relationship with his grandchildren. He wasn't scared of anything. And the reality is that fear is a phenomenal tool. Fear is bad if you're paralyzed by it. But fear is great if it keeps you disciplined and keeps you on the straight and narrow. We live in a society where we look at someone who's fearless and we call that bold. But God says that's not bold. That's someone who doesn't have wisdom. It's only someone who lacks wisdom that has no fear. There are certain things that should be feared. The reason I've never smoked or drank or done drugs is because I'm scared of drugs. I have a healthy fear of crack. I'm scared of crack, okay? I know what crack does to people. I know what drugs does to people. And Paul says I've placed no confidence in the flesh. Which means I'm not going to put me versus weed and think that I'm going to win. Nope, you put me versus weed. I have no confidence in my flesh. I think weed is going to win. So instead of fighting that temptation, I avoid it. I'm scared of it. I'm scared of it. I don't go down that road. I don't go into that neighborhood. I don't. I don't even entertain that. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And that was true in the Old Testament and that is true in the New Testament.
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Unknown
What if I told you that what you're learning in this video was just the tip of the iceberg? The Bible department is actually powered by Arma. What is Arma? I'm so glad you asked. Arma is an online subscription based platform that we design to help people, everyday people learn the Bible for themselves. We started ARMA so that anybody anywhere.
- [10:25]
Dr. Manny Arango
Could have access to trustworthy and entertaining.
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Unknown
Bible and theology content. In addition to this podcast, we have over 60 courses on individual books of the Bible on theology topics, and lots of hot topics like homosexuality, tithing and women in ministry. But really, ARMA is a community. A community of people that I've gotten to to know. A community where thousands of people are currently finding family, asking questions and nerding out on the Bible together. If you want a community to read the Bible with you this year, or if you want to dive into some deeper theological content, or if you want more exclusive access to me and the entire armor team, how about you go to thebibledepartment.com I'll be sure to to post the link in the description of this video. Let's make this your year to become a Bible.
- [11:23]
Dr. Manny Arango
And this story of Ananias and Sapphira dropping dead was designed to create fear within the early church. Because to have the love of God but not the fear of God means that we have an unhealthy balance. And to think that to be a fearless individual makes you a bold or courageous person is foolishness. That does not make you bold or courageous. That makes you someone who lacks wisdom. The apostles then heal tons of people. It says in verse 12 the apostles perform many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet in Solomon's colonnade. I need you to see they're still going to the temple. Judaism is still a massive facet of their life. Okay, When Peter and John heal the man at the gate called beautiful, they are going to the temple. When people are getting baptized in the first couple chapters of Acts, they're getting baptized in the Mikvahot that are right there in the temple that were for ceremonial cleansing and washing. They're just repurposing them and using them for baptism. Okay, so Judaism is a massive part of the birthing of Christianity. The apostles are then persecuted again. And then there's a man, they get brought in and questioned before the Sanhedrin. And then there's a racial issue in Acts chapter six. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, we got Hellenistic Jews and Hebraic Jews that are odds with each other because the Hellenistic Jews, their widows are not getting fed in the daily distribution of food. I want you to see how the apostles respond. It says this. It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word in order to wait on tables. They see it as an important issue, but they believe this, that the work of the leaders of the church is to equip the church to minister to the church. They don't see their job as we are supposed to minister to the church. They see their job as maintaining a ministry. They say this in verse four of chapter six. We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word. So the ministry of the church belongs to the church. The ministry of the Word belongs to leaders. Later on in Paul's letters, he's going to say this, that God gave the fivefold ministry gifts. Teachers, pastors, prophets, evangelists, apostles. That's the one I was missing. Sorry. For what? For the building up of the church. So equipping of the saints so that the saints can do the work of the ministry. So they follow this model right here in Acts. There's an issue. It's an important issue. But preachers should not become glorified administrators, okay? The church that I was at in North Carolina, I rarely did hospital visits. I trained deacons, I trained elders on how to do hospital visits. I was a youth pastor for 10 years. Never went to any football games, never went to any basketball games. I trained youth leaders on how to go to football games and how to go to basketball games. Because we have created a world where the people on stage are the professionals. And now we come to church and get entertained by those professionals. When really the model for church is that the fivefold ministry gifts are there to equip the saints so the saints can carry on the work of the ministry. And then Stephen is seized. So Stephen, one of the men who gets anointed and appointed as a deacon to handle the daily distribution of food. And we know that those deacons were all Hellenistic Jews because of their names, okay? Their names are given now in Acts, chapter seven, Stephen is seized, and he gives the longest sermon of life. And really, to be honest, if I knew I was about to die and the only thing that was separating me from death was a sermon, I'd about to be. I. I'd preach for a couple hours. I'm. I'm here to tell you right now, it'd be the longest sermon that I've ever preached in my whole life. So I'm not mad at you, Stephen. I see what you're doing, okay? I see what you're doing. But I want to go all the way down to the end of chapter seven, verse 54, okay? They hear the whole sermon, and it says, when the Sanhedrin heard this. They're furious. They nash their teeth. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, he looked up to heaven and he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open. The Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Beautiful scene at this. They cover their ears, yelling at the top of their voices. They drag him out of the city, and they begin to stone him. Meanwhile, witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. This is the first time that Saul's name gets entered into the text, gets entered into the narrative. Okay, so we're in chapter seven, and we see a man by the name of Saul. And here's where I want to draw a parallel between Jesus and Stephen. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Now, we heard those words before. Jesus said these exact words on the cross, into your hands I commit my spirit is what he says to his Father. And then he said he fell on his knees and cried out, lord, do not hold this sin against them. Which is a lot like Jesus saying on the cross, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Which means the Bible wants us to see that when people suffer for Jesus, they are becoming Christ like that. There's a massive parallel between what Jesus does on the cross and the sufferings of Christ that we accept as believers. The apostles are going to say, God, we thank you that we are counted as worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus. When Peter is going to get crucified, he looks at it and says, I dare not get crucified or die the same way that Jesus died. Flip me upside down.
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Unknown
Okay?
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Dr. Manny Arango
These disciples, this early church is. Is not afraid of persecution. They are accepting actually of persecution. Because they realize if Jesus was persecuted, we are going to be persecuted as well. Here's the timeless truth for the day. The timeless truth for the day is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I don't know what you're scared of, but guess what? These apostles were no longer scared of men who could take their life. They were scared of a God who they were going to have to stand before one day and be judged by. I want to be scared of the right stuff, and I want the fear of the Lord to give me wisdom. And wisdom is foresight, okay? The Bible says when Adam and Eve eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they're. They're naked, they're afraid. And I want the fear. I want foresight. Fear. I want fear that that says I know how this is going to end. And instead of me being scared after I sin, I want to be scared before I sin. That's a timeless truth for today. The fear of the Lord is fear, that is gives you insight before you make mistakes, not after you make mistakes. And I want that fear to mark us as believers because that's the fear that marked the early church. All right, famous, I'll see you right here tomorrow. I'm proud of you for making this journey through the entire Bible. You got this and we can definitely do this together. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Love you. Peace. Thank you so much for joining me on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, it would mean the world to me if you'd give us a follow rate and review the show. And don't forget to share. You can learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and find us on Instagram @thebible department. If you want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.