A Little Bit About Me...

My photo
I have many hats that I wear. I am a husband and father. I am pastor/teacher at my church. I am part of a team working on a large project at work. I am a friend. I am a budding visionary. I am a writer, an actor, and a director. I am an artist. I am a student of the Bible. I have a brain that comes up with some pretty crazy and interesting ideas, and I have a personality to match. I try to treat all people how I would like to be treated. I strive to be steadfast, immovable in my faith. I seek after the TRUTH, and I believe that it can be found, not just 'from my perspective', but for all people.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Acts chapter 19... Day 19

Ok... so this first part of the chapter is one of the places that clearly shows that there are two distinct baptisms... Water baptism and Holy Spirit baptism.  The people in Corinth had become Christians, but had not yet been filled with the Holy Spirit.  Paul taught them about it, and then put his hands on them, and they prayed and they received the Holy Spirit.  They spoke in tongues and prophesied too.

AGAIN... Paul is in the temple trying to preach the Gospel using the Scriptures to show who Jesus was.  He was made to leave so he was able to use a lecture hal to hold his meetings.  I did a little digging into this and it looks like it would have been some person in the area's school that he let Paul use.  He was holding meetings for his own purposes.

This is also the chapter that talks about how God gave special healing gifts to Paul.  Handkerchiefs that had been prayed on by Paul went out and healed people--not that there was anything special about the cloth... just the God who heals.

We also have this story about 7 men trying to cast out demons in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches.  Things did not go too well for them because they did not know Jesus for themselves. 

We also see people getting out of evil things.  We see people repenting and burning all the evil things... not that I suggest you burn things, but if there is evil in your life, get rid of it.

And then there is this thing about people selling statues of the goddess Artemis.  Paul is teaching people that God is not a statue that should be worshipped, and this is cutting into their bottom line.  It's sort of like that now.  I remember when Kalan Porter was on Canadian Idol.  He was a really good singer.  He chose a song that represented his faith on a mainstream secular television.  The judges got really snippy about his song.  He did really well I thought, and one of the judges even goes as far as noting that he is criticising a song about someone's faith. 

Challenge the standard and you will find opposition ESPECIALLY if you do it for Jesus.  Here is his performance so you can see it... Oh, and by the way Kalan Porter won that season!

No comments: