In Acts Chapter 11, Peter goes back to Jerusalem and explains what happened in Caesarea at the house of Cornelius. Peter retells the entire story and concludes with the following… Read the rest of this entry »
The wonderful story of God breaking down prejudices is told in Acts Chapter 10. God directly communicates with a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, and with the Apostle Peter arranging for Peter to go and meet Cornelius. Read the rest of this entry »
In the second half of Acts Chapter 9 we read about Saul’s (aka Paul) extreme behavior change resulting from his conversion to Christianity. Read the rest of this entry »
Noi Suphanee is a missionary that my wife Casey met a few years ago when they were both doing mission work through YWAM in Africa. Noi is Thai and has been working with in a YWAM Thailand children’s sponsorship program for the past few years. This year though, she felt the Lord leading her to start a ministry to the elderly in Bangkok. This new ministry is called Ruth Center. Noi’s life is dedicated to directly fulfilling “pure religion” as defined by scripture in James 1:27…
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
In Acts Chapter 9 we meet up again with the story of Saul (aka the Apostle Paul). We see in this chapter how Saul is converted by Jesus himself, becoming a devoted follower. When we were last told about Saul, he was standing by, giving his approval of the men who stoned the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Now he still was “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He had asked for permission from the high priest to go to Damascus in order to search out and arrest any Christians he found there.
On his way to Damascus, a great light surrounded Saul and Jesus spoke to him. Read the rest of this entry »
The second half of Acts Chapter 8 continues to follow the missionary work of the Apostle Philip. An angel appears to Philip and tells him to go to a certain road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza. Philip obeys and on the road meats an Ethiopian official traveling back home after worshiping in Jerusalem. Read the rest of this entry »
In Acts Chapter 8 we’re told that a great persecution breaks out against the Church, which started with the martyr of Stephen, and the Church is scattered from Jerusalem all across Judea and Samaria. The chapter focuses in on the Apostle Philip and his travels in spreading the Gospel to Samaria. Read the rest of this entry »
In Acts chapters 6 and 7 the church in Jerusalem continues to grow. When some disputes arise between believers, the Apostles decide to appoint some leaders in the Church to handle the problems that happen when you put together large numbers of people. One of these appointed leaders is named Stephen, who becomes the first Christian martyr. Read the rest of this entry »
We will focus mostly on the last half of Acts 5, where the persecution of Christians for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ continues. But first I’ll briefly give a summary of the first half of chapter 5 where a Christian couple is punished for lying, and the church continues to grow. Read the rest of this entry »
Acts chapter 4 picks up the story right where chapter 3 left off, with Peter and John preaching the resurrection of Jesus to the people gathered in amazement at the healing of a crippled man. The Sadducees, a group of Jewish religious leaders who did not believe in a resurrection of the dead, arrested Peter and John for their preaching and put them in prison for the night. Nevertheless, a good number of men believed in the message that Peter and John preached and the number of believing men in Jerusalem grew to about five thousand Read the rest of this entry »