How the Holy Spirit works (Acts 16:6-40)

Acts 16:6-40

"... the Holy Spirit had prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia at that time." "... again the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there" (Acts 16:6-7, NLT).

1. How sensitive do you think you are to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life?
2. Generally, do you intentionally seek the Holy Spirit's leading before making decisions and taking action?
3. Discuss this quote by A.W. Tozer: "If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference." Do you agree? Why? Why not?

A Life Goal, A Single Master Passion

From the Sun sermon, D is for Daily, we considered two questions:

1. What do you do with your life daily?
2. What do you think about daily?

Then we considered 10 practical applications. Among them, we suggested:

1. Think about your life goal.
2. Develop a single master passion for your life.

Based on these two points, the following questions were asked:

ACTS

Introduction: Acts (or the "Acts of the Apostles") is a selective history of the early church following the resurrection of Christ. It was likely written before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The author, Luke the physician, was the companion of Paul from his 2nd missionary journey onwards. Acts provides information on the development of the first 3 decades of the early church's existence, which is found nowhere else in the NT.

We have 4 accounts of Jesus, but only one of the early church {where Luke traces only the ministries of Peter (chs. 1-12) and Paul (chs. 13-28)}. So Acts occupies an indispensable place in the Bible. It is the first work of church history ever penned, where Acts records the initial response to the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20). Acts:

1. emphasizes that Jesus of Nazareth was Israel's long-awaited Messiah,
2. declares that the gospel is offered to all men (not merely the Jewish people), and
3. stresses the work of the Holy Spirit (mentioned > 50 times)

As Hebrews sets forth the theology of the transition from the Old Covenant to the New, Acts depicts the New Covenant's practical outworking in the life of the church.

Paul's Indigenization Policy (Acts 14:22,23)

In John Stott's excellent commentary on Acts, Stott identifies 3 foundations of Paul's indigenization policy (indigenous means originating where it is found), gleamed from his 1st missionary journey where Paul planted multiple churches in Galatia (Acts 12:25-14:28). They are:

1. Bible Study - Apostolic instruction (Acts 14:22). Paul exhorted the church members by "encouraging them to remain true to the faith" (Acts 14:22), "the faith" being a cluster of central beliefs regarding the gospel; the Bible's storyline of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration; doctrines regarding God, Man, Christ, our Response through repentance and faith, etc.
   
2. Entrusting to Man - Pastoral oversight (Acts 14:23). Paul and Barnabas also "appointed elders for them in each church" (Acts 14:23). This appointment was both local and pleural -- the elders were chosen locally, not imposed from without, and it was pleural, indicating a pastoral team, not one pastor, one church. This arrangement was made from the 1st missionary journey onwards, and became universal. Paul later spelled out the qualification for elders in 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1.
3. Trusting God - Divine faithfulness (Acts 14:23). Indigenous principles rest ultimately on the conviction that the church belongs to God with Christ as the Head of the Church, and that God can be trusted to look after his own people. So, before leaving the Galatian churches, Paul and Barnabas "committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust" (Acts 14:23).

Joe Schafer wrote a blog post that (I think) "supports" Paul's ingigenization policy: http://www.ubfriends.org/2010/12/evangelism-and-the-gift-of-missionary-part-1/ The post is about Peter Wagner's book: The Acts of the Holy Spirit, where Wagner describes 3 kinds of evangelism: E1, E2, E3.

• E-1 evangelism is monocultural. One shares his faith within his own people group. No significant barriers of language or culture are crossed.
• E-2 evangelism crosses mild cultural barriers. An example would be a Caucasian American preaching the gospel in Australia.
• E-3 evangelism means carrying the gospel to a radically different culture.

Not surprisingly, the most effective and efficient evangelism through out church history is E1, which is Paul's policy (Acts 14:22,23). May God bless us to pray for indigenous leaders to autonomously evangelize their own people.

Posted via email from benjamintoh's posterous

The Earliest Model Church (Tim Keller)


Tim Keller, lead pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, NY offers church planters insights to help clarify the purposes of the church based on the example of the early church in Acts 2:42-47.

Worship & Prayer

The worship of the early church had corporate form. In Acts chapter 2, verse 42, Paul literally says that "they devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread and the prayers ". This is almost certainly a reference to 'liturgy'-- to the service of the Lord's Supper and to a discipline of praying called "the prayers." It was not random. There was an order to it. It had both an informal and formal aspect. It happened both in homes and in the temple courts (v. 46). This surely means that there was both informal worship in the small group and more formal worship in the large group.

It is unlikely that Christians continued to offer sacrifices at the temple, but they evidently continued to go to the prayer services and they supplemented the worship there with their own meetings in the courts. Their worship was both joyful and reverent. Notice that in the small group worship, the emphasis is more on joy and gladness (v.46) but in the large group, there is an emphasis on awe (v.43). This means that both awe/reverence and joyous praise are to be the marks of our worship.

Learning & Edification

It was intense. They "devoted themselves" (v. 42). This means that there was a high commitment to learning. Spirit-filled is not set over against the intellect! It was completely centered on the "apostolic teaching." It was not learning in general, but rather the study of God's revelation as it came through the apostles. Today, of course, the apostles' teaching is in the Scriptures. It was accompanied by "apologetics." They were not just taught what to believe but given evidence for why to believe it.

This point is missed unless we realize that verse 43 is not an isolated statement--it follows verse 42. The apostles teaching (v.42) was validated and verified by their miracles and wonders (v. 43). These miracles were not naked displays of power, but were signs. Heb.2:3-4 show us that the purpose of miracles in the early church was to show listeners the truth of the gospel message the Apostles brought. A survey of the Bible reveals that miracles are not distributed randomly and evenly throughout history, but they come in clusters, when God sends a new set of messengers into the world with a new stage of revelation. We must realize that the principle of v. 43 was that people were shown evidence of the truth of apostolic teaching, so they would devote themselves to it.

Fellowship & Community

Fellowship was also intense ("they devoted themselves ... to fellowship" v. 42). It was therefore not something that just happened. They worked at it. This implies accountability with one another, a sense of responsibility to care and support and guide each other. It was daily ("every day "v. 46). They did not just see each other on Sundays, but were involved in each other's daily lives. It was economic as well as spiritual ("had everything in common "v. 44). They recognized not only that other brothers and sisters had a claim on their time and heart but also on their resources.

It was very small group/house church based, "they broke bread in their homes" v. 46. This statement as well as the one found in Acts 20:20, "teaching you in public and from house to house" and greetings to "the church that meets in their house" in I Cor. 16:9 and elsewhere-we can see the importance of small group community in the early church. They had regular meetings where this same set of ministries--learning, loving, worshipping--was conducted at the mini-level, so as to supplement what was happening at the "maxi" large group level. Their fellowship and community was extremely sensitive. They knew immediately who had "need" (v.44).

Outreach & Evangelism

The outreach and evangelism was dynamic. They experienced conversions "daily "v. 47. Their outreach was based on demonstration through community. One reason that people were saved is that the love and note of praising was highly attractive to "all the people" (v. 47). This cannot mean that every non-Christian loved the early church because there was certainly plenty of persecution. But it meant that overall the early church demonstrated the gospel in its community in such a way that was irresistible to outside observers.
Mercy & Social Concern

The ministry of mercy integrated both word and deed. Verse 44 seems to indicate that the economic sharing was mainly practiced within and among Christians. But we know the early church did not confine its deed ministry only to Christians. Paul says in Galatians 6:10 that Christians "do good to all, especially the household of faith." Their sharing was heavier inside the community, but their generosity went outside the church as well.

We can't read v.44 as forbidding private property to individuals. The Bible elsewhere makes it clear that private property is valid. This is therefore a voluntary, informal, but powerful sharing fueled by love not rules. (cf. Peter's rebuke to Ananias in Acts 5:4). Different Christian communities have voluntarily practiced this in different creative ways, some much more structured than others. Their social concern was very church-centered. When a person was saved, he or she was "added to their number" (v. 47) and incorporated into the church. Today many people are converted through ministries that have little relationship to local churches and the converts also have little relationship to a congregation. That was not the case in the early church.

Please let me know your thoughts

© 1998 Tim Keller's (Acts Curriculum, Evangelism: Equipping Believers in Mission and Outreach, Version 2.)