Monthly Archives: December 2019
Murder or Manslaughter? – Acts 3:17-21
Summary:
“Wot” (3:17) means to know (Gen. 21:26). But where’d Peter get the idea the Jews didn’t know what they were doing when they killed the Lord? From the Lord! (Lu. 23:34). They could have known they were crucifying their God, the prophets described Him so well, but they didn’t. So Peter reduced the charge against Israel from murder to man-slaughter (cf. Deut. 19:4-6). Murderers had to die (Num. 35:16) but manslayers could flee to a city of refuge (35:10-30).
Israel’s people didn’t know He was God because they didn’t know their Bibles (John 7:25-27 cf. Micah 5:2). Israel’s rulers didn’t know He was their Christ because He was from Galilee, and they thought no prophet could come from Galilee (John 7:52). But Jonah did (Jonah 1:1 cf. II Ki. 14:25 cf. Josh. 19:13-16 cf. Mt. 4:15).
If rulers sinned through ignorance, they too could be spared (Lev. 4:22ff), and if the whole congregation sinned through ignorance, the priest could offer a sacrifice for them as well (Lev. 4:13).
Peter said that God fulfilled the prophets in killing the Lord (Acts 3:18) because in early Acts here God was assuming responsibility for their guilt. That’s how He could offer this manslaughter charge. But when they rejected His offer, Acts 13:27 says that the Jews fulfilled the prophets in killing Him. That’s similar to how God imputed our sins to Christ on the cross (II Cor 5:19), but will impute them back to unbelievers if they don’t get saved (cf. Rom. 4:8).
“Ye” (Acts 3:19) is plural. Peter offered salvation to individual Jews in Acts 2:38, but here he is offering salvation to the nation. Remember, the nation of Israel had to be saved before God’s plan to reach the other nations could continue (Acts 1:8), because God planned to use Israel to reach the Gentiles, and He insists His representatives be saved.
As further proof the nation needed to be saved, when the nation didn’t get saved, Paul reminded them that Isaiah had predicted that the nation wouldn’t get saved (Acts 28:24-27). Paul also told them what God was doing about it, turning to the Gentiles (28:27,28). See that word “convert” in Acts 28:28? That’s what Peter was asking the Jews to do in Acts 3:19, but they didn’t repent.
Peter is still talking to the nation when he extends God’s offer to blot out their sins (Acts 3:19). That’s what individuals get when they get saved. If they don’t, their sins aren’t blotted out or covered (Neh. 4:5), but if they do, their sins are covered (Rom. 4:7). But God dealt with Israel as a nation, and the nation won’t get their sins blotted out until “the times of refreshing” come (Acts 3:19), i.e., the kingdom.
We see types of this when God forgave Israel every time they fell (Num. 14:19). If they sinned so badly that God let them be taken captive, they were to “repent” and He would forgive them (I Ki. 8:46-50). They didn’t repent in Peter’s day, when they were in captivity to Rome, but they’ll be in captivity again after the Rapture, this time to the antichrist. If they’ll “repent” in that day (Acts 3:19) God will forgive the nation. We see a type of that when they repented during the Babylonian captivity (Ps. 85:1,2).
But before the kingdom can come, something else had to come first. Peter was speaking on the day of Pentecost, but the feast of the Day of Atonement followed Pentecost. That didn’t stand for Christ’s death; Passover stood for that. The Day of Atonement stood for the day Israel would get the benefit of Christ’s death. We get that benefit when we believe (Rom. 5:1,11), but Israel won’t get that as a nation until they believe as a nation. When will that happen? At the Second Coming of Christ (Rom. 11:26,27).
The kingdom is called “the times of refreshing” due to verses like Isaiah 35:1-10 and Zechariah 14:20. The heaven “received” the Lord (Mark 16:19) and will continue to receive Him “until” then (Acts 3:20,21). “Restitution” (v. 21) means to restore what’s lost. Adam lost the right to live in paradise on earth, but the Lord will restore man’s right to do that. All the prophets spoke about this (Acts 3:21), but none of them spoke about God taking us to heaven in the rapture. That was part of the mystery given to Paul (Rom. 16:25).
Video available on YouTube: Murder or Manslaughter? – Acts 3:17-21
A Condensed History of the World
Peter Saw His Chance and Took It – Acts 3:12-16
Summary:
When a crowd gathered after Peter healed the lame man, he saw his chance to speak to preach to the Jews and took it. The thing he “answered” (3:12) was the marveling and the looks they gave him, as if he healed him by his own power. Jews should have known better than to act like the dumb Gentiles in Acts 14:11-15! That shows the sorry spiritual state Israel was in at Pentecost. Peter went on to tell them that Christ had worked the miracle, similar to what other men of God had done in time past (Gen. 41:16; Dan. 2:28-30).
What’s holiness got to do with healing (Acts 3:12)? The holiness of the kingdom will fix all that’s wrong with the world and all that’s wrong with lame men (Isa. 35:4-8). So when that lame man walked, the Jews should have known their God had come (Isa. 35:4) in the person of their king. They never thought of their kingdom without thinking of their king (Lu. 19:38 cf. Mark 11:10).
Once Peter had them thinking about their king, he reminded them of what they did to Him (Acts 3:13). The Jews loved Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they just weren’t too sure about this Jesus guy. In mentioning the patriarchs, Peter is reminding them that there was a time they weren’t too sure about that Moses guy. But God told Moses to say that the patriarchs sent him (Ex. 3:15). So in mentioning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob here, Peter is suggesting God raised up another prophet, a prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15-18).
God “glorified” the Lord (Acts 3:15) in many ways, but Peter must be thinking of a way God glorified Him before the Jews killed Him, for that’s Peter’s point. He said, as it were, “You killed the One God glorified.” That had to be when He raised Lazarus (John 11:4). So Peter’s point was, “You killed someone who could give life” (cf.3:15).
Peter mentions Pilate wanted to let Him go (Acts 3:13) be-cause the Jews were blaming Rome for killing the Lord (cf. Acts 5:28) after saying they’d be responsible (Mt. 27:24,25).
Deny (Acts 3:14) is the opposite of confess (cf. John 1:20), and they had to confess the Lord to be saved (Mt. 10:32).
They denied Him, but were getting a 2nd chance to be saved.
Peter calls the Lord “Holy One” because that’s a name for the Father (Ps. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Isa. 1:4; 5:19,24, etc.). So Peter was telling them that in denying Christ they were denying the Father.He knew that they knew the Father had someone He called “Holy One,” someone who had died and gone to hell (Ps. 16:10). That was the Holy One that Peter said they denied, and denying Him before Pilate led to His death.
Pilate didn’t know He was God, but he knew He was “just” (Mt. 27:19-24), that is, that He hadn’t broken any of the laws of justice. And Peter knew that the Jews knew by experience that He’d never sinned, let alone broke the law (Jo. 8:46).
When they desired a murderer instead of the Lord (Acts 3:14), that was a type of how they’ll desire Antichrist instead of Christ (Jo. 5:43). Barabbas was a thief and a murderer (Jo. 18:40), and Antichrist will steal physical life and eternal life (Jo. 10:10). Barabbas was guilty of sedition and insurrection (Mark 15:7; Lu. 23:18,19), and Antichrist too will rebel against Israel’s ruler and declare himself king of Israel.
“Prince of life” (Acts 3:15) means giver of life, as “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6) means giver of peace. Peter’s point is that they saved a taker of life and condemned a giver of life!
The “soundness” of the lame man (Acts 3:16) was what the nation of Israel lacked spiritually in Isaiah’s day (Isa. 1:5-7) and at Pentecost. But if Jews joined Peter in the little flock, they could enter the kingdom, something the lame man typified when he entered the temple with Peter and John.
Finally, it wasn’t the lame man’s faith in Christ that healed him, for he hadn’t expressed any (Acts 3:1-6). It was the faith of the apostles in the power the Lord gave them to heal people that healed him (Mt. 21:21; Mr. 11:22), i.e., faith in His name (Mark 16:17,18). So when Paul tells you that you can do things like not let sin reign in your body (Ro. 6:12), we know the only thing keeping that from happening is your faith in what God says that you can do. He wouldn’t say not to let it happen if you couldn’t let it happen. So don’t!
Video available on YouTube: Peter Saw His Chance and Took It – Acts 3:12-16
Mouths That Must Be Shut
Religious deceivers have always been common, even back in Bible days. That’s what prompted the Apostle Paul to warn Titus,
“…there are many… vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped…” (Titus 1:10,11).
But how did Paul expect Titus to go about shutting the mouths of these teachers of the Law? When one remembers what a tough man Titus was (cf. II Cor. 7:15), one shudders to think of how he might have chosen to shut the mouth of a deceitful vain talker! I hear Titus was so tough, he had a bearskin rug. The bear wasn’t dead, he was just afraid to move!
But while Titus was a tough man, he was also a saved man, and he knew there was a better way to shut the mouths of false teachers. Do you remember how the Lord did it when He was questioned by the chief priests, the scribes, and the Saducees (Luke 20:19-38)? He answered their questions so thoroughly that “after that they durst not ask Him any question at all” (v.40). In other words, He stopped their mouths.
And that’s how Paul expected Titus to shut the mouths of the vain talkers! He expected him to teach the grace of God so thoroughly and so convincingly (cf. Tit. 1:9) that it would leave these vain talkers men speechless. And that’s how God expects us to shut the mouths of deceivers who would teach the Law in our own day.
Now you’d think that would go without saying, but I know a lot of grace believers who try to shut the mouths of others by mocking them, ridiculing them, or belittling them. What an example of how “knowledge puffeth up” (I Cor. 8:1). Of such people, Paul wrote,
“…if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know” (I Cor. 8:2).
If you’re one of those who are busy shutting the mouths of others by being rude or condescending, you may know the grace message well, but Paul would say you know nothing as you ought to know it. You ought to know that the gracious way to stop the mouths of those who teach error is by a clear presentation of the truth.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
The Crown of Death and the Crown of Life
An Example of Apostolic Teamwork – Acts 3:1-11
Summary:
Did you ever wonder why only Peter and John are mentioned here (3:1)? The Lord had three favorite apostles (Mark 5:36-38; 9:2; 14:32), but James seems to have fallen from favor from Luke 22:8 onward. After that, it was always just James and John (Acts 4:13,19; 8:14).
Perhaps it was because James wanted the best seats in the house in the kingdom (Mark 10:35-37). Of course, John did too. But James is always mentioned before John, suggesting he was the dominant brother, and therefore the ringleader in that power grab. So James may have been an example of how pride goes before a fall (Pr. 16:18; 29:23).
But Peter was guilty of pride too (Mark 14:27-31), and didn’t fall from among the Lord’s three favorites. That’s why I think James counted himself out of the Lord’s favor. He probably never forgave himself for failing the Lord—like many Christians do today. The Lord honored his decision in Luke 22:8 to give him time to heal. He’ll come back stronger than ever in the kingdom—and so can you if you too are still beating yourself up about some way you let the Lord down.
You wouldn’t think they’d go into the Jews’ temple (3:1) after the Lord denounced it (Mt. 23:38), but remember, He asked God to forgive them (Lu. 23:34) and He did. So the temple continued to be God’s center of operations (cf. Acts 2:46). That’s significant since most Bible teachers say God broke off relations with Israel at the cross and didn’t give her another chance, choosing to start something new at Pentecost instead with the Body of Christ. But that didn’t happen until they stoned Stephen, after which God started the Body with Paul, who did stop hanging around the temple!
If James and John weren’t under the law any more, you’d also think they’d have stopped observing the law’s “hour of prayer” (3:1). The Jews actually had three hours of prayer (Ps. 55:17), and Peter never did stop observing them (Acts 10:9), even after the age of grace began with Paul in Acts 9. The kingdom saints also kept offering animal sacrifices (Acts 21:20).
The Lord healed lame men as a sign He was Messiah (Luke 7:22), but the disciples were supposed to give signs of that too (Isa. 8:18 cf. Jo. 13:33;21:5). Of course, Paul healed a lame man too, but his first miracle was symbolic. A Jew was blinded so a Gentile could be saved (Acts 13:6-13). That’s what’s happening today in the dispensation of grace (Rom. 11:25). Peter’s first miracle was also symbolic.
You see, the Jews had to walk with God to be saved (Ex. 16:4; Pr. 28:18). When this lame man was laid outside the temple, too lame to enter, he symbolized the nation of Israel, too lame to walk with God into the kingdom. Being lame “from his mother’s womb” was a symbol of how Israel’s lameness was caused by her religion (cf. Gal. 1:13-15). The apostles did “many” miracles (Acts 2:43), too many for the Spirit to record, but the ones He did record were symbolic.
Instead of enriching the nation in the kingdom, the Jews’ religion had reduced them to the status of spiritual beggar, as symbolized by this lame man (Acts 3:3).
Peter had no money (Acts 3:4-6) for he had obeyed the Lord’s command to sell all he had and share the proceeds with the saints to be saved (Lu. 18:18,22 cf. Mt. 19:27-29).
When healers can’t heal you today, they say it’s because you don’t have enough faith. But this lame man didn’t believe Peter could heal him! He wasn’t expecting healing. He wasn’t even asking for it. This shows modern healers aren’t of God.
When God heals, He heals magnificently (Acts 3:7,8), but modern healers not so much—more proof they are not sent of God. We see even more proof of this in that this lame man was known by everyone to be lame (Acts 3:9-11), but we can’t be as sure of the strangers “healed” on TV!
What we’re seeing with the healing of this lame man is a taste of the kingdom of heaven on earth (Isaiah 35:1,6). Now God still knows how to heal, but He is giving you the opportunity to show others that His grace is sufficient for you instead (II Cor. 12:7-9). Are you showing it?
Video of this lesson is also available on YouTube: An Example of Apostolic Teamwork – Acts 3:1-11
Adherences Can Be Deceiving
Religious deceivers have always been common, even back in Bible days. That’s what prompted the Apostle Paul to warn Titus,
“…there are many…vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped…” (Titus 1:10,11).
Since these “vain talkers” were “specially of the circumcision,” they were probably deceiving people with the Law of Moses, something Paul elsewhere called “vain jangling” (I Tim. 1:6,7). Our Apostle Paul says that “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15), so the Law shouldn’t be taught as something that is binding on God’s people in the present dispensation of grace. That’s why Paul calls men who adhere to the law “deceivers,” for they are misleading God’s people about the truth for the present dispensation.
But before you decide to look down your nose on those Jews for that, did you notice that Paul says that those vain talkers were “specially” of the circumcision? That means they weren’t all of the circumcision. There were Gentiles who were deceiving people with the Law as well as Jews.
If you’re wondering why Gentiles would teach a law that God gave the Jews for a past dispensation, it is because Satan always makes sure that undispensational things are popular. And things that are popular are also usually very lucrative. So it is no surprise that Paul went on to say that these deceivers were “teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake” (Tit. 1:11). Even today, if you’re a deceitful Gentile preacher who wants to gain a large following and build a big church that can afford to pay you a handsome salary, teaching the Law of Moses is definitely the way to go!
Now if you’re thinking that teaching the law in the dispensation of grace isn’t a serious thing, you’re not thinking like Paul! Speaking of those “deceivers,” Paul wrote, “whose mouths must be stopped!” The Law of Moses may be in the Bible, but it is not in Paul’s epistles, the part of the Bible written to people living today in the dispensation of grace. It has well been said that Satan doesn’t care if you are Biblical in your teaching, as long as you aren’t dispensationally Biblical.
That’s why we here at Berean Bible Society are doing our best to stop the mouths of any and all religious deceivers by standing firmly for the proclamation of “the gospel of the grace of God” committed to Paul (Acts 20:24). If you’d like to join us in our stand, why not consider forwarding some of our Two Minutes devotionals to your friends after reading them? It only takes the touch of a few keyboard keys, and you’ll be eternally glad you did!
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.
Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.
The Greatest Foreign Missionary of All Time
Were the Lord’s Disciples Communists? – Acts 2:41-47
Summary:
The Lord’s disciples may have lived together in a communal state, but they ate their meat “with gladness” (2:46), so the answer is no! Communism never produces gladness!
We know they were saved because they “continued” in the apostles’ doctrine (v.42 cf. John 8:31). We see further evidence that they were saved when they continued in the apostles’ “fellowship” (v. 42). In our Lord’s day, “salvation was of the Jews” (John 4:22), but after the Jews crucified the Lord, salvation wasn’t just in the Jews in general, but in the “remnant” of believing Jews in Israel (Joel 2:32). That’s why Peter told them to “save yourselves from this untoward generation” (Acts 2:40), and get into fellowship with the believers in the Lord’s little flock of believers.
The “breaking of bread” (v. 42) can mean just eating meals (Lam. 4:4), but there’d be no need to tell us they continued eating meals! Here that phrase refers to how they continued to observe the Lord’s Supper, where the Lord also broke bread (Mt. 26:26). The Lord told them to observe it (Lu. 22:19), so they were observing it!
Finally, Verse 42 says they also continued in prayer, even though they were filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4). How much more should we who aren’t Spirit filled continue in prayer!
Fear came upon “every” soul (v. 43), even the believers. The word “fear” here just means reverence, as it does in Psalm 89:7. And reverence is just honor and respect, the thing kids should give fathers (Heb. 12:9) and wives should give husbands (Heb. 12:9)—and what we should give God (Phil. 2:12). Fear also came upon unbelievers (cf. Jer. 33:9). As they saw how the believers were living unselfishly for one another, they reverenced the God that enabled them to live that way.
The “tongues” they spoke in (Acts 2:4) are here called “signs” (2:43), and signs like that ceased when the Word of God was completed (I Cor. 13:8-10).
They weren’t all “together” (v. 44) in the temple, for there were 3,000 of them (2:41). They were together in spirit.
Did you ever wonder who told them to live with “all things common” (v. 44,45)? Luke hadn’t recorded Peter saying so, but he mentions the “many other words” he preached that day (v. 40). Since he spoke those words in response to the question of how to be saved (Acts 2:37), we know he told them to do what the Lord said to do to be saved and sell all they had and share the proceeds with others (Luke 18:18-22).
Pentecost was a taste of the kingdom, but this is not how they’ll live in the kingdom. At Pentecost, no man called anything his own (Acts 4:32), but they will in the kingdom (Micah 4:3,4). But these disciples were heading into the Tribulation, when the Beast will make it impossible to buy or sell without his mark (Rev. 13:17,18). They’ll need to share with one another to get through that. After that, they’ll hunger and thirst no more (Rev. 7:13-16).
You couldn’t continue “daily” in the temple (2:46), or in church for that matter, for you have to go to work! How come they didn’t? It was because part of what they sold was their means of making a living (Luke 5:10,11,27,28). This matches how the Jews will be “a kingdom of priests” in the kingdom (Ex. 19:6). Priests weren’t allowed to work! They were allowed to keep their primary houses though, and so eat bread from house to house (2:46). That’s because they weren’t allowed to sell their inheritance (I Ki. 21:1-16).
“Singleness of heart” (2:46) means they didn’t have a double heart, and so could keep rank and stay focused in times of war (I Chron. 12:33). That’s what the Spirit-filled disciples had at Pentecost, a laser-like focus on serving the Lord! The kind Paul says we should have too (Eph. 5:18). Isn’t that what you give your boss (Col. 3:22)? Why not the Lord?
This kind of living caused them to have favor with the unbelievers (2:47 cf. Pr. 16:7). “Such as should be saved” are not some elect group God chose to be saved. Peter’s already told us who should be saved—those who call on the Lord! (Acts 2:21).
Video of this message is also available on YouTube: Were the Lord’s Disciples Communists? – Acts 2:41-47
