Acts 1

In continuing my journey through the Word, (boy that sounds a little too emergent) I've done my best to exposit the first chapter of Acts. Right now my idea is to study a different section of scripture every day of the week, so Monday could be my Epistle day, and Tuesday my Pentateuch day, and Wednesday my Prophet day, and Thursday my Gospels day, and so on. I want to finish reading "Unleashing God's Word in Your Life" by John Macarthur because I feel like there is so much I'm missing. I wish I knew more backround, more history, more SCRIPTURE because the best way to interpret Scripture is with Scripture, but it's hard to learn Scripture when you don't know Scripture, because then you can't use Scripture to interpret Scripture. Anyways, instead of stressing out over the method, I decided to just dive in. It's been incredibly fruitful so far, even with my limited knowledge, and I have the Macarthur Study Bible to help me with the tough parts, but rely heavily (or soley) on the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth to me.

Today was especially neat, because I read through the first chapter of Acts. Actually, what I did was record myself reading it, but it on my Mp3 player, and listened to it several times this morning. I tried to break it down into sections, and figure out what it was saying. After listening to it, i sat down and went to work. I copied the text onto a Word doc, then I put the text in bold, and went through and added comments to each section. It looks a little something like this:

2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles Christ indeed commanded the apostles He choose. I believe these commandments given to the apostles concerned their testimony of Christ, and inspired the New Testament. whom He had chosen, Christ indeed choose the apostles for salvation and ministry.

3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, Christ was no doubt the Messiah, and His testimony causes all who saw Him to be not an intellectual interpreter, but instead a witness because they saw, heard, and felt Christ. being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Christ appeared to them after his resurrection and continued to teach them. This resurrection certainly solidified His claim as messiah, showing the believers His power over death. Because of the eye-witness accounts, and the men who would die to defend this truth, you’d be a fool to believe this wasn’t true.
4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, Christ promised the Holy Spirit, or the Helper, after His ascension, and assured them they’d be given power by this Spirit. This power was further testimony of the Truth that they received, and further acts as witness to every believer, and works to convict the world of sin. “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; Christ indeed promised it to them.


I usually end with prayer, and then think of something to write in my blog. Today I was blessed, though, because I noticed something in the middle section of the chapter... in vs 14 it says "they all continued in one accord in prayer and supplication." It doesn't say what they were exactly praying for, but that they were praying for the same thing together. They may have been asking God if there was anything they should do in the meantime, and then Peter stood up, and said something not famous, but remarkable, and I'll paraphrase... (in hopes you go and read it for yourself) He said scripture fortold Judas would betray us and meet the fate he met, and so the first act of the apostles was the fufillment of Scripture. Peter knew what Scripture said, and Scripture said someone would take his place, so he took it upon himself, with the new believers there, that he fufilled that part of scripture, and they choose a new aposlte, Mathias. What's remarkable is how clear it is. It even states the scripture Peter was referring to, Psalm 109:8, and he acted on it. Now this may be a bit of stretch, but isn't in interesting how Peter decided to act on what he knew about the Scripture? And all throughout Scripture, we find the same thing. Scripture is the authority, and we should labor to ensure we follow it. None of the apostles took cues from thier own ideas, but instead submitted to Scripture, and let it be thier guide. Amazing.

"Your Word is a Lamp to my feet, and a Light to my path." -Psalm 119:105