Tag Archives: Rome

THE BOOK OF ACTS – WHO IS LYING?

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WHO IS LYING?

“After all this had come to a head, Paul decided it was time to move on to Macedonia and Achaia provinces, and from there to Jerusalem. Then he said, ‘I’m off to Rome. I’ve got to see Rome!’ He sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, on to Macedonia while he stayed a while and wrapped things up in Asia.” Acts 19:21-22 (The Message).

Paul had a dream and a plan! Rome was his ultimate destination, but his first mission was to go back to Jerusalem. He had been bundled out of Jerusalem many years before by his new-found brothers in Christ because his fiery debate with the Jews had made him a hot potato (Acts 9:28-30). He had a longing to go back to the mother city in Israel and visit his church family there.

When one considers that all his travels around Europe and Asia were long, tedious journeys on foot overland and by sailing ship across the Mediterranean, he was looking at many months of travel before he reached his destination. After all his years of travelling from and back to Antioch around many of the provinces of Asia Minor and Greece, it is amazing that he still had the dream to go to Rome via Jerusalem! He was not daunted by the distance or the cost.

Before he left, Paul was to discover just how much damage he had done to the worship of Diana in Ephesus. His ministry there had made a huge hole in the pockets of the silversmiths who were cashing in on the opportunity to make money out of her worshippers.

“But before he got away, a huge ruckus occurred over what was now being referred to as “the Way”. A certain silversmith, Demetrius, conducted a brisk trade in the manufacture of shrines to the goddess Artemis, employing a number of artisans in his business. He rounded up his workers and others similarly employed and said, ‘Men, you well know that we have a good thing going here — and you’ve seen how Paul has barged in and discredited what we’ve been doing by telling people that there’s no such thing as a god made with hands. A lot of people are going along with him, not only here in Ephesus but all through Asia province.” Acts 19:23-26 (The Message).

Someone was lying. Paul had both taught and demonstrated, through the power of God, that gods do not exist. Those who were practising witchcraft in the name of Artemis (Diana) were demon-possessed, but subject to God’s power. They were no match for Paul because he evicted them in the name of Jesus. When others tried to do that, they were overpowered by the demons.

Demetrius was not really as concerned about Diana as he was about his pocket. He had his own private god to protect — money — and money talks. It was easy to get his colleagues all stirred up because the revival in Ephesus was costing them as well.

“Not only is our little business in danger of falling apart, but the temple of our famous goddess, Artemis, will certainly end up a pile of rubble as her glorious reputation fades to nothing. And this is no mere local matter — the whole world worships our Artemis.” Acts 19:27 (The Message).

Really!

What a magnificent argument! Demetrius had to prop up his greed with an assumed concern for this goddess he was “protecting.” How much power did she really have if she needed a mere mortal to bolster her up against another mere mortal — Paul? Demetrius’ lies were flimsy but his co-workers easily believed him because they were also looking for an excuse to stir up trouble against Paul to protect their own interests.

Money is more powerful than any idol because money represents the spirit of Mammon. There is nothing a person will not do to protect that god if it rules his life. He will sacrifice everything to ensure that his god remains in charge. This powerful demonic stronghold is held in place by a superstructure of lies and lies have no substance. Like everything false, money also fails in the end.

There is only one Master who will never fail, Jesus. He is the truth. Every lie will be exposed and every fool who has believed them will join the liars in their destiny.

Unfulfilled Dreams

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UNFULFILLED DREAMS

“This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord’s people there.” Romans 15:22-25.

The Bible is such an interesting book! Not a book of philosophy or ethics, it’s a book about people, ordinary people, not plaster saints.

Although Paul was a servant of the Lord and in partnership with the Holy Spirit, he had plans and dreams which he wanted to fulfil, and which the Holy Spirit allowed him to follow as and when it fitted in with His bigger plan. Rome was Paul’s goal, the centre and hub of the known world. There was already a church there, no doubt the outcome of the witness of believers who moved in and out of the city.

As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul felt responsible for all His churches, even those he had not personally founded. However, since it was his ambition to take the gospel where Christ has not already been preached, his priority was to go to those regions first. Rome would have to wait. But now, it seems, he was running out of virgin territory and his thoughts turned to the people of God in the Eternal City.

He took the opportunity to write a letter to them, first of all to give them a thorough explanation of the message of God’s righteousness revealed in Christ, and then to prepare them for his visit sometime soon. He was not aware at that time, that the Holy Spirit had other plans for getting him to Rome.

Still a free man, he was on his way to Jerusalem to deliver the offering from the churches in Macedonia and Achaia to the believers in Jerusalem who were in great need because of a famine in the land.

“For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord’s people. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.” Romans 15:26, 27.

Paul was unaware, at that time, of a serious interruption in his plans that was coming as a result of his ministry to the Gentiles. He was a marked man! The moment he put his foot in Jerusalem, he would become the target of a torrent of Jewish hatred and murderous intent. Yes, he would go to Rome as he longed to do but, compliments of the Roman government, under Roman guard and at Rome’s expense.

He would not see Spain as he planned, but he had a commission to fulfil, as revealed to Ananias at the start of Paul’s Christian journey. He must still stand before Nero to proclaim the name of Jesus.

“But the Lord said to Ananias, ‘Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.'” Acts 9:15, 16.

Nero, like many of his predecessors and successors, thought he was God and demanded worship as Lord, Saviour and Prince of Peace! He had to learn, once and for all, that there is only one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, given the title by the God of the universe. Once he had heard the truth, he would have no excuse.

Paul’s dream to visit the Roman church as a free man was never fulfilled, yet God honoured his passion to go to Rome. Paul was content to carry out the Lord’s will, no matter what it cost him. Perhaps, for him to suffer for his Lord, unexpected though it was, was for him the highest honour because his Master had suffered for him in the city of God in his homeland.

It was perfectly okay for him to tell them his plans as long as they understood that his plans were always subject to his Master’s plans to whom he was submitted for better or for worse.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

From God’s Perspective

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FROM GOD’S PERSPECTIVE

“Through Him we received grace and apostleship to call all Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for His name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

“To all at Rome who are loved by God and called to be His holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 1:5-7.

What a power-packed greeting — the whole gospel in a nutshell, packed into two paragraphs!

In his address, which was the typical way in which ancient letters were written, Paul gave his own credentials; the subject of his letter; and the credentials of his recipients.

Since he was not personally known to the Roman church, he introduced himself to them as a servant and an apostle, set apart by God to deliver His good news to the world. But was Paul not a son of God, like everyone else who believed in Jesus? Of course he was. That was his standing before God, but from his point of view he was a servant. In another letter he described himself as a servant of God, a servant of the gospel and a servant of the church.

Paul was not subservient. He was as an apostle, one sent by God with a message and with authority, but he served God, the gospel and the church in his capacity as an apostle. It was not his right to do things his way. Since his apostleship was a calling from God and his authority delegated by God, he was first and foremost accountable to God for the stewardship of his calling and gifts.

Everything he had and did came from God, both the calling and the grace to carry it out. He was in a partnership with the Holy Spirit. It was not his right to call the shots; to make the decisions about where to go and what to preach. If he encountered trouble and persecution on the way, he was to stick to his calling and trust God for the grace to obey.

His apostleship gave him the right to declare and explain the gospel to the Roman church. He stood alongside the other apostles to whom Jesus had given the commission to place His yoke on those who believed in Him, His way of interpreting and living out the Torah — God’s teachings about Himself, them and the way to live.

The subject of his apostleship was the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the centre of everything, wherever Paul went and whatever the circumstances for him. Unfortunately for Paul, Jesus was a hot potato in the Jewish, Greek and Roman worlds.

To the Jew, Jesus was hated as an imposter and blasphemer because He said He was the Son of God. He angered the Romans because He challenged Caesar’s claim to be the son of God and the Greeks despised Him because He just did not fit their philosophical system. Their gods were powerful and despotic, not weak like Jesus who died on a Roman cross. That was nothing but foolishness to them.

And what of Paul’s readers? However they viewed themselves in the middle of all this antagonism and suffering, from God’s point of view they were His holy people, called and passionately loved by Him, the objects of His special attention, who provided both grace — everything they needed to be who they were — and peace — the outcome of being justified, declared not guilty because Jesus paid their debt.

How much both they, (and we), needed Paul’s reassurance in a world gone crazy! It is easy to doubt that we are God’s beloved children in the filth of the world around us. Just like the believers in Paul’s day, society is rotten with violence, greed, promiscuity, corruption and every other kind of wickedness, and it is only getting worse.

Like lilies blooming in the swamp, we are God’s beautiful recreation, and we need to keep it in mind constantly lest we also be sucked into the cesspool of sin around us. In the midst of it all we are called to be obedient to God because of our faith in Jesus. Much more than an intellectual assent to some teaching or other, faith in Jesus has brought us into fellowship with a holy God and requires us to be separated from sin and separated to Him.

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Come, Follow Me

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COME FOLLOW ME

“They said, ‘Nobody wrote warning us about you. And no one has shown up saying anything bad about you. But we would like very much to hear more. The only thing we know about this Christian sect is that nobody seems to have anything good to say about it.’

“They agreed on a time. When the day arrived, they came back to his home with a number of their friends. Paul talked to them all day, from morning to evening, explaining everything involved in the kingdom of God, and trying to persuade them all about Jesus by pointing out what Moses and the prophets had said about Him.” Acts 28:21-23 (The Message).

As always, Paul gave the first opportunity to his own people to hear the gospel. Putting aside all his previous experiences with the Jews, he summoned the leaders to listen to his story in the hopes that some of them would believe and take the message back to their own community while Paul was restricted to his quarters under house arrest.

Paul’s meeting with the Jews in Rome started off in friendly fashion. At least, as far as they were concerned, he could begin with a clean slate. His reputation had not yet preceded him. He could tell his story to an unbiased audience and allow them to make their choices without prejudice, so he thought.

For a whole day Paul opened up their Scriptures to them, shining light on and bringing new meaning to the old familiar words. What a Bible study it must have been! His letter to the Roman church had already been written, and his readers familiar with the grand truths that he had unlocked for them from the pages of Holy Writ. No doubt drawing from the understanding he had received under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, like his Master, he spoke of the glories of the kingdom of God to men who should have had an appreciation of the Scriptures.

“Some of them were persuaded by what he said, but others refused to believe a word of it. When the unbelievers got cantankerous and started bickering with one another, Paul interrupted: ‘I have just one more thing to say to you. The Holy Spirit sure knew what He was talking about when He addressed our ancestors through Isaiah the prophet:'” Acts 28:24-25 (The Message).

The same thing all over again! Paul should have been used to it by now. This is the nature of the gospel of Jesus. He warned that it would be so: ‘I did not come to bring peace but a sword.’ His truth and His claims inevitably draw a sharp line down the middle. Such is the truth about Him that no one can remain neutral or indifferent to Him.

There is an innate enmity against God in the heart of every human being until their deep need for Him rises to the surface with a longing to know Him that outweighs their antagonism towards Him. Some will follow their hearts while others will retain that inward hostility that will rob them of the mercy that constantly reaches out to them. They will put anything in its place rather than submit to the love that calls them to Himself. The fight is so strong that they will destroy the messenger rather than respond to his message.

There is little else in the world that provokes such a violent response as the claims of Jesus. Religion and politics are the main causes of the great divide. But Jesus’ call is not to a cause like religion or politics: it is to Himself. ‘Come, follow me,’ He invites us, and that implies only one thing. You cannot follow a dead man, therefore He must be alive.

Unlike the founders of every counterfeit religion who can only leave behind a record of what they said or did, Jesus is alive! Like all others, He died, but unlike any other, He rose again to authenticate every claim He made about Himself. He is the only one who can speak, now, into your heart, saying, ‘Come, follow me.’

The Eternal City At Last!

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THE ETERNAL CITY AT LAST!

“Then we came to Rome. Friends in Rome heard we were on the way and came out to meet us. One group got as far as Appian Court; another group met us at Three Taverns — emotion-packed meetings, as you can well imagine. Paul, brimming over with praise, led us in prayers of thanksgiving. When we actually entered Rome, they let Paul live in his own private quarters with a soldier who had been assigned to guard him.” Acts 28:14-16 (The Message).

Rome at last! The Eternal City, and what a welcome! One would have thought he was a returning hero and not a jailbird on his way to trial.

He certainly was a hero in the eyes of his friends. He was a well-known figure all over the empire. These friends, no doubt, were some of his converts, or converts of converts who had either moved to Rome or were introduced to Jesus through believers who had visited Rome at some time.

His welcome was so riotous that one can imagine a red carpet, with banners and streamers all over the streets — not that it actually happened! The centurion and soldiers must have marvelled at Paul’s popularity. The Christian quarter had been buzzing with the news that Paul was coming to Rome. They had no need of snail mail, e-mail, sms’s, satellite TV news or any of the modern forms of communication. Word of mouth was just as effective when an important person was coming!

They turned out in numbers and in relays to welcome him and show him love and support in his awkward situation. The centurion and soldiers were not his guard; they were his guard-of-honour to herald his arrival in Rome. One would almost have expected Nero himself to be part of Paul’s entourage!

What was the mood among his beloved friends? Joy and celebration! Hugs and tears! For many of them it was the first time they had seen his face, but they knew him so well that they would have recognised him anywhere. His letter to the Roman church was in their hearts, no doubt by now copied and re-copied, carefully preserved and highly treasured for its rich teaching and tender exhortations.

Paul was overwhelmed by their loving and enthusiastic welcome. Forgotten were the years of languishing in prison, the uncertainty of his future, the hardships of the voyage, the peril of the storm and the terrifying experience of being flung into the icy waters of the Mediterranean Sea. His heart was flooded with joy and gratitude. His God was faithful — guiding him safely to Rome.

How long he had wanted and planned to visit Rome, but not this way! Nevertheless he was secure in his Father’s perfect will, and that was a cause for rejoicing. With his feet firmly on Italian soil and surrounded by his friends, he lifted his soul to God in an outpouring of gratitude and praise.

This was the environment of Paul’s life. Praise! Beat him, stone him, throw him in jail; Paul prayed! Buffet him in a stormy sea, fling him into the deep, pound him with mountainous waves; Paul praised! Chain him up to a Roman guard, bring him face-to-face with death; Paul rejoiced! Wherever he went, he was surrounded by an aura of joy.

It was out of his history of trouble and suffering that he built his portfolio of God’s grace. How else would he have been able to share his unshakeable conviction that nothing could separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Whatever encouragement, whatever exhortation you may read in any of his letters, you may be sure that he wrote out of deep personal experience.

This life into which we have entered through faith in Christ is a marathon of testing, an obstacle course of opportunity to overcome self, sin and the world, and to be put on display, as Paul was, as proof of the glory of our God. A praising heart is the evidence that we, like Paul, know whom we have believed, and are convinced that He is able to guard what we have entrusted to Him for that day. (2 Timothy 1:12b).