Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“Through all this, the congregations grew stronger in faith and daily increased in numbers.” —Acts 16:5 Could you say that through this Easter season that “the congregations grew stronger in faith and daily increased in numbers”? If we don’t see Jesus adding daily to the Church’s number (Acts 2:47), it’s not that His promises are not true but that we are not receiving them. Jesus said: “I — once I am lifted up from earth — will draw all men to Myself” (Jn 12:32). Jesus has been lifted up in His death, Resurrection, and Ascension; therefore, we should see people...

“It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and ours too, not to lay on you any burden beyond that which is strictly necessary.” —Acts 15:28 The elders of the church of Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit decided Gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised, but rather had to change their lifestyle, “namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from illicit sexual union” (Acts 15:29). Meat sacrificed to idols was a major item in the marketplace. Therefore, to abstain from this was, in part, an economic decision. The Gentiles...