Posts Tagged "Acts"
Bangladesh
It has a population larger than Russia, crammed into a territory smaller than Florida, and I knew nothing about it.
Bangladesh is home to over 151 million people, the 8th largest population on the planet, and I didn’t know anything about its people, language, history, religious composition or economic status, its military might, its food, its art and culture or even its location, other than “somewhere in Southeast Asia”.
NOTHING.
A passing glance at a wall-mounted world map first clued me in. Scanning the capitals and borders, place names and colored topography, I saw a little box labeled “World Population” with Bangladesh ranked higher than Russia, and it made me think.
Jesus said that His followers were to “be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, NLT) Though most of us can’t GO to the people at “the ends of the earth”, can we at least pray for them? Can we at least think of them?
I can’t know everything about every country, or even know much about most, but I can know enough to pray.
Can you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh
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Lord AND Christ
“God has made him both Lord AND Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified…” Acts 2:36b (emphasis mine).
Sometimes we instinctively think of Jesus as Lord, ruler, Master, the One who calls the shots. We are comfortable with the idea that we are called to serve and obey Him, and our life is focused on doing our duty well. There is comfort in duty, in knowing exactly what is expected of us, in the feeling of accomplishment we get when we’ve been a good worker. The problem is, when we know Jesus only as Lord and not Christ as well, we are not living in the freedom and peace He has called us to. We are always on, always working, and are living as hirelings at best, and at worst even slaves…
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Midnight and witness
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” Acts 16:25 (ESV)
Previously, we saw that for Paul, Silas, Peter and the other apostles in the New Testament, suffering is not something to lament over, but rather to rejoice in, and that the reason for this response is found in a dynamic relationship with the Living God. Their lives are one of many evidences in Scripture that the deepest, most fulfilling, most real experience this world has to offer is actually not of this world at all, but rather beyond it, and that true joy and meaning are found only in when our spirit enters into communion with the Spirit of God. We saw that because of this, any circumstance, “good” or “bad”, that brings us into communion with Him is one to be rejoiced in, and that this understanding of reality produces the kind of instinctive joy that we see in the lives of these men of God.
There is another thing in this passage, though, that particularly stood out to me. It is the little phrase at the end, “and the prisoners were listening to them”.
Picture for a moment, the setting of this passage…
This story does not take place in a climate-controlled, well-lit, moderately sanitary cell in an American county jail. This is a first-century Roman prison. Picture one or two sputtering torches fighting to stay lit under dripping ceilings, bolted to mildewed walls blotched with red stains from the untreated wounds of former prisoners. Think of the smell of an untended room with no running water, waste bucket in the corner, unwashed bodies now sweating in the heat of the day, now chilled in the drafty air of the night. Hear the skittering feet of rats, the constant drip of poorly diverted rainwater from a flat roof, the moans and fragmented ramblings of broken men, delirious from sleeplessness and malnutrition, and the occasional scream from a nearby interrogation going badly.
This is what midnight looks like in a first-century prison in Rome… not just dark to the eyes, but dark to the soul.
Now picture that night again from the perspective of one of the other prisoners.
You know what night is like in the prison. You know the sounds, the smells, the way people behave. You’ve seen it yourself, night after night. Tonight though… well, tonight something is different. The new inmates have only been here a few hours, but already you’ve noticed they aren’t like the others. They don’t have the same bitter eyes and snarling insults.
Then, all of a sudden in the middle of the night, they start to sing. Not only that, but these aren’t the usual songs of protest or vengeance you’d expect to hear from prisoners, not even songs about the hope of getting free someday. No, these are songs of praise to God, right now! They aren’t angry. They aren’t bitter. They aren’t plotting and scheming their escape or revenge. In a dark, putrid cell, with bleeding backs and bruised ribs… they are singing songs of joy.
Think of the questions that must have sprouted in the minds of the other prisoners; questions about these men, their stories, and the God they sing to. Even more, think of the opportunity for these men of God to share the reason for their joy and bear witness to the reality of the power of “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.
This is what happens when God’s power works in us to see every circumstance as a path to communion: not only do we have joy in our own hearts, but those around us will begin to notice and wonder why.
For the Christ-follower, one of the truest evidences of a faithful life is that it is not lived in secret, but in the open, where others can see a difference and know that “this Jesus stuff” actually works. Anybody can parrot the sound bites and say the lines of the Christian faith, but when midnight comes and we respond with joy, people notice, and that is the greatest witness of all.
Phillip Gonzales
7/17/2009
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Midnight and communion
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” Acts 16:25 (ESV)
I’m sitting at my kitchen table on a warm, humid summer morning. The sky outside is mildly overcast with a light breeze, and I keep thinking I should turn the air conditioner down a notch because my hands are getting sweaty. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet and I’m hungry, but I can’t stop typing. You see, I flipped open my Bible to have some quiet time with the Lord, the passage it dropped open to was this one about Paul and Silas in prison singing to God, and it just spoke to me. Deeply.
They had been going about their everyday life, preaching the Gospel and helping others, when they were seized by their enemies, unjustly accused, beaten severely and thrown into prison. Their response? Praising the Lord. What struck me was that when my day goes bad, chances are it isn’t anything close to that bad and it’s hard to rejoice, yet here they are, in prison, up all night, singing hymns to God. Talk about a joy that transcends circumstances, and this is normal! Paul writes to the church at Corinth,
“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Cor. 4:8-9, 16-18 (NIV)
… and to his friends in Philippi,
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” Phi. 4:11b-13 (NIV)
When Paul struggles, his reflex is praise. When he suffers, his reflex is joy. Not only that, but he’s not alone in this response. In Acts 5 we read how Peter and the other apostles were also preaching Christ, were also arrested and beaten viciously, and their response was to leave “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41)
Do you see what’s happening here? In their midnight in prison, Paul and Silas sang hymns to God, and their spirits were lifted to His in communion. In their “midnight” of false accusation and beatings, Peter and the apostles “shared in the sufferings of Christ” and their spirits were lifted to His in communion. For these Christ-followers, the Good News had so taken hold of them, had settled so deeply into their soul that they not only understood, but lived in the reality that the truest, deepest joy in life comes not in success, accomplishment, or freedom from suffering. It comes only in communion with God, when the lines that divide the temporal from the eternal are blurred and the Holy Spirit breathes fresh life into our being. With that understanding rooted in our heart, there is no darkness that can drive away our peace; no circumstance that can take our joy.
When “midnight” comes in my life and yours, it will take different forms. The death of a loved one. The loss of a job. The end of a dream. We live in a broken world and we are broken people. BUT, when God gives us eyes to see every situation as a chance to draw near to Him; when we truly begin to live in the reality that as Christ-followers, our sins are forgiven, our guilt is gone and we have an irrevocable hope in Christ; and when our “midnights” move us in to communion with God, then we can know deep in our bones the joy that God promises us, and that whatever road brought us there, was worth the journey.
Be still my soul, and wait for the Lord.
Phillip Gonzales
7/10/09
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