acts 1

our sunday school class started to study acts a couple weeks ago so i wanted to discuss a few of the things from acts that stood out to me or some others during that class.

acts is a great book. it starts out with Christ promising the disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit. it is hard to understand for the disciples because what could possibly replace Christ? he tells them that this is not the time to free israel. i think if i were one of the disciples i would start to question if Jesus was ever going to restore or if it were just talk, however Jesus did just rise from the dead so he atleast does have that on his resume. Christ tells them to spread the word about him which is really one of the few times he asks the dishowciple to tell people about him. up until now he didnt want to draw attention on himself.

Jesus does go to heaven and then the disciples walked back home to what is considered the upper room. there are 120 present and in verse 14 said they were in this for the good or until the end. they were completely together or united in which is a miracle because having 120 people united on something can be a hard task. specifically at this time unity is very important as it is up to them to carry on the gospel as Jesus had commanded to the very ends of the earth. what is also nice about verse 14 is that it says women were included.

what took place next was deciding whom would replace Judas as a disciple. we were kind of wondering what the purpose of this might be. suggestions included Jesus had chosen 12 so they wanted to keep it at 12. another was said Judas was the treasure which is a position that should be filled. yet another was that the disciples traveled by 2.

how they chose the next disciple to replace Judas is interesting. they concluded through prayer that the person must be someone who had been there since the baptism up until the ascension including witnessing the resurrection. so obviously there was some criteria that this person had to meet. they decided on two candidates and after prayer cast lots. we all kind of chuckled because we knew this would never happen today. lets draw straws to see who our pastor might be. but then this lady at our table rose her hand and said she had been a part of a church growing up that deciding things buy placing the names in a hat and drawing them out, after much prayer of course.

i am defianely looking forward to the rest of this book. i understand that i didnt touch on all aspects of acts 1 but that should give you enough to chew on for now.