Exploring God’s Word with Brad Thurston

Face like an Angel

Episode Summary

Acts 6:8-15 - Sermon from February 27, 2022 (Apologies for the echos that sometime occur. Also this podcast begins in the middle of a prayer before the sermon begins. May it be a blessing to you and to all who listen.) A testimony I heard from Richard Wurmbrand. What happens when someone "opens their mouth to speak"? This chapter is a major transition chapter in the movement that spreads the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Episode Notes

Multiplication in a new direction

            Growth as the Spirit leads. Question is this: why does the movement not have a name? Because they don’t see themselves as being outside of what is Jewish. Their worldview is very different from ours.  They see Jesus as the waited Messiah, so it is the completion of what they have been trying to defend. Here is the clash that the leaders had with Jesus, the apostles, and now the Hellenistic Jews. 

            The attack is similar to Jesus and the apostles who are arrested, tried before the Sanhedrin, and punished.  

            The face like an Angel is like Moses, the men in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:19,25; Exodus 34: 29,30) and Jesus at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:29) is a sign of Godly authority to speak on his behalf.

Things like Jesus:

  1. Wisdom that cannot be refuted: “for I will provide you eloquence and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to oppose or refute.”  Luke 21:15 NASB2020
  2. Sequence of events: open confrontation, spies, agitating the people, arrest, brought to trial at the Sanhedrin  
  3. The “passion” of Stephen: false witnesses, blasphemy, accused of speaking against the temple, and Moses.  This accusation is repeated 3 times just as when Jesus is brought before Pilate.

The apostolic succession, and the future of this movement to the Gentiles is getting the same foundation as to the Jews.

What do we learn from this?

  1. How are we preparing?
  2. Understanding the issues within the Jewish mindset. 
  3. What did the Pharisees believe? Why are they so upset?

The focus on Jesus and an experience that results in demonstrating the passion for The one true God!

            Like The fiery furnace, Moses, the transfiguration 

Our commitment to Jesus