Day 329: The Ethiopian Eunuch (2024)
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Time matting father maxims, and you're listening to the bible in the year pod guest, when we encounter god's voice and live life to the lens of scripture, bible in the your pot guests, are you by ascension using the great adventure vivo timing will read all the way from genesis to revelation, discovering how the story of salvation on pot and how we fit into that story today.

IT is a three hundred and twenty nine wearing from the access chapter eight, as well as paul the romans chapters thirteen and fourteen and proper chapter twenty seven versus fifteen through seventeen. As always, the bible l translation on reading from is the revised standard version. Second catholic sion.

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As I said, IT is day three hundred and twenty nine and we are reading actually postle shaped eight sample le letter to the romans thirteen and fourteen and the book of proverb up for twenty seven versus fifteen through seventeen, the acts of the apostles les chapter to eight and a soul was consenting to his death, so persecutes the church. And on that day a great persecution arose against the church, introduce em, and they were all scattered throughout the region of judea and america, except the apostles. Les develop men buried Stephen and made great lamington over him, but saw laid waste to the church.

And entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Phillip preaches in somalia. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Phillip went down to a city of somalia and proclaimed to them the Christ and the mother tudes, with one accord gave heated to what was said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs which he did for unclean spirits, came out of many who were possessed crying with a loud voice, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city, Simon the magician. But there was a man named Simon who had previously practice magic in the city and amazed ed, the nation of salaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.

They all listened to him from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is that power of god, which is called great. And they listened to to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. But when they believed to phillip, as he preached the good news about the kingdom of god and the name of jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed.

And after being baptized, he continued with Philip and seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed now, when the apostles that jerusalem heard that samaria had received the word of god, they sent to them Peter and john, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the holy spirit, for the spirit had not yet fAllen on any of them, but they're only been baptized in the name of the lord sus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the holy spirit. Now, when Simon saw that the spirit was given to the length on of the apostles hands, he offered the money saying, give me also this power that anyone I lay my hands may receive the holy spirit.

But Peter said, when you are silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of god with money, you have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before god represent therefore, of this wickedness of yours and pray to the lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you for I see that you are in the goal of bitterness and in the bond of the equity. And Simon answered, pray for me to the lord that nothing of what you have said may come upon me. Now, when they are testified and spoke in the word of the lord, they returned to jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the similarities Philip and the ethiopian unique.

But an Angel of the lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south, to the road that goes down from jerusalem to gaza. This is a desert road. And he rose and went and behold. And ethiopian, a unique, a minister of cans, the queen of the ethiopians in charge of all her treasures, had come to jerusalem to worship and was returning. Seated in this herod, he was reading the profit isaia, and the spirit said to Philip, go up and join this cherokee.

So phillip ran to him and hurt him, reading as they at the profit, and asked, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I, unless someone guide me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now, the passage of the scripture which he was reading was this as a sheep LED to the slaughter, or a lam, before its share is silent. So he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation for his life is taken up from the earth. And the unique said to Philip, please, about whom does the profit say this? About himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news of jesus.

And as they went along the road, they came to some water. And the unique said, see, here is water. What does to prevent my being baptized? And he commanded the Cherry to stop.

And they both went down into the water. Phillip and the unique, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the lord caught up.

Phillip and the unix saw him no more, and he went on his weight, rejoicing. But phillip was found at eeta and passing on, he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to his arria. Same polls letter to the romans chapter thirteen, being subject to authorities, let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

But there is no authority except from god. And those that exists have been instituted by god. Therefore, he who resists the authorities resists what god has appointed. And those who resist will encourage judged for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

Would you have no fear of him who is an authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is god's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sort in vain. He is the servant of god to execute his rap on the wrong door.

Therefore, one must be subject not only to avoid god's raf, but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason, you also pay taxes for the authorities. Are ministers of god attending to this very thing? Pay all of them their dues.

Taxes to whom taxes are do revenue, to whom revenue is due respect, to whom respect is due honor, to whom honor is due. Love for one another. Oh, no one.

Anything except to love one another for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments you shall not commit. Adultery you show.

That kill you shall. That steel you shall not cut. And any other commandment are summing up in this sentence, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. An urgent appeal.

Besides this, you know what hit is how IT is full time now for you to wake from sleep preservation? Is neurosis us now than when we first believed the night is far gone, day is at hand? Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the army of light.

Let us conduct ourselves becomingly, as in the day, not in revving and drinkin', not into battery and licentious ness, that in quale and jealousy, but put on the lord jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. Chapped to fourteen, do not judge one another. As for the man who was weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions.

One believes he may eat anything while the weak man eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who obtains pass judgment on him who eats for god has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another IT is before his own master that he stands or falls, and he will be upheld.

For the master is able to make him stand. One man is deemed one day as Better than another, while another man is deems all days like let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes that in honor of the lord.

He also who eats, eats an honor of the lord, since he gives thanks to god. Well, he who abstaining, abstaining in honor of the lord, and give thanks to god, none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the lord.

And if we die, we die to the lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the lords. For to this end, Christ died and lived again. That he might be loured both of the dead end of the living why do you pass judgment on your brother or you? Why do you despise your brother?

For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of god for IT is written as I live that says the lord, every knee shop out to me and every tongue sh'll give praise IT to god. So each of us shall give account of himself to god, do not hinder a brother, then let us know more past judgment among another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and then persuaded in the lord jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but IT is unclean for anyone who thinks IT unclean.

If your brother is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for home. Christ died, so do not let what is good to you be spoken enough as evil.

For the kingdom of god does not mean food and drink, but righteousness and peace enjoy in the holy spirit. He who thus serves Christ is acceptable to god and approved by men. Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upper building.

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of god. Everything is indeed clean, but IT is wrong for anyone to make others fall by what he eats. IT is not right to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble.

The faith that you have keep up between yourself and god happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves? But he who has doubt is condemned if he eats, because he does not act from faith. But whatever does not proceed from faith is thin. The book of problems chapter twenty seven versus fifteen through seventeen, they continued dripping on a rainy day, and a contentious woman are alike. To restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one's right hand iron sharpens iron, and one man sharp another.

Father and help me. Thank you and give you praise. Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you for feeding us with your word, with your spirit. Thank you being present to us in shaping our hearts and letting them on fire. Help us to love you and to love our neighbors, our self.

Help us to love each other. Well, in jesus name, we pray in the name of the father and of the sun and the only spirit. And then so guys, you guys, oh my goodness.

Ss, actually the puzzles incredible. I want to highlight the couple things. One is a, you might be odd that we started with chatter eight verse one, and it's arts with the word, and which basically connects chapter seven per sixty.

So you might have thought, wait, what what happened again? This was when, Stephen, we had been stoned, and they laid the clothes at the feet of a Young man named saw. And Stephen cried out, lord, do not hold this thing against them.

And when he had said this, he fell asleep. The next first and soul was consenting to his death. That so that kind of like, if you are wondering, wait, what that's what.

And right after this, in basically same first chapter eight, first ones continued. He says, on that day, great persecution rose against the church in jerusalem. So here, starting with Steven, then other Christians are were the persecuted.

And that is in one verse verse, one of the eight and solis consenting to his death. That's one. The next thing on that day, a great persecution of rose against the church, jerusalem.

That's two persecution verse in three same verse here. And they were all scattered throughout the region of judea and samaria, except the puzzles. Now, those three movements here is all consenting to Stephen's death. Secondly, here is the persecution arising in jerusalem. Thirdly, here is the scattering of Christians throughout the region of judea and samaria.

Remember what jesus had said? So I will always receive the holy spirit, and then you will proclaim, basically, bring the gospel starting here in jerusalem, throughout judea and somalia, to the ends of the earth. And this is jesus as words being fulfilled.

But what is the context in which they're being fulfilled? The context is persecution. I think sometimes Scott would be me to pray about this, especially as as Christians in the twenty first century, we need to pray about this.

Sometimes we think, well, i'm going to have the blessing of god. If i'm going to live out the plan, the will of god, it's going to be pretty right. It's going to be more um there is going to be less pain.

There is going to be less persecution. There's going to be only blessing. What happens here first one of after eight saw consenting to Stephen's death, church being persecuted.

And that Sparks the next step of eventualities ation. That Sparks the next step of the growth of the church, not just in jerusalem, but throughout you d and america. And then further persecution will Spark even more growth to the ends of the earth.

And that's one of the things we just have to realize, that suffering, that obstacles, that persecution, doesn't mean things have gone wrong. That doesn't mean automatically that things have gone wrong sometimes. That's just how IT goes.

And that's my incredible until we gave a little peace here of fill up. One of those were sent and he's sent out, and he begins preaching the word in somalia. And he comes upon this man.

And Simon, who is a magician, amazed everybody. But then of the said, and they see the power of the spirit. Even Simon himself becomes a Christian. Peter, john, become to that same region in somalia. And this is where we have the term simmons, S I M O N Y.

Simmons is the buying and selling of religious things, are buying and selling of sacred things, are the buying and selling of like blessings, that kind of idea. IT is a sin, and that comes from chapter eight, eight of the axy postles. We here, Simon in the magician who says, I want to buy the power of the holy spirit from the apostles.

Les and Peter has some very stern words for him. And so the churches also has very stern words for anyone who would want to buy or sell holy things to buy ourselves blessings. It's a sin called Simony, named after Simon, which just kind of fun.

I mean, you imagine your name becoming the name of A A sin. I don't know that it's fascinating to me, but the conclusion of chapter eight of the axy puzzles is one of my favorite ite stories is eat the open unique at the open unique? right? So here's this man, and he's unique.

So basically, he is unable to become A G because because of his status as being a unique, he is not allowed to be a person of the convent of the old covenant, but he is a god fear. He has come to jersey m to worship, even though he can't participate fully in the worship of the people of israel. And so he's fascinated by the book of the prophet a here.

And Philip, I love this, Philip. The wholly spirit moves Philip to go up to the, and Philip asks him the question, do you understand what you're reading? And the response of the ethopia unique is, how can I, unless someone guide me, this is so important for us.

The book we've been reading, you know, the seventy three books we've been going through, we're not done yet. We have thirty plus days. But the seventy three books we've going through, they are god's infallible word, absolutely, in the enviable word of got absolutely.

But mean, we all know that they can be misinterpreted. We all know that god's word can be used and and distorted. We can not even just be distorted.

I can just be misunderstood. And so here's god's infallible word. What god's infallible word needs for us to encounter our impact, our lives in a way that's infallible, is needs an infallible interpreter of the word. And so an infallible book without an infallible interpreter, a worthless book.

Because if I can get the interpretation wrong, then, then, and that is kind of useless, right? So what we need is what the you can open, unique pointed out, how am I supposed to understand this unless someone can guide me as someone can teach me? And that is the role of the church. Here's the role of phillip in this case.

And it's just incredible to realize that god has given us that he's not only given us the infallible d of god, he's given us the the teaching office of the church is given us what to call the magisterium to be able to guide the experiment, to guide the interpretation, to guide our understanding of the chart. We're going to see this actually play out in the next couple of chapters. After all, soul has his conversion.

There's going to be a number of moments where it's like, how do I understand this? How do we understand baptising? How do we understand circumcision? And the church is gonna able to answer that question.

And it's just a really beautiful thing. I'm not try to make too much too strong of the case there. Persist, it's compelling, is worth praying about. I I would say that one. A quick note about romans, what's happening in the litter of same pole to the romans will one of the things that's happening is there's many things, obviously, but one of the things that's happening is there's this call to love. Now think paul has been talking this whole time about freedom that if you're free from the law, then you're you're not bound of the law, right? You you are now living by the law of love, you know, living by the law of the spirit.

And so that doesn't mean now that you have license, that doesn't mean gone to do anything because you have to love each other in the s he says, in chapter to thirty first eight, oh, no one to anything except to love one another for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law and this is a very, very interesting PC applies this to the reality that there is some contention, there's some discussion over okay. So are there foods that you can eat, like other foods that Christians can eat? For example, are there foods that were offered, offered in pegg temples that now Christians can't eat because they were part of A A religious ceremony govert to a false god? And the idea is, some people would say, no, that's completely find no big deal to eat the meat.

And others would say, no, that's scandalous, because that meat was offered to a and idol was offered to a false god. And so same policy. Okay, whether you eat IT or where do you don't eat IT, that's irrelevant.

The most important thing is, does your eating of this meat hurt the faith of someone else, or does you're not eating of this meat hurt the faith of someone else? So take into account the people around you. And again, again, you can do whatever, basically, he said, you can kind of do whatever in this case, in this case, keep that in mind in this case.

But if what you choose to do is going to hurt the faith of your brother or your sister, then don't do IT why i'd of love that for them. And that's just it's almost seems like too easy, almost seems too common sense that most seems too clear. And yet when we try to apply that their own lives, is that is just so difficult because is that mean that I don't do anything or IT start to have to do everything? Because this is gna scandalize.

My brother or sister say, no, but we just come back down to this. The lot is a lot of love. If this is going to help my brother and sister, then why not do IT?

If it's going to hurt my brother and sister, then why would I do IT? Again, IT means living a dynamic. The life meaning is that just kind of bridges.

It's not just much of rules. It's about saying, will this help or this hurt? If IT hurts, I won.

Do IT if IT helps, maybe I will. I hope that make sense. Um but romance chapter thirty and fourteen we just read today is just it's full of James.

It's full of gold. It's full of just absolute, absolute beauty. In one last note, saml says in check to thirteen, he says, salvation is nearer to us now. Then we will be first believed the night is far gone on the days at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of a light.

And then just, that's the last word that will let that be the last word today just to live as in daylight, to walk in the light and to recognize that the lord loves you. God loves you. You're listening right now.

He's very proud of you. The father is very, very proud of you. I'm praying for you, and please pray for me and father mike, I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. Got less.