Author Archive for: meiling

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is Acts 4:23-37.  As usual, I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help, then read the GAME sharing below.  Let’s go! 

Acts 4:23-36 (NIV)
23  On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them.
24  When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.
25  You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: “‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
26  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.
 
On verses 24-26:  Notice how much the early church relied on two habits: prayer and studying the Scriptures.  Before the book of Acts, we see no record of the disciples searching and quoting the Scriptures themselves, but now after seeing the resurrected Jesus and after being filled with the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures become so important and alive to them. 

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is Acts 4:13-22.  As usual, I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help, then read the GAME sharing below.  Let’s go! 

Acts 4:13 (NIV)
13  When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
 
On verse 13:  Peter and John did not have any formal education, but they had spent three years with the Word, Jesus Christ.  You don’t need to have a formal education or spectacular worldly credentials to be used by God.  In the end, all you need is to have been with the Word, Jesus Christ.  The more you’ve been with the Word, Jesus Christ, who is wisdom personified, the more He gives you wisdom to live, to do relationships well, to pursue God-given dreams and to serve His people with power.

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is Acts 4:1-12.  As usual, I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help, then read the GAME sharing below.  Let’s go!

Acts 4:1-4 (NIV)
1  The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people.
2  They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.
3  They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day.
4  But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.

On verses 1-4:  The Sadducees were a group that did not believe in the idea of resurrection and were big critics of anyone who preached it (see for example Matthew 22:23, Mark 12:18 and Acts 23:8).  According to Acts 5:17, the high priest and all his associates were members of the Sadducees. 

Hi GAMErs,

Today’s passage is Acts 3:1-11.  As usual, I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit’s help, then read the GAME sharing below.  Let’s go! 

Acts 3:1 (NIV)
1  One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer–at three in the afternoon.
 
On verse 1:  At this point the early church was still comprised entirely of Jewish Christians.  Thus these early Christians would continue the habit of going to the Jewish temple to worship God.  Later on, as more and more non-Jewish (Gentile) people became Christians, the early church would need to tackle the question of whether these Gentile Christians had to follow Jewish customs like going to the temple.  In the meantime, here we see Peter and John going to the temple just like other Jews.  The traditional temple prayer times included 9am, 3pm and sunset.