Bits and Pieces 

♦   Being the family photographer means Passport photos and portraits as well as the regular events of life.  Susan got a new portrait taken.

♦   My eight hours of summer teaching at Emerald Heights (and hundreds of hours of study time) earned me $600.

♦   Here is Jonathan, 8 days shy of 3 months. 

♦   Jean has multiple call backs for shows including The Light Princess and Shakespeare Dice: As You Like It with Dacha Theatre, and she's submitted a job application for the Events and Development Coordinator with Seattle Shakespeare Company.

♦   Annie and Nathanael have returned to their respective schools, and my schedule can always be found here.

♦   Not that I'm planning to depart any time soon, but Jean said I should write down the hymns I want sung at my memorial service.  They are Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and My Hope is Built on Nothing Less.

♦   On the 30th, I went out to Kidd Valley in Kirkland for burgers with my friend Ed Sloan.  Then we stopped in at The Goose Pub & Eatery in Bellevue for a pitcher of Mac & Jack's beer and watched the first half of the Seahawks/Raiders pre-season game.  When I go out with Ed he drives, so it seems like I always get three glasses of beer for his two!

My Quotes from August

Lesson 15 — On the rescue of Peter from prison

The last time Peter and the apostles were locked up we read this, Acts 5:19 “But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.” Would history repeat itself over 10 years later? This time, the king planned to take no chances ― assigning four “squads” of soldiers to guard him. The generic word “squads” is actually very specific in the Greek. A tetradion
(tet-rad'-ee-on) would be a squad of four. So four squads, or 16 soldiers, would allow for round-the-clock coverage in six hour shifts ― or shorter shifts at night.
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Maybe Peter had great faith ― or maybe he was exhausted from praying ― but either way, he needed a swift kick to wake him.

God does what only He can, in this case through the agency of one of his angels, his special messengers. Chains, guards, and the main gate were no obstacles for the angel. But once free, Peter was left to his own devices. As an escaped prisoner, he was now in more danger if caught than he’d been asleep in his cell.

Lesson 16 — Paul's 1st Missionary Journey (Part 1)

As I said at the outset of today’s study, the Holy Spirit was in charge here. This is our model for missions. People should not send themselves into some area of ministry without confirmation from the Holy Spirit, whether He speaks directly to a person, or indirectly through those, like these prophets, who have the spiritual gift to discover His wishes.

It’s important to see that Saul and Barnabas were called by God, yet commissioned by His church. This is not unlike the requirement that a new believer be baptized. The Holy Spirit works salvation in the heart of each new believer, but there is still that outward acknowledgement seen in baptism which joins the believer to the larger church.

Lesson 17 — Paul's 1st Missionary Journey (Part 2)

Regarding Acts 13:39

This is the only verse in the book of Acts which used the Greek word dik•ī•ă’•ō which means "justify." It is a legal term for “to declare righteous.” It appears twice in this verse ― but 35 times in the New Testament, including 14 times in Romans.

Martin Luther, in his Preface to the Acts of the Apostles wrote in 1533, that this is the “chief article of Christian doctrine.” Just this, that, “We must all be justified alone by faith in Jesus Christ, without any contribution from the law or help from our works. This doctrine is the chief intention of the book and the author’s principal reason for writing it.”

To be justified, means we are credited as if we had fulfilled every jot and tittle of the Law of Moses. That’s what Paul was claiming. And to Gentile ears it sounded wonderful. But to Jewish ears who assumed their salvation was dependent on their being descendants of Abraham, it rankled.
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Regarding Acts 13:51

So, as the evangelists left town, “they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them.”

This public protest signified that those who had rejected the message of the Kingdom were self-condemned and therefore rejected by God in return. Jesus included these instructions which are recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke 9:5 "If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when
you leave their town, as a testimony against them."

But Jesus did not invent the practice. It wouldn’t have any meaning if the act of shaking off the dust of ones feet were a novelty of recent origin.

In two instances, Jews would do the same thing. When they returned to Israel from foreign lands, they would ceremonially shake the dust of the Gentile lands off so as to not contaminate Israel ― and in a similar way, they would do the same when entering the Temple, as it was even more holy than the land of Israel.

The significance of the gesture would certainly not be lost on any Jew who observed it.

Lesson 18 — Acts 15

Although I think it’s inflated, and only God knows who are sheep and who are goats, who are wheat and who are tares ― today about 31%, or nearly a third of currently living humanity claims some kind of relationship with Christ. Compare that with the ― not 2% ― but the one tenth of 2% ― of people today who claim a Jewish heritage.

One would fully expect that if there is a personal God, a deity who intervenes and impacts the affairs of men and women, and if He has a plan of salvation, His plans will prevail and thrive. Indeed, this is happening. The numbers don’t lie.
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When anyone joined the Christian church ― and this was completely obvious and transparent back in this its first generation ― much more so than today ― they were joining a religious body whose foundation and history was completely that of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What we call the Old Testament was the only Bible they knew. While today we think of Judaism and Christianity as different religions, back then the followers of the Nazarene were simply a new and novel sect of Jews as far as the Roman world knew. This is so important to understand when we consider how such long term spiritual adversaries as Jews and Gentiles could not just COEXIST, as the bumper sticker says, but actually join together as brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ.

Thoughts from my July lectures at Emerald Heights.