Text: Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3 | Listen to Message What does it mean to be a Christian?   Christians are people who believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Therefore, those who call themselves “Christians” should probably think and act and talk a lot like Jesus. So here are a couple questions worth pondering: 1. If others based their understanding of Jesus Christ entirely on your actions and attitudes, what would they think Jesus was like? 2. If someone took you to court and charged you with being a Christian, what factual evidence would they be able to present to convict you? […]

Text: Acts 10:1—11:18 | Listen to Message The death of racism in the life of Jesus   The Early Church was troubled by deep racial divides between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were “God’s chosen people,” who had received many privileges that the Gentiles had not (including the Law, the covenant promises of God, the Temple, and even the bloodline of the Messiah). Many Jews felt elitist about these privileges and became full-blown racists. They looked down on the Gentiles and would have nothing to do with the “unclean dogs.” So the Early (Jewish) Church wrongly concluded that a Gentile could […]

Text: Acts 9:32-43 | Listen to Message Jesus demands the impossible   The two miracles in this text are linked by several astonishing similarities that illustrate the amazing, life-changing power of the Gospel. First, note that the characters in both stories were trapped in hopeless, incurable conditions: Aeneas was paralyzed and Tabitha was dead. But each story takes a sudden and dramatic turn when something absurd happens: Peter tells both of them to rise. You might as well tell a blind person to look at you; paralyzed and dead people don’t stand to their feet. This is an impossible command…except for […]