Life of Believing

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

LIFE OF BELIEVING

Acts 8:1-8

8:1 And Saul was there, giving approval to his death.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.

4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. 6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.

NIV

Luke is showing in advance, that Paul, who at the time went by the name Saul, how evil he was. Although Saul was a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, he was a religious zealot and entirely against the Christian movement. Most likely Saul was among those who heard Gamaliel speak about what had happened because of Peter and John. He had said there were other movements that sprang up and when their leader died, the movement died. So it will happen again with this Jesus movement if it is from men, but if it is from God no one can stop it. It looks like Saul disagreed with that assessment and went about persecuting as many Christ-followers as possible. He was a one-man wrecking machine. The believers had already scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. It would seem right that Saul being a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Jew of Jews, would not follow those who scattered into Samaria, even if his hatred was that intense against the Christian church. However, even under the potential of Saul finding them out, they continued to proclaim Christ. Now we are reminded of Philip when he asked Jesus to show him the Father and that would be enough for them to truly believe. Jesus responded that if Philip saw Jesus, then he saw the Father. Now after that day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, Philip is one of them who is full of the Holy Spirit and must also be full of the power of God and so he did many miraculous signs. It is interesting how we have this comparison between Saul and Philip, one man filled with evil, and the other filled with the Spirit. The result was fear because of Saul, and great joy because of Philip. Evil always brings some kind of fear, but the Spirit will always bring joy. Because we have the Spirit, we are also filled with joy. In addition, sometime later, Saul, after his encounter with Jesus, usually starts his letters to churches with the grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus. The point is that when we are at peace with God, we are in a tranquil state, assured of our salvation and fearing nothing from God and we are content with our earthly lot, whatsoever sort that is. The Spirit always bring about this peace, this tranquility within us, and he also brings his gifts, which we see some of them displayed in the life of Philip, casting out evil spirits, healing cripples, and paralytics in the name of Jesus. God was using Philip in a powerful way through the working of the Spirit. Should not our lives reflect the moving or working of the Spirit in us? Again, did all this stop with the Apostles? Did God change somehow over the years since then? We know that is not true, God does not change, so then we must be the ones who have changed, who have restricted the working of the Spirit so that we live without His power within and so we are not seeing any signs and wonders. We are not being persecuted, at least in our country, like the early church was, so we need not scatter. However, we can perform many miraculous signs right within our midst, if we unleash the power of the Spirit and allow Him to manifest his gifts within and through us. It is that simple, and yet we struggle with this. Why? We believe in Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit, so maybe it is time to have the life we believe in.