Opened Scriptures Bible Studies

The Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost with an unforgettable demonstration of power and holiness.  God birthed the New Testament church which began with 120 disciples in an upper room, and by this point in time numbers at least 10,000 to 15,000 believers! We noted that a great number of priests were born again. This is noteworthy because they handled all the sacrifices offered as sin offerings, peace offerings and thank offerings to God.  As Peter and the others preached from the Old Testament, the priests saw the connections of the suffering Messiah (Christ's first advent) with what the law and prophets foretold.  They understood that each animal offered as a sacrifice for sin was a picture of Christ on the cross dying for their sins.  Each animal offered as a thanksgiving and sweet savor offering to God was a picture of Christ's atoning work being our sweet savor offering accepted by God.  We shall see today that there was a swift reaction from the unbelieving religious leader

God is blessing this study of His word and it is our great privilege to study the Book of Acts together.  In Acts 6, we are presented with another issue that could cause division in the church and the manner it was handled by the apostles is a model for churches to follow today.  The Apostle's instruction pleased the multitude.  Acts 6:5  And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:  The apostles would not give up their primary ministry in prayer and studying the Word of God. The Spirit of God helped them discover a different solution.  They suggested selecting seven men to take on the ministry of distributing food and other items to the Grecian widows, in particular.  We know that there is nothing in scripture without a purpose and this is true of the names Luke listed. Each of them are a Greek name meaning that they

  In Acts five, the problem of Ananias and Sapphira's sin was exposed and dealt with by the apostles. When sin was judged and righteousness restored then the mighty blessings from God continued to flow. It encourages us to find that as the number of the disciples was multiplied it caused great anger among the priests and Sadducees to see God at work. Opposition from the religious leaders to the preaching of the gospel did not slow down the work of God.  Instead of checking the gospel's rapid progress, opposition helped spread the gospel. God will use opposition and persecution to grow His church. This is a pattern that we will see repeated in our studies through the Book of Acts.  This newly born, infant Christian church mirrored the Hebrews who entered into Egypt. As Pharaoh ramped up his persecution of the Hebrews, the more the people were afflicted, the more they multiplied. Today we are going to turn to Acts 6.  This chapter begins with another issue that the early church f

We ended the account of what happened after the church dealt with the sin of Ananias and Sapphira. God's blessing once again was poured out and great numbers of people were born again. There is little doubt that the number of new believers in Christ had surpassed 10,000 by this point in time. God's mighty works continued. Acts 5:14-16  And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)  15) Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.  16) There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.  We are going to see that another harsh reaction from the high priest, the  Sadducees  and Sanhedrin was forthcoming. The religious leaders were driven by hate and jealousy. Acts 5:17-18  Then the high priest ros

My prayers and greetings to you all... We have allowed the Pilgrims to speak to us through their own words by those who lived through it. They were credible and accurate eyewitnesses and we learned a lot about self sacrifice, about choosing to live for the glory of God and seeing how they trusted God to help them. Our culture ignores Thanksgiving altogether and jumps from Halloween to Christmas. We leap up to honor the devil with Halloween celebrations and then are dragged into an highly commercialized Christmas that is all about consumerism.   This is very wrong and I want to explore  Thanksgiving from a Biblical perspective. Thanksgiving is not a season that we stop briefly for one day to observe. Rather, for a believer in Jesus Christ, Thanksgiving is to be a way of life.  Let us define Thanksgiving. It is an expression of gratitude, an emotion from our heart expressing our pleasure in all that God does for us.  Thanksgiving is a public celebration of God's goodness toward us an

The hard task of addressing sin within the early church culminated in the deaths of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira. They plotted together to deceive the Holy Spirit filled apostles by keeping some of the money for themselves after selling their lands.  However, Luke tells us that all other believers who sold lands freely gave all the proceeds to the apostles to be used for meeting needs within the church.  We learned from Old Testament examples that what they did compares to Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire before the Lord. It was comparable to Achan's sin of taking the things at Jericho which God said must be burned, because he was a covetous man. There are many other examples that occurred during the leadership of Moses where God swiftly judged the people because they chose to sin and defile His name.  Each of the following texts records instances of the Hebrews sinning while God was in the midst of them, Each time, God judged their sin by pouring out His wrath.  See Numbers