October 29th, 2014

Our enemy knows the power of the Gospel:
“But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.”
And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. Act 4:17-18  

Not surprisingly, he never ceases this same strategy.
Yet, what does the faithful Church do?
Acts 5:42:  And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.


There is no command here to stop doing acts of kindness.
The fear is this word.
We must not lose this.
The true Church prays with the Apostles,
Act 4:29:  “And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word,”

 

The Gospel is not flawed.

There is power in the word of the Lord.

This is what happened with the Thessalonians.

They didn’t become believers, then launch a programme.

They became believers, and lived that way.

And when they lived that way, what happened?

 

“For from you sounded out the word of the Lord”.

From the verb exēcheō (our echo).

To sound out a trumpet, to reverberate like an echo.

And, this is important, what they heard went out in such a way that what went out was “the word of the Lord”.

Not: “they are good people”, “they do good deeds”.

It was distinctly Gospel.