Our church is doing 40 Days of Purpose, based on the book of Acts. Our first homework assignment was to read Acts in one sitting. Here are some of my random thoughts on Acts. (Part 1 can be found here…)
11. Is Cornelius a Greek version of Mary? 10:30 ff. reminds me of the angel appearing to Mary to announce the conception of Jesus – except here the angel announces the impending birth of the Holy Spirit inside the lives of you and I who are, like Cornelius, Gentiles.
12. Acts 11:12 – the Holy Spirit tells Peter to totally ignore the Old Testament Law. How bizarre this must have been for Peter. What if the Holy Spirit prompted one of us to totally ignore the New Testament covenant? I’m just asking……….
13. Why did God allow James to be killed, but allow Peter to live — all within the space of chapter 12?
14. Acts 12:15 – The Jewish believers in Jerusalem are the mirror opposite of the Gentile Cornelius. Cornelius prayed for guidance, lived out God’s promise, and acted in faith by calling his family together ahead of time to meet Peter. The Jewish believers were all gathered together to pray for Peter’s release from prison, and then when he was released (miraculously), they were surprised and thought it was his angel at the door! Good grief…..
15. Acts 13:38-39 would be an awesome sermon.
16. Somehow Paul could “see” that a person had the faith to be healed. (14:9) What the HECK?
17. Acts 15:40 says that after Paul and Barnabas split up over John Mark, Paul and Silas were “commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord” – but thereby seems to imply that Barnabas, who takes John Mark with him to Cyprus, was NOT commended. Hmmmmmmmmmm……
18. Maybe the answer to this is WAAAAAAY simpler than I always suspected – but I always wondered why immediately after agreeing on four simple requirements for new Gentile believers in chapter 15, Paul is recorded as insisting that Timothy, a believing Gentile with a Greek father and a Jewish mother, be circumcised? And this isn’t even taking into account the fact that Paul insisted that another Gentile, Titus, should NOT be circumcised!
Here’s what John Piper says, FWIW….
19. Here’s a question for you. Why did Paul wait “many days” to cast the fortune-telling spirit out of the girl who was following them? (16:18) Why not do it immediately? Why not do it after a couple days? What made him wait “many days”?
20. Here’s one I’ve never noticed before in this story (16:25ff). Paul and Silas in jail, the earthquake hits, the doors fly open, the jailer is ready to commit suicide, Paul says “Don’t do it!”, the jailer washes their wounds, God washes his spiritual wounds (how do you like that 
), they have a meal at the jailer’s house – but HERE’S the thing. They’re still prisoners! He’s feeding a meal to PRISONERS at his house. And not only that, but this is even weirder – (Is that a word?) – the jail officials KNOW that the prisoners have gone to the jailer’s house, and orders him to release them quietly. OK, this is just odd.
3:11pm
Thanks for your thoughts!!
9:24pm
Nater, I liked #11 most. interesting, very interesting. #12 was interesting. Peter must have felt totally lost. sometimes I read things in the bible and don’t really think about the real people who went through these things.
I read some of the Old Testament about a year ago, the story of Jacob and Rachel. I actually sat in my office at church and cried. I’ve never told anyone about this. It was weird and neat. What an amazing amount of love Jacob had to work 14 years for Rachel. All those stories about Abraham and his descendants, they are all like that.
Then Peter, there being told to disregard everything he knew, it’d be killer. #16..I agree..What the HECK?