In this section, a man bedridden for eight years is healed, and a dead woman is revived from the dead. Both of these miracles are carried out by Peter the apostle. Such Biblical stories can leave us wondering why we don’t benefit from these miracles today? Answer, our New Testament emphasizes preaching truth over miracles. Christ Himself deemphasized miracles as a basis for faith. Realizing this does not make us faithless.
The Awakened Tiger
Not only did Satan lose a useful subject named Saul, he gained a fierce adversary. This man Saul who was persecuting the Christians for Satan, having been saved by Jesus, became a tiger against the very same Satan, the devil! This chapter charts the beginnings of his awakening, after Jesus personally discipled him somewhere in Arabia.
Brother Saul
This man Saul was unraveled by the preaching of Stephen, and not only voted for Stephen’s death but also witnessed his brutal execution. Afterwards, still enraged, Saul persecuted and arrested as many Christians as he could, even to Damascus. Along the way Jesus Himself intercepted Saul, asked him to his face why he persecuted Him! Saul instantly submitted and was converted, and when a man named Ananias is sent to him, his first words were: Brother Saul! Then he baptized Saul, who was formerly the greatest persecutor.
Placed to Preach
Philip was a gifted evangelist, given a keener spiritual sense to detect when, where and what to say to people who had not given their lives to Christ. We saw Philip evangelizing on a large scale in Samaria, but now the Lord sent him to preach in the desert, where there was a sinner ready to listen, an Ethiopian, he believed the gospel and was baptized. Then, Philip preached his way up the coast to Caesarea.
Power to Preach
As Satan tried to crush and destroy the early church neither he nor the Christians who were being persecuted and fleeing Jerusalem realized at the time that the fleeing Christians were actually winning to conflict because they were converting more to Christianity by spreading the Gospel. In Samaria Philip made converts, then two apostles were dispatched to validate or negate the movement. They authenticated and joined the work but also rebuked a man name Simon for tying to buy God’s power.
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