The man Barnabas is one of the Bible’s hidden heroes. His gift for pouring strength into others was remarkable, accompanied by his ability to see how God was working, then strengthening believers to take up a vital role. His success in this was outstanding, to the point that humanly speaking we owe a third of the New Testament to him!
Urgent Needs
After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, on the day of Pentecost, there were a few thousand converts, many were pilgrims who came to the feast in Jerusalem and remained after their conversion. This created overcrowding in the church of the unemployed with urgent needs. The Christians rallied to meet the needs, but in time this would become unsustainable.
Fortified by Prayer
Once the apostles were released from jail for preaching Jesus as Messiah, including His resurrection, instead of going home, they went to their fellow believers to tell of their exchange with the authorities. Then the entire assembly praised the Lord with passion and prayed for boldness to preach God’s word.
Obedient Disobedience
Not only did the apostles remain unintimidated by those who arrested them, they preached to them too! But those hardhearted men were not interested, they were determined to outlaw anymore preaching in Jesus name. Under the devil’s orders, evangelism was prohibited by lost souls. The apostles refused to obey them.
Unintimidated Preaching
Peter and John were arrested for healing a lame beggar and crediting the healing to the risen Jesus Christ. This was not what the religious and governmental authorities wanted to hear. Peter, unintimidated by them, did not take back a word of he said, charging these very authorities with the crucifixion of their own Messiah.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- …
- 28
- Next Page »