Acts 21 – The Crux of Christianity
by kellyg ~ October 26th, 2009. Filed under: Sermons and Discussion.Teacher: Pastor Richard Dahlstrom, October 25, 2009.
Discussion Questions:
Nancy Eckardt
1. In Acts 21:1, Luke describes their departure from Ephesus as “having torn ourselves away from them.” Can you think of a time when following God has caused you to be torn away from significant relationships?
2. “We need to look for the trajectory of God’s heart.” Where have you gained a greater understanding of God’s heart in the area of theology or spiritual formation? What process did you go through?
3. In what ways have you asked God to bless your plans, rather than submitting your plans to him?
4. How have you seen your need to submit “in little ways” over the past week?
5. When have you sensed God calling you to submit to him in a big way?
6. In Ephesians 1:11, Paul describes the end of the world as “the summing up of all things in Christ.” How do you see yourself participating today in “the summing up of all things in Christ?”
7. How have you made the invisible God visible in unexpected ways? What have you given up in order to live into what God has planned for you?
8. Can you describe a summer camp experience you had? What do you remember most? Can you remember the transition back to “real life?”
9. What have you learned about practices that you may have thought were required for salvation that you now realize are tradition or culture? How do you struggle with your relationship with the law?
10. Can you think of a time when you have given up your freedom to choose in order to encourage or identify with others? What was your reason for doing it? What was the result?
11. What area or issue in your life might God be challenging you to give up or change? What makes it difficult to let go?
October 26th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Two observations:
1) Although the daughters of Philip are identified as prophetesses this does not necessarily connote any sort of official position. Even if it did, this would not be an altogether new occurrence within the narrative of scripture. In Judges 4, Deborah is not only the prophetess-judge over all of Israel, she is the sole military council in deciding when to march out to war. There are many other women who appear throughout Hebrew scriptures acting in a similar fashion. While I support any and all women bringing a female voice to any and all areas of church leadership, it seems inappropriate to superimpose this idea of progress onto the scriptures. We can be radically moved by the Spirit without having to rely on precedent.
2) It is equally inappropriate to assume that Paul’s actions in Acts 21 are righteous, and it seems as though you went into this sermon with the notion that Paul did the absolute right thing and that the people of Jerusalem did the absolute wrong thing. Although Paul is responsible for the vast majority of Christian scripture, and is one of the only voices that we have on how the faith was lived out in its earliest years, he himself acknowledges that he is imperfect and very often fails. Is this passage acknowledging Paul as victor or failure, or both? That there is such ambiguity means that we need to be cautious with how we apply judgement in scripture, and it pains me that the Jews were afforded nothing sacred, given no kind of understanding. If Paul went to bring the gospel to the Jews and found himself arrested, it was likely because he was not perceived as bringing what they considered to be “good news”. Paul is even warned about this: Agabus wasn’t only speaking about the state of things in Jerusalem but about the state of things in Paul, as well. Several times in Acts it seems as though Paul can bring the gospel to any people except for the Jews, and I think that this is simply because they were a population for which there was too much at stake for Paul. Perhaps this passage can be read not so much as Paul’s pious selflessness but as his inability to receive council, in which case the message would be much different. Instead, I feel as though another sermon has been preached which elevates the stature of Christians by denigrating the sacred beliefs and practices of others, and I fear that we have come dangerously close to validating and sustaining further Antisemitism within the Christian church.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Richard, your theology always blows me away. It’s only now that I’m realizing how similar it is to Luther’s ‘Theology of the Cross’. I’m loving it. Thanks for continuing to bring it to the table in new ways. The Gospel never ceases to exist in your sermons. Praise be.
January 11th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Hello there – just a short note to say kudos for this entry. Very good.