Bible in One Year Day 347 (Acts 26, Ephesians 1-3, Proverbs 29: 18-21)

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Day 347: Witness to Unbelievers 

Agape Bible Study Acts 26 

Chapter 26: St. Paul's Testimony to Governor Festus and King Agrippa II

 

Acts 26:1-11 ~ St. Paul's Final Defense Testimony 

King Agrippa invites Paul to speak So Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense. Raising and stretching out one's hand about head high with the back of the hand facing the audience and the palm facing the speaker was the Greek gesture of an orator ready to speak. Paul may have used this same gesture in Acts 13:16; 19:33 and 21:40. Paul opens with a statement meant to flatter Agrippa in verse 3 who claimed to follow the Jewish religion before beginning his defense. 

He is on trial for his hope in the promise God made to the Patriarchs that is the belief in the resurrection of the dead.

This is not the first time Paul has claimed to be on trial for his belief in the resurrection of the dead. He made the same claim in Acts 23:6; 24:15 and 25:19.

Acts 26:12-23 ~ Paul's Third Conversion Account

Question: How many times have we heard Paul's conversion story in Acts?
Answer: This is the third time.

St. Paul's conversion story is very similar to the other accounts (Acts 9:1-19 and 22:5-21). One difference is Jesus telling him: 'It is hard for you to kick against the goad.' The saying "it is hard to kick against the goad" is found in secular Greek literature of the times and points to the senselessness and wasted effort of working against divine will. A goad was a prod or stick that was used to direct yoked oxen to move or turn according to the will of their master. 

Question: What is the point of the saying for Paul?
Answer: Jesus was telling Paul it was a waste of effort to try to work against God's will for the direction of his life.

Acts 26:24-32 ~ The Reaction to Paul's Testimony

The concept of a bodily resurrection of the dead was completely foreign to the Greeks and the Romans, and therefore Festus calls what Paul teaches the talk of a madman. Paul however insists that the king knows about these things if he is a religious Jew and has read the Scriptures. The little saying: "this was not done in a corner" means Paul is presenting a story about Jesus and Christians that is by this time, three decades after the events, public knowledge. 

Since Christian missionaries like Paul proclaim nothing different from what the Old Testament prophets proclaimed, then the logical response for a believing Jew is to accept Jesus the Messiah and become a Christian.

Jesus Pronounced Innocent Three Times	Paul Pronounced Innocent Three Times
Pilate then addressed the chief priests and the crowds, "I find this man not guilty" (Lk 23:4).	Tribune Claudius Lycias in his letter to the governor: I discovered that he was accused in matters of controversial questions of their law and not of any charge deserving death or imprisonment (Acts 23:29).
Pilate said: "I have conducted my investigation in your presence and have not found this man guilty of the charges you have brought against him, nor did Herod, for he sent him back to us. So not capital crime has been committed by him" (Lk 23:14-15).	Governor Festus: "I found, however, that he had done nothing deserving death, and so when he appealed to the emperor, I decided to send him" (Acts 25:25).
Pilate addressed them a third time, "What evil has this man done? I found him guilty of no capital crime" (Lk 23:22).	Festus and King Agrippa: And when they had withdrawn they said to one another, "This man is doing nothing at all that deserved death or imprisonment" (Acts 26:31).

Also see Jn 18:38 19:4, 6.

Agape Bible Study Ephesians 1 - 3 

CHAPTER 1
Greeting and Opening Address (1:1-14)

Ephesians 1:1-2 ~ Paul's Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the holy ones who are [in Ephesus] faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Greco-Roman world, students in Greek culture schools were instructed in the conventions of letter writing. The typical letter contained a greeting and a short statement of thanksgiving followed by the introduction, the main body of the letter, and concluding with wishes for good health and a statement of farewell. St. Paul's letters follow the basic form of acceptable letter writing of his times, but he adapts the formal letter to suit his purposes:

1. He transforms the typical Greek greeting with a Christian greeting invoking grace and peace.
2. He usually extends the thanksgiving portion to include prayers to God.
3. He gives a benediction in place of the usually farewell.

In verse 1, instead of the typical Greco-Roman greeting chairein, "good-fortune," Paul changes his greeting to charis, "grace," meaning his desire that the grace of God be extended to the congregation.

Ephesians 1:3-14 ~ A Hymn of Blessing for our Divine Election

After St. Paul's greeting, he continues with a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. It was a Jewish custom to use the word "bless" to express both God's kindness to His people and their thankfulness to Him. Paul thanks the Lord for the many blessings Christians have received in their divine election as adopted children in the family of God. Paul's blessing is full of images perhaps been drawn from early Christian hymns and from the liturgy of Christian worship. 

The Unity of the Church in Christ (1:15-2:22)

Ephesians 1:15-23 ~ The Church as Christ's Body

St. Paul is moved to give thanksgiving and to offer a petition to God on behalf of the readers of his letter as he contemplates how wonderful it is to know God's goodness. The "holy ones" or "saints" he refers to in verses 15 and 18 are the faithful in the community of the Church on earth (see the explanation in 1:1). St. Augustine wrote: "To the degree that someone loves Christ's Church, to that degree he has the Holy Spirit" (Treatise on the Gospel of John, 33.8).

Question: What gifts does Paul ask God to give to the readers of his letter in verses 17-20? 
Answer:  Paul asks that they might receive:

1. a Spirit of wisdom
2. a revelation of true knowledge of God
3. an assurance in the hope of God's call to salvation and the inheritance of eternal life
4. an appreciation of the greatness of God's power in His gift of salvation to believers in Christ Jesus

CHAPTER 2
The Unity of the Church in Christ Continued

St. Paul has declared the greatness of God's power that has been manifested in the resurrection, ascension, and heavenly enthronement of God the Son in Ephesians 1:20-23. In the next chapter, he explains how God's intervention in human history through God the Son and "the surpassing greatness of his power" in raising Jesus to glory has affected "us who believe" (Eph 1:19). St. Paul's explanation is in two parts:

1. It was God's plan that Christ should reconcile mankind with God (2:1-10).
2. It was God's plan that Christ should also reconcile all peoples and nations to one another in His Kingdom of the Church (2:11-22).

Ephesians 2:1-3 ~ The Generosity of God's Divine Plan

St. Paul is known for his long sentences "it is as though he cannot contain his thoughts that spill out onto the page. Verses 1-7 are one long sentence in the Greek. It is the same in the first seven verses of Paul's letter to the Romans.

Paul turns his attention to his Gentile-Christian readers and makes a startling statement concerning the condition of their lives prior to their conversion. He describes their condition as "dead" before the Sacrament of Baptism, indicating a radically difference in their former lives compared to their present lives as members of the covenant family of the Body of Christ that is the Church. 

1 You were dead in your transgressions and sins 2 in which you once lived [peripateo = walked] following the age of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient. 
In the Greek Paul uses the word peripateo that literally means "walked." It is a word frequently used in both Old and New Testament Scripture to describe a person's way of life for good or for evil; see for example Genesis 5:24 = Enoch's right relationship with God; Genesis 6:9 = Noah's right relationship with God; Romans 14:15 = those who do not "walk" in love; and 3 John 3 = to "walk" in truth. 

Question: How was it that the Gentiles were "dead" prior to Christian Baptism? See verse 5, Jn 3:3-7; Rom 6:4; 1 Pt 1:3 and CCC 654.
Answer:  In their past lives, they were spiritually dead to God because they lived/walked in sin "both personal sin and original sin. Therefore, they were incapable of forming a true relationship with the holy One, the True God who is Himself life. It was in the life-transforming event of Christian Baptism that they experienced forgiveness of all sin and through the power of the Holy Spirit were infused with a "new life" and reborn into the family of God.

Question: Who is the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient that Paul refers to in verse 2?
Answer: It is Satan whose influence generates all sin and the temptation to commit sin (concupiscence).

Christians have received their redemption from sin and death through Christ's victory over the powers of Satan (verses 1-2). The forces of evil exert their influence, Paul writes, from the "air" between God's heavenly realm and human beings on the earth. 

In verses 4-10 St. Paul states that salvation from sin and death is God's gift of grace that we should accept in faith. The Gospel of salvation (2:3) that God "worked in Christ" (1:20) is generated by God's "great love" (2:4) that is expressed in the work of God the Son for our sake to reconcile us to God. Our hoped for justification and salvation cannot be purchased by good deeds; instead our good deeds should be the manifestation of our purification and gratitude to God for His abundant love and mercy. The sinner who is forgiven and restored to fellowship with God and with the faith community should desire to do something good in return for the gift of God's mercy and grace: by grace you have been saved (2:5).

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so no one may boast.
Salvation is a gift of God's grace that comes through faith and not by works so no one can claim he has achieved his own salvation. It is the same teaching Paul has given in Galatians 2:16-21 and Romans 3:24-28.

Ephesians 2:11-18 ~ The Church's Unity as One Flock in Christ

St. Paul writes about the Gospel of salvation that God worked in Christ for all peoples "the circumcised Jews and the uncircumcised Gentiles. Notice he writes of God's "covenants" plural. 

Ephesians 2:19-22 ~ Citizens of the Household of God

The divisions among peoples and their nations are now removed because all who profess Jesus as Lord and Savior are citizens of Christ's Kingdom of the Church and members of God's holy family—the "household of God." It is a "household" built upon the foundation laid down by the Apostles and Christian prophets (Ephesians 6:5Mt 5:17; Lk 24:27, 44-45; CCC 542-43). 

CHAPTER 3 
The World Mission of the Church

He [Jesus] answered them, "The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.'"
Mark 4:11

Ephesians 3:1-6 ~ The Mystery of God's Divine Plan

Paul identifies himself a second time as the writer of the letter and includes the information that he is writing from prison because he preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Notice that in verse 2 Paul uses the word "grace" as a gift entrusted as a "stewardship" to dispense to others through his teaching and not as a possession.

St. Paul - Rembrandt 

Ephesians 3:7-13 ~ Paul Commissioned to Preach God's Plan

In verses 7-8 St. Paul writes that it is his life's mission to be God's special herald of this new promise to the Gentiles. Then in verse 8 Paul expresses a humility that is lacking in his earlier letter to the Galatians, declaring himself "the very least" of the "holy ones." St. Paul makes a similar humble statement in 1 Corinthians 15:9, For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.

Ephesians 3:14-21 ~ Paul's Intercessory Prayer for the Readers of His Letter

In verses 14-21 Paul writes that he kneels in prayer for those who read his letter "his prayer also includes us as we read his letter in this study. This is his second prayer for those who read his letter; the first was in 1:15-23 or perhaps this is a continuation of the first prayer. 

The three parts of St. Paul's prayer:

1. I   Introduction (verses 14-15)
2. II  Petitions (verses 16-19)
3. III Doxology (verses 20-21)

Part I the Introduction: 14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named ...
Jews often stood to pray, but they also knelt. Kneeling is a position of submission that acknowledges the authority of earthly rulers and God the divine King; it is also an act of worship that expresses the inner attitude of humility and obedience. This is why we both stand and kneel when we pray in the sacrifice of the Mass (2 Chr 6:13b-14; Dan 6:10; Ps 95:6-7; Mk 1:40; 15:19; Acts 20:36; CCC 2702-3).

Part II: Paul's five petitions for the readers of his letter:

1. He prays that his readers might receive inner strength and power through the Holy Spirit (verse 16).
2. He prays that Christ will dwell in their hearts through faith and that they might be rooted and grounded in love (verse 17).
3. He prays that they might comprehend, in union with the Church, the glorious totality of Christ's authority in His work of salvation (verse 18).
4. He prays that they might know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge (verse 19a).
5. He prays that all the fullness of God will indwell them (verse 19b).

It is the Cross that stands as the proof of Jesus' love for us that can never fail and from which nothing can separate us.