From the desk of Pastor Edd

Acts 7:56 "I see Almighty God in all of His glory and Jesus, the Son of Man is standing on God's righthand." We pick up the Book of Acts in Chapter seven in the middle of Stephen’s sermon. He is speaking to the High Priest, the Council, and his accusers, the men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen. Stephen continues talking about Moses.   Acts 7:20 "But God raised up Moses at this moment in our history, and his family would not let him die. 21 "When he was three months old and they could no longer keep him hidden, Pharaoh's daughter brought Moses into her home and raised him as her own son. 22 "Here Moses received a great education and became a powerful man in all he did and spoke. 23 "Near the age of forty, he decided to visit his brothers in the community. 24 "On one trip Moses noticed a brother being mistreated by an Egyptian and he killed the Egyptian.  25 "He thought this would show to his brothers that God was with Moses and through ...

Stephen, one of the seven chosen by the congregation to serve tables, to be a deacon, now finds himself before the High Priest, much the same as Peter has a number of times in the Book of Acts already. The High Priest and the Council are listening to some people from the synagogue of the Freedmen who accused him of speaking against the Moses, the Temple, the Law, and even the customs of the Jewish people. Of course, this was all out of jealousy and spite. The more they accused Stephen, the more the Council were amazed at the look on Stephen’s face as it was glowing like what they expected an angel’s face might look like.      Acts 7:1 And the High Priest questioned Stephen, "Is this true?" 2 He spoke, "Listen, brothers and elders. Our LORD God visited Abraham while he lived in Mesopotamia, long before he lived in Haran, 3 and spoke to him, 'I have a new place for you to live, but you will need to leave behind this country and your family.' 4 "Abraham left th...

  Acts 6: 2 The twelve disciples gathered the congregation together and said, "We are becoming overwhelmed with all the serving and are neglecting our responsibility to the Word. 3 "We believe the solution is for you to select seven men from your number, and we will put them in charge of the serving. Pick people who have a good reputation, have a real sense of the Holy Spirit, and would be considered spiritually wise. 4 "Then we can concentrate on prayers and the teaching of the word." 5 All of the people gathered thought this was a great way to handle the situation and they put forth Stephen, a man full of the Holy Spirit and faith, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, who was a proselyte from Antioch. 6 When these seven were brought before the apostles, they prayed for God's wisdom and laid their hands upon these new servants. The word for servant in Greek is “Deacon.”     One of the teachings we can draw from this passage has to do with t...

            The church is now beginning to form and as is always the case, leadership of any group has to become more organized the larger the group gets. It was sufficient for Moses and Aaron to call the people of Israel out of Egypt by word of mouth, “we leave tomorrow morning.” But once they were across the Red Sea and out in the wilderness near the location of the burning bush, Jethro, had to step in and help Moses become more organized in his leadership. Even now, if you get a group of people together, the first thing they have to do is decide which leader they will follow.     In chapter 6 of Acts we see the beginnings of organizational structure emerge and the 12 apostles become overwhelmed with all the work of the church and the need of others to share the load of ministry. They know they were called to teach the words of Jesus and to preach the good news to the world, but in this passage, we find, they were not very good at doing the...

Acts 5:17 The Sadducees, the religious leaders from whom the high priest is appointed, became jealous. 18 They had the apostles arrested and placed in jail. 19 In the middle of the night an angel of the LORD appeared to the apostles and opened up the gates of the prison. The angel encouraged them saying, 20 "Tomorrow, go to the temple and continue to teach the people about this new Life you have in Jesus."                 Peter and John have now been into the court room of the Sanhedrin a number of times since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Each time they receive a warning to stop teaching in the name of Jesus. And each time they go back to their teaching on the next day. Once again, in this passage, they are arrested and placed in the local prison awaiting trial the next day.                 But this time their evening gets interrupted by an angel of the...