From the desk of Pastor Edd

             The people who gathered to hear the disciples and watch the spectacle that was happening in Jerusalem came with one persuasion in their minds and many of them left with another idea of what they believed. What changed their belief? Understanding what it means to believe might help us trace the change in belief. Is belief just a different perspective on something? Do we just need to see an idea from another angle? Or is there something more profound going on when a person changes what they believe?                At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, thousands of people found something they had not accepted before but now they had such a deep conviction about one particular truth that they completely changed how they would live from that moment on. Here is the story from Luke’s perspective.    Gathering Acts 2:5-...

  I want to quickly remind you what I said last week in the introduction to the Book of Acts. We do not study the Bible just to gain knowledge about Christianity, or to learn a better way to live our lives, but so we can experience Jesus, or Savior. We will gain a vast amount of theology as we read and study through the book of Acts, but more than anything else, if we let it, the study of Acts will become for us an experience of a lifetime.    And what should we expect to experience as we study and learn today? We should be aware of our physical feelings and any indicators that we can notice of the presence of the Holy Spirit; tinglings, warmth, power, awe, a desire to pray, praise, or even laugh out loud.    Acts 2: 1 The disciples were still gathered together waiting when the day of Pentecost came. 2 They experienced a sudden loud and forceful wind filling the house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what looked like tongues of fire searching and resting...

  So many times, in my life, being a trained Mathematician, I have asked that question. The what ifs of life are numerous for me. What are the chances that I show up at someone's house for a pastoral call and I find that the family's mother has just died? How often have I been at the right place at the right time when someone needed my assistance? Is this life all by chance or by divine design? At what point do we just stop and trust that God has things under control?   God’s Leading    Acts 1:15 There were about 120 people gathered with them and waiting in prayer. Peter stood up one day and said, 16 "The Scriptures needed to be fulfilled when the Holy Spirit told us through David about Judas, that one of Jesus' followers would lead the people to Jesus on that final night. David said, 'he was numbered with us and had a share in our ministry.'" 18 (Theophilus, you might know that Judas took the money he received from betraying Jesus and bought a field and o...

Acts 1 Introduction Why do we study the Bible? Not just for the facts we learn. Not so we can understand and know who we are as Christians. But to experience Jesus. He told the Pharisees that they spend a lot of time searching the Scriptures to learn the meaning of life, but the Scriptures bear witness to Jesus and they had missed the whole purpose and meaning.  Think of Paul, or Saul at the time, who knew the religion inside and out and was at the top of the class in his early teens, but completely missed that he was persecuting Jesus as he went on his way to Damascus to round up the early church.  The book of Acts is a great lesson in church history and it will help us understand where it all started and why it started. We will gain a vast amount of theology as we read and study, but more than anything else, if we let it, the study of Acts will become for us an experience of a lifetime.  This book was written by Luke, a follow-up to his Gospel. He was a physician who me...