00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Reflections

01:21 Christmas Decorations and Celebrations

04:31 Upcoming Christmas Series: Expectations

05:43 Daily Bible Reading: Acts 18 and 19

05:49 Paul's Ministry in Corinth and Ephesus

09:19 The Importance of Education and Training

12:29 Paul's Miracles and Challenges in Ephesus

24:12 Conclusion and Prayer

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

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Introduction and Thanksgiving Reflections

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello, and it is Friday. We are headed into the weekend. I imagine most people listening have the day off today because of the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday, though not everybody, I guess some places are open on Friday, but our offices are closed and so our staff is off.

So we're actually recording this date. Early. We're recording this on Wednesday. We normally record on Thursday. So if something big happens over the next, I don't know, 72 hours and you're going, why aren't they talking about it on the podcast? It's because we're recording a little bit earlier than we normally do.

Send us photos of your best dishes if you're one of those people that take pictures of your food, I know some people do. Yeah. Occasionally I have. For especially wonderful meals, I will take a picture of it normally, not my thing. But if you have photos of really interesting dishes that you've had, send 'em our way.

We'd like to see what you guys ate. podcast@compassntx.Org. I took my daughter out for breakfast this morning at first watch, and she had chocolate chip pancakes. Oh, nice. And they were massive, so I took a picture of her chocolate chip pancakes. Oh, that's sweet. Yeah. Did you have the same thing?

The way to my daughter's heart is sweets, and so I asked, ordered a load of those to share, so that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Christmas Decorations and Celebrations

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Thanksgiving behind us. Christmas is now ahead of us, and it is now a great time to unveil all of your Christmas decor, everything, putting your trees up, your lights, all those great things.

Yeah, this is a great time of year. Yeah. I gotta get on my roof and put my lights up sometime soon. I, we decorated on Monday of this last week, but there were bad storms and so it wasn't. Too keen on getting the ladder out and getting on a wet roof and you know, falling to my death. So yeah, some of us have had our decor out for months now.

I think about my neighbors who, shot off fireworks well into the night for Diwali. Yeah. They had, lights and they had all sorts of things on their houses, and I thought, man I wanna do at least as much for Jesus, not a little more. Yeah. I wanna be bold about my witness in my neighborhood.

And so maybe you're a little less excited about putting into court. Maybe that's not your thing. I knew it wasn't my thing. It's certainly not my personality to be like, Hey, look at me. Here's all the cool lights and things that I'm doing, but I wanted to do it, and I want to get better at it as I get older, because I want people to know that I'm excited about things and this is a good and right thing to be excited about.

So if you're on the fence about putting lights up or putting up some Christmas decor on your home or inside or wherever, let us encourage you. That's a good thing. Get off the fence. Get off the fence, and jump into it with both feet. It's worth it. There are some things in life that are worth celebrating.

He himself came down to be a rescuer. Our redeemer, our savior. That is worth, it's celebrating if there's anything worth. It's celebrating. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about that a little bit. This this coming Sunday. We're gonna be talking about our gratitude and how our gratitude should express itself in celebration and worship and praise and testimony.

So, yeah, and even the idea of putting up lights, we think back to what. John writes that he came into the world as the light of the world. And so that's part of the reason why we decorate with lights, why that's associated with Christmas time, the incarnation and light coming into the dark world.

So, it's a good thing to do even if you can't get above, I don't get up to the very tallest peaks on my house 'cause that's way too high. You don't love Jesus that much, do you? I do and I wanna continue to serve him. And so that's why I'm not putting my life in danger by going way up there.

That's a great hymn. And we might even do that one Yeah. At some point soon. Yeah, that's a weird one. Yeah. I don't know if the beaches in church go together. It could. It could. And we're on the further side of the secret sensitive movement, so I don't think we're gonna be in any danger of offending too many people.

Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna try not to, we're gonna try not to offend people. That's the goal. Offend, confuse, connate, frustrate. We're gonna try to avoid all of that if possible.

Upcoming Christmas Series: Expectations

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So, hey, this Christmas season, we're gonna be talking about expectations. And so our Christmas series is gonna be geared up on.

The way that God has changed our expectations for Christmas and Christmas comes with a lot of our own expectations. You think about it you're planning for it. You've got your vision in your mind right now of what you feel like Christmas is gonna be this year, and maybe it's gonna be a hundred percent accurate to what your plans are.

We feel like Christmas should be about what our expectations for what we feel like Christianity should be about and how God goes above and beyond those things, even though sometimes it's in ways that we wish he would do things a little bit differently than he did. So we're gonna have a four part series, three weeks on Sunday mornings, and then our Christmas Eve service talking about the idea of expectations this Christmas and how God has come to to surpass them and exceed them in ways that maybe we didn't anticipate.

Daily Bible Reading: Acts 18 and 19

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Well, let's jump into our daily Bible reading. We're gonna be in Acts 18 and 19. Acts 18 and 19.

Paul's Ministry in Corinth and Ephesus

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Key figures in the church and they're gonna continue to be that. And in here, in Corinth, Silas and Timothy are going to come back and rejoin the apostle Paul. And this is where we get in verse six, this statement that Paul makes and he's made it before, but he says it again here. It's, he says, when they opposed in, reviled him.

This is the Jewish people here. He shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads from, for I am innocent. From now on, I will go to the Gentiles. And yet. Paul still will go back to the synagogues. It's not as though he is completely done with the Jewish people. And like I mentioned yesterday's episode of the day before, I think this is just indicative of his heart for his people.

He wants his people to know the gospel, but from here on he really does begin to focus much more on the Gentiles. In fact, his third missionary journey, which we're about to get to here, is gonna largely focus on Gentile territory. He's gonna be getting into the realm of Ephesus modern day Turkey, Asian minor at the time.

There's so much so that he could say it definitively without any qualification. There are people in the city who are my people, and I take this to mean that exactly what I suspect, that there are people yet to be evangelized who will respond positively to, to the gospel, and consequently they're his people.

And that's the reality for all of us who are. Now maybe a little timid to evangelize. There are people in our city, in your city that are God's people and they have yet to bow the need of Christ. And our job is to go out there and spread the net far and wide. We're not to make distinctions, we're not to dis disin discriminate against people.

We're to throw the net out and let God be the one who brings in the fish, but he's guaranteed there are fish out there. We just need to go out there and catch 'em. Chapter 18 ends with the introduction of a man named Apollos. And Apollos is an interesting character. He is actually one of the people that is thrown out there as a potential author of the book of Hebrews.

But Apollos is a man at this point in Acts chapter 18, who has a lot of zeal, a lot of passion, but not a lot of knowledge. And so Priscilla and Aquila, who we met at the very beginning of this chapter, they come across Apollos. Apollos is preaching, he's preaching. Boldly in Ephesus, but he doesn't have the background.

And I think.

The Importance of Education and Training

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This just points to the importance of education. It points to the importance of training. A lot of times a new believer is just raring to go and wants to get out and talk to as many people as they can about Jesus, which is great. But if that person there's one thing to do that, to say, I'm gonna go share the gospel with as many people as I can, that, that everybody is qualified to do, but.

There's a difference between that and somebody saying, okay, and then I want to go on the mission field, or then I want to go plant a church, or then I want to go become a pastor. And that's where we would say, okay, there needs to be more training. There needs to be more of a foundation built in there.

Not the only way to do this. We love school. We love formalized schooling and education, then that's a great thing. A lot of people who have the means and the availability to do that should probably consider that. But there's a lot of ways that you can do this. We have an embarrassment of riches today where you can take online classes, you can do Sure, informal seminars and you can buy, some of the.

Best books to have ever been written are available for free on A PDF or on your Kindle or something like that where you can read some of the most competent material available in all of human history, basically is available on your machine, on your desktop, on your laptop, on your iPad, all these areas you can get them on audio books.

Gone through certain classes, Greek and Hebrew, and had some foundational groundwork laid. But you don't need to do that. If most of you guys are listening, you're probably not gonna be pastors. You're probably not gonna be ministry leaders, and that's okay. But you are Christian and Christians should competently grow in the scriptures.

We should grow always for the duration of our lives or growing up in Christ that second Peter three 18, right? Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We should do that. And that's our encouragement to you looking at the life of Apollos. The flip side of that is we do have an embarrassment of riches, but there's also a lot out there that we need to be discerning about.

That's true. And so that's a hard thing. And so we would encourage you, if you come across a resource and you've got questions about it, you've not heard of this person, or you look at their bio, you don't know. Yeah. You know where they're from. Text PPJ 9 1, 1 9, 1 day or night. Whatever it is, just text him nine one one and he'll call you back asap.

Self-publishing. Yeah. Oh man. That is that is a nightmare. Because anybody can put it out there, and we have to be discerning readers. So even if you have something and you, you're starting to read it and you recognize something in it, and you're saying, wait a minute, this doesn't line up with what I know to be true about scripture.

Like we saw with the Berean a couple of episodes ago, be a noble berean. Take it to the word of God, and if you see this doesn't line up, it's okay to shut a book and put it away and not pick it up again. If you find that it's promoting error. That's correct.

Paul's Miracles and Challenges in Ephesus

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Chapter 19 continues this time of Paul in Ephesus, and Paul's going to spend here for quite a long time here.

And in fact, at one point he's gonna say that he's here for three months reasoning with and persuading the people that are there. But the chapter opens with. Paul coming across these 12 men who Luke calls disciples, although they had only known that the baptism of John and hadn't yet received the Holy Spirit.

I think this is another way of, again, God confirming the Gentile faith in this new region. And that's why there was this two stage, if you will, saving and ceiling of these believers. This is not normative for us for our understanding of the Holy Spirit or soteriology. We understand that as believers, we receive the Holy Spirit as we are saved.

In fact, Paul's gonna say in Romans eight, nine, if someone does not have the spirit of Christ, they're not in Christ. And so what's normative for us in the church today is that when somebody is saved, they receive the Holy Spirit. In that moment, this is part of the. Birth of the church, the spread of the gospel.

And because this was new and part of the onset of this third missionary journey, this is God demonstrating, hey, this is valid faith here. And the gospels actually taking root. And it would've been encouraging for Paul and his followers, and also for them who were receiving the Holy Spirit as well.

It's not. Impossible. We would honor that. God does what God does, but we would say you shouldn't expect it. And this makes perfect sense given the development of church history. To this point, Paul is being sent by God through the Holy Spirit to chart new territory and to break new ground, as it were, to authenticate the message of Christ and the gospel.

Now as you were just saying. Lots of people out there who have different messages. How? How do you know that Paul is legit? Well, God attended his work with supernatural signs and wonders to prove his authentication as a minister of the Gospel. So in this third missionary journey, as we just embarked upon it, this is important.

And so a lot of times we will grow discouraged. We'll have our neighbors over for dinner and we will talk to 'em about church or Jesus or the gospel and they don't seem interested. And so it's kinda like, okay, well I guess that didn't work, and so we move on, but. I want you to note that Paul is persistent.

He's playing the long game. He's not looking for this right away to happen overnight. And sometimes it does. Sometimes you're gonna have a neighbor over, you're gonna say, talk to them about Christ, or you're gonna have a coworker over, you're gonna talk to them about Christ and they're ripe. The harvest is white with them and they soul is ready and they're gonna bow the knee in faith and repentance in that moment.

Other times, and probably more commonly it's gonna take relationship building. It's gonna take a period of time for you to continually invest in these relationships. So don't give up. Be like Paul, stay persistent. The Jews here again and this is again, descriptive more than prescriptive because Paul is being pulled by God away from his ministry to the Jewish people, into the Gentiles.

Stay persistent and reason and persuade. This is another reason why it's so good for us to know the gospel, but also to know things like apologetics like our students. Right now with student ministry on Wednesday nights, there's a group called Equipped that Meets that is going through apologetics, and Lewis has taken them through some pretty foundational things about defending the faith, the reliability of the Bible, scripture, things like that because he wants them to be able to.

Give a defense when they are in a situation and to persuade people to follow Jesus. I think we see that even in scripture, and we'll get there when Paul says that we're gonna take every thought captive and destroy every lofty argument raised against Christ. I think that involves the process of apologetics right there.

He's investing a ton of time into doing this, and I don't know, three months does feel like a long time, but for some people you have family members, maybe kids. Three months is kind of a drop in the bucket. Two years feels substantial. It's like, okay, now that's commitment. But even then, for some of us who have been with our families their whole lives and they're still resistant.

It is still a drop in the bucket compared to eternity, so don't give up. I would affirm that, that's a great point. Verses 11 through 20, Paul encounters these Jewish exorcists who are here and they want to capitalize on the power that Paul is exercising. So they start to claim Paul's power and the authority of Jesus.

And it's interesting here because these demons basically call them out on it. They say, we know Paul and we know Jesus, but we don't know who you are. And so they attack them and they publicly humiliate them. And this is just a reminder that God is not in the business of being a servant to someone else's glory.

These people were interested in their own glory, their own name, their own fame, and God allowed these demons to attack them, humiliate them, and show that they were not part of his crew. So in verses 11 and 12, you have this unique situation where God blessed Paul and in a similar way that he blessed Peter so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that he had touched were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them.

What is happening there and why can't we do that today? I think this is, again we're in that same time of this is new territory and God is confirming and affirming Paul and Paul's message so that people will listen to him as he's in this region and he's preaching Christ. So yeah, a lot of times you'll see today televangelists, I guess maybe not.

Not a lot of times you used to see in the nineties and stuff, televangelists on, TBN and they're talking about we'll send you a prayer handkerchief that's been blessed by, pastor so and so, and all you need to do is sow your seed of faith for this amount of money. Yeah. You'll know one thing that's different here.

What do you make of the medium here? Clearly, this is God's spirit operating this whole thing. He's doing it, and yet it seems like the spirit, at least condescends, to let them use. A medium that we would not ordinarily expect. You would expect there to be Paul walking to them and saying, I, I command by the name of Jesus to, for the spirit to be gone.

Yeah. You'd expect that, that makes sense to us. You would expect there to be some kind of operation between the apostle and the person. Yeah. But here. Paul is removed at least one layer, and now there's an handkerchief or an apron that touched his skin. So it seems like there's even a suggestion, a hint suggestion, that Paul May have not even known, right what was happening with his handkerchiefs and his aprons.

I think two things come to mind. When Jesus in the gospels was approached by the centurion and his servant is sick. And Jesus says, okay, I'll lemme come and heal your servant. And the centurion says, no, I'm a man under authority myself. All you need to do is say the word and I know it's gonna be done.

Jesus, in his power being, God is able to heal from a distance. And so because Paul is not healing with the power of Paul, but the power of God, I think we can see that God can heal from a distance even with. These things. And then I also think of the woman who had the discharge when she comes up and she in a massive crowd reaches out and she touches the fringe of Jesus' garment, she doesn't touch him.

It's strange. I'll grant you. It's strange we don't see this other times. It's a strange medium, but again, I think this is one of those instances for us to say, well, is this normative? Should we say, okay, let's all buy a bunch of handkerchiefs and aprons? I don't think so. I think this is indicative of the fact that this is Paul doing ministry that is in keeping with the ministry that Christ had done.

I, I wonder, and I'm not sure I'll just offer this tentatively 'cause I'm just kinda working this out here, but I wonder if this is God just condescending to the moment. I, it seems superstitious, it seems pagan, even like saying, let me take this trinkets. Yeah, it does, and I know that's not God's intention.

He's not trying to get them to bow down to the apron or to hold this thing. I think this is part of what the Catholic Church struggles with when they have items that have some bearing or relation to the cross or to one of the disciples. They encapsulate it and then now it's this holy object and people touch it and bow down before it and try to seek favors from it.

I don't wanna put him in a box. I know that sometimes my. My charismatic friends will say that, but I think that's what God is. I think God is condescending here and that he's allowing this to take place because he wants to authenticate Paul as his messenger to the point that, God, I don't wanna say tolerates, but that's the best word that comes to mind, tolerates letting this happen apart from Paul's direct interaction.

And it's interesting that it's right after that, that you have the seven sons of Siva these Jewish itinerary exorcists. And one of the things that I was looking at just now is when the, they're overpowered by these demonic forces, the response of the crowds is this became known to all the residents of Ephesus by Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all.

This is what happens to you. And so it's as though God is, or Luke got through. Luke is saying, yeah, this was happening, but let's remember here. We have to be careful and not trifle with God. Verses 19 through 41, then we know that any place the gospel is being spread, Satan is gonna be active as well because he hates it.

And so here that happens in Ephesus where he steers up a, stirs up a lone silversmith whose business had suffered due to Paul proclaiming the exclusivity of Christ. And basically. Stirs up a riot and that, that's eventually what happens here. The city officials have to intervene and basically tell them, Hey, you guys need to disperse.

Secular authorities here as they say, Hey, this is not right. Everybody needs to disperse and go back home.

Conclusion and Prayer

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All right, well, let's let's pray and then we'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God, we wanna be persistent. Even as we saw with Paul with his reasoning and persuasion. We wanna do that with those that are in our lives.

And so help us to be able to have favor with our neighbors, have favor with our coworkers, our family members, our children, everybody that needs Christ, that we know Lord may we. Not just take time, but take intentional time. Time that we are pursuing them, time that we are planting seeds, time that we are sharing the gospel time, that we are calling for verdicts with our neighbors.

And trust that you're gonna do the work in your time. And so we pray for fruit to be born from our evangelistic efforts. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles, tuning again tomorrow for another edition, the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

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PJ: Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said