Acts 13:14 And from Perga, they traveled inland to Pisidian Antioch, where they entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down. 15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue leaders sent word to them: “Brothers, if you have a word of encouragement for the people, please speak.”
16 Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and began to speak:
In this week’s pericope, we read about Barnabas and Paul traveling to many cities to preach the Gospel, maintaining a ministry schedule that is dizzying to us. The power of the Holy Spirit gave them supernatural strength and stamina to do incredible things! It reminds me of the title of our sermon series: “Ordinary people doing extraordinary ACTS by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The thing I wanted to draw our attention to today has to do with why the Apostles cited the Psalms when sharing the Gospel with Jewish audiences. I won’t go into great detail in the blog post, but hopefully it will give you something interesting to chew on for a day.
I noticed that Paul and Barnabas visited a local synagogue to attend their service, which evidently was a normal part of their routine while on missionary travels, and the leaders there noticed them and invited them to “give a testimony,” so to speak.
Paul utilized this open door, as he always did, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He, like Peter and the other first Christians summarized the key events in God’s epic Salvation story from the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) and brought the focus to King David and the prophetic promises made to him.
King David was said to be a “man after God’s own heart” and yet we have all read the record of his abject failings in Scripture. However, when we read what the Apostles said about him, we see that his passionate pursuit of God’s heart led him to the true “heart of the matter.” As David thirsted after God, just like “the deer pants for water”, God satisfied him with revelations of the One who came from the “heart of the Father”, Jesus Christ.
John 1:18 says; “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom (kolpos) of the Father, He (the Son) has made Him (the Father) known.”
The New Testament clearly teaches that God, the Son reveals God, the Father. Jesus said “I and my Father are one.” He also told the Apostle Philip:
John 14:9 …“Have I been with you such a long time, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
One thousand years before God the Son took to Himself a human nature in the Incarnation, David, the man after God’s own heart saw, by the Spirit:
-Jesus, the One who was pierced for us Psalm 22
-Jesus, our Good Shepherd Psalm 23
-Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father Psalm 119
And David was inspired to write at least 72 other prophetic psalms that still reveal nuances of the beauty of the Son of God and His Mission to us to this day. It is no wonder the first Christians cited the psalms of the anointed King David when they were sharing about the greatest anointed King, our Lord Jesus!
We will get into more detail on this subject in another blog post, but for now, let’s pray;
PRN: Thank your Father for revealing Your Heart. Your only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, came from your bosom and reveals your heart to us today. Please fill us with the presence of your Spirit who reveals Jesus to us, and may we in turn share the revelation of Jesus with others, and in so doing, reveal Your heart for humanity, Righteous Father. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.
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