Podcasts about galileans

Have you ever wished God would do something so plain that no one could explain it away? Pentecost is that kind of morning, when a sound like a violent wind fills the house, fire rests on each of them, and ordinary Galileans start speaking languages they never learned. The same Spirit who turned frightened followers into bold preachers is the one given to the church to turn the world's eyes toward Christ. This chapter is the birthday of the church and a study of what the Spirit was actually given to do.  The Rev. Benjamin Meyer, pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Condit, OH, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Acts 2:1-21.  To learn more about Hope Lutheran Church, visit hopelutheransunbury.org. The book of Acts picks up where the Gospels leave off. Jesus has risen. He has ascended. And now what? Acts answers that question. Luke tells the story of how the Holy Spirit built the Church from a handful of frightened disciples in Jerusalem into a movement that reached Rome itself. Along the way, you get Pentecost, the first sermons, the first martyrs, the conversion of Paul, the first church councils, shipwrecks, riots, and the persistent, stubborn work of God through Word and Sacrament even when His people didn't have a plan. If you've ever wondered how we got from Easter morning to the Church you sit in today, this is the book. Tune in for this new series on Thy Strong Word with Pastor Phil Booe and guest pastors as we open up the Book of Acts.  Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God's Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.

We Hear Them Speaking The Wonderful Works of God Acts 2:5-13 NKJV And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” 12 So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” 13 Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.” 1. The Crowd's Response The Multitude Came Together 2. We Hear Them Verse 12 - 2 Responses To The Gospel: 1) Drawn In With Curiosity 2) Reaction of Mockery Rom. 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

ACTS 2:1:17 - FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT - BRIAN SUMNER - 2026"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.The Crowd's Response5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” 12 So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”13 Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”Peter's Sermon14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. 15 For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,Your young men shall see visions,Your old men shall dream dreams.”To support this channel and partner with Brian in Ministryhttps://www.briansumner.net/support/For more on Brianhttp://www.briansumner.nethttps://www.instagram.com/BRIANSUMNER/https://www.facebook.com/BRIANSUMNEROFFICIALTo listen to Brians Podcast, click below.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Purchase Brians Marriage book at https://www.amazon.com/Never-Fails-Da...Brian is a full time "Urban Missionary" both locally and internationally with a focus on MISSIONS - MARRIAGES - MINISTRY. Since coming to faith in 2004 doors continued opening locally and internationally to do more and more ministry with a focus on Evangelism, Outreach Missions, Marriage, Counsel, Schools, Festivals, Conferences and the like.  Everything about this ministry is made possible because of people personally partnering through the non profit. God Bless and thank you. †Support the showSUPPORT THE SHOW

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week I was listening to one of the radio preachers I like to listen to and I caught a sermon on the Pentecost, and I realized I had at that point a Gnostic insight that Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, when it infused the disciples in the upper room—that is the coming of the Third Order of Powers released by the Christ after his resurrection—that the Third Order Powers are the “anointing of the Holy Spirit.” So quickly, let’s look at the Acts of the Apostles book out of the New Testament, Chapter 2, which is what we now call Pentecost. And when the day arrived that completed the fifty days after Passover, they were all gathered together in one place, and suddenly there came a noise, like a turbulent wind borne out of the sky, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared before them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest, one each upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now dwelling in Jerusalem, there were devout Judeans from every nation under the sky, and on the advent of this noise, the multitude gathered and were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and astounded, saying, look, are not all of those who speak Galileans? And how is it that each one of us hears his own language, the languages in which we were raised? And all were amazed and entirely at a loss, saying to one another, what does this portend? But others, ridiculing them, said, ah, they’re full of sweet new wine. But Peter, standing up along with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them all. Judean men and all of you staying in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and lend your ears to my words, for these men are not drunk, as you suppose, as it is the third hour of the day. Rather, this is what was declared through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall happen, says God, that I will pour forth from my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams.” [Hart's New Testament] Pentecost by el Greco Now, it’s a much longer passage, and it’s very thrilling and exciting, but we don’t have time today to go into it. Perhaps we’ll speak about this in more depth very soon. But that is the first Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon humanity. And I’m going to talk about that today to clear up that confusion, because I’ve always had a bit of a confusion over what we speak of as the Holy Spirit dwelling in us in a Christian manner, or the Holy Spirit coming like tongues of fire in the Pentecost story of the upper room in the book of Acts, yet we all have the Holy Spirit of the Fullness of God within every cell of our bodies and throughout our entire organism. All of the Second Order powers are infused with the power of God. So what is the Holy Spirit then? And now I understand the distinction between the infusion of the Third Order of Powers and the infusion of the Second Order of Powers. You see, we are Second Order Powers. The Aeons of the Fullness are First Order Powers. They have their place Above. We are their fruit. We are their spores. (And I actually ran across a radio preacher, of all things, again last week, saying that the original word for fruit as used in the New Testament is spore. And I’m like, yes, that is exactly what I’ve been saying. So that was another cool Gnostic insight that came by way of a Christian radio preacher. So you can never tell what you’re going to hear on Christian radio.) So, we are the spores of the First Order of Powers. We are their fruit. We are their children. We are the Second Order of Powers, and that is all living things in the cosmos. Everything that moves around, everything that’s soft and squishy, the meat, as I like to say, as opposed to the mud, which is the realm of the Demiurge—the rocks and minerals, the molecules and atoms. But the Third Order of Powers is the army of the Christ. We’ve spoken of that often. We’ve had three recent episodes about the indwelling of the Christ. For example, The Gnostic Redemption of the Nag Hammadi from May 29th, 2026, Army of the Christ, May 16th, 2026, and Understanding Gnosticism: The Path to Inner Knowledge from May 9th, 2026. These all have to do with the coming of the Third Order of Powers. And the coming of the Third Order of Powers didn’t come to Earth until Christ walked the Earth in the form of a human, and that is Jesus the Christ. He’s the only one who has ever claimed that “I and my Father are One.” Jesus is not the same as Buddha. Jesus is not the same as Muhammad or any other prophet. Jesus is not simply a good teacher or an exemplar of morality and ethics. If you think that, as many modern theologians do—the postmodern theologians, the deconstructionists—they have reduced the power of Jesus to that of a prophet or a teacher. And even people I hear, strangely enough, out there on YouTube, claiming that Jesus was a fraud—that there is no such thing as anything that happened in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament. That’s an absurdity that is being promulgated by non-believers. If you are a believer in the Father, then you are a believer in the Christ, because Christ was the emissary of the Father to Earth to bring the correcting algorithm, I like to call it, to Earth to patch up our Second Order Power that has been forgotten. We’re born with it. We fully instantiate it within our bodies, but we’ve overlaid it with all kinds of junk, karma and memes from our environment that cloud our gnosis, cloud our ability to perceive the power of the Aeons within us. Christ came, the Third Order of Powers, the army of the Christ, to help us to remember, to remind us of our Second Order power, to remind us of where we come from, to remind us of the Father and the Aeons above. I took notes from the Pentecost sermon I listened to, and I’m going to represent these notes as a Gnostic teaching for you, because once you have the gnosis working in you, once you’ve come to terms with Christ and the Father and the Aeons and the gnosis that you were born with, once you begin to remember your inherent transcendence, then you can read the New Testament with eyes wide open. You can understand the mysteries of the New Testament much better than typical Christians do, because they’re trapped in a formula that is derivative of the early Catholics that had stripped the gnosis out of the Bible in the first place. So we must free ourselves from the doctrine, but not free ourselves of the gnosis. Tricky. The occasion known as Pentecost was when Jesus had been crucified, entombed, resurrected, and then ascended back up above into the Fullness—above the Fullness, because he’s the king of all. And he had promised that he would send a helper—to not worry. He had told his disciples, don’t worry, I’m sending you a helper to help you bring the gnosis to the world, essentially is what he said. This was also promised in the Old Testament. And here I’m going to read you a very important verse out of the Old Testament and translate it for you into Gnostic terms. The verse is Ezekiel 36:24—28, where God promises to cleanse and put a new heart and a new spirit into believers. Now it’s tricky when going all the way back to the Old Testament, because the God of the Old Testament is not the God Above All Gods. The God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, well, it’s pretty much equivalent to the Demiurge. And that’s very dicey, very tricky. The ego of the God of the Old Testament, the ego of Jehovah, is when Jehovah speaks in very egoistic terms about itself and about obedience and the law because, remember, Jehovah is law-bound. The Demiurge doesn’t remember; the Demiurge has forgotten its origins above. When this radio preacher referenced Ezekiel 36, I went to what’s called the online Bible Gateway. That’s a resource you can use. And you type in any phrase or any citation, such as Ezekiel 36:24—28, and it will give you all of the various translations. And you can choose which translation you read or you read them all. Well, since this was a Hebrew exhortation, I decided to use the Orthodox Jewish Bible, which does have a lot of Hebrew in it. So then we have to go into Hebrew translations, but that was a good exercise as well. Oh, to go back and clear up confusion about how to read the Old Testament—if the Old Testament is largely demiurgic, it’s basically when Jehovah is speaking that’s demiurgic. But the prophets were in touch with their gnosis. The prophets were talking to the God Above All Gods. They weren’t talking to Jehovah. They were talking to the God Above All Gods. So their prophecies are coming from above. That seems a pretty simple way to understand it. So the histories are one thing. That’s the histories of the of the Hebrews who were the people of Jehovah. Jehovah was their tribal god. And then there are the prophets who were speaking to the God Above All Gods and giving the Hebrews instructions from the God Above All Gods. These are higher instructions than Jehovah. You see, Jehovah doesn’t remember that it’s a fallen part of an Aeon. Here at Gnostic Insights, we talk about that Aeon as Logos. Many other Gnostics call it Sophia. I prefer Logos. That’s out of the Tripartite Tractate. Logos split apart when he fell and abandoned the chaos down below. And the Demiurge is part of that chaos. So the Demiurge put this world in order, formed the heavens and the Earth in a godlike manner, because he had all the blueprints. He had the remembrance of how things went together, but he didn’t have the remembrance of the Father or the remembrance of his better ascended Self, that being Logos, or the Aeons out of which he fell, the Fullness out of which he came. The Demiurge woke up down here in chaos and remembered that things should not be chaos, wanted them to go back into an orderly manner, had the blueprints of Paradise, essentially, that’s how you can put it, and formed this Earth. But this is an imitation. This is a deficiency of Paradise, and it’s especially deficient because there’s no love here. The minerals do not know love. The mud does not know love. Love doesn’t come from the bottom up, from the Demiurge up, from Jehovah up. Love, consciousness, comes from the God Above All Gods down to us in the form of a Second Order Powers. But we have forgotten, and the Demiurge forgot. So here is a word from one of the prophets who was in touch with the God Above All Gods, giving assurance that salvation would come, that remembrance would come. The Demiurge doesn’t block the prophets because it egotistically thinks that the prophets are speaking of it. You know, the Demiurge takes personally being God, but he’s mistaken in that. He’s a lesser god, the god of this cosmos, but the God Above All Gods is the one who speaks through the prophets. Here’s Ezekiel 36:24—26, from the New King James Version. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Or as The Orthodox Jewish Bible puts it, A lev chadásh also will I give you, and a ruach chadasháh will I put within you; and I will take away the lev ha-éven (stony heart) out of your basár, and I will give you a lev basár. Now, when it speaks of I will give you a new heart, in Hebrew that is lev chadásh. Lev means inner self, the seat of will and moral character. Chadásh means anew, fresh, renewed, restored. So lev chadásh refers to a renewed inner disposition. A transformed moral center. A recreated will aligned with the Father rather than with stubbornness or idolatry. And when it speaks of and put a new spirit within you, in Hebrew that word, the new spirit, is ruach chadasháh. And it means a new spirit, an awakened pneuma. And pneuma is a Gnostic term. That is the spiritual part of us. Our One Self. So the ruach chadasháh is the spirit. Ruach is spirit, breath, animating force, inner vitality. That’s what it means. Chadasháh means fresh, new, renewed. So in Ezekiel, ruach chadasháh means a new animating principle. A renewed inner drive or spiritual vitality placed within the person. You see where I’m going with this? This is the Third Order of Powers. A new motivating force that empowers obedience and life. This cleansing of a new heart and putting a new spirit within you, ruach chadasháh. It means stripping away the meme shroud is how I generally refer to it in the Simple Explanation. Peeling off all those layers of confusion that obscure our originating Fullness. That’s the filthiness. It’s not the original sin. We aren’t born with original sin. We are born as Second Order Powers, much loved out of the first order powers of the Fullness of God. We forget when we come down here into this material world created by the Demiurge. And then we plug into this culture around us. Think of the media and the social media and all of the lies and confusions that are spread, both purposefully meant to mislead you and confuse you, and just accidentally because people make mistakes and people say the wrong things, even when they think they’re saying the right things. So that’s the filthiness. And the idols— these are the things that you cling to. Generally this narcissistic age we live in is an age of idols, but the idols that we worship aren’t little statues of gods. They are our exercise equipment and our bags of makeup and our, well, of course they can be influencers and they can be movie stars and television actors and musicians and sports figures and politicians. Those can be your idols if you treat them as idols, if you idolize them, if you go all weak in the knees and do anything they say. But we also have our own idols in the form of the things that we cling to and pile up around us that we buy, got to have this, got to have that, got to have this, got to have that. These are idols. So this is a promise to cleanse us from that. In other words, to strip away your meme shroud and let the Fullness shine forth from within you. But it goes beyond that, because it says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. And that new heart is the lev chadásh, which is new spirit. And the new heart is lev basár, which literally means in Hebrew, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche. Oh, see, our psyche, that is not our pneuma—that's a Gnostic term as well. We have our pneuma, which is our spiritual Fullness. We have our psyche, which is our psychological aspect—our ego lives there. And we have our hylic, which is the material to which we are bonded in this material world. So this passage promises to put a new heart within us, a lev basár, a soft, receptive psyche; that is to soften our hearts, because they’re hardened by the world and by the memes we cling to. It says, furthermore, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh. And the heart of stone in Hebrew is lev ha-éven, meaning heart of stone, or a hardened psyche. Going to remove that heart of stone, which is very interesting, because of course, I say that the hard rocky places, the stones are demiurgic. That’s the material level, that’s the elemental level. So the heart of stone is the demiurgic heart that we have put inside of us, that we’re bonded to. But this passage wants to turn it into a new heart, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche, as we were originally born with—lev basár. So it says, I will give you that new heart and put a new spirit within you, and take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart of stone, lev ha-éven. And the purifying waters are what do it. I will sprinkle clean water on you. In Hebrew, that was literally mayim tehorím, meaning clean, purifying waters. Jesus spoke of the purifying waters. In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to John, Chapter 3, a Pharisee named Nicodemus had sneaked out one night to speak privately with Jesus. He didn’t want anyone to know. And Nicodemus said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you have come as a teacher from God, for no one can produce these signs you perform unless God is within him. And in reply, Jesus said to him, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless someone is born from Above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Jesus replied, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed, because I’ve told you it is necessary for you to be born from Above. [Hart's New Testament] Jesus is speaking of the same water, the water of the spirit, that cleanses us and allows us to be born again from Above. Later on in the book of John, Chapter 7, verse 37, Jesus stood up and said loudly, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. Whoever has faith in me, just as scripture has said, out of his parts living streams of waters will flow. Now he said this in regard to the spirit, whom those who had faith in him were about to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. [Hart's New Testament] And this is speaking of the Holy Spirit—what we call the Holy Spirit—because of course we have spirit, we’re born with spirit, because we have the Fullness of God within us, the First Order of Powers. But he’s talking of the Third Order of Powers, the army of Christ that comes after Jesus is “glorified.” And glorified means risen from the dead, ascended into the sky in front of hundreds of witnesses. And glorified means that Jesus is living Above, just as we will all be living Above, in a glorified body, in the presence of the Father. Now, the promise that Jesus referred to—he was quoting out of the Old Testament—something that all of the listeners in his audience already knew. And it’s from Isaiah 12:3 that says, Therefore with joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation. The water that is being drawn is this water that’s being referred to, that we’ve been discussing, out of Ezekiel 36:24—28. That is the living water, the mayim tehorím—the Holy Spirit that bathes us now within and without. We draw the living water of the Third Order Powers into us. This is why accepting the mission of the Christ into your innermost being is essential, because there’s no other way to wash away the memes, the obscurations of the world around us that confuses us and causes us to forget. We’re born with a noble nature. We’re born as Second Order Powers, directly from the Fullness above, but we get lost in the confusion of this world that is created and run by the Demiurge. We forget our ethereal origins. We forget about the Father. We forget about the Aeons and the Fullness of God. The spirit that we’re born with becomes smothered, smothered by the worldly memes we cling to and that cling to us. The living water that comes into our new softened heart can only come when you relinquish the ego that is causing you to hold on tightly to those memes, all those false promises that the world gives. They will not save you. They will not make you happy. They might give you a momentary piece of pleasure when something arrives in the box from Amazon on the front porch, but as soon as you’ve used it, it’s just another thing. But the living water never dies. It’s living waters from the Father flowing all the way downstream through the Son, through the Fullnesses, and only through Christ inside of us can we be washed, baptized from within to loosen the hold. So, the lev chadásh, renew your psychic heart, captures the same teaching that the Tripartite Tractate teaches—that the psyche must be reoriented and made stable. The ruach chadashá, awakening within you the spirit that is from Above, is the same as activating the pneumatic seed, as we say in Gnosticism, not a moral reform. The lev basár, a living heart, soft, able to receive the light, receptive, this is the Tripartite Tractate’s softened, harmonized psyche, that can receive the pneumatic imprint of Christ. And the divine seed will rise within you and rule in peace is what the Tripartite Tractate says of the pneuma ruling through the psyche once integration occurs. So, this is the Gnostic paraphrase then of Ezekiel 36:26—28: I will renew your ego's psychic heart, and I will awaken within you the pneumatic spirit—the One Self that flows from above. I will remove the heart hardened by the archons and the never-ending war, and I will restore your Second Order heart, soft, receptive, and able to receive the light. Through this new heart and new spirit, the divine seed of the Christ within you will rise and rule in peace. That’s just another way we could say the phrase in Ezekiel, in a more Gnostic way. It’s a bath, loosens the hold, washes away those memes, those sins, as the church likes to call it. But it’s more than just your mistakes and your problems. It’s all the stuff that we have around us. That is the job of the Christ, to open our eyes to our original Second Order power, to live within us, to correct our mistakes, to correct our faulty algorithms, to protect us from this demiurgic immersion that we find ourselves in, in this material world. We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves the Totality of the Son. The Third Order Powers are the army of the Christ, who represents all of the Powers of the ethereal plane, individually and collectively working for our redemption. Step aside. Take your ego off the throne. Take the Demiurge off the throne, if you’ve enthroned it. Put down your idols. Push away your possessions, at least long enough to allow the Third Order Powers to come in. Ask the Christ to come in and wash you with the Holy Spirit. Invite the Holy Spirit, the army of the Third Order of Powers, into your organism, literally, and it will cleanse you. It will wash you. Walk in the Spirit of God. Let your eyes be opened to the truth. We’ll talk more about this again. Until then, God bless us all, and onward and upward. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Stripe Credit Card *Choose your item *Item A - $10.00Item B - $25.00Item C - $50.00Total$0.00Submit

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week I was listening to one of the radio preachers I like to listen to and I caught a sermon on the Pentecost, and I realized I had at that point a Gnostic insight that Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, when it infused the disciples in the upper room—that is the coming of the Third Order of Powers released by the Christ after his resurrection—that the Third Order Powers are the “anointing of the Holy Spirit.” So quickly, let’s look at the Acts of the Apostles book out of the New Testament, Chapter 2, which is what we now call Pentecost. And when the day arrived that completed the fifty days after Passover, they were all gathered together in one place, and suddenly there came a noise, like a turbulent wind borne out of the sky, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared before them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest, one each upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them to utter. Now dwelling in Jerusalem, there were devout Judeans from every nation under the sky, and on the advent of this noise, the multitude gathered and were confused, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and astounded, saying, look, are not all of those who speak Galileans? And how is it that each one of us hears his own language, the languages in which we were raised? And all were amazed and entirely at a loss, saying to one another, what does this portend? But others, ridiculing them, said, ah, they’re full of sweet new wine. But Peter, standing up along with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them all. Judean men and all of you staying in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and lend your ears to my words, for these men are not drunk, as you suppose, as it is the third hour of the day. Rather, this is what was declared through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall happen, says God, that I will pour forth from my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall dream dreams.” [Hart's New Testament] Pentecost by el Greco Now, it’s a much longer passage, and it’s very thrilling and exciting, but we don’t have time today to go into it. Perhaps we’ll speak about this in more depth very soon. But that is the first Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon humanity. And I’m going to talk about that today to clear up that confusion, because I’ve always had a bit of a confusion over what we speak of as the Holy Spirit dwelling in us in a Christian manner, or the Holy Spirit coming like tongues of fire in the Pentecost story of the upper room in the book of Acts, yet we all have the Holy Spirit of the Fullness of God within every cell of our bodies and throughout our entire organism. All of the Second Order powers are infused with the power of God. So what is the Holy Spirit then? And now I understand the distinction between the infusion of the Third Order of Powers and the infusion of the Second Order of Powers. You see, we are Second Order Powers. The Aeons of the Fullness are First Order Powers. They have their place Above. We are their fruit. We are their spores. (And I actually ran across a radio preacher, of all things, again last week, saying that the original word for fruit as used in the New Testament is spore. And I’m like, yes, that is exactly what I’ve been saying. So that was another cool Gnostic insight that came by way of a Christian radio preacher. So you can never tell what you’re going to hear on Christian radio.) So, we are the spores of the First Order of Powers. We are their fruit. We are their children. We are the Second Order of Powers, and that is all living things in the cosmos. Everything that moves around, everything that’s soft and squishy, the meat, as I like to say, as opposed to the mud, which is the realm of the Demiurge—the rocks and minerals, the molecules and atoms. But the Third Order of Powers is the army of the Christ. We’ve spoken of that often. We’ve had three recent episodes about the indwelling of the Christ. For example, The Gnostic Redemption of the Nag Hammadi from May 29th, 2026, Army of the Christ, May 16th, 2026, and Understanding Gnosticism: The Path to Inner Knowledge from May 9th, 2026. These all have to do with the coming of the Third Order of Powers. And the coming of the Third Order of Powers didn’t come to Earth until Christ walked the Earth in the form of a human, and that is Jesus the Christ. He’s the only one who has ever claimed that “I and my Father are One.” Jesus is not the same as Buddha. Jesus is not the same as Muhammad or any other prophet. Jesus is not simply a good teacher or an exemplar of morality and ethics. If you think that, as many modern theologians do—the postmodern theologians, the deconstructionists—they have reduced the power of Jesus to that of a prophet or a teacher. And even people I hear, strangely enough, out there on YouTube, claiming that Jesus was a fraud—that there is no such thing as anything that happened in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament. That’s an absurdity that is being promulgated by non-believers. If you are a believer in the Father, then you are a believer in the Christ, because Christ was the emissary of the Father to Earth to bring the correcting algorithm, I like to call it, to Earth to patch up our Second Order Power that has been forgotten. We’re born with it. We fully instantiate it within our bodies, but we’ve overlaid it with all kinds of junk, karma and memes from our environment that cloud our gnosis, cloud our ability to perceive the power of the Aeons within us. Christ came, the Third Order of Powers, the army of the Christ, to help us to remember, to remind us of our Second Order power, to remind us of where we come from, to remind us of the Father and the Aeons above. I took notes from the Pentecost sermon I listened to, and I’m going to represent these notes as a Gnostic teaching for you, because once you have the gnosis working in you, once you’ve come to terms with Christ and the Father and the Aeons and the gnosis that you were born with, once you begin to remember your inherent transcendence, then you can read the New Testament with eyes wide open. You can understand the mysteries of the New Testament much better than typical Christians do, because they’re trapped in a formula that is derivative of the early Catholics that had stripped the gnosis out of the Bible in the first place. So we must free ourselves from the doctrine, but not free ourselves of the gnosis. Tricky. The occasion known as Pentecost was when Jesus had been crucified, entombed, resurrected, and then ascended back up above into the Fullness—above the Fullness, because he’s the king of all. And he had promised that he would send a helper—to not worry. He had told his disciples, don’t worry, I’m sending you a helper to help you bring the gnosis to the world, essentially is what he said. This was also promised in the Old Testament. And here I’m going to read you a very important verse out of the Old Testament and translate it for you into Gnostic terms. The verse is Ezekiel 36:24—28, where God promises to cleanse and put a new heart and a new spirit into believers. Now it’s tricky when going all the way back to the Old Testament, because the God of the Old Testament is not the God Above All Gods. The God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, well, it’s pretty much equivalent to the Demiurge. And that’s very dicey, very tricky. The ego of the God of the Old Testament, the ego of Jehovah, is when Jehovah speaks in very egoistic terms about itself and about obedience and the law because, remember, Jehovah is law-bound. The Demiurge doesn’t remember; the Demiurge has forgotten its origins above. When this radio preacher referenced Ezekiel 36, I went to what’s called the online Bible Gateway. That’s a resource you can use. And you type in any phrase or any citation, such as Ezekiel 36:24—28, and it will give you all of the various translations. And you can choose which translation you read or you read them all. Well, since this was a Hebrew exhortation, I decided to use the Orthodox Jewish Bible, which does have a lot of Hebrew in it. So then we have to go into Hebrew translations, but that was a good exercise as well. Oh, to go back and clear up confusion about how to read the Old Testament—if the Old Testament is largely demiurgic, it’s basically when Jehovah is speaking that’s demiurgic. But the prophets were in touch with their gnosis. The prophets were talking to the God Above All Gods. They weren’t talking to Jehovah. They were talking to the God Above All Gods. So their prophecies are coming from above. That seems a pretty simple way to understand it. So the histories are one thing. That’s the histories of the of the Hebrews who were the people of Jehovah. Jehovah was their tribal god. And then there are the prophets who were speaking to the God Above All Gods and giving the Hebrews instructions from the God Above All Gods. These are higher instructions than Jehovah. You see, Jehovah doesn’t remember that it’s a fallen part of an Aeon. Here at Gnostic Insights, we talk about that Aeon as Logos. Many other Gnostics call it Sophia. I prefer Logos. That’s out of the Tripartite Tractate. Logos split apart when he fell and abandoned the chaos down below. And the Demiurge is part of that chaos. So the Demiurge put this world in order, formed the heavens and the Earth in a godlike manner, because he had all the blueprints. He had the remembrance of how things went together, but he didn’t have the remembrance of the Father or the remembrance of his better ascended Self, that being Logos, or the Aeons out of which he fell, the Fullness out of which he came. The Demiurge woke up down here in chaos and remembered that things should not be chaos, wanted them to go back into an orderly manner, had the blueprints of Paradise, essentially, that’s how you can put it, and formed this Earth. But this is an imitation. This is a deficiency of Paradise, and it’s especially deficient because there’s no love here. The minerals do not know love. The mud does not know love. Love doesn’t come from the bottom up, from the Demiurge up, from Jehovah up. Love, consciousness, comes from the God Above All Gods down to us in the form of a Second Order Powers. But we have forgotten, and the Demiurge forgot. So here is a word from one of the prophets who was in touch with the God Above All Gods, giving assurance that salvation would come, that remembrance would come. The Demiurge doesn’t block the prophets because it egotistically thinks that the prophets are speaking of it. You know, the Demiurge takes personally being God, but he’s mistaken in that. He’s a lesser god, the god of this cosmos, but the God Above All Gods is the one who speaks through the prophets. Here’s Ezekiel 36:24—26, from the New King James Version. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Or as The Orthodox Jewish Bible puts it, A lev chadásh also will I give you, and a ruach chadasháh will I put within you; and I will take away the lev ha-éven (stony heart) out of your basár, and I will give you a lev basár. Now, when it speaks of I will give you a new heart, in Hebrew that is lev chadásh. Lev means inner self, the seat of will and moral character. Chadásh means anew, fresh, renewed, restored. So lev chadásh refers to a renewed inner disposition. A transformed moral center. A recreated will aligned with the Father rather than with stubbornness or idolatry. And when it speaks of and put a new spirit within you, in Hebrew that word, the new spirit, is ruach chadasháh. And it means a new spirit, an awakened pneuma. And pneuma is a Gnostic term. That is the spiritual part of us. Our One Self. So the ruach chadasháh is the spirit. Ruach is spirit, breath, animating force, inner vitality. That’s what it means. Chadasháh means fresh, new, renewed. So in Ezekiel, ruach chadasháh means a new animating principle. A renewed inner drive or spiritual vitality placed within the person. You see where I’m going with this? This is the Third Order of Powers. A new motivating force that empowers obedience and life. This cleansing of a new heart and putting a new spirit within you, ruach chadasháh. It means stripping away the meme shroud is how I generally refer to it in the Simple Explanation. Peeling off all those layers of confusion that obscure our originating Fullness. That’s the filthiness. It’s not the original sin. We aren’t born with original sin. We are born as Second Order Powers, much loved out of the first order powers of the Fullness of God. We forget when we come down here into this material world created by the Demiurge. And then we plug into this culture around us. Think of the media and the social media and all of the lies and confusions that are spread, both purposefully meant to mislead you and confuse you, and just accidentally because people make mistakes and people say the wrong things, even when they think they’re saying the right things. So that’s the filthiness. And the idols— these are the things that you cling to. Generally this narcissistic age we live in is an age of idols, but the idols that we worship aren’t little statues of gods. They are our exercise equipment and our bags of makeup and our, well, of course they can be influencers and they can be movie stars and television actors and musicians and sports figures and politicians. Those can be your idols if you treat them as idols, if you idolize them, if you go all weak in the knees and do anything they say. But we also have our own idols in the form of the things that we cling to and pile up around us that we buy, got to have this, got to have that, got to have this, got to have that. These are idols. So this is a promise to cleanse us from that. In other words, to strip away your meme shroud and let the Fullness shine forth from within you. But it goes beyond that, because it says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. And that new heart is the lev chadásh, which is new spirit. And the new heart is lev basár, which literally means in Hebrew, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche. Oh, see, our psyche, that is not our pneuma—that's a Gnostic term as well. We have our pneuma, which is our spiritual Fullness. We have our psyche, which is our psychological aspect—our ego lives there. And we have our hylic, which is the material to which we are bonded in this material world. So this passage promises to put a new heart within us, a lev basár, a soft, receptive psyche; that is to soften our hearts, because they’re hardened by the world and by the memes we cling to. It says, furthermore, I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh. And the heart of stone in Hebrew is lev ha-éven, meaning heart of stone, or a hardened psyche. Going to remove that heart of stone, which is very interesting, because of course, I say that the hard rocky places, the stones are demiurgic. That’s the material level, that’s the elemental level. So the heart of stone is the demiurgic heart that we have put inside of us, that we’re bonded to. But this passage wants to turn it into a new heart, a heart of flesh, a soft, receptive psyche, as we were originally born with—lev basár. So it says, I will give you that new heart and put a new spirit within you, and take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart of stone, lev ha-éven. And the purifying waters are what do it. I will sprinkle clean water on you. In Hebrew, that was literally mayim tehorím, meaning clean, purifying waters. Jesus spoke of the purifying waters. In the New Testament, in the Gospel according to John, Chapter 3, a Pharisee named Nicodemus had sneaked out one night to speak privately with Jesus. He didn’t want anyone to know. And Nicodemus said to Jesus, Rabbi, we know that you have come as a teacher from God, for no one can produce these signs you perform unless God is within him. And in reply, Jesus said to him, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless someone is born from Above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus says to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Jesus replied, Amen, amen, I tell you, unless a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed, because I’ve told you it is necessary for you to be born from Above. [Hart's New Testament] Jesus is speaking of the same water, the water of the spirit, that cleanses us and allows us to be born again from Above. Later on in the book of John, Chapter 7, verse 37, Jesus stood up and said loudly, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. Whoever has faith in me, just as scripture has said, out of his parts living streams of waters will flow. Now he said this in regard to the spirit, whom those who had faith in him were about to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. [Hart's New Testament] And this is speaking of the Holy Spirit—what we call the Holy Spirit—because of course we have spirit, we’re born with spirit, because we have the Fullness of God within us, the First Order of Powers. But he’s talking of the Third Order of Powers, the army of Christ that comes after Jesus is “glorified.” And glorified means risen from the dead, ascended into the sky in front of hundreds of witnesses. And glorified means that Jesus is living Above, just as we will all be living Above, in a glorified body, in the presence of the Father. Now, the promise that Jesus referred to—he was quoting out of the Old Testament—something that all of the listeners in his audience already knew. And it’s from Isaiah 12:3 that says, Therefore with joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation. The water that is being drawn is this water that’s being referred to, that we’ve been discussing, out of Ezekiel 36:24—28. That is the living water, the mayim tehorím—the Holy Spirit that bathes us now within and without. We draw the living water of the Third Order Powers into us. This is why accepting the mission of the Christ into your innermost being is essential, because there’s no other way to wash away the memes, the obscurations of the world around us that confuses us and causes us to forget. We’re born with a noble nature. We’re born as Second Order Powers, directly from the Fullness above, but we get lost in the confusion of this world that is created and run by the Demiurge. We forget our ethereal origins. We forget about the Father. We forget about the Aeons and the Fullness of God. The spirit that we’re born with becomes smothered, smothered by the worldly memes we cling to and that cling to us. The living water that comes into our new softened heart can only come when you relinquish the ego that is causing you to hold on tightly to those memes, all those false promises that the world gives. They will not save you. They will not make you happy. They might give you a momentary piece of pleasure when something arrives in the box from Amazon on the front porch, but as soon as you’ve used it, it’s just another thing. But the living water never dies. It’s living waters from the Father flowing all the way downstream through the Son, through the Fullnesses, and only through Christ inside of us can we be washed, baptized from within to loosen the hold. So, the lev chadásh, renew your psychic heart, captures the same teaching that the Tripartite Tractate teaches—that the psyche must be reoriented and made stable. The ruach chadashá, awakening within you the spirit that is from Above, is the same as activating the pneumatic seed, as we say in Gnosticism, not a moral reform. The lev basár, a living heart, soft, able to receive the light, receptive, this is the Tripartite Tractate’s softened, harmonized psyche, that can receive the pneumatic imprint of Christ. And the divine seed will rise within you and rule in peace is what the Tripartite Tractate says of the pneuma ruling through the psyche once integration occurs. So, this is the Gnostic paraphrase then of Ezekiel 36:26—28: I will renew your ego's psychic heart, and I will awaken within you the pneumatic spirit—the One Self that flows from above. I will remove the heart hardened by the archons and the never-ending war, and I will restore your Second Order heart, soft, receptive, and able to receive the light. Through this new heart and new spirit, the divine seed of the Christ within you will rise and rule in peace. That’s just another way we could say the phrase in Ezekiel, in a more Gnostic way. It’s a bath, loosens the hold, washes away those memes, those sins, as the church likes to call it. But it’s more than just your mistakes and your problems. It’s all the stuff that we have around us. That is the job of the Christ, to open our eyes to our original Second Order power, to live within us, to correct our mistakes, to correct our faulty algorithms, to protect us from this demiurgic immersion that we find ourselves in, in this material world. We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness, who are themselves the Totality of the Son. The Third Order Powers are the army of the Christ, who represents all of the Powers of the ethereal plane, individually and collectively working for our redemption. Step aside. Take your ego off the throne. Take the Demiurge off the throne, if you’ve enthroned it. Put down your idols. Push away your possessions, at least long enough to allow the Third Order Powers to come in. Ask the Christ to come in and wash you with the Holy Spirit. Invite the Holy Spirit, the army of the Third Order of Powers, into your organism, literally, and it will cleanse you. It will wash you. Walk in the Spirit of God. Let your eyes be opened to the truth. We’ll talk more about this again. Until then, God bless us all, and onward and upward. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Stripe Credit Card *Choose your item *Item A - $10.00Item B - $25.00Item C - $50.00Total$0.00Submit

The passage from Acts 2 presents Pentecost not merely as a miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but as a divine act of radical accessibility, where the gospel is proclaimed in the native languages of a diverse crowd, ensuring that the message of God's mighty works is understood at the deepest level of personal and cultural identity. Far from emphasizing the spectacle of tongues, the sermon highlights the theological significance of linguistic clarity and divine intentionality—God choosing to communicate through the heart languages of people from fifteen distinct regions, underscoring that true spiritual power is not for spectacle but for understanding and glorifying God. The text underscores that the Holy Spirit empowers ordinary, unimpressive people—Galileans with regional accents—demonstrating that God's mission advances through humble obedience and dependence on divine enablement, not human prestige. The central call is for believers to live with a conscious reliance on the Spirit, aligning their lives, work, and witness with God's glory, and to recognize that the ultimate purpose of spiritual empowerment is not personal fulfillment but holy testimony that leads others to glorify God through a clear, culturally resonant proclamation of His saving grace.

Reading 1Acts 2:1-11When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,they were all in one place together.And suddenly there came from the skya noise like a strong driving wind,and it filled the entire house in which they were.Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,which parted and came to rest on each one of them.And they were all filled with the Holy Spiritand began to speak in different tongues,as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heavenstaying in Jerusalem.At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,but they were confusedbecause each one heard them speaking in his own language.They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,"Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,as well as travelers from Rome,both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,yet we hear them speaking in our own tonguesof the mighty acts of God."Reading 21 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13Brothers and sisters:No one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;there are different forms of service but the same Lord;there are different workings but the same Godwho produces all of them in everyone.To each individual the manifestation of the Spiritis given for some benefit.As a body is one though it has many parts,and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,so also Christ.For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.GospelJohn 20:19-23On the evening of that first day of the week,when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,for fear of the Jews,Jesus came and stood in their midstand said to them, "Peace be with you."When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you.As the Father has sent me, so I send you."And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,"Receive the Holy Spirit.Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,and whose sins you retain are retained."

When the Day of Pentecost was Fulfilled Acts 2 by William Klock Luke opens the second chapter of Acts writing, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place.”  [Page 1081 in the pew Bibles].  “When the day of Pentecost had come—or some translations say arrived.  The old King James is better: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come.”  Or it might be even better to say, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled.”  The Greek word can mean come or arrive, but it has a powerful sense of filling and fulfilment and I think that's particularly important here.  First, this is the day that the church was filled full of God's presence and truly became his living temple, but second, it was also the day when the promises of God contained within this ancient festival were finally fulfilled.  It's about the fulfilment of God's promises to his people. You see, Pentecost was one of the great festivals God told his people to observe when he gave them the torah.  It was a harvest festival, when the people would bring the firstfruits of their grain harvest as offerings to the Lord.  But it was also a commemoration of the giving of torah.  The Passover marked Israel's deliverance from her slavery in Egypt and then fifty days later, Israel met the Lord at Mt. Sinai.  There he gave her his law and established his covenant with her.  You could say that Pentecost was the day that marked Israel's formal creation as a nation—when the Lord had said, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”  And every year, for over a thousand years, the people took their grain offerings to the temple in Jerusalem, laid them before the Lord, and remembered who he was and who they were and they recalled his promises, while looking forward in hope to the day those promises would be fulfilled.  So when Luke writes, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled,” we should hear something powerful in that.  Just as Jesus fulfilled the Passover once and for all in his death and resurrection, God is going to fulfil the ancient festival of Pentecost once and for all. Brothers and Sisters, this is important, because ever since John Wesley, there's been a powerful tendency to see Pentecost more as a stage of personal spiritual growth than as the once-and-for-all fulfilment of God's promise happening within the great story of God and his people.  A hundred and twenty-five years ago, a group of Christians in Los Angeles had an unusual spiritual experience that needed an explanation.  They explained it as an end-times renewal of “Pentecost” and the Pentecostal movement was born—a movement that taught—and in most places still today—teaches that while every Christian ought to experience Pentecost and be baptised into the Holy Spirit, it's a second event, a second blessing that follows a person's conversion and that many never receive—and those who never received it include virtually every believer between the First Century church and the birth of the Pentecostal movement in 1901.  This highlights the danger of interpreting scripture in light of our experiences.  Instead, we need to let the scriptures do the talking and understand our experiences in light of them. Because just as every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of the Passover, just so every single man or woman who has been united to Jesus the Messiah by faith is also a full recipient of the benefits of his fulfilment of Pentecost.  The church—the whole church, not just some part of it that began 125 years ago—is pentecostal.   It takes a lifetime to learn to live into both of these realities, but to separate them or to say, as some have, that you have to earn baptism in the Spirit through the process of sanctification is to horribly misunderstand the scriptures and the story they tell.  I have more to say about that, but let's get straight into that story as Luke tells it and, especially, as Peter will explain it.  So, again, this is Acts 2: “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they [that's the disciples] were all together in the same place. [Probably, the upper room where they had eaten the Last Supper.]  Suddenly there came from heaven a noise like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  Then tongues, seemingly made of fire, appeared to them, moving apart and coming to rest on each one of them.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other language as the Spirit gave them words to say.” This is the fulfilment of God's promises to come and dwell with his people.  After generations upon generations, millennia upon millennia of sin separating humanity from God, this is God's homecoming.  Jesus' death as a perfect sacrifice for sin washed his people clean, it purified them.  It made them fit and prepared them to be God's temple—the holy place where he will dwell.  And now he's sent his Spirit to take up his dwelling in this new temple. It's also a moment of covenant renewal—again, fulfilling God's promises to Israel.  That's why the imagery of Passover and Sinai are so important here.  In his ascension, Jesus is like Moses going up the mountain and at Passover, like Moses returning with the law and God establishing a covenant with his people, this time God sends down his Spirit to establish a new covenant with this renewed Israel.  And this time it's not an external law carved on stone tablets, but God's own Spirit indwelling, renewing, regenerating and writing his law of love on their very hearts.  Hearts of stone made hearts of flesh. And this fulfilment of God's promises, this covenant renewal, this new temple are all part of the answer to Jesus' prayer that it may be on earth as it is in heaven.  In his ascension, Jesus took a bit of earth—our humanity—to heaven, and on Pentecost he sent to earth, to dwell with us, the Spirit—a bit of heaven.  And that Spirit sent by Jesus, the new Adam, breathes the life of God into the new humanity.  Brothers and Sisters, between the Old Testament imagery that God draws on in doing this amazing thing and the careful choice of words Luke uses to describe it, we ought to see a powerful image here of new creation. And new creation doesn't exist simply for our sake.  New creation began with Jesus and now it's come to his people, but it's not meant to stay with them.  When he ascended, Jesus told his disciples that they would carry this good news throughout Judea and Samaria and eventually to the whole earth.  Once empowered by his Spirit, their mission would be, not only to live out this new creation, but to go out with the announcement that Jesus is Lord and that world belongs to him.  And right here we get a sense of that dominion as these one-hundred-twenty disciples begin to unexpectedly speak in other languages.  Why?  Look at verse 5: “There were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem at that time.  When they heard this noise they came together in a crowd.  They were deeply puzzled, because every single one of them could hear them speaking in his own native language.  They were astonished and amazed.” Thanks to the Exile, Jews were spread out across the known world, but Pentecost was one of those feasts where everyone returned to Jerusalem.  So there's an international crowd in the city and this work of the Spirit gets their attention.  Luke goes on in verse 7: “These men who are doing the speaking are all Galileans, aren't they,” they said.  “So how is it that each of us can hear them in our own mother tongues?  There are Parthians here, and Medes, Elamites, and people who live in Mesopotamia, Judaea, Cappadocia…[The international list is a long one.  Jews and proselytes (converts), from the known world.]…We can hear them telling us about the mighty works of God—in our own languages!” Notice about this gift of tongues: It was a gift of known languages.  The speech was intelligible.  And it wasn't for any kind of spiritual benefit of the speakers.  This was a miracle—a first work of the Spirit—to announce what God was accomplishing (or fulfilling!) through Jesus and the Spirit and through this renewed Israel—what we call “the church”.  And Luke says they were all “astonished and perplexed.”  “What does it all mean?” they were asking each other.  But some sneered.  “They're full of new wine,” they said.  Then Peter got up, with the eleven. He spoke to them in a loud voice.” None of the disciples was expecting this.  They were expecting something.  Jesus had told them to go back to Jerusalem and to wait.  So they did.  They waited and they prayed.  Like I said last week, these were men steeped in the scriptures.  Combine that with patience and prayer and understanding will come.  And despite not expecting this exact situation, Peter immediately understands what's going on through the lens of the scriptures, of Israel's story, and of God's promises.  And so—verse 14—Peter says to them, “Men of Judaea!  All of you staying here in Jerusalem! There's something you have to know.  Listen to what I'm saying.  These people aren't drunk, as you imagine.  It's only nine o'clock in the morning!  No, this is what the prophet Joel was talking about when he said, ‘In the last days, declares God, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams; Yes, even on slaves, men and women alike, will I pour out my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.  And I will give signs in the heavens above, and portents on earth beneath, blood and fire and clouds of smoke.  The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and glorious day.  And then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Joel's prophecy was a prophecy of covenant renewal.  Back at the beginning—sort of the first Pentecost, if it helps to think of it that way—before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reiterated the covenant to the people.  If they would be the holy people the Lord had set them apart to be, if they would keep his law, if they would give him their allegiance and not worship other gods, he would dwell with them and bless them in the land.  But if they refused to do these things, he would curse them and eventually exile them—because an unholy people cannot live in God's presence.  And, of course, exile is precisely what happened.  And even when the people of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon, even after they'd rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, it still felt an awful like the exile wasn't really over.  Judah was ruled by pagan gentiles.  The Lord's presence had never returned to the temple.  And so they hoped in the promises the Lord had made to one day renew his covenant.  Through Isaiah, through Ezekiel, through Jeremiah, through Joel the Lord had promised.  He would not let his people languish in exile forever.  One day he would come and forgive their sins and their idolatry, one day he would come and fix their broken hearts, giving them hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone; breathing new life into dead, dry bones; pouring out his Spirit to make Israel new.  And in that rushing wind, in the tongues of fire, as he and his friends suddenly found themselves speaking other languages Peter recognised the words God had spoken through Joel.  This was the day.  Through Jesus and the Spirit, the God of Israel was renewing his covenant, through Jesus and the Spirit he'd returned to dwell again with his people: men and women, young and old, slave and free.  Judgement was coming soon on the unrepentant, but for those who called on the name of the Lord—on Jesus the Messiah—there was renewal.  And so Peter announces Joel's promise to Israel: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And then he does something astounding.  We're so used to hearing it that we might not even give it a thought, but Peter now takes this passage from Joel that was about the Lord, about Yahweh, about the God of Israel and he makes it about Jesus.  Look at verse 22: “You men of Israel, listen to this.  Jesus of Nazareth was a man marked out for you by God through the mighty works, signs, and portents which God performed through him right here among you, as you all know.  He was handed over in accordance with God's determined purpose and foreknowledge—and you used people outside the law to nail him up and kill him.  But God raised him from the dead! Death had its painful grip on him; but God released him from it, because it wasn't possible for him to be mastered by it.  This you see, is how David speaks of him: “I set the Lord before me always; because he is at my right hand, I won't be shaken.  So my heart was happy, and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh, too, will rest in hope.  For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy One to see corruption.  You showed me the path of life; you filled me with gladness in your presence.” Peter's quoting from Psalm 16.  What's that got to do with any of this.  Well, he goes on: “Men and Brothers, I can surely speak freely to you about the patriarch David.  He died and was buried and his tomb is here with us to this day.  He was of course a prophet and he knew that God had sworn an oath to set one of his own physical offspring on his throne.  He foresaw the Messiah's resurrection and spoke about him “not being left in Hades,” and about his flesh “not seeing corruption.”  [So here's his point.]  This is the Jesus we're talking about.  God raised him from the dead and all of us here are witnesses to the fact.  Now he's been exalted to God's right hand; and what you see and hear is the result of the fact that he is pouring out the Holy Spirit, which had been promised, and which he has received from the Father.”  So Peter's explaining to them that Jesus, in his resurrection, has fulfilled the messianic prophecy in Psalm 16 and what they're seeing happening in the wind, the tongues of fire, and the other languages is the evidence of Jesus' exaltation to his throne.  And in the same way that Jesus' resurrection has fulfilled Psalm 16, his ascension is fulfilling Psalm 110. Peter goes on in verse 34: “David, after all, did not ascend into the heavens.  This is what he says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I place your enemies underneath your feet.'  So the whole house of Israel must know this for a fact: God has made him Lord and Messiah, this Jesus, the one you crucified.”  Again, what they're seeing is the proof that God is vindicating the claims of Jesus to be Israel's Messiah.  Jesus fulfilled God's promises when he rose from the dead, he fulfilled God's promises when he ascended into heaven, and now he's fulfilling God's promises in pouring out God's Spirit, now seen and heard in the wind, the flames, and the tongues.  Again, God is renewing his covenant as he promised. Luke goes on in verse 37: “When they heard this, they were cut to the heart.  “Brothers,” they said to Peter and the other apostles, “what shall we do?”  “Repent!” replied Peter.  “Be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah, so that your sins can be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and for your children, and for everyone who is far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Notice—this is important—even though, yes, it is individuals who do the repenting, one by one, what Peter is calling for is national repentance.  Israel must repent—from sin, yes, but most of all from her rejection of Jesus as Messiah.  That's why Peter puts so much weight on how all that's happened is proof of Jesus' messiahship.  Jesus had warned over and over that if Israel would not repent, if Israel insisted on rejecting him as Messiah—and Jesus put this rejection in terms of idolatry—judgement would come on Israel and this time it would be permanent.  The Romans would destroy Jerusalem and the temple and the people would be exiled, not for seventy years, not for 490 years, but forever.  As an aside, Paul will pick up this same theme with the Athenians in 17:31.  As salvation was for the Jew first and then for the gentiles, just so would God's judgement be.  He would judge Israel for their idolatry and then come for the gentiles.  So Peter urges his fellow Jews to repent of their idolatry, to put their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and they will become part of this renewed covenant community—this new temple in which God, through his Spirit, has come to dwell. Luke says in verse 40 that Peter “carried on explaining things to them with many other words.”  No doubt walking them through more of Israel's story and more of Israel's scriptures to show them how Jesus and the Spirit have fulfilled them.  “Let God rescue you,” he was urging them, “from this wicked generation.”  Those who welcomed his word were baptised.  About three thousand lives were added to the community that day. And, again, the result is new creation, lived out in this renewed community of men and women.  Pentecost isn't just a personal exercise in spiritual growth any more than Jesus' death and resurrection were.  It's about the formation of a new people of God that would be God's temple in the world.  A temple made of people, transformed from the inside out, a temple that would—that still does—steward God's presence, God's wisdom, God's new creation for the sake of the world.  Luke makes a point of contrasting it with the old Israel, trundling along blindly in unbelief, in idolatry, and heading straight into inevitable judgement and destruction.  In contrast, this new Jesus-plus-Spirit people [verse 42] live out their baptism by “giving full attention to the teaching of the apostles and to the common life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Great awe fell on everyone and many remarkable deeds and signs were performed by the apostles.”  At the centre of their life together was this apostolic teaching that we see Peter giving: Teaching showing how Israel's scriptures, God's promises were being fulfilled in Jesus.  Truly good news.  And it drew them together as they shared meals—just as Jesus had done—including that last meal he'd shared with them, transposing the Passover meal, the covenant renewal meal of the people of God, transposing it around himself, his death, and his resurrection.  And they prayed.  And this transformed them.  “All those who believe came together and held everything in common.  They sold their possessions and belongings and divided them up to everyone in proportion to their various needs.”  No, they didn't become Marxists.  Luke's point is that they became a family.  They became what Israel was supposed to be.  Not a people who did their own thing; not a people who grabbed and hoarded for themselves; not a people who disengaged from community seven days a week, and then gathered with a group of religious acquaintances for a couple of hours one day a week.  No, Jesus and the Spirit made them a family.  Jesus and the Spirit made them a people of love, of grace, of abundance (even in their physical poverty), a family that witnessed the character of the Spirit and the goodness and abundance of God's new creation.  And the people around them noticed: “Day by day they were they were all together attending the temple.  They broke bread in their various houses and ate their food with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and standing in favour with all the people.  And every day the Lord added to their numbers those who were being rescued.” Brothers and Sisters, our great desire should be that the church today—not just our congregation, but the whole church—should look just like this, simply on a much larger and global scale.  We are no less a people of Jesus and the Spirit than those first Christians in Jerusalem were.  We should be such a family where the scriptures are read and the mighty works of God—the fulfilment of his promise; the good news about Jesus, crucified, risen, and ascended—are not only believed, but lived out and proclaimed.  A family where God's new creation generosity is actively lived out.  A family that not only keeps this covenant renewal meal, but lives out its implications throughout the week.  A family that clasps its hands together and prays that it might be on earth as it is in heaven, not just because Jesus told us to, but Brother and Sisters, because we are the people whose King shares our earthly nature and reigns in heaven; because we are the people who have been, ourselves, plunged into heavenly life by God's Spirit; and because we are people who are ourselves the fulfilment of God's promises and therefore a people of hope and witness of God's glory. Let's pray: Faithful God who never fails to fulfil your promises, you have purified us with the blood of your Son and filled us with your Spirit to make us your temple; give us grace to be that temple, to be your new creation, to be the stewards of your presence and your gospel for the sake of the world; and in your faithfulness, cause our faithfulness to bear fruit for your kingdom.  Through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord and our rescuer, we pray.  Amen.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

Epistle Reading: Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11WHEN THE DAY of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontos and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." Gospel Reading: John 7:37-52; 8:12On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.When they heard these words, some of the people said, "This is really the prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some said, "Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ is descended from David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, "Why did you not bring him?" The officers answered, "No man ever spoke like this man!" The Pharisees answered them, "Are you led astray, you also? Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed." Nikodemos, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" They replied, "Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee." Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

Join us as we dig deeper into last Sunday's sermon from Pastor Marcus Lane "The Gospel at Pentecost" and hear from Amy Duncan and Nate Zuellig on "Fullness". Digging Deeper Questions: When you think of the "work of the Holy Spirit," what typically comes to mind? Why do you associate the Spirit with these activities?   How does the work of the Spirit on Pentecost impact how you view the work of the Holy Spirit? Does it change how you view things in any way?   The beginning of Peter's speech emphasizes that the Spirit seeks to work in all people to bring us to faith and empower us to speak God's truth. How does this shape how you understand what the Spirit is doing in your own life? Scripture Reading: Acts 2:1-21 1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.   5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God." 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others mocking said, "They are filled with new wine."   14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:   17 "'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,     and your young men shall see visions,     and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants     in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above     and signs on the earth below,     blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness     and the moon to blood,     before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' Intro/Outro Song: "Only One" Nate Zuellig ULC Artist In Residence    "Fullness" Elevation Worship CCLI Song # 7067557   CCLI License # 11254293

24 May 2026 | This week on Pentecost Sunday Pastor Evan preaches from Acts 2:1-11. Acts 2:1-11 The Coming of the Holy Spirit 2 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested[a] on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Acts 2:1-36 Acts 2:1-36 - The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost 2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Peter Addresses the Crowd 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 “‘In the last days, God says,     I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy,     your young men will see visions,     your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women,     I will pour out my Spirit in those days,     and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heavens above     and signs on the earth below,     blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness     and the moon to blood     before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls     on the name of the Lord will be saved.' 22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25 David said about him: “‘I saw the Lord always before me.     Because he is at my right hand,     I will not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;     my body also will rest in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,     you will not let your holy one see decay. 28 You have made known to me the paths of life;     you will fill me with joy in your presence.' 29 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, “‘The Lord said to my Lord:     “Sit at my right hand 35 until I make your enemies     a footstool for your feet.”' 36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20260525dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion Utterly amazed, they asked, “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?” Acts 2:7 Adventure Awaits Wapakoneta, Ohio, is a solid, stable small town. It has a population of about ten thousand. It has a high school and a public library. It has a movie theater and a bowling alley. To grab a bite to eat, you can stop by Lulu’s Diner, RJ’s Coffey Cup, or The Alpha Cafe. And every August, you can attend the county fair located just outside the city limits. Wapakoneta is a great place to raise a family. At the same time, its citizens admit that it’s not the kind of place that automatically comes to mind when you think of famous figures or high adventure. But thanks to a 10-minute plane ride at a local air show, a 6-year-old farm kid by the name of Neil Armstrong got the flying bug. Three decades later, Neil Armstrong was the face of one of the world’s great adventures. He was the first man to set foot on the moon. In the first century A.D., the region of Galilee was not known for much of anything. In fact, many in Jerusalem looked down on Galileans as being just a bit unsophisticated, a bit rough around the edges. Therefore, on the Day of Pentecost, it came as a shock for people in Jerusalem to see and hear several men from Galilee stand up and do something extraordinary. By a miracle, God the Holy Spirit empowered these Galileans to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in a variety of different languages. And the adventure did not stop there. In the years to come, these same men would travel far and wide proclaiming what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world. By the power of the gospel, that same Holy Spirit brings people today to faith in Jesus as their Savior. And through this miracle of faith, they receive full forgiveness of sin, peace with God, and eternal life in heaven. And adventure awaits them in their future. The Lord will use them to pierce the darkness of this world, to proclaim the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light. Prayer: Lord Jesus, I am now yours through faith in you. Let my adventure begin. Amen. Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20260525dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion Utterly amazed, they asked, “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?” Acts 2:7 Adventure Awaits Wapakoneta, Ohio, is a solid, stable small town. It has a population of about ten thousand. It has a high school and a public library. It has a movie theater and a bowling alley. To grab a bite to eat, you can stop by Lulu’s Diner, RJ’s Coffey Cup, or The Alpha Cafe. And every August, you can attend the county fair located just outside the city limits. Wapakoneta is a great place to raise a family. At the same time, its citizens admit that it’s not the kind of place that automatically comes to mind when you think of famous figures or high adventure. But thanks to a 10-minute plane ride at a local air show, a 6-year-old farm kid by the name of Neil Armstrong got the flying bug. Three decades later, Neil Armstrong was the face of one of the world’s great adventures. He was the first man to set foot on the moon. In the first century A.D., the region of Galilee was not known for much of anything. In fact, many in Jerusalem looked down on Galileans as being just a bit unsophisticated, a bit rough around the edges. Therefore, on the Day of Pentecost, it came as a shock for people in Jerusalem to see and hear several men from Galilee stand up and do something extraordinary. By a miracle, God the Holy Spirit empowered these Galileans to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in a variety of different languages. And the adventure did not stop there. In the years to come, these same men would travel far and wide proclaiming what Jesus had done to take away the sins of the world. By the power of the gospel, that same Holy Spirit brings people today to faith in Jesus as their Savior. And through this miracle of faith, they receive full forgiveness of sin, peace with God, and eternal life in heaven. And adventure awaits them in their future. The Lord will use them to pierce the darkness of this world, to proclaim the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his wonderful light. Prayer: Lord Jesus, I am now yours through faith in you. Let my adventure begin. Amen. Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Acts 2:1-21 selected versesWhen the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? … we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: …. this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:17 “‘In the last days, God says,  I will pour out my Spirit on all people.Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,  your old men will dream dreams.18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days,  and they will prophesy21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

At Bethany, We are God's People who are: Gathered! Connected! Sent!We want to connect with you through this Podcast! Leave us a comment! Tell us where you are at! Leave a Review to help our audience grow!--May 24, 2026 -- Pr. Kevin Kritzer -- "Pentecost!" -- Acts 2:1-41(2) When Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Passover, came, all the believers were together in one place. 2 Suddenly, a sound like a violently blowing wind came from the sky and filled the whole house where they were staying. 3 Tongues that looked like fire appeared to them. The tongues arranged themselves so that one came to rest on each believer. 4 All the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak...7 Stunned and amazed, the people in the crowd said, “All of these men who are speaking are Galileans.... 8 Why do we hear them speaking in our native dialects? We hear these men in our own languages as they tell about the miracles that God has done.” 12 All of these devout men were stunned and puzzled. They asked each other, “What can this mean?” 13 Others said jokingly, “They're drunk on sweet wine." 14 Then Peter stood up with the eleven apostles. In a loud voice he said to them, “Men of Judea and everyone living in Jerusalem! You must understand this, so pay attention to what I say. 15 These men are not drunk as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning. 16 Rather, this is what the prophet Joel spoke about: 17 ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour my Spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters will speak what God has revealed. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.... 21 Then whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' 22 “Men of Israel, listen to what I say: Jesus from Nazareth was a man whom God brought to your attention. You know that through this man God worked miracles, did amazing things, and gave signs. 23 By using men who don't acknowledge Moses' Teachings, you crucified Jesus, who was given over ⌞to death⌟ by a plan that God had determined in advance. 24 But God brought him from death back to life and destroyed the pains of death, because death had no power to hold him. ...32 “God brought this man Jesus back to life. We are all witnesses to that. 33 God the Father used his power to give Jesus the honored position—the one next to him on the heavenly throne. Jesus has also received and has poured out the Holy Spirit as the Father had promised, and this is what you're seeing and hearing. ... 36 “All the people of Israel should know beyond a doubt that God made Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 37 When the people heard this, they were deeply upset. They asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter answered them, “All of you must turn to God and change the way you think and act, and each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins will be forgiven. Then you will receive the Holy Spirit as a gift. 39 This promise belongs to you and to your children and to everyone who is far away. It belongs to everyone who worships the Lord our God.” --GWhttp://www.bethanylutheran.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.facebook.com/Bethany.Long.Beach⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.youtube.com/c/BethanyLutheranLongBeach

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

In 362/363 the Roman emperor Julian composed a treatise titled Against the Galileans in which he set forth his reasons for abandoning Christianity and returning to devotion to the traditional Greco-Roman deities. Sixty years later Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, composed a response. His resulting treatise Against Julian would dwarf the size of Julian's original work and in fact serves as our primary source for the fragments of it that have survived. Julian's treatise was the most sophisticated critique of Christianity to have been composed in antiquity and Cyril's rebuttal was equally learned. The Christian bishop not only responded directly to Julian's own words but drew upon a wide range of ancient literature, including poetry, history, philosophy, and religious works to undermine the emperor's critiques of the Christian Bible and bolster the intellectual legitimacy of Christian belief and practice. Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian, Introduction and Translation (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the first full translation of the work into English. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Matthew Crawford Program Director, Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University Aaron Johnson, for the past 15 years, has been teaching at Lee University in Tennessee Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

John names the promise of the Spirit; Acts shows the fulfillment. Private fear becomes public witness. John 16:12-15 (ESV)“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.Acts 2:1-11 (ESV)When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Day of Pentecost First Lesson: Numbers 11:24-30 24So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. 25Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. 26Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." 28And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" 29But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" 30And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. Psalm: Psalm 104:25-35,37 25 O Lord, how manifold are your works! *        in wisdom you have made them all;        the earth is full of your creatures. 26 Yonder is the great and wide sea    with its living things too many to number, *        creatures both small and great. 27 There move the ships,    and there is that Leviathan, *        which you have made for the sport of it. 28 All of them look to you *        to give them their food in due season. 29 You give it to them; they gather it; *        you open your hand, and they are filled with good things. 30 You hide your face, and they are terrified; *        you take away their breath,        and they die and return to their dust. 31 You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *        and so you renew the face of the earth. 32 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever; *        may the Lord rejoice in all his works. 33 He looks at the earth and it trembles; *        he touches the mountains and they smoke. 34 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; *        I will praise my God while I have my being. 35 May these words of mine please him; *        I will rejoice in the Lord. 37 Bless the Lord, O my soul. *        Hallelujah! Second Lesson: Acts 2:1-21 1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." 14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' Gospel: John 7:37-39 37On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" 39Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.  

This is the Pentecost Service from Greenfield Presbyterian Church in Berkley, MI. SCRIPTURE READING: Acts 2:1-21 Pentecost 2 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. 5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren't all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? 8 How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” 12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They're full of new wine!” 14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren't drunk, as you suspect; after all, it's only nine o'clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. 18 Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. 20 The sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood, before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Send us Fan MailThe devotion for today, Thursday, May 21, 2026 was written by Weber Baker and is narrated by Johnny Engelke. Today's Words of Inspiration come from Acts 2:1-11:When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power.” Support the show

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? … We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:1-8, 11b)

On Pentecost, the promise Jesus made becomes reality as heaven crashes into earth with violent wind, tongues of fire, and a Word so powerful it overwhelms every other voice. In this episode we explore how the Holy Spirit doesn't arrive as a vague feeling or private experience, but as God's own speaking—creating faith by putting Christ's death and resurrection into human ears in every language. And in true Martin Luther fashion, the first Christian sermon isn't advice or law, but pure Gospel: you crucified Christ, God raised him from the dead, and forgiveness is now proclaimed for all people without distinction. GOSPEL Acts 2:1-21 1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs -- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17  'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19  And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20  The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21  Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' CARE OF SOULS - ADDICTIONIn Care of Souls, a special mini-series podcast from Luther House of Study, Lutheran pastors and theologians come together to explore the deeply personal and pastoral task of preaching to and caring for those struggling with life's challenging situations: addiction, death, family disharmony, and more. Rooted in the theology of the cross and the Lutheran tradition of radical grace, this series offers both theological depth and practical guidance for pastors, church workers, and lay leaders. With conversations, real-life stories, and reflections from the front lines of ministry, Care of Souls equips listeners to enter the broken places of addiction not with easy answers, but with the crucified and risen Christ. Because in the end, it's not about fixing people—it's about preaching the Gospel. Listen to Care of Souls wherever you listen to podcasts or on the Luther House website: Care of Souls - Addiction Support the showInterested in sponsoring an episode of Scripture First?Email Sarah at sarah@lhos.org or visit our donation page: lutherhouseofstudy.org/donate

To become a follower of Jesus, visit: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/MeetJesus  (NOT a Morning Mindset resource)   ⇒ Join the MMM Prayer Team: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/PrayerTeam ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Acts 2:1–11 - When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. [2] And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. [3] And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. [4] And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. [5] Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. [6] And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. [7] And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? [8] And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? [9] Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, [10] Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, [11] both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (ESV) ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE MORNING MINDSET: (not tax-deductible) -- Become a monthly partner: https://mm-gfk-partners.supercast.com/ -- Underwrite one daily episode: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/daily-sponsor/ -- Give one-time: https://give.cornerstone.cc/careygreen -- Venmo: @CareyNGreen ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF THIS PODCAST: Subscribe to the SPANISH version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Spanish Subscribe to the HINDI version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Hindi Subscribe to the CHINESE version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Chinese ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CONTACT: Carey@careygreen.com  ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ THEME MUSIC: “King’s Trailer” – Creative Commons 0 | Provided by https://freepd.com/   ***All NON-ENGLISH versions of the Morning Mindset are translated using A.I. Dubbing and Translation tools from DubFormer.ai ***All NON-ENGLISH text content (descriptions and titles) are translated using the A.I. functionality of Google Translate.

God Is Speaking To You. Are You Listening? Acts 2:5-8 5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?

John 4:46-54 - Faith in the Word, Not the Wonder Please turn to John 4:46-54. What we'll find in these verses is that Jesus and his disciples have arrived back in Galilee. They had left Jerusalem a few days earlier. On the way, they stopped in Samaria for a brief rest. However, that rest turned into two-days. As we saw last week, many Samaritans believed. It started with the testimony of the woman at the well, but then spread to many in her town. Some believed her testimony, but many more believed in Jesus' word. And do you remember how they came to meet Jesus? She invited them. She's a great example for us. They finished their journey to Galilee and were welcomed. That brings us to verse 46. Reading of John 4:46-54 Prayer There are moments in life when you would do absolutely anything to save someone you loved. Especially if it was your child. You would break down walls. You would run into burning buildings. You would stand in the way of someone attacking them. You would do whatever it took. In fact, there are some documented cases of mothers displaying a supernatural like strength to save their children… One such case happened in 1982 up in Lawrenceville. A teenage boy named Tony Cavallo, was working under his car. Unfortunately, the jack slipped and the car fell on him. It didn't crush him, but he passed out because of it. Well, his mom, Angela, saw it happen. She ran over and literally lifted up the side of the car. She yelled for help. A neighbor heard and ran and was able to replace the jacks and pull her son to safety. There's a name for it. They call it "hysterical strength." You know, in the hysteria of the moment, someone will have unnatural strength. And that's just one example of dozens. Well, our passage this morning is not about adrenaline-induced strength, but it is about a father willing to do anything to save his dying son. If you look at verse 47, you'll read that when this man heard that Jesus was in Cana, it says, "he went to him." That sounds simple enough, except, it was anything but simple. You see, Capernaum, where he and his family lived was about 15-20 miles from Cana. And not only was it a day's journey on foot, but when you travelled from Capernaum to Cana, you were travelling up. Capernaum was right on the Sea of Galilee and Cana was up in the hill country. You would be walking uphill about 1500 feet as you travelled those 15-20 miles. It was arduous and I suspect that this man would have travelled much further. After all, his son was gravely ill. Now, before we get into the specifics… let me remind you of two background things. First, at the very end of chapter 2, the apostle John wrote that Jesus knew all people. It says there that Jesus himself knew the heart of man. That statement introduces a series of conversations that Jesus had with different people. So far, we've met Nicodemus, a Jewish teacher and judge. Then, we met someone very different - the Samaritan woman, who had been living in sin. Today is the third person, a royal official - very different than the other two. And then next week, we'll meet a poor, paralyzed man in Jerusalem. Do you see how the apostle John is conveying the full extent of Jesus' ministry? He knows the heart of all men - all mankind, and he knows our needs, including and especially our need for him. So that is one reminder. The second reminder relates to verse 54. It says that this was now the second sign that Jesus did in Galilee. The first was back in chapter 2. Jesus turned water into wine. But remember, no one knew about that miracle except Jesus' mother and the servants. I bring that up because in verse 48, people were looking for signs and wonders. Word had gotten out that Jesus could perform miracles and could heal. The question is when and where would people have heard about or seen these signs? Well, the answer goes back to chapter 2 verse 23. After Jesus cleansed the temple area, it says that he stayed in Jerusalem for the Passover and then it says, "many believed in his name after seeing the signs that he was doing." In other words, Jesus had been performing other signs, not just the ones mentioned so far. We're also told that many Galileans had actually been in Jerusalem for the Passover. Look at chapter 4 verse 45. It says, "So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast." So, there were many in Galilee who had heard about or seen Jesus perform signs in Jerusalem. And because of that, there was a buzz. Word had gotten around that Jesus was back in Galilee. He was in Cana, and they wanted to see more. Well, that word also reached this official. And so he made his way to Cana.  But who was this man? Well, we're not exactly sure, but the Greek word for official indicates that he was more than just an officer in the Roman guard. The same word could be translated "royal" as a noun. He had some official royal capacity in the Roman hierarchy. We don't know exactly what and we're also not given his nationality, but he served the government in some kind of authoritative position. Perhaps he was over the region or over the city of Capernaum or over some aspect of civil life. Furthermore, he was either wealthy enough or had a high enough status to have multiple servants. Well, this man's son lay dying in bed at home. He had heard about Jesus, who performed signs and wonders. Could it be that this Jesus could heal my son? Would he be willing to come down to Capernaum before he dies? I mean, what parent in that situation would not make the same journey? He didn't send his servants. He went himself. And he pleaded with Jesus to come down and heal his son. That phrase "come down," by the way, simply refers to coming down from the hills of Cana down to Capernaum. Jesus, would you make the day's journey and come down and heal my son? As you and I know, this official misunderstood Jesus divine nature in two ways. First, he thought that Jesus had to be there in person - that's why he asked him to come to Capernaum. And second, he thought that Jesus had to heal his son before he died - the official didn't know that Jesus could raise the dead. All he knew was that Jesus had these powers and so he went to him hoping to save his son from death. In response, what did Jesus say? Verse 48: "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe." Jesus, what did you say? All I asked is that you come to Capernaum … I think you would agree… Jesus' response is interesting. He didn't really answer the request. No, instead, he addressed a different problem. This is yet another example of Jesus disrupting the natural flow of the conversation to make a point. Back in college, I worked as a camp counsellor for a couple of summers. In our training, the camp director talked about "teachable moments." He said that when something out of the ordinary happens, that was the exact moment when you could speak into the hearts and minds of your campers. Like when a fight broke out or when the camp store ran out of candy or when a kid got hurt at an activity. In those moments, the kids would be more likely to hear spiritual truths… more so than regular cabin devotions. Teachable moments are very effective. By the way, parents, take note of that concept. Well, imagine the scene in Cana. A crowd of some size was there when this royal official approached Jesus. We know this is because the word "you" in verse 48 is plural. Jesus said, "unless you (meaning you all) see signs and wonders, you all will not believe." So, multiple people were there. Why were they there? Remember, word had gotten out. Jesus was no longer just the son of Mary and Joseph. No, this was the man who had been in Jerusalem performing signs and wonders, and people wanted to witness it. So, a crowd had gathered. Then, this nobleman approached Jesus. Perhaps the people knew him. They were, after all, from the region. But even if they didn't know him personally, they would have known his royal capacity. And then he asked Jesus to do exactly what they wanted to see. He asked Jesus to heal his son. It was a teachable moment. And so, Jesus took the opportunity to address their misunderstanding about his signs and wonders. Again, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe." Jesus was saying, "You've got it backwards! You are focused on the wrong thing. You care not about the one who is performing the signs and wonders. No, all you care to see are signs and wonders themselves." Jesus was not performing the signs as if it was a magic show, yet that is how the Galileans saw it. They didn't care that these signs signified who Jesus was. No, they only cared about the wonders. Ok, let's take a little tangent, here. As some of you noticed, Amy is not here this weekend. When I'm preparing my sermon, sometimes I'll ask her for input. Specifically, I ask her about something controversial that I want to say. And usually she'll say, "you may not want to include that." Well, she wasn't around for me to ask. I'm going to say something controversial. Today in the church, we do a similar thing as the Galileans. We look for signs and wonders instead of looking to Jesus. I think we do. Sometimes we search for experiences and emotional highs to somehow legitimate our faith… or we want to hear feel-good stories. Some in the church take the latest innovations and seek to merge them with ministries or merge them with worship practices. Worship in the church can easily become man centered and not God glorifying. It often becomes a show and not worship. Our ministries can be filled with strategies that manipulate rather than calling people to faith and repentance. Much of it, to be honest, directs our attention away from faith in Christ and away his word. Others are taken in by so-called healing ministries. Now, we believe that God can heal - we often pray for healing, but these ministries claim themselves to have the ability. It's a sham. Others are drawn in by so-called pastors who promise material blessing if you just have enough faith or you give to their program. But friends, all of it is distracting us from the truth and distracting us from Christ himself and faith in him. But what if it went away? What if those innovations and emotion-inducing experiences and prosperity-promising messages went away? What if our country was overthrown by a communist regime and the church had to go underground? What if church buildings were taken over and our bank accounts were seized. What if gatherings of more than 10 people were banned. If that happened and all the consumerism and emotionalism in the church went away, would people still believe? What if you lived in North Korea where it's illegal to own a Bible and if you are found with one, you'll receive the death penalty? Would you still believe? I'm just asking. I know it's a little off topic, but it's a legitimate question. The Galileans were drawn in by the mystery and wonder of what they heard. But, as Jesus pointed out, they missed the point. It was about belief in him. It wasn't about the signs that he was performing. Those merely testified to him as the Son of God, the Savior of the World, and all those other titles that we've seen in John's gospel so far. We are called to believe him and believe his Word. Going back to this official... he was part of the crowd and Jesus was talking to him. He was targeted in Jesus' critique just as much as the other. This man had been looking for a sign - a specific sign. It wasn't at first about Jesus. But then something changed in him. You know, one of the beautiful things in this passage is how this man's faith matured. He went from a simple faith, perhaps no faith, to a deep trust in Christ which led to his entire household believing. At first, it seemed that all he cared about was his son being healed. Jesus may have only been a means to that end at first. But what we see over the course of these two days is a deep belief in Jesus and a maturing of his faith. Let me take a moment to clarify something. The Bible uses the word "faith" in two different senses. ·      The first is saving faith. Faith in the Christ for salvation, like Ephesians 2:8 - By Grace you are saved through faith. It's saving faith in Jesus and what he has done that saves us, not our works, which cannot save. That's one use of the word faith. ·      But second, faith is also something that we can mature in. Some saints in the Bible are referred to as having a strong faith. Others are said to have weak faith, and all of us are called to increase our faith. This second sense of faith is about the level of trust that we have in God and his word. Well, in this short period of time, this official's faith was born and it grew. Look at what he said in response to Jesus' exhortation. He said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus had just said to believe and not look to signs. The man's statement affirmed that he believed the Lord could heal his son. By the way, that word "sir" in the Greek can also be translated "Lord." It's the word "kurios." In fact, in other places in John, it is translated "Lord" like in chapter 11 when Martha said to Jesus "Lord, if you had been here, my brother [Lazarus] would not have died." The word "sir" doesn't fully capture the sense of reverence in this man's response. And notice what happened next. Jesus said that his son would live. As it turns out, Jesus didn't even need to go down to Capernaum. Jesus said the word and the man believed. Look at verse 50. That phrase in the middle really captures the heart of the passage. "The man believed the word that Jesus spoke." He believed Jesus' word before he could even confirm that his son was healed. That's flipped around from Jesus' critique of the people. Do you see how the official's faith was increasing? It increased even more when he met his servants. He learned that his son was healed at the exact hour when Jesus gave the word. And what was his response? Verse 53, it says, "he himself believed, and all his household." Let me note two things: ·      First, the emphasis is on Jesus. Verses 50 and 53 repeat the same exact phrase: "Jesus said 'your son will live.'" That's repeated. Any time you see a repeated phrase, it indicates the author's focus. So here, the focus is on Jesus and his word. This father believed in Jesus and his word. He no longer just believed that Jesus could heal his son. He believed in him. ·      And second, he took the responsibility to let his entire household know this. Did you notice that verse 53 is the first time that he is referred to as father? He was acting as the father, as head of his household. His whole household believed. His son who had been sick, believed. His servants believed. We don't know anything else about his household, but we know, as it says, that "all his household" believed in Jesus. It's quite the testimony. He had moved from… (#1) An earnest pursuit to find this man who may be able to heal his son, to (#2) believing Jesus' word without even seeing his son healed, to (#3) a maturing faith in Christ believing in Jesus and testifying to his whole household. May we each strive to set aside any temptations to search for wonders or signs… but instead believe in the very word of God, which testifies to Christ. In closing, I want to go back to the repeated phrase there in verse 50 and 53. Jesus said, "your son will live." It's actually present tense. Your son lives. It makes sense to translate it, "your son will live" because he'd been deathly sick and Jesus was saying he would not die from his sickness - no, he will live. These few verses not only direct us to believe in Christ and believe in his word and mature in our faith… they clearly do that, but they also reinforce that Jesus is the life giver. Life is found in him. As we've heard over and over in the Gospel of John, he has come to bring eternal life. So yes, may we believe in Jesus and in his word, but may we also believe that in him we will live.  

In episode 16 of season four of the Hope Church Sunday Extra podcast, hosts Jeremy, Brian, Luke, and Jake gather around the table to look back at Pastor Matt Sturdivant's sermon on Acts 2 — one of the most significant passages in all of Scripture, where the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples at Pentecost, Peter preaches the first Christian sermon, and 3,000 souls are added to the church in a single day. Pastor Matt organized the passage around four movements: preparation, power, proclamation, and response. Before the Spirit moves, God is forming unity, dependence, and readiness among the disciples. Then the Spirit arrives with the sound of a mighty rushing wind and divided tongues of fire, and Peter stands up to preach a sermon rooted in Old Testament Scripture, centered on Jesus, and calling the crowd to repent, be baptized, and receive the Holy Spirit. The table discussion goes deeper into the cultural backdrop of the passage, noting that the Galileans speaking in all these languages would have been shocking to the crowd — Galileans were viewed as rural, uneducated outsiders, and even religious leaders scoffed at the idea that anything good could come from Galilee. The pastors also unpack what it looks like to be filled with the Holy Spirit in everyday life, sharing personal stories of God giving them the power to forgive, the words to share the gospel, and the self-control to respond graciously rather than react harshly. As Galatians 5:16 reminds us, "Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves." The episode wraps up with a practical conversation about living on mission where we live, work, and play — whether that's disc golf with a skeptical friend, intentional conversations with neighbors, or simply letting the fruit of the Spirit shine in the workplace over time.

Why do bad things happen to people? In Luke 13, some people told Jesus about bad events. Roman soldiers had killed some Galileans while they were worshiping. Another time, a tower in Siloam fell and killed 18 people. The crowd wondered if these people were worse sinners and were being punished by God. Jesus said no. Bad things can happen to anyone in our broken world. We never know when our life might end. His clear message was: “Unless you repent and turn back to God, you will all perish too.” He wants us to be right with God every day. Jesus then told a story about a fig tree that grew for three years but never produced fruit. The owner wanted to cut it down, but the worker asked for one more chance to care for it and help it grow. This shows God's mercy — He gives us many chances to change and bear good fruit in our lives. Next, Jesus healed a woman who had been bent over and suffering for 18 years. She praised God right away. But the leader of the synagogue got angry because Jesus healed her on the Sabbath day. Jesus called him a hypocrite for caring more about animals than about a suffering person. The message for us today is simple: Examine your own life. Where do you need to repent? Even if things feel like a mess, God offers you another chance right now to turn to Him and live differently.

We find ourselves confronted with a powerful examination of authentic faith versus superficial religion in John chapter 4. The Galileans present us with a sobering mirror: they were captivated by Jesus's miracles but resistant to His message. They wanted the blessings without the belief, the spectacle without the surrender. This passage challenges us to examine whether we approach Christ as a divine vending machine, expecting Him to deliver health, wealth, and happiness in exchange for our church attendance and good behavior.If you have a story where Jesus has changed your life since you been here at Shelter Cove we would love to hear about it here: https://beyond.sheltercovelive.com/storiesCONNECT WITH SHELTER COVE HERE AT: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheltercove Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheltercovelive Website: https://sheltercovelive.com#Authentic #John #ShelterCove

Click here to WATCH LIVE STREAM Worship Service on our Youtube Channel. That You May Believe, Part 9 John 4:31-4 John 4:29-30 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him. John 4:31-45 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” 43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. · The example. Illustration: Picture of map John 4:31-34 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” John 17:4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Psalm 40:8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” Acts 20:24 But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Colossians 4:5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. · The reminder. John 4:35-38 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.' 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Amos 9:13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.” Matthew 9:36-38 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Psalm 126:5-6 Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! 6 He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Luke 15:7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. · The reason. John 4:39-42 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.” Romans 10:14-17 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” John 4:43-45 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. Respond | Connect | Next Steps The post John: That You May Believe appeared first on Charleston Baptist Church.

#top .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-6fd635a2cd5835a57363fb29850e4e69{ padding-bottom:10px; } body .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-6fd635a2cd5835a57363fb29850e4e69 .av-special-heading-tag .heading-char{ font-size:25px; } .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-6fd635a2cd5835a57363fb29850e4e69 .av-subheading{ font-size:15px; } Through My Bible Yr 03 – March 26Luke 13:1-17 LISTEN HERE Through My Bible – March 26 Luke 13:1-17 (EHV) https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/tmb-ehv/03-0326db.mp3 See series: Through My Bible Luke 13 Repent 1 At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? 3 I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.” Parable of the Fig Tree 6 He told them this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it, but he did not find any. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?' 8 But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. 9 If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.'” Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman 10 Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And a woman was there who had a spirit that had disabled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 He placed his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight and began to glorify God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. He said to the crowd in response, “There are six days to do work. So come to be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath day!” 15 The Lord answered him, “Hypocrites! Doesn't each of you untie his ox or his donkey from the manger on the Sabbath and lead it to water? 16 Here is this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years! Shouldn't she be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” 17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame. But the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things he was doing. #top .hr.hr-invisible.av-aocsdx-89cb4ca21532423cf697fc393b6fcee0{ height:10px; } The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved. #top .hr.hr-invisible.av-4vzadh-3f04b370105df1fd314a2a9d83e55b26{ height:50px; } Share this entryShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare by MailLink to FlickrLink to InstagramLink to Vimeo

Today’s Topics: Father Thomas Czeck, OFM Conv., joins Terry 1) Gospel – John 4:43-54 – At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When He came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him, since they had seen all He had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then He returned to Cana in Galilee, where He had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when He came to Galilee from Judea. Bishop Sheen quote of the day 2, 3, 4) Terry and Father Thomas discuss Franciscan Spirituality and the hidden secrets of the Franciscan Order    

Gospel John 4:43-54 At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea. Reflection Jesus was used to people constantly looking at him, wondering who he was, and they wanted some kind of proof that he was who said he was. And it was tiring to Jesus to constantly prove before anyone would believe in him that he was who he said he was. What's different here is this man looked at Jesus and knew who he was, knew the power he had, believed he had it, and simply said, Please come before my child dies. And Jesus knew the difference in a moment. He was not asking for Jesus to prove who he was. He was simply asking Jesus to do what he came into the world to do. It's a beautiful way of understanding what belief and faith really is in Jesus. Closing Prayer Father, confidence. Confidence is you are in our life giving us all that we need. Enabling us to do the things we're called to do. Help us to be always conscious of this presence within us that will always accomplish what is necessary. It is not we who do your work, it is you who do your work through us. That's our confidence, always in you and in your presence. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s Topics: Father Thomas Czeck, OFM Conv., joins Terry 1) Gospel – John 4:43-54 – At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When He came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him, since they had seen all He had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then He returned to Cana in Galilee, where He had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when He came to Galilee from Judea. Bishop Sheen quote of the day 2, 3, 4) Terry and Father Thomas discuss Franciscan Spirituality and the hidden secrets of the Franciscan Order

The disciples of Jesus have been praying in the wake of their Lord's ascension and departure, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit. In a magnificent display, the Holy Spirit arrives and the disciples begin to clearly speak different languages. Native-born peoples from various lands hear their own tongues being spoken by these Galileans and are simultaneously amazed and confused. Peter stands to address this crowd of Jews, quoting Scripture and explaining what happened to Christ, God's Messiah. He calls them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and about 3,000 are added to the number of those following Christ. :::Christian Standard Bible translation.All music written and produced by John Burgess Ross.Co-produced by the Christian Standard Biblefacebook.com/commuterbibleinstagram.com/commuter_bibletwitter.com/CommuterPodpatreon.com/commuterbibleadmin@commuterbible.org

Sermons Archive RSS John 4:43-54 Now after the two days He departed from there and went to Galilee. 44 For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they also had gone to the feast.46 So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”49 The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”50 Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”52 Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.54 This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.John 6:41,42 The Jews complained about Him, because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” And they said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, “I have come down from heaven”? John 7:5 For even His brothers did not believe in HimJohn 6:66 From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. John 12:3: But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in HimJohn 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. Matthew 15:28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.Matthew 8:10 & 13 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!13: Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” John 20:30-31 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.James 1:5-8 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.Luke 18:1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. Sermon Discussion Questions:Why did Jesus decide to go to Galilee rather than remain in Judea?How do we see the faith of the Nobleman Progress throughout this section?What is Jesus' initial response to the man's requestAccording to what was discussed, in which two ways are we supposed to pray? “Despised Samaritans turn to Christ, while many of the historic covenant community either actively oppose Him, or cannot progress beyond a fascination for miracles” — Hendrickson

Jesus Heals an Official's Son John 4:46-54 43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast. 46 So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. 47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. 51 As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. 52 So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. 54 This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

In this episode Pastor Jason Polk dives into John Chapter 4, verses 43 to 54, exploring the profound themes of true faith and belief. The discussion contrasts the Galileans' desire for signs and wonders with the Samaritans' faith in Jesus' word. We also examine the story of a royal official whose faith is tested as he seeks healing for his son. Join us as we uncover the power and kindness of Jesus and the essence of true faith that emerges from real-life needs.

Kendrick Diaz discusses Luke 13:2-3—“And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.'”

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION“The church…is not meant to call men and women out of the world into a safe religious enclave but to call them out in order to send them back as agents of God's kingship.”~Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), British theologian and missionary “The people who heard Jesus' disciples proclaiming the Good News were as impressed by what they saw as by what they heard. They saw lives that had been transformed…. A new quality, Christian love, was born. Conventional love is evoked by lovable qualities in the beloved, but the love people encountered from Christ embraced sinners and outcasts, Samaritans and enemies. It gave…because giving was its nature.”~Huston Smith (1919-2016), religious scholar and chair of the Philosophy Department at MIT “Why do we not observe how the charity of Christians to strangers…has done the most to advance their cause? For it is disgraceful…the impious Galileans support our poor in addition to their own, while everyone is able to see that our coreligionists lack aid from us!”~The Pagan Roman Emperor Julian (332-363), Letter to Arsacius, 360 AD “Why among all of the varieties of Judaism in the first century did only two survive….? One, the religion of the Rabbis – the other, the religion of Christianity. [This] rather improbable message that the Son of God has come to earth and been crucified, in human form, and risen from the dead ... appealed to a lot of perfectly ordinary people…in such a way that they were willing…to become initiated into a group which brought them only hostility, estrangement from their families and neighbors, and the possibility of persecution to the point of death.”~Wayne A. Meeks (1932-2023), Religious Studies Professor at Yale University “I believe that it was the religion's particular doctrines that permitted Christianity to be among the most sweeping and successful revitalization movements in history. And it was the way these doctrines took on actual flesh, the way they directed organizational actions and individual behavior, that led to the rise of Christianity.”~Sociologist Rodney Stark (1934-2022) in The Rise of Christianity “Assist…one another in good faith, and by deed and with a hearty will; nor let anyone remove his hand from the help of a brother, since ‘by this' saith the Lord, ‘shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.'”~Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome from A.D. 199 to 217 on John 13:35 “The person characterized by humility, gentleness, mercy and righteousness does not build a fence around good deeds. Rather, that one ensures that these good fountains overflow for the benefit of others. One who is pure in heart and a peacemaker, even when persecuted for the sake of truth, orders his way of life for the common good.”~John Chrysostom (347-407) revered early church leader in homily on Matthew 5SERMON PASSAGE selected passages (ESV)Genesis 12 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Psalm 671 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Isaiah 22 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it,3 and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Matthew 5 – Jesus's Teaching to His Disciples 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.13 You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 1 1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Matthew 28 – Jesus's Commission to the Church 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” John 13 – Jesus's Commandment to the Church 34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 17 – Jesus's Prayer for the Church 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Gospel Luke 13:1-9 Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply,  “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way  they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed  when the tower at Siloam fell on them— do you think they were more guilty  than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” And he told them this parable:  “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard,  and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree      but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?' He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also,  and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;  it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.'” Reflection Jesus makes clear that there is a work that we have to do. He's not saying that we can judge the world and how God is working in the world, and why some things happen, and some people have different kind of the lives that we do. But he wants us to get back to something so basic. You are on this planet to grow and to evolve and to change. To be transformed by his grace. And he says, if you don't do that, you will be destroyed by pride, greed, power over people. He doesn't want that to happen, but in telling people unless they change, they will be destroyed. He adds this wonderful disposition that he will never give up on us and he will continue to dig around us. Soil, fertilize us, water us, and pray and continue to work for our transformation. He is a loving God. When he warns us that we might be destroyed, he is there to do everything he can to make sure that doesn't happen. Closing Prayer Father, as we examine ourselves as we looked at our life and our choices, it's so important for us to see where we're off, where we're not functioning as God wants us to. Make us aware of our sinfulness. At the same time, bless us with his patience. His love, his continual forgiveness, and his nurturing Holy Spirit. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people told Jesus about the Galileanswhose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.He said to them in reply, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?By no means!But I tell you, if you do not repent,you will all perish as they did!Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem?By no means!But I tell you, if you do not repent,you will all perish as they did!”And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,he said to the gardener,‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree     but have found none.So cut it down.Why should it exhaust the soil?'He said to him in reply,‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.If not you can cut it down.'”

Click here for the DRB Daily Sign Up form! TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Zechariah 7-9; Luke 13 Click HERE to give! Get Free App Here! One Year Bible Podcast: Join Hunter and Heather Barnes on 'The Daily Radio Bible' for a daily 20-minute spiritual journey. Engage with scripture readings, heartfelt devotionals, and collective prayers that draw you into the heart of God's love. Embark on this year-long voyage through the Bible, and let each day's passage uplift and inspire you. TODAY'S EPISODE: Welcome to the Daily Radio Bible, where we journey together through the pages of scripture and let the Word point us to the Living Word—Jesus himself. In today's episode for September 30th, our host Hunter invites us to warm our hearts by the fires of God's love as we read from Zechariah 7–9 and Luke 13. We'll witness powerful prophecies of restoration and hope in Zechariah, and hear Jesus challenge our assumptions about tragedy and repentance in Luke. As Hunter reflects, the headlines of both the ancient and modern world often declare that "the world is falling down," but Jesus brings good news—a kingdom that is rising up in the midst of brokenness. With gentle encouragement, Hunter leads us to consider our own need for God's renewing grace, to trust in the hope he offers, and to join in prayer for our world, our families, and our own hearts. So whether this is your first day or your twelfth year with us, settle in as we center our lives on the One who holds all things together. TODAY'S DEVOTION: The world is falling down. Those are the headlines—then and now. Tragedy, disaster, violence—they fill the news and our lives with sorrow and confusion. When Jesus looked at the headlines of his own day, he spoke of Galileans killed by Pilate, and of people crushed when a tower fell in Siloam. He posed the question many of us have probably wondered: Were their suffering and deaths the sign that they were the worst sinners? Was this God's judgment against them, or a measure of their worth in God's eyes? But Jesus turns our thinking upside down. He tells us no, their suffering was not because they were the worst, or because God didn't care, or that they were unimportant to Him. The world is broken, Jesus says. Towers fall, tragedy strikes, death comes—sometimes seemingly at random, sometimes to the pious and sometimes to the publican. This is the world we inhabit: a world fallen, groaning, filled with loss. But Jesus is not content just to comment on the news. He proclaims something entirely new: The kingdom of God is rising up. Where the world falls, God's kingdom grows. The kingdom is like a gardener, patient with a barren fig tree, tending it, waiting for fruit. It's like a woman bent over for eighteen years, suddenly raised up and set free. It's like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a tree, so large that the birds can make their nests there. It's yeast, small and hidden at first, yet permeating the whole loaf. Jesus brings good news into this falling world. He goes to Jerusalem; He is lifted up on a cross for this very reason—that the world, broken and lost, could be made new. He offers hope: not just for the world, but for each of us, for our own broken souls. He calls us to repent, to turn to Him, to let Him meet our needs and restore what is shattered in us. This is our invitation—to center our lives on the good news of Jesus, to trust Him and join Him in His mission. We can participate with Him: shining light in the darkness, extending mercy and justice, and bearing witness to the kingdom rising up in a world that so desperately needs it. That's a prayer I have for my own soul. That's a prayer I have for my family, for my wife, my daughters, and my son. And that's a prayer I have for you. May it be so. TODAY'S PRAYERS: Lord God Almighty and everlasting father you have brought us in safety to this new day preserve us with your Mighty power that we might not fall into sin or be overcome by adversity. And in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose  through Jesus Christ Our Lord amen.   Oh God you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth and sent your blessed son to preach peace to those who are far and those who are near. Grant that people everywhere may seek after you, and find you. Bring the nations into your fold, pour out your Spirit on all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.   And now Lord,  make me an instrument of your peace.  Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.  Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope.  Where there is darkness, light.  And where there is sadness,  Joy.  Oh Lord grant that I might not seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.  For it is in the giving that we receive, in the pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in the dying that we are born unto eternal life.  Amen And now as our Lord has taught us we are bold to pray... Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not unto temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image. And nourishing us with spiritual food, now send us forth as forgiven people, healed and renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world, and continue in the risen life of Christ.  Amen.  OUR WEBSITE: www.dailyradiobible.com We are reading through the New Living Translation.   Leave us a voicemail HERE: https://www.speakpipe.com/dailyradiobible Subscribe to us at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dailyradiobible/featured OTHER PODCASTS: Listen with Apple Podcast DAILY BIBLE FOR KIDS DAILY PSALMS DAILY PROVERBS DAILY LECTIONARY DAILY CHRONOLOGICAL  

Click here for the DRB Daily Sign Up form! TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Zechariah 7-9; Luke 13 Click HERE to give! Get Free App Here! One Year Bible Podcast: Join Hunter and Heather Barnes on 'The Daily Radio Bible' for a daily 20-minute spiritual journey. Engage with scripture readings, heartfelt devotionals, and collective prayers that draw you into the heart of God's love. Embark on this year-long voyage through the Bible, and let each day's passage uplift and inspire you. TODAY'S EPISODE: Welcome to the Daily Radio Bible, where we journey together through the pages of scripture and let the Word point us to the Living Word—Jesus himself. In today's episode for September 30th, our host Hunter invites us to warm our hearts by the fires of God's love as we read from Zechariah 7–9 and Luke 13. We'll witness powerful prophecies of restoration and hope in Zechariah, and hear Jesus challenge our assumptions about tragedy and repentance in Luke. As Hunter reflects, the headlines of both the ancient and modern world often declare that "the world is falling down," but Jesus brings good news—a kingdom that is rising up in the midst of brokenness. With gentle encouragement, Hunter leads us to consider our own need for God's renewing grace, to trust in the hope he offers, and to join in prayer for our world, our families, and our own hearts. So whether this is your first day or your twelfth year with us, settle in as we center our lives on the One who holds all things together. TODAY'S DEVOTION: The world is falling down. Those are the headlines—then and now. Tragedy, disaster, violence—they fill the news and our lives with sorrow and confusion. When Jesus looked at the headlines of his own day, he spoke of Galileans killed by Pilate, and of people crushed when a tower fell in Siloam. He posed the question many of us have probably wondered: Were their suffering and deaths the sign that they were the worst sinners? Was this God's judgment against them, or a measure of their worth in God's eyes? But Jesus turns our thinking upside down. He tells us no, their suffering was not because they were the worst, or because God didn't care, or that they were unimportant to Him. The world is broken, Jesus says. Towers fall, tragedy strikes, death comes—sometimes seemingly at random, sometimes to the pious and sometimes to the publican. This is the world we inhabit: a world fallen, groaning, filled with loss. But Jesus is not content just to comment on the news. He proclaims something entirely new: The kingdom of God is rising up. Where the world falls, God's kingdom grows. The kingdom is like a gardener, patient with a barren fig tree, tending it, waiting for fruit. It's like a woman bent over for eighteen years, suddenly raised up and set free. It's like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a tree, so large that the birds can make their nests there. It's yeast, small and hidden at first, yet permeating the whole loaf. Jesus brings good news into this falling world. He goes to Jerusalem; He is lifted up on a cross for this very reason—that the world, broken and lost, could be made new. He offers hope: not just for the world, but for each of us, for our own broken souls. He calls us to repent, to turn to Him, to let Him meet our needs and restore what is shattered in us. This is our invitation—to center our lives on the good news of Jesus, to trust Him and join Him in His mission. We can participate with Him: shining light in the darkness, extending mercy and justice, and bearing witness to the kingdom rising up in a world that so desperately needs it. That's a prayer I have for my own soul. That's a prayer I have for my family, for my wife, my daughters, and my son. And that's a prayer I have for you. May it be so. TODAY'S PRAYERS: Lord God Almighty and everlasting father you have brought us in safety to this new day preserve us with your Mighty power that we might not fall into sin or be overcome by adversity. And in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose  through Jesus Christ Our Lord amen.   Oh God you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth and sent your blessed son to preach peace to those who are far and those who are near. Grant that people everywhere may seek after you, and find you. Bring the nations into your fold, pour out your Spirit on all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.   And now Lord,  make me an instrument of your peace.  Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.  Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope.  Where there is darkness, light.  And where there is sadness,  Joy.  Oh Lord grant that I might not seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.  For it is in the giving that we receive, in the pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in the dying that we are born unto eternal life.  Amen And now as our Lord has taught us we are bold to pray... Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not unto temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Loving God, we give you thanks for restoring us in your image. And nourishing us with spiritual food, now send us forth as forgiven people, healed and renewed, that we may proclaim your love to the world, and continue in the risen life of Christ.  Amen.  OUR WEBSITE: www.dailyradiobible.com We are reading through the New Living Translation.   Leave us a voicemail HERE: https://www.speakpipe.com/dailyradiobible Subscribe to us at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dailyradiobible/featured OTHER PODCASTS: Listen with Apple Podcast DAILY BIBLE FOR KIDS DAILY PSALMS DAILY PROVERBS DAILY LECTIONARY DAILY CHRONOLOGICAL  

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