On 9-20-15, Acts 5:27-29, 33-42 will be our Adult Sunday School/ Uniform Series/ International Sunday School Lesson, herein is my commentary. This lesson is known by some as Witnessing to the Truth or Speaking Up for God

Witnessing to the Truth

or

Speaking Up for God

Acts 5:27-29, 33-42

September 20 2015

Commentary 

by

Jed Greenough

I can tell you right now I cannot put down in words something this week that will do justice to what I feel about today’s scripture.  That is how much I want you to weigh the words of today’s scripture.

In Matthew 10:32-33 we read, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

It is with much confidence that I say that whoever fails to take the opportunity to speak up for God or witness about Him when they could is in effect disowning Him.

That can be in our daily lives as that “small” voice of the Spirit nudges you to speak or witness and you fail to do so.  And it will happen in droves as the “rebellion” occurs and the people fall away as we read in 2 Thessalonians 2.  

Failing to speak up in the barber chair when given the opportunity is not the same as taking on the literal or figurative mark of the beast but as I’ve quoted before from Aaron Tippen’s song, “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll  fall for anything.”  Meaning that when things get tough and if you haven’t got the practice of speaking up for God it sure won’t be easy to do then.  It seems even if must be a bit selfish in our thoughts that this alone would motivate some to witness.

I think we must place the act of witnessing above all other things in the church.  Ahead of financial peace, ahead of socials, ahead of addiction counseling, ahead of how to be a grown up man or woman or how to be couples.

We are pretty good about those things as churches but most of us as churches are not giving as much emphasis on this the most important of issues.

It starts with the new convert who receives the word in the fertile ground with continuing nurturing growth and it continues in your class room and from the pulpit and with periodic refresher courses whatever that might be.  Go bowling once and you throw more gutter balls then strikes.  Become a professional bowler but take enough time off from practice and yeah your game is going to suffer.

I challenge you to start speaking up for God every time you know you should or can.  I challenge you to get your Sunday School class involved to get it established in your church.  I challenge you to motivate your church to take it seriously.

How much of an impact could 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 of us who are studying these words make?  How do you think you will feel when on That Day He acknowledges you?

For Discussion:

1. Discuss the roll that our individual gifts of the Spirit play in the ways we witness.
2. Discuss what a Sunday School class can do to improve a church in this regard.
3. Discuss ways you have failed to witness.
4. Discuss ways you have successfully witnessed.
5. Discuss ideas you have for witnessing.
6. As a class project choose a number like 50 and come up with 50 ways to witness.
7. Discuss how to overcome fear.
8. Discuss the most extremely serious ways possible where we must acknowledge God before men both doing so and failing to do so.
9. Discuss examples where people have been called before the authorities for witnessing.  This might be school, work or some place in the world.
10. Discuss when people flee when their message is not welcome.
11. Discuss Gamaliel’s statement.
12. Discuss verse 41.
13. Discuss verse 42.
14. Odds are your class, your church, the majority will not accept the challenge.  Will you?

Upcoming Lessons

9-27-15     Standing Firm Against Opposition or Remembering God’s Faithfulness     Acts 7:2-4, 8-10, 17, 33, 34, 45-47, 52, 53 

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved

On 9-13-15, Acts 4:34-5:10 will be our Adult Sunday School/ Uniform Series/ International Sunday School Lesson, herein is my commentary. This lesson is known by some as Sharing with Sincerity or Sharing All Things

Sharing with Sincerity 

or 

Sharing All Things

Acts 4:34-5:10

September 13, 2015

Commentary 

by

Jed Greenough

“Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”  This was not included today because we stopped at verse 10 and I think it should have been don’t you?

Obviously fear was a part of what we read.  Part of verse 5:5 says, “And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.”

Fear means many things but with healthy fear comes healthy respect, wisdom and truth and a lack of the same leads to a messed up Christian and a messed up faith.  I can see no other answer for some of the questions as to why the church is the way it is today.

Now this has a lot to do with sharing, which is what most of us will look at today when we have our lessons.  That is, not to be feared into sharing but to share with sincerity.  A lack of sincerity is like one rotten apple which spoils the whole barrel of apples.  

So what questions roll through your head when you read today’s scriptures?  Did you think I don’t like this?  They were apparently giving way more than a tithe so what was the problem?  This is extremely severe and over the top not just once but twice?  Are we supposed to be living like this today, selling everything we have and living in a sense communally?  

All those are fair questions and I think great for discussion.  I do not think it would be a stretch at all to say that many over the last two thousand years have read those words and thought this is what they did and this is what we are to do.  That would be great if the spirit was right wouldn’t it?

If you have ever thought about most of our church today and compared it to this you would see how far we have strayed from it.  Members who you don’t know who are hungry or who have bills unpaid.  Members who have a death in the family and you didn’t know or you didn’t give condolences to.  Members who have talents of teaching or giving who don’t have the opportunity to use those talents.

Churches, unless we start new ones that seek to healthily copy this, are not likely to resemble this at all.  But what they can do is attempt to do what it takes to follow the spirit of what we read from today’s scripture.  How do you think that might be accomplished?

Well it is a scary proposition, but what about whenever a church that is growing seeds a new church instead of adding on to an existing structure.  This way members don’t fall by the way side.

How about having staff members (even unpaid ones) who's job it is to make certain that every individual is known?  How might you know someone?  Are they involved?  What are their talents?  What are their needs?  Just because they are in a group is it the right group a year later?  Just because they decline something once do they want it now?

I’m not sure I am making my point but if you think about the consistency of what God wants maybe you’ll understand.

In Leviticus 1, Jeremiah 6 and 7, Psalm 50, Isaiah 1 and other places we read about God not wanting sacrifices but we know He prescribed them.  You know when you read what David said in Psalm 51:16-19 that David figured it out.

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

My sacrifice, O God, is[a] a broken spirit;

    a broken and contrite heart

    you, God, will not despise.

May it please you to prosper Zion,

    to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,

    in burnt offerings offered whole;

    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

God wants sincerity.  We must know each of our members as best we can if we are to meet their needs the way God knows us.  This is how God is with us and this is the way we should be in the church towards each other.  When members see we are sincere towards them they will learn in turn how to be sincere towards God.

Then and only then can we expect to teach and understand how we are to live and give as a church.

Upcoming Lessons

9-20-15     Speaking Up for God or Witnessing to the Truth    Acts 5:27-29, 33-42

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved