The Teaching and Testimony of the Apostles

By Hayes Press

This book explores the teaching and testimony of the apostles in two ways; firstly, by exploring a number of the key 'sermons' or testimonies in the Acts of the Apostles, and secondly by analyzing exactly why it is so important to the Christian faith, even 2,000 years after it was given to us.

CHAPTER ONE: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PETER AT PENTECOST

CHAPTER TWO: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PETER AND JOHN BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN

CHAPTER THREE: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - THE APOSTLES BEFORE THE SANHEDRIN

CHAPTER FOUR: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PETER INTRODUCES THE GOSPEL TO THE GENTILES

CHAPTER FIVE: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PAUL AT ANTIOCH IN PISIDIA

CHAPTER SIX: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PAUL'S ADDRESS TO THE AREOPAGUS

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PAUL'S FAREWELL MESSAGE TO THE EPHESIAN ELDERS

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE APOSTLES' TESTIMONY - PAUL'S PERSONAL TESTIMONY

CHAPTER NINE: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS SOURCE

CHAPTER TEN: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS AUTHORITY

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS PATTERN

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS UNITY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS RESULT

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - ITS DEPARTURE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE APOSTLES' TEACHING - A 'TRADITION'?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hayes Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540137845

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE: THE APOSTLES’ TESTIMONY – PETER AT PENTECOST (KEITH DORRICOTT)

THE DAY BEGAN AS ANY other spring day in Jerusalem around 30 A.D.; except that today was the annual Festival of Weeks - a holy day that celebrated the early grain harvest. It drew thousands upon thousands of devout Jews from their homelands throughout the Roman Empire, many of whom may have been travelling for days. Devout men of many different countries and languages - from as far away as Rome, present-day Iran and North Africa - crowded into the city of Jerusalem. They came to be faithful to what the law required of them - to appear before the Lord on this holy day, and to be part of the wave offering of the two loaves. These loaves were to be made of bread mixed with leaven, from the grain harvested from the crop which had begun fifty days earlier. This day was the fiftieth day - in the Greek language Pente-cost. This festival had been observed by Jews for almost fifteen hundred years. But this Pentecost day would be very different.

Meanwhile, in a two-storey building not far from the Temple, about 120 Galilean Jews were gathered, as they had been each day for several weeks. They were not, however, there for the Festival of Weeks. They were there because they had been told by Christ Himself to stay in Jerusalem. He had said to them, before He left them to return to heaven after His resurrection, ... you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:5). He had also said, ...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8); and so they stayed and waited, day by day, both in the Temple grounds and in that upstairs room worshipping and praying together.

The Spirit Given

Without warning, before nine o’clock that morning, it happened. There was a great noise, like a rushing mighty wind, coming from heaven into that room. Tongues that looked like fire appeared and rested upon the apostles and they began to speak and to praise in different languages. What they had been waiting for had happened; the Holy Spirit had come upon them from heaven, and they were filled with His great power. God was bearing witness to His work with signs and wonders. The great plan to evangelize the world had been launched.

With all the commotion, the crowd in Jerusalem started to congregate, wondering what was going on in this place. To their amazement they could hear these Galileans speaking in their own native languages. What was causing this? Some were openly sceptical, accusing them of being inebriated. This prompted Simon Peter, as one of the Lord’s twelve apostles, to stand up and speak to the crowd. He launched into his first ever gospel sermon, in the common Greek language of the day - and it produced dramatic effects.

He began by explaining that what was happening was in fact a fulfilment of a prediction by the Old Testament prophet Joel with which they would have been familiar. He quoted to them from Joel 2 where Joel had spoken the word of God that He would one day pour out His Spirit on all flesh, and that all who called on the name of the Lord would be saved. He then testified to Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified in that same city just a few weeks before. He showed them that, although it was the Romans who had put Him to death, in fact it was the Jewish leaders who were responsible. Moreover, God Himself had preordained it; it was no accident.

He then spoke of Christ’s resurrection, quoting the beginning of Psalm 110, and showing that David when he wrote this psalm wasn’t speaking about himself but about the Christ. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses (Acts 2:32). The resurrection of Christ was then, and is now, a unique and compelling feature of the Christian message. Here were eye-witnesses telling the story. And now, he said, Christ has been exalted to God’s right hand in heaven. They had crucified Jesus, but God had made Him Lord and Christ.

It was a powerful message and it stung them. They were convicted in their hearts by the Holy Spirit of their rejection of Jesus, and they cried out what shall we do? It was exactly the right response. Here were hundreds of devout Jews, being faithful to what they knew, but having no idea that Jesus of Nazareth was in reality the Christ of God.  Now the truth

dawned on them. God had used the occasion of this festival of Pentecost to bring them to Jerusalem, and to bring them to this realization.

Repent and Be Baptized

Then in response to their question, Peter told them exactly what to do: Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation (Acts 2:38-40). Peter wasn’t content with just a few souls being saved. He wanted them all to repent of their sins, and to acknowledge Christ. He gave them the offer - the gift of the Holy Spirit, that the disciples already had, and he also warned them to repent - to dissociate themselves from what the nation had done in rejecting Christ.

To demonstrate that repentance, they were to be baptized in water - a public testimony to Christ. God had called them in the gospel, and in response they were calling on Him to be saved. About three thousand of them did so. What a response! They gladly received Peter’s appeal. This wasn’t just a duty, it was a joyful celebration. Off they went to be baptized by the existing disciples. Where they went we don’t know, because water is scarce in a mountain-top city like Jerusalem. Perhaps it was to the River Kidron, east of the city; perhaps the Bethesda pool, in the north-east quadrant; perhaps the Siloam pool in the south; we don’t know. But they were baptized, to give evidence of their new-found salvation, baptized as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Lord had commanded in Matthew 28.

But that was not the end: it was just the beginning. By being baptized in the Holy Spirit they had been placed in the Church the body of Christ, of which Christ is the Head. This they would learn about later. By being baptized in water they could then be added to the existing disciples, forming the first Church of God and enabling the spiritual house of God, of which Christ is the chief corner stone, to begin functioning. The smaller group wasn’t added to the larger; one by one the three thousand were added to the existing group of disciples. This was no group merger. It was the Lord who was doing the