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Source: (consider it) Thread: Studying Acts
daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
# 1480

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We are every week studying Acts, with each one in my home, leading it. It is interesting after Jesus died and was alive and up to heaven, and many others have to learn about Him.
What o you lots do with studying Acts ?


[Edited thread title - Mamacita]

[ 14. May 2014, 21:59: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

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Adam.

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The Catholic daily Mass lectionary works through Acts over the Easter season. Going through it in order in reasonably-sized chunks has been helpful for me to really get the structure of it. I technically "knew" before, but "knew" it in the sense that I'd looked at structure charts in the intro of a few commentaries. Now, I feel like I get it in a much more experiential / intuitive way, like watching a serial TV show when you've already seen a bunch of episodes syndicated.

Seeing how gradual the acceptance of outsiders in general (Gentiles in particular) is in the Church, and what prompts and facilitates that is especially interesting. It's something I've found you really can't get a feel for by just studying isolated pericopes, it's living in the book's own flow that does it.

[ 15. May 2014, 02:32: Message edited by: Hart ]

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Gramps49
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Acts, the Never Ending Story. Still being written, though few people will ever see more than what is already in the Bible.

Am having an interesting discussion with a conservative friend who wants to argue Acts was written before 70 AD since there is no mention of the fall of Jerusalem.

I think I have him going when I point out that Acts actually quotes Josephus' Antiquities three times so it could be that Acts was written around 100 AD. There are three points of reference: (1) The circumstances attending the death of Agrippa I in 44. Here Acts 12:21–23 is largely parallel to Antiquities 19.8.2; (2) the cause of the Egyptian pseudo-prophet in Acts 21:37f and in Josephus (War 2.13.5; Antiquities 20.8.6); (3) the curious resemblance as to the order in which Theudas and Judas of Galilee are referred to in both (Acts 5:36f; Antiquities 20.5.1)

Then I pointed out some scholars say it is Josephus that quotes Acts, so it could be written around 80 AD.

After I got him thinking about that timeline, I then pointed out that still other scholars feel the quotes were inserted much later by Christian copiers

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Mamacita

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Has anyone here read N.T. Wright's volume on Acts from his New Testament series? It looks like it has discussion questions and might be useful for a group study.

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
# 1480

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Last time we studied Acts 9, and learned about Ananias teaching and learning Saul so he became a proper Christian, loving Jesus.
And Peter and John in Acts 8 were sent to Samarians to find out if they were being believers..

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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http://www.biblestudytools.com/acts/1.html

and I forgot to put Acts on it's reading place ...

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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I am surprised that many people do not contact on Acts from here.
We are in the one Acts 17 where many Paul and taught people about God and Jesus and went around to tell them and sing at night, when they were in jail.
Many in the world now need to be taught about God and be told it.

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Eutychus
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I think Acts is probably one of the books I have read or studied the most in the Bible.

Back in the heady days of Sunshine Corner it was the subject of the "Bible" bit, with an SGM type pocket version and quiz questions for which the prizes were staples to a card: these allowed one to "buy" books and stuff at the end of the season. I also studied it in the "seniors" section of Sunday School, angrily telling my dad (who led the group) that far from maturing beyond the heady ideals of Acts 2 and having all things in common, we hadn't worked our way back there yet. Somehow his appraisal looks a bit wiser now.

I preached through the book once about 25 years ago and am just getting to the end of a preaching series on it which I must have started somewhere round the beginning of this academic year.

I have managed to visit a couple of places mentioned, the obscurest of which must surely be Fair Havens in Crete (now a dirty beach with a few ramshackle holiday huts; I can understand why the captain was not keen to winter there).

The biggest change in my reading of Acts was when I came to see it as descriptive rather than prescriptive; describing how the nascent Church attempted to get to grips with the realities of the Spirit and grace - and not a blueprint for exactly how this should be done anywhere and everywhere.

I'm currently getting a bit bogged down around chapter 26 with a lot of legal procedures and a fair bit of repetition on the part of Paul, but the aspects of the criminal justice system and how Paul dealt with it have surprisingly contemporary reflections and are of wry interest to my prison inmates.

[ 01. July 2014, 20:56: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
# 1480

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Yes, we are enjoying Acts, but it seems very different from others in the Bible. But it starts about Jesus coming alive and going up to Heaven. And then the Acts tells lots of people all over the world. Which needs to happen nowadays.

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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We had Acts 16 last time and it was interesting , as Paul and Silas were jailed - and there they sang hymns and prayed. They also spoke of the Gospel.
And they taught about "the "Most High God" so Jews and Gentiles could learn and belong and pray to God and love God.
Do many of you read and learn about the bits in Acts ? Does it done by most of us ?

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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
And they taught about "the "Most High God" so Jews and Gentiles could learn and belong and pray to God and love God.

I find it really interesting how Paul always seemed to start where his listeners were at - wasn't 'Most High God' a name often given to the Greek god Zeus? And in Athens (if I remember rightly) Paul talked about the shrine 'of an unknown god', saying he would make this unknown god known to people.

Paul affirmed what was good and true in other belief systems. He didn't go in and say 'you've got it all wrong, let me tell you about Jesus!'. We should do the same as Paul, I think!

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Latchkey Kid
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IIRR the themes in Luke are carried through in Acts, which is the second scroll of the book.

One of the themes is the action of the Holy Spirit, so that some think it could be known as the Acts of the Holy Spirit rather than the Acts of the Apostles.

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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As we studied it, we were asked about how we can get to tell others to learn about Christ and become Christians. We were told that Paul and Silas and Timothy had really got feeling how God, Father, Jesus and Spirit had been loving us and loving them and just wished to do what God told them to do.

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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We are studying 19 this evening, and I have to lead (we all get to lead each other day) but I have noticed that she is Diana and also Artemis in verse 24 in 19. Who is she? And which different bibles have different names of her ?

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Callan
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The Greeks and Romans more or less shared a common religion but were divided by language. Hence the lady in question was Diana when worshipped in Rome and Artemis when worshipped in Greece. Given that Ephesus (now in Turkey) was, at the time, in Greek Asia Minor I am not sure why she was Diana of the Ephesians but there you go. Anyway, Diana and Artemis were, for all intents and purposes one and the same.

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Brenda Clough
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Perhaps it was because the classical dieties had different aspects, which are expressed in their names: Pallas Athene, Jupiter Invictus, and so on. You could invoke the various aspects at need, praying for Apollo for his gift with words (Loxias) rather than his archery ability.
Diana of the Ephesians was the Diana of that particular temple, which was very famous. Her image is different there. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis and slide down to see the various statues; the Ephesian Artemis is hung with round things which are either breasts or (more likely) severed testicles.

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Oscar the Grouch

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Hmmm.

What confuses things here is that different translations seem to go in different ways. The NRSV has Artemis (which is what the Greek has). But the New King James and the ASV use Diana.

So it looks as if Luke used the "correct" term, Artemis, but some translators decided that Diana would be more intelligible.

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Moo

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I assume that the Vulgate gave the name as Diana, and later translators were influenced by that.

Moo

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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We are studying it again today this week, also lest week. WE also feel about it to get other people to understand and love Jesus and God as this is always mentioned through out the world in Acts.

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daisymay

St Elmo's Fire
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And today it was about Acts 22 and 23, about Paul being attacked and managed by God not to be killed and was a Roman man. And there are many people who are Christians being killed now.
My husband had a person, cousin aged longer, who became a Christian and got away as a teenager and got ordained and came back to be in church running the church in India.
Do many of you not read and work on Acts?

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fullgospel
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Eutychus I too remember the SGM publications. Including beautifully done copies of individual gospels, and the rather delux NT give on completion of questions on al the books and chapters of the NT !

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Nigel M
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Acts 22 and 23 is great reading. The author was a superb narrator, managing to combine the history, theology, and drama in this passage. It's actually quite refreshing to read through a longer passage like this after spending time on detail elsewhere.
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