The Purpose of the Book of Acts - Reece's Peace's

               The Book of Acts is unique in the New Testament. It is not like the gospels because it does not cover the life and ministry of Jesus. It is unlike the Letter of the Apostles because it is a historical account, not simply a theological letter. This begs the question: what is the purpose of the Book of Acts?

               Before we can answer this question, we have to know why the Book of Acts was written. The Book of Acts was not written to be read as we read it today. It was made to be read directly following the Gospel of Luke. Luke and Acts were written as two sections of one combined work: Luke-Acts. The first line of the Book of Acts makes this clear when the writer states, “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had chosen.”

               Reading the Books of Acts before the Gospel of Luke makes about as much sense as reading The Two Towers before The Fellowship of the Ring. You cannot understand the purpose of the second book without reading the first. Unfortunately, our modern Bibles created this problem. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are separated by the Gospel of John. This artificial division makes it seem as if they were written as two separate works.

               However, if you do read the two books together you can see the purpose of the Book of Acts. The Gospel of Luke ends with Christ's ascension and the Apostles leaving to go pray in the temple. Unlike the other Gospels, it does not have any conclusion or summary sentences. John has the clearest example of this in the final sentences, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” The Gospel of John makes it clear with this statement that this is the end of His story. John has told all that he wishes to tell. Luke doesn’t have a statement like this because while Jesus’s life story might have been finished, for Luke His ministry wasn’t.

That is the purpose of the Book of Acts, to show how Jesus’s ministry lived on in the work of the Apostles. By connecting the books, you see this clear relationship. Jesus’s life is finished, so the Apostles continue with His mission. The Book of Acts shows us that even though Christ is no longer with us physically His spirit still is and we are to carry on with His mission.

Why does Easter Fall on a Different Day Each Year? - Reece's Peaces

Easter is unlike other holidays. Independence Day is always on July 4th, Christmas is always December 25th, but Easter’s date changes.

Easter is always celebrated on a Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th, but the exact date moves. The reason for this is quite simple.

The date changes on our modern Gregorian calendar, but not on the Jewish calendar. Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday during the Jewish holiday of Passover. Passover always begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan. The Jewish calendar, unlike our modern Gregorian calendar, uses the rotation of the moon instead of the Sun to divide the year into months.

According to the Jewish calendar Easter does have a fixed date. It is always celebrated on the first Sunday immediately following the 15th of Nisan or, more specifically, the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. While it may seem to us that Easter’s date changes year to year, it was not so for early Christians.

However, that's not the only unique aspect in dating the celebration of Easter because not all Christians celebrate Easter on the same Sunday. This year the Eastern Orthodox Church will celebrate Easter on April 24th, while Western churches will celebrate it on April 17th. This difference has nothing to do with the moon.

Instead, the answer comes down to our calendars. Western Christians use the Gregorian calendar which has leap days while Eastern Christians use the Julian calendar which does not. Over many years the two calendars have become a bit out of sync. This means that the Orthodox Church can date their Easter on one date while the Western churches use a different date.

In general, the reason why Easter’s date changes each year is due to the original Jewish calendar. We celebrate Easter following the cycle of the Moon instead of the cycle of the Sun. It is only due to our modern calendar that Easter has become a moving holiday.

Shine - Reece's Peaces

“This Little Light of Mine” is a song that we all know. Almost every Christian child is taught it as they grow up. I remember singing it as a child with the children’s chorus at my home church the Sunday before Easter. The song is simple to learn and the message is even simpler to understand. We have a little light of the Lord in us and we need to let it shine.

During the month of February, we're going to discuss the little light that we are given, a light inside of us that Luke describes as, “a light of revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). It is that light of revelation which each of us holds in our heart. It shines in us like a candle in a dark room, illuminating our space and allowing us to move freely without the worry of stumbling. The light of the Lord shines for all to see.

This month’s sermon series is “Shine.” We will examine the light of the Lord inside of us, investigating what the Bible says about the call to light up the world and seeing how we are all called to hold our candle to illuminate the way for others. We will also discuss how the light inside us shines brightness into the emptiness, allowing God to fill our very souls with God’s grace. We will further examine how love shines through that light into our lives and into the lives of others.

Finally, our sermon series will end on Transfiguration Sunday, a day that we celebrate the moment in which Jesus was revealed to his disciples as the Son of God. Transfiguration Sunday is not nearly as well-known as many other important days in the church calendar, but it is a significant day. This day celebrates the moment in which Jesus was transfigured from his humanly form into a new form of radiant shining glory appearing on a mountaintop alongside Moses and Elijah to speak to his apostles Peter, James, and John.

He was then called the Son of God by a voice in the clouds. Reminiscent of the same voice calling out at his baptism. In that moment he became the light of God for all to see shine!

Transfiguration Sunday will be the capstone in our call to shine, to live out that line of a song that we learned so long ago: “This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine!”.

Peace,

Ben

Five Years from Now

As we kick off the new year we're also kicking off a new period for our church, a period of revisioning.

Starting in January our sermon series in which we will intentionally ask big questions about how you see the church and where we see it going. We together will find the answer to what we want the church to look like in five years and how we will get it there.

We will answer questions like:

What does the church look like in five years?

How do you want the church to grow?

What programs would you like the church to have?

How will the church address needs in our community?

What are our church's faith pillars?

What are some things our church is currently doing that need to be reworked?

All of these questions need to be answered to become the church we want to be.  As we work through this January sermon series we will send out an intentional survey. Asking you questions about your thoughts on the future of Hurstbourne Christian Church. Please take the time to fill them out and give us as much detail as possible.

At the end of the series, we will create a vision team. That will go through those surveys and formulate a vision and mission statement that sums up what we want Hurstbourne Christian Church to become.

I would like to thank you all for your participation and enthusiasm as we create a new vision of the church together.

Hopeful Expectation

Like many, my family gets together on Christmas Eve. Each year we gather and have a meal. After the meal is over, we open presents.

When I was a child, waiting to open the presents until after I ate the meal was hard. It was difficult to look at all of the brightly color boxes wrapped with bows and ribbons. I would scarf down whatever was on my plate. I wanted to finish quickly so I could get to opening presents sooner.

Visions danced in my head of toys and candies, just waiting to be opened. It was hard to focus on anything else.

I doubt that I'm the only child that had those expectations and for whom waiting for Christmas was hard. I was ready to rush through the traditions and get straight to the main event.

However, the traditions necessitated that I wait.

I had to wait before I opened my gifts. I had to wait until Christmas came.

Many of our Christmas traditions place an emphasis on waiting with hopeful expectations.

That is largely what our Advent season is. It is a season of hopeful expectations. We wait and build up anticipation for the coming birth of a Messiah. We sit at the edge of our seats, waiting for that final moment when Christ comes forth.

This year, as we start our Advent season once again, it is no different. We are waiting, hopeful for what is to come.

We don't just sit idly bye. We live into those expectations. We make the world into the world we hope for. We share our love with those people around us and we brighten their hearts, their minds, and their spirits. The hope that we look forward to is not a hope of the presents we will receive, but the hope of the gifts that we can give.

Those gifts are hope, peace, joy, and love.

This Advent, I invite you to come with us in hopeful expectation of what the coming Messiah will bring, not only in your life but in the lives of all of God's children.