Dwell in the Word: Acts 26:12-32

Contemplate these questions as you dwell in Acts 26:12-32:

1. Paul emphasizes that the events of the Christian faith, including Christ's life, death, and resurrection, did not happen in a corner but were public and witnessed by many. In today's context, how can believers effectively communicate the historical reality of these events to those who may view them as mere stories or myths?

2. The public nature of Christ's life and actions is highlighted as crucial to the Christian faith. How does this historical foundation impact the believer's confidence in the truth of the gospel, especially in a world that may question or challenge the reality of these events?

3. The love of God is presented as a concrete reality in the gospel story, involving real suffering, death, and resurrection. How does this understanding of God's love as a historical and tangible event contribute to the believer's assurance and confidence in their salvation? How can Christians convey this truth to others who may perceive faith as merely sentimental or abstract?

Transcript:

 And so, here we have, again, in the Book of Acts, The story of Paul's conversion. And so, this is Paul telling Festus and Agrippa how he came to this point. And I want to focus on verses, or verse 26. We've discussed Paul's conversion twice before. We know the story of that.  But I want us to take a look at what Paul says about the things of the Christian faith.

So, Paul is telling the story of his conversion and specifically about Jesus and his salvation to all people and Festus says that Paul is going out of his mind. In fact, he says his great learning is driving him out of his mind. But Paul says, no, I'm in my right mind. Everything is fine. I'm speaking to you true rational words.

Then verse 26 comes for the kink, knows about these things, and to him, I speak boldly for, I'm persuaded that none of these things have escaped his notice. For this has not been done in a corner.  The Christian faith, the events of the Christian faith, were not done in a corner.  They are not the ramblings of people who went off into some monastery or into a cave or went somewhere and thought up these things and then said, hey, this allegedly happened and now it means this.

The Christian faith is about things that did not happen in a corner.  Christ was publicly teaching in his ministry. Christ was publicly crucified. Christ was resurrected. And more than 500 people, we read in 1 Corinthians 15, uh, came into contact with him. After that resurrection and there were disciples and other people who saw him ascend the main events of the Christian faith Did not happen in a corner.

They happened publicly and this has a great importance for you and I  the salvation that we speak of the faith that we hold to  is not just  Platitudes it is not just things that we say to make us feel better it's not a story that was dreamed up so that when a loved one dies or when we're facing death ourself and We can feel a little better about what's coming our way.

No, the Christian faith happened.  Christ really took on human flesh. He walked around, people saw him, people touched him. He taught, he ate, he did all of these things. He really suffered and died. God himself suffered. How important is that?  That Christ, you know, had a real body and in a world that is filled with real problems and real sin that he suffered Really for our sins.

He bore the wrath of God in his flesh for us and he publicly rose from the dead  Showing that we have victory over sin death and hell  when it comes to death does not have the final word God has the final word the gospel has the final word  and when Christ  It happened in his real body in front of real people who were able to testify to the truth of this event.

And so, we know that our real Christ is really ruling and reigning at the right hand of the Father.  All of this is very important. And it did not happen in a corner. Agrippa heard about it. People saw it. This is important for us because this gives us true peace.  The love of God for us, as you have likely heard me say many times, the love of God, is not something we talk about, about some god out there somewhere having warm feelings for us.

The love of God is shown to us in the story of the gospel that I just talked about, the fact that God really came to us and really rescued us from a very real problem of sin and an even worse problem of death that comes from that sin, right?  We have a real faith that holds to things that did not happen in a corner.

And so may we relish in this We did not need to be persuaded to become a Christian the holy spirit came and took hold of us and gave us the gift of faith and we understood and we believed by faith And so now we are what Paul hoped all his heroes would become. We are those who trust in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation.

May we relish in that truth, that truth that did not happen in a corner, but instead happened where people could see it and transmit that message to us that we might hear and believe by faith through the power of the Spirit and have the joy and the peace and the hope of our salvation.