"Witnesses of These Things"
Yesterday, in looking at the great commission as presented in Luke, we saw the primacy that Jesus gave to the Scriptures, that He used them to justify all that had happened. He also used the Scriptures to give the disciples their commission to the world.
According to Jesus, what was the message of the Scriptures that the disciples were to take to the world? See Luke 24:45-48. How does this fit in with what we looked at in Tuesday's lesson? How does this fit in with our understanding of the three angels' messages of Revelation 14?
Here again, central to the whole call to make disciples is the death and resurrection of Jesus, all for the remission of sins. Jesus Himself points not just to the events that surrounded His life and death, but to the meaning of those events. This is what Jesus told them to preach to the world. What would make their testimony so powerful, too, was that, as He said to them, "ye are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48); that is, the things surrounding His death and resurrection.
How do the following texts help us to understand the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection? Rom. 5:6-10; 1 Cor. 5:7; 15:3, 4; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 2:22-25.
The disciples apparently were powerful witnesses, too. What began in Jerusalem as primarily a Jewish affair became a worldwide movement within fifty years. Acts 1-7 shows the growth in Jerusalem and Judea; chapters 8-12 shows how persecution and other influences took the movement beyond to Samaria, Ethiopia, Syria, and other Gentile territories. Acts 13-28 shows how Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor turned Christian, took it in ever-widening circles until it reached Rome.
No comments:
Post a Comment