If it’s from God, you won’t be able to put an end to them - Acts 5:1-6:7

The more I read Acts, the more compelling it is. I say this because here we see the first signs that the growth of the Church was pervasive, but it definitely wasn’t trouble free. There was persecution from without, and corruption from within.

From within we see the account of Ananias and his wife Sapphira testing and Holy Spirit by lying, and receiving swift judgment. Now, contrary to perhaps popular media opinion, this kind of swift judgment is quite rare in the Bible. Judgment is usually enacted against nations after long periods of time who have become hardened in their ways (Genesis 15:16 among others).

And from within we see the Hellenistic Greek speaking widows receiving different treatment that the native Palestinian Aramaic speaking ones. I’m reminded that the church is to be a single family. So yes, they share everything in common, and yes, they treat each other all with the same respect and love. Plus, this incident is a glaring hint to church leaders that two things are essential, giving people God’s Word and prayer.

But as for me, because of the greatness of your mercy I will come to your house - Psalms 5 & 6

This struck me with I began delving into this Psalm, God wants to empathize with us, and he CAN! He wants us to go to him with our struggles, our groans, our cries for help when no solutions or answers are in sight.

And this is especially interesting considering God’s holiness presented here. Holy in the Bible means, “set apart for a special purpose.” God is holy, so he can’t be around evil (5:4). This is why it’s only because of his mercy (5:7), that is, his undeserved favor that we can approach him (a love fully revealed in Jesus). And it’s in view of this mercy that God leads us to in turn lead a holy life (5:8)

It’s such a paradox. “God hates sinners, but he loves sinners.” And I love paradoxes (and things that are the same), and the Bible has a lot of them. This paradox is what Lutheran`s distinguish as “Law and Gospel” and is central to Lutheran theology (the picture in this post is a Cranach painting depicting Law and Gospel. You got to love medieval German art sometimes...).