60IN60 Day 55 - Sat Apr 25

It's Day 55 and we're in Acts 16.

Where God Spoke To Me:
- Verse 13 - The plan was basic: find a place where people are and talk about Jesus. This doesn't need to be complicated.

Help:
- Verse 3 - Why does Paul ask Timothy to do this? It wasn't a religious requirement. Rather it was something that allowed Timothy (who was not Jewish) to have greater acceptance among the Jewish believers. Sometimes we do things not because we absolutely have to, but rather to give the gospel message a greater opportunity for acceptance.
- Verse 10 - The "we" indicates that Luke joined them at this point.

If you want to read the chapter online, here's a link.

If you have a question or comment, email me at butcher@ymail.com.

Your Comments:
- "Verses 20 & 29 instruct the Gentile Christians to "abstain from pollution of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood." It seems Christians today are still instructed to avoid fornication and idol worship but I've never heard a prohibition against meat containing blood or from a strangled animal. I know this originates in the Jewish dietary restrictions but wonder why only 2 of the 4 prohibitions are considered pertinent today. And, just as an afterthought, what was the problem with meat from a strangled animal (although I can't really imagine anyone strangling a cow!)?" - I think that's a great question.  I've wondered the same thing myself.  I think the answer has mostly to do with how far away we are historically from their situation where Jewish Christians were still the majority and Gentile Christians were the newcomers.  Now most of us give little thought to the Jewishness of the original Christians.  I think you could probably make a decent case that these are things we should still be paying attention to (which is really sad for me and the steak I plan on having tonight!).  Probably the strongest case against paying attention to them would be arguing for our freedom in Christ.  As for the strangling, I presume the problem had to do with the blood in the animal.  And I guess whether you'd want to strangle a cow would depend on how mad the cow had made you! ;-)