Matthew Wright > Recent Status Updates

Any "power" that they have comes not from their own quasi-divinity, but from the fact that humans, worshipping them, have given to the malevolent forces that use their name as a cloak the authority that God always intended humans themselves to exercise.

the powers that have gripped the pagan world and the fake "gods" that these "powers" have used to deceive the nations have been overthrown. Zeus, Hermes, and the rest have been shown up as shams. They simply do not exist.

it is time to turn away from all this playacting and experience the power and love of the God who puts all the gods to shame.

People often think of "miracles" as the "invasion" of the natural order by a force from outside. That wasn't how the early Christians saw it. For them, dramatic and otherwise inexplicable healings were seen as evidence of new creation, of the Creator himself at work in a fresh way.

those who worshipped idols became enslaved to them, trapped in a downward spiral of dehumanization.

They were aimed at the establishment of a new kind of kingdom on earth as in heaven.

Paul's "missionary" journeys were not simply aimed at telling people about Jesus in order to generate inner personal transformation and a new sense of ultimate hope,

When a person has come to faith in Jesus, as the risen, Lord, that event is self assign of the spirit work through the gospel, and that, if the spear has begun that, “Good Work,” of which that Faith is the first fruit, you can trust that the spirit will finish the job.(Philippians 1:16 & Romans 5-8)

Believing allegiance; altogether larger, in a way that this PISTIS, this heartfelt trust in and allegiance to the God revealed in Jesus, was the vital marker, the thing that showed whether someone was really part of this new community or not.

One obvious Greek term for loyalty is one of Paul’s favorite words, PISTIS, regularly translated as Faith.
But, PISTIS, could also point to the personal commitment that accompanies any genuine belief, in this case that Jesus was now LORD THE WORLD RIFLE SOVEREIGN. HENCE THE TERM MEANS, LOYALTY, OR ALLEGIANCE. THIS WAS WHAT CESAR DEMANDED FOR HIS SUBJECTS.

We easily forget that the author of these letters spent most of his waking hours with his sleeves rolled up, doing hard physical work in a hot climate, and that perhaps two-thirds of the conversations he had with people about Jesus and the gospel were conducted not in a place of worship or study, not even in a private home, but in a small, cramped workshop.

When people in churches today discuss Paul and his letters, they often think only of the man of ideas who dealt with lofty and difficult concepts, implying a world of librar-ies, seminar rooms, or at least the minister's study for quiet sermon preparation.

The story and acts doesn’t say that saw spoken, tongue or prophecy. The idea that things like that had to happen for the spirits gift to be genuine as a much later fiction. What acts offers instead is the remarkable statement that saw went at once to the synagogue and Damascus, and announced that Jesus was the son of God.

Ananias is visit to straight street is that Saul was promised the gift to the spirit, and everything in his subsequent life, and writings indicates that he believes this and had happened then and there.

As so often – – he becomes a reoccurring theme in Christian life – – when something has to be done, it will be done through an obedient, but quiet, likely, nervous, and worried, disciple.

Hope, in this sense is not a feeling. It is a virtual. You have to practice it.
You practice the virtue of Hope, through worship and prayer, through invoking the one God, through reading, and imagining the scriptural story, and through consciously, holding the unknown future within the unshakable, divine promises.