Acts 2 Quotes & Sayings

Stressing the necessity of personal holiness should not undermine in any way our confidence in justification by faith alone. The best theologians and the best theological statements have always emphasized the scandalous nature of gospel grace and the indispensable need for personal holiness. Faith and good works are both necessary. But one is the root and the other the fruit. God declares us just solely on account of the righteousness of Christ credited (imputed) to us (2 Cor. 5:21). Our innocence in God's sight is in no way grounded in works of love or acts of charity. Whereas a Catholic might answer the question "What must I do to be saved?" by saying, "Repent, believe, and live in charity,"7 the apostle Paul answers the same exact question with, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:31). Getting right with God is entirely and only dependent upon faith.8 — Kevin DeYoung

I hate the industry even more now, no bands get nurtured anymore. Labels only spend money promoting acts they know will be Top Ten. I find it offensive spending $2 million on a video. — Siouxsie Sioux

The Spirit's fullness is not the reward of our faithfulness, but God's gift for our defeat. He was not given to the disciples in Acts 28 as the culmination and reward of their wonderful service, but in Acts 2 when they had proved themselves cowards, meeting behind closed doors. — Roy Hession

But to interpret the Islamic waqf as an 'act' of citizenship is at best unconventional. This argument requires changing our modern understanding of citizenship as contractual status. It requires considering the ways in which the concept of citizenship has evolved through history and how it enabled a division between modern and traditional and occidental and oriental.2 Once we fulfill these requirements, new avenues of thought open up through which we can interpret Islamic waqfs as acts of citizenship. — Pascale Gazaleh

reporting of matters that were far more important, not only to him but to others as well?"2 Matters, for example, such as the resurrection of Jesus, which Luke says was firmly established by "many convincing proofs" (Acts 1:3). Are you as intrigued as I was by what — Lee Strobel

[Peter] testified to [the Jews in Acts 2] that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the Judge of the living and dead, into whom he did also command them to be baptized for the remission of sins. — Irenaeus Of Lyons

Turn your face toward the sacred Mosque (Koran 2:144,149,150) Commentary: The word "sacred" means that a heart which has not disengaged itself from the sphere of the soul and the sphere of created beings is forbidden to penetrate into this place ... "Wherever you are, turn your face" [toward the sacred Mosque] means, "Wherever you are, in the accomplishment of works of worship or in the ordinary acts of life, contemplate Him - in what you eat, in what you drink, in him or her whom you marry, always knowing that He is at once the Contemplator and the Contemplated ... " — Abdelkader El Djezairi

Nowhere do Jesus or the apostles ever treat the Old Testament as human reflections on the divine. It is instead the voice of the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:25; Heb. 3:7) and God's own breath (2 Tim. 3:16). — Kevin DeYoung

Clearly, here is a man who adheres to a widely held theory of attacking the branches of evil. 1. Speak from an ivory tower but rarely take a cutting tool in hand, unless when advising others. 2. Lecture at length, inspire others to unselfish acts of civil disobedience or quiet resistance, but rarely perform such acts yourself. 3. Become a widely-heralded critic of the state from within a respected state institution. — Douglas Herman

Who should serve the Lord's Supper? Well in the early church, considering Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 11, the host of the home presumably was the host of the meal, and as I have said, really, the Lord is the host at his own table, not any of us. We are all just participants, we are all celebrants. I don't think there is any biblical warrant for the serving of the Lord's Supper to be confined to ministers, but I do think that anyone who undertakes such a sacred task should be trained to do it in a respectful manner. — Ben Witherington III

Peter, the biggest failure of them all, became the preacher that day. It was no homiletical masterpiece, to be sure. But people were deeply convicted - "cut to the heart," according to Acts 2:37 - by his anointed words. Three thousand were gathered into the church that day. Which church? Baptist? Presbyterian? Pentecostal? There were no such labels at that time - and in God's view of things, there still aren't. He ignores our categories. All he sees when he looks down is the body of Christ, made up of all born-again, blood-washed believers. The only subdivisions he sees are geographical - local churches. Other distinctions are immaterial. I — Jim Cymbala

the best imagery used to depict the theological enterprise is that of pilgrimage. Biblically we read of Christians described as those who belong to "the Way" (e.g., Acts 9:2; 19:19, 23; 24:14, 22), for they are "sojourners" (1 Pet 2:11) — Kelly M. Kapic

We must stop even thinking of standing up straight. To think of it is fatal, for it commits us to the operation of an established habit of standing wrong. We must find an act within our power which is disconnected from any thought about standing. We must start to do another thing which on one side inhibits our falling into the customary bad position and on the other side is the beginning of a series of acts which may lead into the correct posture.[2] The hard-drinker — John Dewey

Following the story line becomes easy when one realizes that the book of Acts is structured on a cyclic principle in which a common pattern keeps getting repeated: (1) Christian leaders arise and preach the gospel; (2) listeners are converted and added to the church; (3) opponents (often Jewish but sometimes Gentile) begin to persecute the Christian leaders; and (4) God intervenes to rescue the leaders or otherwise protect the church. While this pattern is most obvious in the first half of the book, it extends in modified form to the journeys of Paul, whose repeated buffetings are followed by the expansion of the church. — Anonymous

And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on th' inventors' heads - all this can I Truly deliver. (5.2.371-78) The — William Shakespeare

Jesus was handed over to those who killed him "by God's set purpose and foreknowledge" (Acts 2:23). Jesus' death was not an accident; it had to happen. At the same time, seeing the death of Christ as satisfaction for sin, as divine punishment, does not mean that there is a rift in the Godhead between an angry Father and the loving Son he punishes. Through Christ's death, expiation of sins, righteousness, and eternal life are secured for believers. God's grace does not nullify the satisfaction and merit of Christ but is the ultimate ground for that merit. It is the love of God that sent the Son into the world (John 3:16), and on the cross Jesus remained the beloved Son. — Anonymous

THE ABSENT ELEMENT IS what is expressed in the final sentence of the prayer recorded in Acts 4: "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders" (v. 30). What gains unbelievers' attention and stirs the heart is seeing the gospel expressed in power. It takes more than academic rigor to win the world for Christ. Correct doctrine alone isn't enough. Proclamation and teaching aren't enough. God must be invited to "confirm the word with signs following" (see Heb. 2:4). In other words, the gospel must be preached with the involvement of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. — Jim Cymbala

Remember how Paul and Barnabas urged this upon the Jews of Antioch, 'persuading them to continue in the grace of God' (Acts 13:43; Gal. 5:4; Titus 2:11; 1 Peter 5:12). — Horatius Bonar

22 s The LORD t possessed [2] me at the beginning of his work, [3] the first of his acts u of old. 23 Ages ago I was v set up, at the first, w before the beginning of the earth. — Anonymous

Even as the apostle Paul described his mission to unbelievers, so it is the primary task of all Christians to reach out to the lost "to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in [Christ]" (Acts 26:18; see also Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:5, 9). If we do not evangelize the lost and make disciples of new converts, nothing else we do for people - no matter how beneficial it seems - is of any eternal consequence. Whether a person is an atheist or a theist, a criminal or a model citizen, sexually promiscuous and perverse or strictly moral and virtuous, a greedy materialist or a gracious philanthropist - if he does not have a saving relationship with Christ, he is going to hell. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

these are ten manifestations of demon possession in the New Testament. 1. superhuman physical strength (Mark 5:3; Acts 19:16) 2. fits of rage and ferocious behavior (Mark 5:4) 3. high pain tolerance (Mark 5:5) 4. self-mutilation (Mark 5:5) 5. foaming at the mouth (Luke 9:39) 6. seizures or convulsions (Luke 9:42) 7. divided personality (Mark 5:6-7) (The demoniac ran to Jesus yet at the same time cried out in fear.) 8. resistance to spiritual things, especially the name of Jesus (Mark 5:7) 9. clairvoyance or supernatural knowledge (Mark 5:7; Acts 16:16) 10. change in voice (Mark 5:9) — Mark Hitchcock

2. Humanity & Peace -
2.09 THE NUCLEAR QUESTION
Any act against the constitution,
Must be declared to be but void,
But atomic acts against humanity,
Are the strength to be but tried.
[22] - 2
The future of any of the countries,
Does lie way above its people,
And the future of humanity -
On numerous BOMBS so ample.
[23] - 2 — Munindra Misra

The new and needed apologetics will differ from previous apologetic models geared at convincing people solely or even mainly from a rationalistic perspective or that begin with biblical authority. People want to see spiritual power demonstrated by transformed lives expressed in community. This is the hope people harbor. They will respond to a spiritual belief system that delivers at this point. Jesus said that the proof f discipleship to the world would be his followers' love for one another
(John 13:35). Early observers were drawn to the Christian movement exactly for this reason (Acts 2: 44-47). Love expressed through community still transforms people and creates an attractive and compelling invitation for others to join up. — Reggie McNeal

would those in the first century who first read Matthew 12:40; 27:52-53; Acts 2:25-27; Ephesians 4:8-10; 1 Peter 3:18-22; 4:5-6; and Revelation 1:18 not understood them in light of the Descensus? — Justin Bass

There's something beautiful about that Scripture that says, "Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17). We need each other. There is power when the old and young dream together. — Shane Claiborne

The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. — John Locke

So how do you find out what God thinks? The Christian says, you look in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that God forbids homosexual acts. Therefore, they are wrong.
So basically the reasoning goes like this:
(1) We are all obligated to do God's will.
(2) God's will is expressed in the Bible.
(3) The Bible forbids homosexual behavior.
(4) Therefore, homosexual behavior is against God's will, or is wrong. — William Lane Craig

The Son is 'Life' (Jn. 14:6) because He is 'Light', constituting and giving reality to every thinking being. 'For in Him we live, move and exist' (Acts 17:28) and there is a two-fold sense in which He breathes into us (cf. Gen. 2:7; Jn. 20:22); we are filled, all of us, with His breath, and those who are capable of it, all those who open their mind's mouth wide enough, with His Holy Spirit. — Gregory Of Nazianzus

The ultimate test is always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely to build our personal problems right into the machine.
The machine responds to your personality. It's just that the personality that it responds to is your real personality, the one that genuinely feels and reasons and acts, rather than any false, blown up personality images your ego may conjure up. These false images are defaulted so rapidly and completely you're bound to be very discouraged very soon if you've derived your gumption from ego rather than Quality.
The real machine you're working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be out there and the person that appears to be in here are not 2 separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together. — Robert M. Pirsig

There are only two answers for the handling of people from 2.0 down on the Tone Scale, neither one of which has anything to do with reasoning with them or listening to their justification of their acts. The first is to raise them on the Tone Scale by un-enturbulating some of their theta by any one of the three valid processes. The other is to dispose of them quietly and without sorrow. — L. Ron Hubbard

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act. — Steve Martin

And they continued steadfastly (Acts 2:42) - That is to say, they did not backslide. The real reason there are so many backsliders is because there are so many who have never had a forward slide to Jesus Christ. — Oswald J. Smith

Jesus, not dogma, is the center of the Bible. Some seem to regard a condition of salvation as the center of Christianity! But conditions are significant only because they are responses to Jesus as "Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:36). — K.C. Moser

habits and qualities that the professional possesses that the amateur doesn't: 1. The professional shows up every day 2. The professional stays on the job all day 3. The professional is committed over the long haul 4. For the professional, the stakes are high and real Further: 5. The professional is patient 6. The professional seeks order 7. The professional demystifies 8. The professional acts in the face of fear 9. The professional accepts no excuses 10. The professional plays it as it lays 11. The professional is prepared 12. The professional does not show off 13. The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique 14. The professional does not hesitate to ask for help 15. The professional does not take failure or success personally 16. The professional does not identify with his or her instrument 17. The professional endures adversity 18. The professional self-validates 19. The professional reinvents herself 20. The professional is recognized by other professionals — Steven Pressfield

Journalism is an enemy of rationality. What makes news? The unusual and the spectacular, which by their nature distort reality and pervert our decisions. You read headlines like 15 KILLED IN PLANE CRASH IN WYOMING. You don't read headlines like ANOTHER 2,000 DIED OF HEART DISEASE YESTERDAY. This leads to the Availability Fallacy. Our lazy mind gloms on to the most vivid, emotional examples. When we think of danger, we think of hideous plane crashes or acts of terrorism, even though boring old cars kill eighty-four times more people. — A. J. Jacobs

The church is the chief place for spiritual edification and growth (Acts 20:32; Eph. 4:11-16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 2:1-2; 2 Pet. 3:18). — Ed Stetzer

Your outlook affects your outcome — John Paul Warren

Unbelievers, those who believe with difficulty, or believe in part, are those who do not show their faith through works. Apart from works the demons also believe (cf. Jms. 2:19) and confess Christ to be God and Master. 'We know Who You are' (Mk. 1:24), they say, 'You are the Son of God' (Mt. 8:29), and elsewhere, 'These men are the servants of the Most High God' (Acts 16:17). Yet such faith will not benefit the demons, nor even humans. This faith is of no use, for it is dead. — Symeon The New Theologian

The speaker points out the nature of the triumphal procession in 2 Corinthians 2:16-17. He shows that to the victors the aroma of the triumphal procession was sweet but that to the captured prisoners it represented an impending death. 5000 prisoners were necessary for a triumphal procession, and, by contrast, God drew 5000 to Himself in Acts 2. — David McGee

(1) each entity possesses a freedom and causality of its own, which can resist the divine purpose, and (2) God's loving character precludes his violating the freedom of particular things by determining what they will or will not do. God, in the view of process theists, acts only by persuasion.42 Both — Dennis Jowers

The Neo-Pagan Ten "Commandments"

1. Thou art God/dess.
2. As above, so below; as within so without.
3. Spirit abides in all things; words & names have power.
4. Maintain an attitude of gratitude (walk the talk).
5. Honor the ancestors, teachers, elders, and leaders.
6. All life is sacred.
7. All acts of love and pleasure are sacred.
8. Whatever you send out returns threefold.
9. Love is the law, love under will.
10. For the greatest good, an' it harm none. — Marian Singer

Mary is a woman who loves. How could it be otherwise? As a believer who in faith thinks with God's thoughts and wills with God's will, she cannot fail to be a woman who loves. We sense this in her quiet gestures, as recounted by the infancy narratives in the Gospel. We see it in the delicacy with which she recognizes the need of the spouses at Cana and makes it known to Jesus. We see it in the humility with which she recedes into the background during Jesus' public life, knowing that the Son must establish a new family and that the Mother's hour will come only with the Cross, which will be Jesus' true hour (cf. Jn 2:4; 13:1). When the disciples flee, Mary will remain beneath the Cross (cf. Jn 19:25-27); later, at the hour of Pentecost, it will be they who gather around her as they wait for the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14). — Pope Benedict XVI

The Swimmer's Advantage:
1)The goal is measured first by seeing; The distance is accomplished by the strategy of believing that the same set of repetitious acts will get them there.
2)Even when the elements around you are overwhelming, have the confidence to keep your head the above water.
3) Though at times you may not even see it, faith is knowing that the shore is always straight ahead.
4) By consistently reaching out over and over, you are bound to be rewarded by touching something worth more than when you started. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

Yet before I answer, I should like my readers again to be warned that this cavil is not hurled against me but against the Holy Spirit, who surely put this confession in the mouth of the holy man Job, "As it pleased God, so was it done" [Job 1:21, cf. Vg.]. When he had been robbed by thieves, in their unjust acts and evil-doing toward him he recognized God's just scourge. What does Scripture say elsewhere? Eli's sons did not obey their father because God willed to slay them [I Sam. 2:25]. Another — John Calvin

So, it was done, the break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all thirteen clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the other silent, the effect was the same.
It was John Adams, more than anyone, who had made it happen. Further, he seems to have understood more clearly than any what a momentous day it was and in the privacy of two long letters to Abigail, he poured out his feelings as did no one else:
The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more. — David McCullough