Why do I have an icon of Joshua as the illustration for a
Bible study about Acts? I learned
something new: Twice in the book of Acts, Joshua is described as prefiguring
Christ.
In Acts 3:22 Peter quotes Moses, who said “The Lord your God
will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear
in all things, whatever He says to you.” (Quoting Deuteronomy 18:15.) Who was
Moses talking about at the time? Joshua,
of course, but it was also a prophecy of the coming Messiah. Stephen quotes the
same verse in his defense before the Jews, in Acts 7:37. What we fail to
understand is that in the Hebrew language, Joshua and Jesus had the same
name. It was the name “Yeshua,” and it
meant God saves. The great theologian
Justin Martyr was the first to write about this connection. Sadly, it’s one we miss today.
Here are some other interesting tidbits from this passage.
In the book of Acts, persecution is almost always followed by church
growth. In chapter 4, Peter and John are
arrested and put in prison. What happens
next? Verse 4: “Many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the
men came to be about five thousand.” In chapter 6, following some internal
struggles with the church, we see verse 7: “Then the word of God spread, and
the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many
of the priests were obedient to the faith.”
It’s interesting that these were still Jewish priests and Jewish
believers. They continued to worship in
the temple in the same manner, but their worship took on a new dimension
because they believed Jesus was the Messiah. The new believers also met on the
first day of the week for communion and discussions about Jesus, but they also
continued their Jewish worship. Finally, in chapter 8, immediately following
Stephen’s martyrdom, there arose a great persecution against the church. What happened? The believers scattered to
Judea in Samaria. Hmmm . . . Sound
familiar? Jesus explicitly told them
they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. The persecution is what precipitated the
Gospel being taught in the places that Jesus predicted.
In chapter 4 and 5, the Sadducees spoke against the
apostles. The Sadducees only accepted
the Torah and they did not believe in the resurrection. The Pharisees believed
in the resurrection, and they accepted the entire Old Testament as scripture.
The Sadducees were the ones who spoke against the apostles. In chapter 5, a man named Gamaliel speaks to the
Sadducees. He tells them to leave the apostles alone and let God sort things
out. He concludes, “If this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it
is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lets you even be found to fight against God.” Who was Gamaliel? He was a Pharisee who was accepted into the
council of Sadducees because of his wisdom. He was also Paul’s teacher.
According to tradition, Gamaliel later became a Christian and was baptized by
Peter and John.
On Chapter 6 the church encounters a problem. The Hellenists
complain that their widows are not being taken care of. Who were the Hellenists? They were Jews who
had moved to other areas and spoke Greek. At the time, there were three types of Jews:
those who spoke Aramaic, those who spoke Greek and the proselytes, or people
from other countries who converted to Judaism.
The disciples appointed the first deacons to care for the widows. It’s interesting that the first deacons were
Hellenists and even one proselyte.
In this passage we also see the first Christian martyr: St.
Stephen. Stephen knew he was going to be
killed. He quoted from Daniel 7:13 when he said, “I see the heavens opened and
the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God!” In this prophecy Daniel was
referring to a new kingdom, which is the church.
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