Are You A Follower Of 'The Way'?

Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scripture segment, we’re in the Book of Acts chapter 19, and Dave, we’ll pick up with verse 20:

“So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.”

Dave:

Tom, you’ve got to go back just a verse.

Tom:

No, I think it’s worth while to go back.I make some points about what took place in verse 19, let me read it for you.

Dave:

Okay.

Tom:

“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men:and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”Now Dave, the reason I’d like you to address this is, you know we have had, from time to time I can remember, even before I was a Christian, you had these fundamentalists running around burning this or burning that, and people said, What’s wrong with them, are they just so stupid, are they so ignorant that they don’t recognize the value, not monetary value but the content, and so on.

Dave:

It’s rather interesting, Tom, because this is more than 1900 years ago, and they must have had a lot of books, they had book sellers and book publishers, and copyists, or whatever.What they are trying to do is get back to THE Book.Do I dare mention Academica as fast as I can?I probably mentioned it before, but this was the guy way back in the 1700’s, and his friends said, No, you can’t understand the Bible, you’ve got to read this commentary, and you’ve got to read that, you’ve got to read what the early church fathers said.Academica said, I lit my candle early, I blew it out late, it was like wading through a thorny wilderness—there’s wagon loads of these things you’ve got to learn Syriac and ancient this and ancient that.And then he says:You know, one day I decided I would just become like the primitive Christians who lived before any of these books were written.Okay?But it’s not even that close to the truth, because at least the books he was reading, and the books we have in Christian book stores today, supposedly are about the Bible, but many of them will lead you away from the Bible, but these were books on magic.Tom, you showed me a DVD the other day, what was it called, The Secret?You said it was just going wild across the country.It’s magic, it’s some kind of a power out there that we can get in touch with.No, we need to know the Lord, and so, praise God, they were getting back to The Book, The Book, the Bible.

Tom:

And again, Verse 20:“So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed.

Dave:

See, it had that word “power.”

Tom:

That’s ourheart’s cry, isn’t it, Dave, for ourselves, for the church today especially.

Dave:

The Word of God had power.Tom, I have—Well, I wouldn’t say that I was a smuggler, because I just took Bibles and things in behind the Iron Curtain in those days, it was pretty tough!I remember they ripped the lining out of my wife’s purse, they went everywhere, checked our tires to make sure there was only air in them, and so forth.Anyway, the Lord, nevertheless brought the Bibles through.But why was the Soviet Union so concerned?Why was China so concerned?That Book is dynamite!You start believing that and everything was going to change!Tom, the same thing about the Roman Catholic church.I was talking to a Catholic—well, we were on our way to Guadalajara, and we had a fabulous conversation.This man was really interested, but I was explaining things to him, I said, Look, if every Catholic believed what the Bible says, that church is out of business!You don’t need their priests, you don’t need their pope, you don’t need their rituals, which they didn’t have in these early days.And so look at what the Bible did:“So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed” they burned all this other stuff and they began to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and follow His Word, and that is just wonderful!

Tom:

Verse 21:“After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”

Dave:

Well, that’s going to come about in a way that I guess Paul, at this time, didn’t realize he was going to go there as a prisoner, but he would have his own hired house and he would do a lot of effective things there.But this brings us into a rather controversial part of Paul, Paul’s life, and I guess we’ll just go on and read it and try to comment on it.

Tom:

Verse 22:“So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him, Timothy and Erastus; but he himself stayed in Asia for a season.And the same time there arose no small stir about that Way.” That’s the way you were referring to, the followers of The Way, right?

Dave:

That’s right, they were called “followers of The Way” and Tom, it’s good to think about it for myself, you can think about it, and our listeners, Am I a follower of The Way?How do I live?Do I live the way I should, according to the Word of God?What is my passion in my life?These men and women, Tom, they, as you know, they were persecuted.Their faith in Christ really meant something to them, it cost them everything in many instances.The same is true in other parts of the world today, Tom.I can remember when people behind the Iron Curtain asked me, What’s different over there in the United States, out there in the West, these are Christians?They even have Christian radio and Christian television and your churches are open, and the government doesn’t do anything, doesn’t shut you down, how come we get persecuted and you guys don’t?And Tom, again, I’m—well, I speak to my own heart.Well, it was a different government, of course, it was an atheistic government, and they hated Christianity.But how come we can get along so well with atheistic government?It is, really, the atheistic schools, the atheistic media, and so forth, but somehow we are not persecuted.Well, some people would say we are.You don’t have the freedom in the school- to teach creationism like you have evolution, but by and large it’s pretty hard to tell he difference between the Christian in the neighborhood and the rest of the people.And you know the old saying, Tom, If you were arrested for being a Christian, would they have enough evidence to convict you?I think that’s part of it, but these people—it cost them everything.

Tom:

Dave, maybe you could help me remember this.I remember reading that the standard in the early church was so great that people weren’t converting because they didn’t feel they could live up to the lives of the very people, in a sense, they were attracted to.That doesn’t happen today.

Dave:

In Acts 5, I think it is, it says, No man durst, that’s the Old English, join himself unto them.Well, that’s right after Ananias and Sapphira got knocked dead because they lied against the Holy Spirit.There’s something about these people, you don’t just join a church so you can get some clients.There’s an awful lot of that today, Tom.A lot of people on the membership role in churches and they are not Christians at all.Yeah, those were a different time.

Tom:

Well, let’s get into this “no small stir”.Verse 24:“For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen; Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands.”

Dave:

Where these guys have gotten their business threatened now.It’s not truth, it’s their business, and unfortunately, that’s the way it is for many in the church today.I guess we will have to come back and deal with that more thoroughly.