On This Day: A New Way of Living the Word of the Lord

 

   And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.  For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,

“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,

    that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. (Acts 13:46-49)

   Spending time with God in his word and prayer has two components. The first is the settled and unchanging word of God as we have it in the Scriptures. The second is the “new every morning” way that God’s word ministers to our hearts and leads us through whatever we are facing.

   Today, this stood out in two very significant ways.
   First, the expression “the word of the Lord” really stood out to me last year when I was reading Brad Jersak’s book of false teachings, “A More Christlike Word”[1]. At the same time as I was reading his book (that Peter described as, “which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures”[2]), I also came to the book of Acts in my audio-Bible sessions during my exercise times.  

   As I listened my way through Acts in two or three sessions, something stood out that I had never noticed before. It was the way the references to the “good news of the kingdom” seemed to change in a rhyming-thoughts kind of way. I am sharing all the references (even though most are repeated) just to show how much variation there is and how interchangeable the expressions are.

   The good news the early church preached was a mixture of “the good news of the kingdom” they received from Jesus, along with all the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) that spoke of him. This was called:

·         “the word” (4:4),

·         “your word” (4:29),

·         “the word of God” (4:31),

·         “the words of this Life” (5:20),

·         “the word of God” (6:2),

·         “the word” (6:4),

·         “the word of God” (6:7),

·         “the word” (8:4),

·         “the word of God” (8:14),

·         “the word of the Lord” (8:25),

·         “the word” (10:44),

·         “the word of God” (11:1),

·         “the word of the Lord” (11:16),

·         “the word” (11:19),

·         “the word of God” (12:24),

·         “the word of God” (13:5),

·         “the word of God” (13:7),

·         “the word of the Lord” (13:44),

·         “the word of God” (13:46),

·         “the word of the Lord” (13:48),

·         “the word of the Lord” (13:49),

·         “the word of his grace” (14:3),

·         “the word” (14:25),

·         “the word of the gospel” (15:7),

·         “the word of the Lord” (15:35),

·         “the word of the Lord” (15:36),

·         “the word” (16:6),

·         “the word of the Lord” (16:32),

·         “the word” (17:11),

·         “the word of God” (17:13),

·         “the word” (18:5),

·         “the word of God” (18:11),

·         “the word of the Lord” (19:10),

·         “the word of the Lord” (19:20),

·         “the word of his grace” (20:32).

   The reason this stood out to me so much was that Brad Jersak claimed “the word” we find in the Scriptures was not Christlike enough, but Dr. Luke used every expression he could think of to show that the early church used “the whole counsel of God” from the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures of the day) along with the whole teaching of Christ as we have it now recorded in the gospels, the book of Acts, and the letters to the churches. It was such a glaring contrast to what Brad Jersak claimed that I began to hear on almost every page of his book what Satan first uttered to Eve in the Garden of Eden, “Did God actually say…?” (Genesis 3:1).

   Coming to these references again today was simply another affirmation of the glory of God’s word, and the delight we Gentiles can have that we are included in the good news this word proclaims. I would rather fellowship in the Spirit with Gentile believers of almost 2000 years ago who celebrated “the word of the Lord” than any of the Scripture-twisters of today who “steal, kill, and destroy” the joy people once had in Jesus’ word.

   The second thing that stood out in a very glaring and comforting way was the realization of what it was like for the Gentiles to rejoice and glorify this word. They had known very well that the only way to have anything to do with the God of Israel, the God the Jews believed in, was by becoming a convert to Judaism, abiding by the covenant God gave Israel through Moses, including the (ouchy) requirement of circumcision.

   I let myself imagine the feelings of those Gentiles that, when the Jews rejected the good news Paul and Barnabas were preaching, the men said, “behold, we are turning to the Gentiles” with the message of “eternal life” (Acts 13:46). That meant that the Gentiles could have what Paul was talking about without converting to Judaism. Paul and Barnabas were showing that the Gentiles could have the gift of God through faith in Christ, which is why “as many who were appointed to eternal life believed” (vs 48).

   The amazing thing for me (what gives me my unique journey in God’s universal and unchanging word)[3], was that I have had my own experience of discovering that I could have everything God is offering us in the good news of the kingdom without submitting to what I now call “Institutional Church” in established congregations run by power-brokers (the people who have been there the longest and control everything the church does). To me personally, there is a clear parallel to what Luke described of the religious Jews in Pisidian Antioch!

   When I considered the rejoicing and glorifying of the word of the Lord by the Gentiles, I could remember the joy that was felt first by a prayer group that formed to pray for the institutional church we were in, and then when we discovered we could meet in someone’s home as Jesus’ church without being bound to an institution, or the power-brokers who kept it under their control.

   This isn’t about what you think of the overly brief summary of our home church story. I’m simply pointing out that we all need to admit that the first two centuries of Jesus’ church growing was through home churches, so they clearly are an acceptable, if not preferable, way of meeting.

   My point is that we should be able to rejoice in and glorify “the word of the Lord” for giving us “such a great salvation” that can be lived by faith in Jesus Christ with any “two or three in my name” gathering of believers who have truly come to faith by “hearing… the word of Christ”, and are truly seeking to “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).

   The point for you?

   That the Scriptures we have in the Bible are “the word of the Lord” in all its rhyming, synonymous expressions, and our daily walk with God in his word and prayer ought to lead us to rejoice in this word with all our hearts and glorify it as the word of God it is.

   Jesus said that we are to “live by every word that comes from the mouth of God”. That clearly includes “the gospel of the kingdom” taught by the apostles and recorded in the New Testament Scriptures. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17), so let us walk in “the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:20), and see what the unchanging way gives us of our “new every morning” experiences of the word and the faithfulness of God.

 

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] Because I have mentioned the book, I must give the copyright info. However, I do NOT recommend the book as a guide to Christian living! You can find my 100+ “journal journey” entries as I went “down the garden path” with the author and concluded he was as much a false teacher as I had originally discerned. A More Christlike Word, © 2021 by Bradley Jersak, Whitaker House, 1030 Hunt Valley Circle, New Kensington, PA 15068.

[2] II Peter 3:16

[3] Just a note to clarify that I do NOT mean “universal salvation”, as in the false belief that everyone will be saved in the end whether they have believed in Christ or not. By “universal” I mean that the same unchanging word to “the Jews first” is the word for us Gentiles. As Paul said in Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” God “so loved the world,” not just Israel (John 3:16).