Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Understanding the Holy Spirit | New Testament | Acts 13

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

How often do you think about the Holy Spirit? Do you fully understand him? How does he work? In today's episode, Tanya discusses Acts 13 and provides a crash course on understanding the Holy Spirit. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Acts 13

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. How often do you think about the Holy Spirit? How aware are you of his power and work in your life? For some of us, it's hard to talk about the Holy Spirit because we don't really understand him, and we think he sounds mystical or strange. For others of us, we think a lot, and we talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. And sometimes we even make those people I just mentioned feel totally on comfort. Maybe we've even landed in a church that slants one way or another.

This is one of the ways the book of Acts can be controversial. The way people talk about the Holy Spirit has even divided denominations. I am not going to dive into that or attempt to explain something that I can't. But if you're confused about or wondering about or maybe even hearing about the Holy Spirit for the first time, I've got your back today as we continue through the book of Acts. In today's episode, we're going to do a little compare and contrast to learn more about the person of the Holy Spirit. We're going to look back at Acts 8, along with today's chapter, Acts 13, to learn more about his powerful work in our lives. Before we do that, though, let's talk about where we are in Acts.

When Acts 13 opens, about 14 years have passed since Saul's conversion. The church in Antioch, the one that began when Jewish followers scattered as a result of Stephen's persecution, and death, well, that church is established and it's growing. It's a diverse church, ethnically and socially, and it has a well-established leadership. So Acts 13 opens like this. In the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manian, who had been brought up with Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,

set apart from me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. Sometimes we have to just slow down and look at the irony revealed in Scripture. The church of Antioch was well established. Like I said, it was well taught, it was growing well, but that wasn't the case 14 years earlier. Antioch wasn't exactly the place you would expect to have a thriving church. But it was the place where many of the earlier beings, believer scattered to avoid persecution. They were able to hide from one of their biggest enemies in

Antioch because it wasn't a bedrock of faith, and there wasn't an established group of early Christians for the persecutors to target. If you remember the stoning death of Stephen, you remember that he was stoned for preaching about Jesus Christ, and you'll remember that the one who approved of his execution was called Saul of Tarsus. After Stephen died, many other believers scattered to Antioch. And now here we are in the Church of Antioch, where the Holy Spirit is guiding the church's leaders to send out its first missionaries, Barnabas, and Saul of Tarsus. So the church that was founded because of Saul's persecution of Christians is sending out Saul to be its missionary and shared Jesus. Wow. And the only way this kind of conversion happens

is the power of the Holy Spirit. That's pretty easy for us to accept, right? Maybe we We've seen this kind of change in ourselves or someone else and we attribute it to the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the only way the mission work of Saul and Barnumus is going to be successful is through the Holy Spirit. This can be harder for us to remember all the time. We can often give credit for great sermons and talks and books and things like that to people instead of God. If you've heard a powerful sermon that deepened your understanding of the gospel, it was because of the Holy Spirit. But we should also not think of the Holy Spirit as a power for us to use, but a person who uses us. He is the third person of the Trinity, the one Jesus sent to be our helper when Jesus ascended into heaven.

An Acts gives us this contrast between thinking of the Holy Spirit as a power to be used and a person who gives us power. In Acts 8, we have a man named Simon. He wanted to get and use the Holy Spirit. And in Acts 13, we have the Holy Spirit getting a hold of and using Barnabas and Paul. So in Acts 8, we met Simon. He was the one who previously practiced magic and amazed the people of Samaria with his magic for a long time. They thought Simon was sent by God to do great and magical things. But then Philip came to Samaria to preach about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus,

and the people there believed and they were baptized in Jesus' name, including Simon. Now, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard about the belief of the people in Samaria, they came to lay their hands on them and pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit. And then Simon saw this happening, and he saw that the Holy Spirit was given to them, and he offered money to receive the Holy Spirit himself. Now, we don't exactly know what happened to Simon, but we do know that Peter rebuked him and said, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. So while we don't learn more about where Simon went from there, we do learn this is not how the Holy Spirit works,

not as a power to be bought or earned or tapped into. So how then should we think about the Holy Spirit? Well, the Holy Spirit is given, not gotten. In Ephesians 113, Paul teaches, in Him, when you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and in him when you also believed you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. God sends His Spirit to authenticate our relationship with Him and empower us with his mission. So in Acts, when the church was needing to understand its purpose and mission and the truth of the resurrection, we see a lot of the Holy Spirit guiding people into specific tasks and responsibilities.

And Paul and Barnabas, they were the people the Holy Spirit chose for the Church of Antioch to send out. They were two very gifted and very different leaders. The Holy Spirit chose them and sent them, but he also went with them. Later on, when they were challenged by a sorcerer, scripture tells us, Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit. If we don't believe that the Holy Spirit is with us, we will feel overwhelmed with our mission. The places Paul and Barnabas were headed were spiritually dark and they were opposed to the gospel. They would need to remember who called them and who was with them to keep sharing their message. How are you doing with your mission to witness and to serve people who aren't like you?

Do you believe the Holy Spirit has called you, sent you, and is with you? Do you know this as an integral part of God's plan for each of his children? I think, when we feel a lot of hesitation, when we feel a lot of hesitation, when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel like we have failed, when we feel gloaty in our success, when we feel worried about what's next, when we wonder if we're able, we are doubting the power of the Holy Spirit. Ask God to open your eyes, to see His work and His power in your life. Ask God to open your heart to understand His sealing affirmation. Ask God to make you sensitive to his leading.

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