March 13, 2009 - Witness For Jesus Everywhere

Meditation on Acts 1

Dear Dr. Luke, the physicians (Colossians 4:14) had written a document of the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Now he wrote the second document of the planting of the early churches in Acts. In chapter one, he recorded Jesus' promise of the Holy Spirit for witnessing, the prayers of the early disciples in waiting for the Spirit and the election of Matthias to fill the vacancy left by Judas to be the witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus.

Let us concentrate on Acts 1:8, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you: and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (NASB) The Holy Spirit was given primary for the purpose of giving Christians power to witness for Jesus. The where seemed to give an outline of the Book of Acts: in Jerusalem (Acts 1-7), in all Judea and Samaria (Acts 8 - 11:18), and even to other parts of the world (Acts 11:19 - 28:31).

Sometimes in our application of this verse, we have neglected one important word, "both". This word in Greek is "te" and is right before the word, Jerusalem. In many translations, it is not there. But I am glad that the New American Stand Bible retains it. The original King James translation has it too. When the word, "both" is included, the application of the procedures in witnessing will be different. Yes, we should begin witnessing in where we are and gradually spread to other parts of the world. But we should not restrict ourselves in witnessing to our locality and neglect our neighboring towns. Our churches do give money to support missionaries but we do not witness to people in the next town where there may be great spiritual need.

I am talking about planting churches. Many churches refuse to engage in this greatest method of witnessing- planting churches. They think that we have so many needs ourselves, we have so many people who need Jesus in our town, so we should do well to build our church first before we plant another church. They think they are applying the strategy of Acts 1:8. But the word "both" indicates that we should do all witnessing simultaneously. We should witness in our town, we should witness to the people next town as well as supporting missionaries and engaging in short term missions. Doing one does not exclude the others.

Besides, when we plan a church in another town, more of our old saints and lazy and unchallenged saints will be involved and revived. Many more people will come to know the Lord. It is not easy. But we have been given the power of the Holy Spirit to do it.