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Second Baptist Church Southwest Wednesday, November 16, 2005 – 8 p.m. Rev. H. Joseph Franklin, D.D., Pastor – Instructor
The Book of Acts I.
The Church beginning in (1:1-7:60) A.
The birth of the Church (1)
Preliminary matters:
relating acts to the Gospels (1:1-26) (2)
Pentecost: the coming of
the Holy Spirit (2:1-47) B.
A miracle with significant
consequences (3:1-4:31)
(1)
The healing of a lame man
(3:1-11) (2)
The preaching of Peter ( (3)
The threatening of the
Sadducees (4:1-31) Who were the Sadducees,
and why did they oppose the Christians? (Sad - du - cees) A Jewish party, the
opponents of the Pharisees. They were
comparatively few in number, but they were “educated men,” and mostly wealthy
and of good position. (4)
In distinction from the
Pharisees, they denied: a.
The resurrection and
future retribution in “Sheol” (hell), asserting that the soul dies with the
body. (Matthews 22:23-33; Acts 23:8) b.
The existence of angels
and spirits. (Acts 23:8) c.
Fatalism: Contending for the freedom of the will,
teaching that all our actions are in our own power, so that we are ourselves
the causes of what is good and receive what is evil from our own folly, and
affirming that God is not concerned in our doing good or not doing what is
evil. d.
In denying immortality and
the resurrection, they were relying on the absence of an explicit statement
of these doctrines in the Mosaic law, and they
failed to hold the faith of the patriarchs regarding “Sheol” (hell), which,
though it was undeveloped, yet contained the germs of the later biblical
doctrine of the resurrection of the body and a future retribution. The patriarchs unquestionably believed in
the continued existence of the soul after death. In affirming that there is neither angel
nor spirit, the Sadducees were setting themselves against the elaborate
Angelology of the Judaism of their Time, but they went to the other extreme,
and again fell short of the teaching of the Law. (Exodus 3:2; To be continued ! |