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Follow Paul on his second missionary journey as he perseveres through challenges and confirms the souls of believers. Witness his encounters with Lydia, the spirit of divination, and his powerful message on Mars Hill. Discover the importance of seeking and recognizing the one true God.
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Acts 16 Paul’s second missionary journey continued: Acts 16:1-4 This is most interesting! Paul had been stoned in Lystra and had returned to confirm the souls of the disciples, and exhorted them to continue in faith (Courageous). Timothy and his family had probably been converted by Paul on his 1st missionary journey. Since his family was part Jewish, Paul had him circumcised to avoid the charge that Christian Jews about him were disobedient to their heritage (Richard Lloyd Anderson, Understanding Paul, 54).
“In circumcising Timothy, Paul was humoring the Jews: As far as the gospel law was concerned, the act was wrong and should not have been performed. Seemingly, the social pressures were such that if the ordinances had not been performed in this case, it would have alienated the Jewish community and stopped them from investigating to gospel. Hence Paul performed an unnecessary and in fact an improper act to attract the Jews toward that religion which would teach them in due course that the law of circumcision was fulfilled in Christ” (Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 2:147). (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).
Acts 16:6-7 The Lord chooses whom and when to preach to! There are times when the Lord withholds the preaching of the gospel from one group of people or another. He seldom gives reasons. Acts 16:14-16 Lydia was a golden contact (believing blood of Israel). In New Testament times Thyatira was famed for its dyers. Lydia sold purple and purple fabrics.
Acts 16:16-18 “Spirit of divination” Sidney B. Sperry says that the most commentators translate the spirit of divination possessed by this damsel as being a ventriloquist, which was then regarded as a form of possession (Paul’s Life and Letters, 75). Joseph Smith said that had Paul not rebuked the spirit, he and the others would have been accused of having an alliance with her “in the development of her wicked principles” and would have reaped accusation of evil as a result (History of the Church 4:574-75).
Divination? Is defined as the act of determining the future by such means as cards, horoscopes, dreams, charms, Quijai boards, seances, crystal balls and so forth.
Acts 16:25-40 “The Prison Experience!” Acts 16:30-34 Is belief on the Lord Jesus Christ all that is necessary for salvation? Paul and Silas teach the gospel to the whole group, baptize them, and without question give them the Holy Ghost, thus starting them out in the direction of salvation.
Acts 17 “The Unknown God!” Acts 17:5 “Lewd fellows of the baser sort!” Acts 17:18 “Epicureans and Stoics” Epicureans Named after Epicurus who lived just before and after 300 B.C. He taught the world came into existence by chance and was without either purpose or design. And that the highest good to which man could obtain was that which brought him the greatest pleasure or the greatest absence of sorrow and pain.
Stoics: Stoicism, on the other hand, recognized a supreme governing power in the universe. All things have been ordered and set in motion by a Divine Mind, and the wise man, the true Stoic, is he who accepts the conditions as he finds them rather than changes them to be as he wishes them to be. It requires a great courage and self-control, for man is locked into a never-ending battle with nature.
Acts 17:19-34 “Mars hill” Acts 17:22 He is praising them for being very religious. Paul is preparing his audience for a message concerning God that they know nothing about. Acts 17:26 Wow! “And hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.”
Acts 17:27 “They shall seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him” (J.S.T. Acts 17:27, Doctrine & Covenants 123:12). Acts 17:28 “For we are also his offspring.” Acts 17:29 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God.”
Here is an important point that squares precisely with that taught by Moses, who speaks of how God divided “to the nations of their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam,” and “set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” “If the Lord appointed unto the nations the bounds of their habitation, then there must have been a selection of spirits to form these nations” (Smith, The Way to Perfection, 47).
President Harold B. Lee explained further: “May I ask each of you again the question, ‘Who are you?’ You are all the sons and daughters of God. Your spirits were created and lived as organized intelligences before the world was. You have been blessed to have a physical body because of your obedience to certain commandments in that pre-mortal state. You are now born into a family to which you have come, into the nations through which you have come, as a reward for the kind of lives you lived before you came here and at a time in the world’s history, as the Apostle Paul taught the men of Athens and as the Lord revealed to Moses, determined by the faithfulness of each of those who lived before this world was created” (Conference Report, Oct. 1973, 7).
Acts 18:18 Priscilla and Aquila Acts 18:28 Our job! A good mission statement! Showing by the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ!
