Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
Acts – The Lost Book of the Bible
Fascination soars and interest deepens when people hear about “the lost books” of the Bible. Add to that secret codes for unlocking hidden messages and all of a sudden, the Bible is once again interesting to the dull of hearing.
“For over two thousand years the church has tried to hide from humanity the spiritually empowering Gnostic knowledge that Jesus taught to his disciples. Today this knowledge is now available to all within “the Gnostic New Testament of Jesus.”
“The … GNOSTIC NEW TESTAMENT OF JESUS …will send an irreversible shock wave throughout many of our leading religious institutions, which will inevitably relinquish their false spiritual power and enable all of humanity to follow their own individual divine path.” (http://gnosticbookspublishing.com/)
Although there are no real lost books, “lost books” cause Christianity’s critics to gleefully cast dispersion and doubt on the faithful. They insinuate that these followers cannot have all the truth, or even truth itself, if it is still hidden, lost, or even worse, banned by history’s “church.”
And self-proclaimed Biblical scholars look for the esoteric in order to bolster belief in the Bible by insisting there are codes hidden in the texts, and only they have discovered the keys. And these supposed keys are proof of inspiration.
The deceived weaken and weep; or grow angry, antagonistic and agnostic because “truths” or secrets have been hidden from them. “Don’t we deserve to know the truth,” they ask themselves. “Aren’t we special enough to be included?” “Don’t we deserve enlightenment?”
The power of the ecclesiastical elites, grasping and controlling to keep themselves in power is an age-old story. Hiding and discarding are their tools. Disgusted by their leader’s elitism, the subservient rise above their former, unworthy spiritual masters. They discard their shackles, discarding even God Himself. After all, if they can’t trust what’s in between that old, familiar, leather binding, then what’s left to believe? Brainwashed by doubt and needing certainty, they dive headlong into the intellectual snobbery that is designed not for faith building, but for building a faithless following. They become part of the great crowd of doubters who have become enlightened.
Lost books, hidden secrets, untold power…what if I told you there is a lost book, but we just don’t know that it’s lost. We don’t know, but not because we are unaware of its existence, but rather because it is lost in plain sight. Finding it will lead to building a faith that will overcome the world and turn the world over and upside down (Acts 17:6).
We all have read it, but I wonder if we have really seen it. I wonder if we have been changed by it. I wonder if it has become lost through familiarity.
Ironically, the book has become a text book for distinguishing different denominations and beliefs from one another instead of being used to create something out of this world’s reality. That lost book is the book of Acts.
One cannot read the book of Acts “…without being profoundly stirred and, to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history….Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth, valiant and unspoiled…a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on this earth.”
Disturbed – “…for surely … this is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle bound by over-organization. These men did not make ‘acts of faith,’ they believed; they did not ‘say their prayers,’ they really prayed. They did not hold conferences on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick.” (Find J.B. Philips intro)
Have you ever read Acts and been amazed at the realities being described? Have you ever been dumbfounded by the differences you see in churches and Christians today as compared to what you read about in Acts? Do we shake our head and just console ourselves by saying it was different back then because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Apostles?
Read the following texts and consider or reconsider what they describe: Acts 2:39-47; 4:23-35; 5:25-31; 7:55-60; 8:3-4; 9:10-20.
Maybe those first century Christians knew something we don’t, but should, and can know. Maybe Luke is describing in his book, the revealed secret of untold power that can still exist today because that power is not dependent upon some miraculous intervention, but rather something even more powerful and permanent.
But how do we discover this secret? How can we find the true book of Acts? By again and for the first time, looking at words and concepts that we already know but apparently have forgotten. By again searching for the true meaning because those same words and concepts today are not having the life-altering affect that they once did.
Let’s find the lost book of Acts, and in discovering it, find ourselves not lost anymore. After all, how can we seek and save the lost, if we are lost ourselves?
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