[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Monday, April 15, 2013

[Paul]

Hello and good day to you all, whether that time of day be morning, afternoon or evening, and whether the day be April 15 or 16.  I hope and pray that, by God's matchless grace and His providential care, that your day went well or is going well.

Because there were enough people interested the first time we tried this type of article, today we are going to resume our Bible questions and answers, taken from past issues of the Gospel Messenger magazine, the official publication of the Gospel Association for the Blind.  We will be in the Book of Acts for this question and answer session.

In Acts 7:14 we have a clear discrepancy.  Exodus 1:5 says the descendants of Jacob were seventy in all, while Steven says there were seventy-five.

Gleason Archer, in his "Bible Difficulties" (Zondervan 1982), argues that both texts are right.  He notes that the Hebrew text of Exodus 1:5 basis its calculations on the sixty-six descendants identified in Genesis 46:26-27, plus the two sons of Joseph, plus Joseph and his wife.  However, the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament completed over a century before Christ, says Exodus 1:5 that "all who came with Jacob into Egypt, who issued from his loins, apart from the wives of the sons of Jacob, were sixty-six persons.  And the sons of Joseph who were born to him in Egypt were nine persons.  All the souls of the house of Jacob who entered Egypt were seventy-five." Thus the Septuagint includes nine offspring of Joseph rather than two, which assumes that Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh later had seven sons who were considered to be among the seventy-five original Jewish immigrants.  Thus, both the Hebrew version of Exodus 1:5 and the Septuagint version are correct, and Stephen was right in identifying seventy-five offspring, even though Exodus 1:5 says there were seventy.  Both figures are accurate, because the two traditions used different methods of calculation.

Acts 8:13, 20

If Simon the sorcerer believed and was baptized, how could Peter later threaten him with hell?

Scripture, as well as experience, demonstrates that there is counterfeit as well as genuine belief in Jesus.  Christ described the initial response "the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time.  When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away" (Matt. 13:20-21).  We have no way of knowing whether Simon's response and repentance were genuine or whether they were entirely superficial.  Peter's analysis that Simon's heart was "not right before God" (Acts 8:21) implies that he was never converted.

In Acts 9:2, how could the high priest in Jerusalem give Saul authority to seize Jews in Damascus, which was not Jewish territory?

In the Roman Empire people of a given nationality were considered to be subject to the laws of their own lands.  Thus disputes involving Jews would be settled by Jewish courts.  Of course, a dispute between a Jew and a Roman would be settled in a Roman court, with the Roman undoubtedly favored.  This concept of law meant that a Jew anywhere in the Roman Empire was considered to live under authority of Jewish law.  Since the Sanhedrin was the supreme court of Judaism and the high priest its highest officer, the high priest could grant Saul the legal right to seize Jews anywhere and bring them back to Jerusalem for judgment.

And there you have the Bible questions and answers for today.  Hope they shed some light on these topics in the book of Acts for any serious Bible students among you readers.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul