Gamaliel

You probably looked at the Title of my blog and said "What's that? Is it a new recipe or something?" No, I don't post recipe's on my blog, although I should post some cooking recipe's on another blog. I was reading the book of Acts and came on Acts 5. The name Gamaliel came up in my studies, and it hit me that I never knew much about him before.

In Acts 5, while Peter and the apostles are preaching God's word in Jerusalem (or in the area near) the Sanhedrin and Pharisee's grew jealous of the popularity of the apostles. They threw Peter and the apostles in jail. During the night, the Lord came and opened the jail and told the apostles to go and keep preaching. When word got out in the morning that the same apostles that were thrown in jail were in the temple preaching, the high priests (or Sadducee's) got angry and wished to kill the apostles.

But a man named Gamaliel, who was a pharisee, came and scolded the high priests to not lay a hand on them. He told them that there have been other groups that gained popularity and became dispersed after some time. Gamaliel told the Sadducee's that if these men were not of God that the same thing would happen to them, but if they were of God, that nobody would be able to stop them.

I see this man and what he told the high priests at the time, and look at Christianity today. It has not been stopped. There are still people, governments, groups that wish to stop, overthrow, or  murder Christians and still it gets stronger. If we are in the Lord, nobody will be able to stop you. While it is true that Christianity is dying in parts of our world, those of us who are still practicing Christians still go out and spread the gospel on a daily basis. We cannot be stopped as we are sent from God to do God's work given to us in Acts 1:8.

My challenge to my fellow Christians is to stop giving in. Stop letting society make your decisions for you. Stop basing your beliefs on what the popular decision in our society is, and base your beliefs on what God has given you in His Word. If you keep spreading the gospel of Christ, nobody can stop you!