Preaching Christ’s Gospel in the Gallatin Valley

Acts 6 reminds us that spiritual growth often brings practical challenges. As the early church expanded, longstanding cultural differences surfaced, threatening the unity of Christ's people. Yet the apostles refused to allow either division or neglect to define the church. Instead, they responded with wisdom, appointing faithful servants to care for the needy while preserving the central place of preaching and prayer.

This passage also reminds believers what it means to be disciples. We never outgrow our need to learn from Christ or to be conformed more fully to his image. Because Christ has made us his own, we gladly pursue holiness, care for the weak, bear one another's burdens, and labor together for the advancement of his kingdom. As God's Word continues to be proclaimed, Christ himself builds his church, preserves its unity, and grants lasting fruit for his glory.

What difference does Christ's ascension make for believers today? Psalm 110 answers by revealing that Jesus' ascension was His enthronement, not His departure. Seated at the Father's right hand, Christ reigns as our victorious King, continually intercedes as our eternal High Priest, and will one day return as the righteous Judge. Though the church continues to face opposition and suffering, Christ rules in the midst of His enemies, preserving His people and advancing His kingdom according to His perfect wisdom. Because His sacrifice is complete and His priesthood is everlasting, believers can rest in the assurance that He continually represents them before the Father. The same Lord who now reigns invisibly will one day return in glory, bringing the Day of the Lord to its fulfillment, judging evil, renewing creation, and welcoming His people into their eternal rest. Until that day, Christ strengthens His church by His Spirit, sustaining His people as they persevere in faith and drink deeply from the river of life.

Be careful of the pious ones." My dad's warning never made sense to me — until I noticed who Christ saved his sharpest words for. In Acts 5, the apostles walk out of a locked prison, a jealous council can't stop a movement it can't even contain, and we're left asking: how do we know if we're pursuing the real thing, or just performing it?

Why is it better to have a priest we cannot see than one we could visit in person? The author of Hebrews answers a real struggle: we want a tangible religion, a priest behind a door we can knock on. But Christ's ascension means something far superior. It is superior because he is a priest who never grows weary, never dies, and is not confined to a single hour or place. Because his human nature is bodily seated in heaven, our own glorification is secured; because his divine nature fills heaven and earth, he is never distant from us, interceding even when we don't know what to pray. Christ is not absent — he is the pioneer already leading us to the reality that the old covenant could only picture.

Acts 4:32–5:11 isn't really a text about whether Christians may own private property.  We can see that Scripture defends both generosity and ownership.  The real issue is where we locate our significance. The early Jerusalem church, having just prayed for boldness, gave freely and quietly to meet real needs among them, submitting their resources to the apostles as an act of worship rather than self-promotion. Ananias and Sapphira, by contrast, staged a performance of sacrifice.  They wanted the community to think they gave everything and gave generously.  However, they actively conspired to keep back part of the offering for themselves. Their sin wasn't withholding money but lying to the Holy Spirit in pursuit of the community’s praise. The severity of their judgment is a sober warning against using the church's generosity as a platform for our own significance, and a call instead to imitate Christ, who emptied himself of all significance so that we, having nothing to prove, might freely bear one another's burdens.

Why must Christ be raised from the dead? Romans 4:25 teaches that Christ was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. His resurrection vindicates His finished work, secures our standing before God, guarantees our future glorification, and assures believers that salvation rests not on the strength of our faith but on the objective, historical work of God in raising Jesus from the dead