Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Acts 10:38 "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with great power; and He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. [Is 61:1-3; Luke 4:18-21] |
Subject: Be blessed |
Bible Note: C.S.M., I believe Doc has some very valid points. Maybe the following will help. Harper’s Bible Dictionary sin, …The concept of sin is first and foremost a religious concept, because all sin is ultimately against God, God’s laws, God’s creation, God’s covenant, and God’s purposes. It is the basic corrupting agent in the entire universe. There are numerous Hebrew and Greek words used to designate sin in the biblical writings. Perhaps the most basic is a Hebrew word meaning ‘revolt’ or ‘transgression’ and indicating a deliberate act of defiance against God. This idea lies at the heart of the Genesis account of the beginning of sin (Gen. 3:1-7), where the essential problem lies in the desire of the humans to ‘be like God.’ All sin is an act of idolatry, the attempt to replace the Creator with someone or something else, usually one’s own self or one’s own creation. Paul understood this very well, as he indicates in Rom. 1:18-3:20: all humankind lies under condemnation because all are idolators of one type or another. Manifestations: …There is sin that is characterized by falling short of God’s requirements or ‘missing the mark’; there are cultic sins (failure to observe the ritual requirements), political and social sins, and ‘spiritual’ sins (e.g., envy, hate, etc.). In the nt, there is the ‘unforgiveable’ sin (against the Holy Spirit), which, in modern terms, might be paraphrased as an attitude or mind-set wherein a person willfully refuses to accept the forgiveness of sin offered by God through his Son (Matt. 12:22-32; Mark 3:19b-30; Luke 12:8-10; cf. also 1 John 5:16-17). There is sin implicit in the failure of a person to do right, especially toward one’s fellow human beings (e.g., Matt. 25:31-46; Luke 16:19-31), the failure of a person to use God-given ability (e.g., Matt. 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-26), and there is sin even in ignorance, where one commits unconscious or inadvertent sin (e.g., Lev. 5). Perhaps the most heinous sins are those done ‘with a high hand’ (i.e., deliberately and arrogantly; e.g., Num. 15:30-31) and the sin of hypocrisy, especially among ‘religious’ persons (e.g., Matt. 23; Acts 5:1-11). Universality: …The ot prophets, for example, located the source of sin in the ‘heart,’ i.e., in the very depth of one’s being, the seat of volition and action (e.g., especially Jer. 5:23; 17:9-10; cf. Ezek. 36:26; Isa. 29:13). In the nt, Paul insists that ‘all people, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin’ (Rom. 3:9; cf. 1:18-3:20; 5:12-21). The words of the author of 1 John rise up in the face of any notion that sin can be totally overcome and avoided in this world: ‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. …If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us’ (1:8-10). Origin: As for the origin of sin, the ot writings have very little to say about the matter, the story in Genesis 3 being the only passage to speak directly to this issue. During the intertestamental period (ca. the last three centuries b.c.), however, many ideas were prevalent about the origin of sin. Most of the speculation focused on the story in Genesis 3 and the additional story in Gen. 6:1-4 about divine creatures having intercourse with human women. As a result of the development of later religious thinking regarding demons and Satan, many linked sin to an outside power that forced its way into the human situation. Others believed that humans were born with conflicting ‘inclinations,’ one toward good and one toward evil. These inclinations were constantly struggling to obtain controlling influence in each person’s life. In the nt, Paul related the sinful condition of the human race to the original transgression of Adam, insisting at the same time, however, that the result of sin (death) ‘spread to all people’ not simply because of Adam’s sin but ‘because all people sinned’ (Rom. 5:12). Satan, the English transliteration of a Hebrew word whose literal meaning is ‘adversary.’ The figure of Satan is found in only three places in the ot, and all of these are postexilic in date (i.e., after 538 b.c.): Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-2; and 1 Chron. 21:1. In the first two instances (Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-2), Satan is depicted as a member of God’s court whose basic duty it was to ‘accuse’ human beings before God. He is clearly not at this point an enemy of God and the leader of the demonic forces of evil, as he becomes later. There is some question as to whether, in 1 Chron. 21:1, a specific personality is being described as in Job and Zechariah, or whether the ‘adversary’ is to be understood here as a general tendency toward evil. In the Hebrew text, there is no definite article with the noun ‘Satan,’ and the word is probably best translated simply as ‘an adversary.’ In either case, the figure in 1 Chronicles is not yet the embodiment of evil. It should be noted that ‘the serpent’ of Genesis 3 is never in the ot identified as Satan. WOS |