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NASB | Acts 5:11 And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 5:11 And great fear and awe gripped the whole church, and all who heard about these things. |
Subject: Why was there fear here? |
Bible Note: Greeting, my sister: I appreciate the thoughts. God’s grace is truly amazing. My point is that human behavior is in its own way amazing; I might even say “unbelievable”. But it is the situation in which God shows the nature and extent of his grace. We are indeed sinners. We have rebelled against God and shown so much ungratefulness. It is unbelievable. But God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love with which he has loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has brought us to life with Christ, and hath raised us up, and made us sit in heavenly places in Christ. And it is all because of his grace. I do not know how clearly we see it now. But in the ages to come he will show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. His grace is greater than all our sin. Even now that we are believers, some aspects of our behavior are unbelievable. Look at the way we behave toward each other. How can it be? Look at our interest and efforts in bringing the Gospel to those who are without God and without hope. Please note how all of this is expressed in terms of ourselves as the recipients of God’s grace, in the plural. One important word that I left out in the reference to Ephesians 2:4,5 is the word “together”. It may be another aspect of all this that we fail to appreciate as we should, that we who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are in this together. Our attitude toward this fact continues to reflect our attitude toward God whose chief command to us is to love one another. But in spite of this, his grace abounds. We should not take advantage of it to continue to behave badly. We should not only stand amazed at his grace. We should worship him because of it, and other aspects of his nature, and recommit ourselves to obey him. I appreciate your point of view on 1 Timothy 1:15, that the emphasis is on one being the foremost or chief of sinners. Surely Paul was amazed at the grace bestowed on him. But the point is also there that the whole idea, that Christ came into the world to save sinners, is worthy of acceptation. As much as it is true that he came to save the chief, it is also true that he came to save the others. As much as it is amazing, it is also true, and it should be accepted. If I could, I would change the question to read as you suggested. As it is, I hope that someone who reads it will say, “I can. I will. I do believe”. |