The Acts of the Apostles is considered among the most important books of the Christian Bible (New Testament). Acts comes right after the four synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The gospels narrates the birth, ministry, death, and ascension of Jesus Christ. In the story of Acts, twelve apostles are appointed to spread the message of Jesus. The premise of Acts, as well as the central message of Christianity, is that through Jesus you can expect eternal heavenly paradise as long as you repent for your sins and believe that Jesus is savior. What distinguishes Acts from the other books of the New Testament is the emphasis that the Jews are no different than anybody else. But because they rejected Jesus Christ they remain as Jews.
In fact the entire premise of the Book of Acts is that under the guidance of Paul the Apostle (a Jewish convert to Christianity), the Jews were urged to accept Christ. The apostles were appointed as missionaries to convey the message of Christ after he was killed and supposedly risen to heaven. According to the Bible, the world is ugly and full of evil. Man is evil just for being alive. It was Christ, a man who “died for our sins”, that came to the rescue. He instructed the apostles, from heaven, to spread his message – repent of sins and be saved. Paul (Saul) was at the beginning a persecutor of Christians until Jesus turned his way in a vision from heaven. So moved by his vision he spread the message of Christ. First to his people, the Jews in Judea. They rejected the message and treated Saul as a traitor and as a danger to their people. Paul thus fled and conveyed his message outside of Judea to Gentiles and the Jews in the diaspora. He performed miracles to “prove” that he was sent by Jesus. The Gentiles converted but the Jews remained largely unconvinced.
The 12 Apostles of Jesus are Simon (Peter), Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew (Nathaniel), Thomas, Matthew, James, Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot (replaced by Matthias). Finally we have Paul (Saul) who was the apostle of all apostles.
The Story of Acts
Apostle Peter (Simon) addresses the Jews in Jerusalem. He tells them that they killed Christ and the only way they can be saved is to ask Christ for forgiveness:
Acts 2:22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
2:36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you (Jews) crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
The apostles impress the Jews by performing miracles:
5:12 The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.
14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.
The apostles were persecuted by the Jewish authorities for stirring up trouble:
5:17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.
After disciple Stephen was killed by an angry mob with the approval of Saul (Paul), Saul began persecuting followers of Christ:
8:1 On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. 2 Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. 3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
Jesus appears to Saul, after Saul was persecuting Christians, and blinded him as punishment:
9:1 Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
Saul begged for forgiveness, got his sight restored, and became a changed man. He was essentially appointed to get all Gentiles to worship Yahweh, the god of the Jews. Christianity was to be the light at the end of the tunnel, as a way to “rescue” Gentiles from their barbaric ways and their “filthy” pagan beliefs. Saul (Paul at this point) was appointed by Christ to spearhead the message (to both Jews and Gentiles):
9:15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man (Saul) is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel.
Gentiles and Jews are supposed to be treated by God equally. Jews however were critical of sharing their god with the Gentiles, as they saw the Gentiles as unequal:
11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers (Jews) criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men (Gentiles) and ate with them.”
Peter the Apostle explains to the Jews why Gentiles were blessed by God as well:
11:15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them (Gentiles) the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”
11:18 When they (Jews) heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”
Jews and Gentiles given the message of Christ:
11:19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
Other Jews remained skeptical of the Gentiles and believe they have to be like Jews in order to be saved:
15:1 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Peter answers that God does not discriminate (this is actually a total contradiction from the Old Testament):
15:7 “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
God blesses the Gentiles as long as they abandon their customs and their pagan beliefs:
15:19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
Some Jews in the diaspora believed and spread the message of Jesus:
17:11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men (Gentiles).
But unlike Gentiles, most Jews were skeptics of Christ. Paul thus is fed up when preaching to a synagogue in Corinth:
18:5 When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. 6 But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Paul claims that the Jewish Messiah is Jesus:
18:28 For he (Paul) vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.
… and God and Jesus are universal.
20:21 I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.
Paul plans to go to Jerusalem but knows he will not be received well by them:
20:22 “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
Paul considers his life to be worth nothing. This is an attitude propagated all throughout the Christian Bible. That your real life is worthless, so why even bother when you can enjoy paradise in your afterlife.
20:24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.
After Paul preaches in Jerusalem, the Jews had enough and want him punished. Paul faces a hearing at the Sanhedrin. Paul admits he is a Pharisee, which is among the most radical Jewish sect:
23:6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.
Paul was considered a troublemaker among Jew:
24:5 “We have found this man to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world.
Paul faces a hearing in court as to why he was stirring trouble among the Jews. He tells the story on how he converted:
26:11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished (followers of Christ), and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.
12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic (Hebrew), ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
For following Christ (and corrupting Judaism), the Jews wanted Paul killed. Paul was sent to Rome on trial as a prisoner. Paul eventually arrives in Rome after a tumultuous journey on ship. He preaches at Rome under supervision:
28:18 They (Romans) examined me (Paul) and wanted to release me, because I was not guilty of any crime deserving death. 19 The Jews objected, so I was compelled to make an appeal to Caesar. I certainly did not intend to bring any charge against my own people. 20 For this reason I have asked to see you and talk with you. It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”
Paul spoke of the ignorance of the Jews and their refusal in accepting Christ:
28:25 They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet:
26 “ ‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”
27 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ [Isaiah 6:9-10]
28 “Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”
[29 After he said this, the Jews left, arguing vigorously among themselves.]
NKJV version of 29 that NIV omits:
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among themselves.
The Duped Goyim
The story of Acts is a lie not unlike the rest of the books of the New Testament. It was written by Jews to dupe the goyim. It is a work of incredible deception and trickery. It relies on the ignorance of their adherents to believe. The Apostles were all Jews and they were the ones we are told who conveyed the message of their God to the Gentiles. No Jew would ever take Christianity seriously. The God of the New Testament (Christian Bible) is a total contradiction of the God of the Old Testament (Jewish Bible). In the OT, God chooses only the Jews as his chosen people. This God is hateful and murderous and discriminates against all other non-Jewish groups of people. In the NT, this same God is loving and caring. He treats both the Jews and Gentiles equally. The duped Goyim who believes in Christianity, comes away thinking that the Jews are the same as the Gentiles and the only difference between them and us is that the Jews did not accept Christ. That’s it.
While the Gentiles have respect for the Jewish god, the other way around is not true. In the Jewish Talmud, Jesus is considered a traitor to God and his chosen Jewish people. Christianity simply cannot be taken seriously by Jews and will never be. Judaism is extremely strict on the worship of only one god and that is Yahweh. All other gods are false and the worship of Gentile gods is one of the worst sins in Judaism. Judaism is very strict on the worship of anything that has a human form. Yahweh has no human form and there are no images of him. Jesus was not only in a human form but at the same time he was both God and the son of God. The Trinity (God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) refers to three gods in one.
What Christianity has done was destroy the ancient pagan religions of the Gentiles. The pagan beliefs connected the Gentiles with their past and their identity. Once that was destroyed, it was easier for the Jews to pacify, to enslave, and to control them.
