What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats? (Acts 8:1-25)

Today we’ll look at the first part of Acts chapter 8. We’ll do a “threat assessment” on the early church as we answer this question: What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats?

--

The PursueGOD Truth podcast is the “easy button” for making disciples – whether you’re looking for resources to lead a family devotional, a small group at church, or a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Join us for new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

Find resources to talk about these episodes at pursueGOD.org.

Help others go "full circle" as a follower of Jesus through our 12-week Pursuit series.

Click here to learn more about how to use these resources at home, with a small group, or in a one-on-one discipleship relationship.

Got questions or want to leave a note? Email us at podcast@pursueGOD.org.

Donate Now

--

Q. What Are the Church’s Greatest Threats?

• (Alpine is 23 years old today!)
• First public service held Sept 9, 2001
• Two days later the twin towers fell and the world changed
• Threat of terrorism
• Threat of global war
• Threat of losing American way
• But Alpine continued to grow, and today…
• Eight campuses, and growing!
• Opening service at the Syracuse building
• Where will God take us in the next 23 years? 
• And what threats will we have to endure?
• Today we’ll look at three threats that the early church faced (persecution, power, and division) and one bonus threat that seems unique to us today (apathy). 
• We have a lot to cover, so let’s get straight to the text… 

The Threat of Persecution

Acts 8: (NLT) 1 Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.

Acts 8:1-3 (NLT) A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. 2 (Some devout men came and buried Stephen with great mourning.) 3 But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.

• The External Threat
• Pay attention to the language here, and how different it is from what we’ve seen so far in our study of Acts
• First, let’s review the memories (honeymoon stage)
• Growth: Acts 2:41 (NLT) 41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.
• Miracles: Acts 3:7 (NLT) 7 Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened.
• Community: Acts 4:32 (NLT) 32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.
• Freedom: Acts 5:42 (NLT) 42 And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”
• Now we have all new language:
• “Great wave of persecution”
• I remember standing in the ocean with my kids when they were young, the power of the waves
• That’s nothing compared to the tsunami that hit Japan 
• March 11, 2011
• They call it “3/11”
• The church experienced this external threat
• A tsunami of persecution
• scary
• “all the believers … were scattered”
• So much for community!
• And then this:
• “Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church”
• This guy’s personal mission! 
• I’ve seen some of these guys on YouTube…
• Atheists
• Christian haters
• Deconstructionists

But here’s the thing with God: a threat is just an opportunity. 

Acts 8: (NLT) 4 But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. 

• Don’t you love it!? 
• Genesis 50:20 (NLT) You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. (Like the Esther story with Haman)
• In fact, this was God’s plan all along: that the next stop after Jerusalem would be Judea and Samaria. Let’s put some verses side-by-side:
• Acts 1:8 (NLT) 8 …And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
• Jesus’ final words before his ascension
• Acts 8:1 (NLT) …and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria.
• Bad thing, right? Not quite…
• Acts 8:4 (NLT) But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went.
• What the enemy meant for evil….

Then Luke gives a specific example…

Acts 8:5 Philip, for example, went to the city of Samaria and told the people there about the Messiah. 6 Crowds listened intently to Philip because they were eager to hear his message and see the miraculous signs he did. 7 Many evil spirits were cast out, screaming as they left their victims. And many who had been paralyzed or lame were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.

• How did all of this start? With persecution in Jerusalem.

And that’s where our bonus threat comes in…

The Threat of Apathy

Q. Does the church face the threat of persecution today?

• In some countries, yes. Ex: Iran
• Iran was number nine on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.
• Sheep Among Wolves Vol 2 documentary
• Incredible persecution among Christians in Iran
• Yet the church is growing, gospel is spreading 
• Underground!
• According to scholar Shay Khatiri of Johns Hopkins University, “Islam is the fastest shrinking religion in there [Iran], while Christianity is growing the fastest”, and in 2018 "up to half a million Iranians are Christian converts from Muslim families, and most of these Christians are evangelicals." He adds that "recent estimates claim that the number might have climbed up to somewhere between 1 million and 3 million".
• But what about America, where there is no true persecution?
• Iranian Christian couple was able to move to the US. But after being in US, wife began to plead with husband to take her back to Iran.
• “There’s a satanic lullaby here. All the Christians are sleepy, and I’m feeling sleepy.”
• Spiritual apathy is a greater threat than persecution.
• Lulled into our comfortable lives
• Not caring about the lost
• Not serious about our pursuit of God
• Because we feel like we don’t have to be

As we read on, Luke describes another threat in the early church, one that still exists today.

The Threat of Power

Acts 8:9-11 (NLT) 9 A man named Simon had been a sorcerer there for many years, amazing the people of Samaria and claiming to be someone great. 10 Everyone, from the least to the greatest, often spoke of him as “the Great One—the Power of God.” 11 They listened closely to him because for a long time he had astounded them with his magic.

• Think of him as a popular secular influencer

Acts 8:12-13 (NLT) 12 But now the people believed Philip’s message of Good News concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. As a result, many men and women were baptized. 13 Then Simon himself believed and was baptized. He began following Philip wherever he went, and he was amazed by the signs and great miracles Philip performed.

• Simon had magic, Philip had miracles
• To the outside observer, might not have looked different
• Notice the similarities in the crowds reactions:
• Astounded with his magic
• Amazed by his miracles
• Even Simon the sorcerer is impressed
• He believed
• He was baptized
• Remember this as we hear the rest of the story…

Acts 8:14-17 (NLT) 14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God’s message, they sent Peter and John there. 15 As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit. 16 The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers, and they received the Holy Spirit.

• (New Bible Commentary) It is, of course, delightful that John, who once wanted to call down the fire of judgment on a Samaritan village (Lk. 9:54), was one of those who was now calling down the Holy Spirit!

But here’s where the threat comes in…

Acts 8:18-19 (NLT) 18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power. 19 “Let me have this power, too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”

• Simon was thinking in terms of magic power and influence
• And he wanted to buy this influence
• This came to be known as “Simony” - named after this passage!
• Simony is the act of buying or selling spiritual things, particularly church offices or roles
• In medieval Europe, the church was often intertwined with the feudal system. This led to church positions being treated as hereditary titles, sometimes sold or exchanged for political support.
• The sale of indulgences, closely related to simony, became a central issue leading to the Protestant Reformation.
• Here’s what the threat might look like today: desire to be an “Apostle”
• Or bishop or prophet… or whatever you call it
• The person who holds the keys to the kingdom
• Making a claim to this kind of power when it’s not up for grabs 
• Mormon idea (and other groups like Catholics, New Apostolic Reformation): apostles still exist and authority is conferred by laying on of hands (apostolic succession)
• According to Joseph Smith's account, the first major instance of the laying on of hands took place on May 15, 1829. Joseph Smith and his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, were translating the Book of Mormon when they had questions about baptism and authority. In response to their prayers, John the Baptist appeared to them as a resurrected being. John the Baptist laid his hands upon Joseph and Oliver, conferring upon them the Aaronic Priesthood, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, the gospel of repentance, and baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. John instructed them to baptize each other and gave them the authority to do so.
• Shortly after the conferral of the Aaronic Priesthood, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery reported that Peter, James, and John laid their hands upon Joseph and Oliver, conferring upon them the Melchizedek Priesthood. This higher priesthood includes the authority to lead the Church, bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost, and perform other sacred ordinances. This priesthood is also believed to include the authority to administer the Church's sacraments and other spiritual gifts.
• But here’s the truth: We don’t have apostles anymore in the foundational sense (See Unveiling Mormonism Episode 70). Only offices in the church are elder or deacon (See two weeks ago in the Acts series).
• Maybe even more important to understand: even in the NT the apostles didn’t have exclusive rights to give the HS.
• In Acts 9, Ananias (not an apostle) laid hands on Saul and he received the HS
• In Acts 10 the HS was given to a group of Gentiles without the laying on of hands. Given directly by God
• In Acts 2 the same thing happened for the disciples - given directly by God, no laying on of hands (Jesus could’ve done it before his ascension if it was always a thing.)
• The point: HS is God’s gift to give, not man’s. He can give it through apostolic laying on of hands (Acts 8, 19) or not (Acts 2, 9, 10)
• (Expositor's Bible Commentary: Abridged Edition (2 Volumes)) Neither baptism nor the laying on of hands conveys any status or power of itself, though Simon with his shallow spiritual perception thought they could.
• Generally, the New Testament teaches that all who put their faith in Jesus receive the Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:2, Ephesians 1:13). This indwelling is not dependent on the physical laying on of hands but is the work of the Holy Spirit in response to faith.

So why did God wait to give his HS through Peter and John? Why not just do it himself without the involvement of the Jerusalem apostles? The reason: it could have created the threat of division. 

The Threat of Division

• (Zondervan Bible Commentary (1 Vol.)) Why did the Spirit not ‘fall upon’ the Samaritan believers as He did later on the Gentiles who received the word in Caesarea (10:44–48)? It must be remembered that the Samaritans had maintained a Jehovistic worship for centuries, divorced from Jewish witness, God’s channel of salvation (Jn 4:22). The believers ‘in the name’ might have desired to run their own show, carrying the schism over to the church.
• God wanted two things:
• To show the Samaritans that the apostles were the real deal.
• This was the foundation of one church
• To show the apostles that the Samaritans were the real deal.
• They were fully accepted by God, just like they had been
• They received the same HS!
• Were it not for this, there would be division in the church
• Remember: still mainly a Jewish thing
• In this chapter the door opens to the Samaritans
• Soon enough the door will open to the Gentiles

Close

So what are the threats facing the church today?

• Persecution
• Apathy
• Power
• Division

And so many more - maybe you can make your own list with your family, small group, or mentor. But I think it would be good to end this section where Luke does:

Acts 8:25 (NLT) 25 After testifying and preaching the word of the Lord in Samaria, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem. And they stopped in many Samaritan villages along the way to preach the Good News.

• Threats will come. Our job is to preach the Good News in every generation.
• Mat 16:18 (NLT) I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.