Acts 12:1-19 - GFCD Bible Study

Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church.

Then he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also.

Now it was during the days of the unleavened bread.

So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.

Thanks, Gloria.

Over to you, please, Ray.

So one of the things I'd like to point out is that A lot of people, when they hear the word church, they think of a building.

And the truth is what the church meant when this was written was a group of believers.

Actually, it didn't have to be a group.

I'm the church.

You're the church if you're a believer.

So that's something we want to keep in mind because too often we're thinking about a building, we're thinking about a doctrine, we're thinking about something that's inaccurate.

Peter was being guarded by four quaternions of soldiers.

That's, first of all, a quaternion, or they called it a squadron in the version that was read today, but that was four soldiers, but there was four of them.

There was actually 16 soldiers.

Why so many? It's because believers, disciples had already escaped prison, even though they were chained and they were being held in prison, they disappeared as far as the people holding them believed.

And so in this case, Herod was not taking any chances.

He was going to make sure that was no way they could get out and the only other thing i wanted to say is that they talk about easter and it's not the easter that has come and evolved into what uh we think of uh we christians have often used the word easter but more and more we're getting back to the real description of what the day is.

It's Resurrection Day.

Because Easter is a pagan holiday.

And it's pagan today, too.

It's all about the Easter Bunny.

And so it's just important to recognize that this had nothing to do with the Easter you might have thought of.

And that it's just happened to be coinciding with the period of time that they were in.

Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church.

Then he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also.

Now it was during the days of the unleavened bread.

So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover.

Thanks, Gloria.

Over to you, please, Ray.

So one of the things I'd like to point out is that A lot of people, when they hear the word church, they think of a building.

And the truth is what the church meant when this was written was a group of believers.

Actually, it didn't have to be a group.

I'm the church.

You're the church if you're a believer.

So that's something we want to keep in mind because too often we're thinking about a building, we're thinking about a doctrine, we're thinking about something that's inaccurate.

Peter was being guarded by four quaternions of soldiers.

That's, first of all, a quaternion, or they called it a squadron in the version that was read today, but that was four soldiers, but there was four of them.

There was actually 16 soldiers.

Why so many? It's because believers, disciples had already escaped prison, even though they were chained and they were being held in prison, they disappeared as far as the people holding them believed.

And so in this case, Herod was not taking any chances.

He was going to make sure that was no way they could get out and the only other thing i wanted to say is that they talk about easter and it's not the easter that has come and evolved into what uh we think of uh we christians have often used the word easter but more and more we're getting back to the real description of what the day is.

It's Resurrection Day.

Because Easter is a pagan holiday.

And it's pagan today, too.

It's all about the Easter Bunny.

And so it's just important to recognize that this had nothing to do with the Easter you might have thought of.

And that it's just happened to be coinciding with the period of time that they were in.