Acts 11 – 12
Verses 11:1 & 2 open explaining why Peter’s actions were a problem:
1-2 By the time Peter and his friends from Joppa returned to Jerusalem,news about outsiders accepting God’s message had already spread to the Lord’s emissaries[a] and believers there. Some of the circumcised believers didn’t welcome Peter with joy, but with criticism.
Imagine your entire life believing one thing and then in an instant everything changes. You’d have some ’splaining to do to those who believed as you did. That is what Peter does, in detail about his vision and his action. From this the church started to grow again, after Stephen’s stoning. People began to spread the word more freely to non-Jewish people.
Verse 11:26 has the only use I have found so far of the word “Christ” in the actual translation in The Voice:
He found Saul and brought him back to Antioch. The two of them spent an entire year there, meeting with the church and teaching huge numbers of people. It was there, in Antioch, where the term “Christian” was first used to identify disciples of Jesus.
If you have been following my reading of The Voice, you may have noticed how this is the first reference to Christ. Now we can go nuts on to the actual translation of Jesus’ name, but I will keep focused on the “Christ” part of His name. Those who have grown up in the church have heard Jesus Christ, Jesus and Christ used as His name. In actuality, Christ is a transliteration of the Greek word Christos, which is Greek for Messiah. Throughout the history of the church, Christ became a second name and not a title.
It surprised me to see this in the actual text, as The Voice has used “Christian” in their comments they have refrained using it in the actual interpretation. Now I decided to do my translation search and the only place I found where Christian was not used was the CJB where “Messianic” was used. We see this today where Jews who believe in Jesus are called Messianic Jews. Sorry for focusing on this tangent, but this is why I have explored the different versions of the Bible, to encourage people to read one and not get lost in minor wording differences.
Heck some have said The Voice is from the devil since it “omits” Jesus from the translation. As you can see this is far from the truth and the actual translation appears to be solid so far and I have two months left in the read through. So be cautious of the nay say’ers against your version. Remember the KJV which has Church of England and Catholic doctrine as a basis is considered the only true translation for many Southern Baptist preachers. Ironically the Baptist evolved from groups persecuted by the Church of England. The only “raised eyebrow” was a translation from The Message that has the Luciferian “as above, so is below” sprinkled around its version (2 Chronicles 5 – 9, “are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below?”). NOTE – The goal is to have you QUESTION ALL translations as being wrong
Verse 12:17 ends a miraculous story of Peter’s rescue by God:
Peter motioned for them to quiet down and then told them the amazing story of how the Lord engineered his escape.
Peter: Could you please get word to James, our Lord’s brother, and the other believers that I’m all right?
Then he left to find a safer place to stay.
Imagine being falsely imprisoned and then suddenly you are free. What would you do? Peter headed for the hills, but as we learn in Paul’s (Saul) story he was freed and remained to show the grace of God. What would you have done?