Tuesday

23 April

1 Sam 4-6; Ps 49; Acts 5

1 Samuel 4:  What happened when they fought against the Philistines?  What became of Eli, Hophni and Phineas?

1 Samuel 5: What did the Philistines do with the ark?  What happened to the Philistines while the ark was in their possession?

1 Samuel 6: How did the Philistines ‘test’ God when they devised a way to send the ark back? Why did God kill the people of Beth Shemesh?

Acts 5: Where did the apostles meet and what were the circumstances of them getting arrested (twice in this chapter)? What was the outcome?

Journal Prompt:  Peter had gone through quite a transformation once he received the Holy Spirit.  How has your transformation been – what could others see different in your life?

Answers:

1 Samuel 4:  They were defeated by the Philistines and the ark was captured.  In the battle Eli’s sons died and Eli died when he heard the ark had been captured.

1 Samuel 5: The Philistines placed the ark in the house of Dagon – the god they worshiped. In the morning, their God had fallen down and his head and hands were cut off.  While the ark was in the camp of the Philistines there was sickness and tumors upon all the people, so they arranged to send the ark back.

1 Samuel 6: The Philistines were still not completely convinced that they should return the ark, so they devised a plan which would make it unlikely that the cows leading the cart that bore the ark would actually go toward Israelite territory.

“The test was simple and stacked against God. By nature, two milk cows which have never been yokedshould not pull a cart at all, instead they should have resisted their yokes. Additionally, they decided to take their calves home, away from them. The “maternal instinct” of the cows would draw them not towards the land of Israel, but back home to their own calves. The Philistines devised a test that “forced” the God of Israel to do something miraculous to demonstrate He really was the cause of the plagues.” (this is from Enduring Word commentary.)

God killed the people of Beth Shemesh, because they looking inside the ark of the covenant.

Acts 5:  They met within the Temple courts at Solomon’s Portico – they were obviously meeting openly, proclaiming Jesus as well as healing the sick and those who were bound by spirits – it says that some of the early Christians didn’t join them; however the number of believers continued to grow.  The chief priests had the apostles arrested because they continued to teach about Jesus which the elders and chief priests had strictly forbade them.  So they threw them in jail – an angel appeared and let the apostles out of jail and told them to go back to the temple and continue teaching which they did.  They arrested them again, but after beating them, they released them.