Passage of the Day - January 20, 2011

Acts 20:26-31

 ²⁶"Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.

 ²⁷"For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

 ²⁸"Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

 ²⁹"I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;

 ³⁰and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

 ³¹"Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.

This is one of the passages of the Bible that can be perverted into legalism.  Leaders of churches can use this passage as justification for putting up fences around their church members.  They can give them some boundaries by which to live.  This is not a bad thing.  The leaders of churches are supposed to protect their flock.  However, what are the fences, how were they devised, and where were they placed?  Are they based upon the protections and guidelines laid out in scripture?  Or are they protections to foster the kind of "good lifestyle" that the leader has determined in his own mind as ideal?

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (http://www.lockman.org/)