Rick Joyner - The Books of Acts

The Book of Acts

Table of Contents

The Book of

Acts

The MorningStar Vision Bible

By Rick Joyner

Copyright Information

The Book of Acts, The MorningStar Vision Bible

by Rick Joyner

Copyright 2013

Trade Size Edition

eBook Edition, 2013

Distributed by MorningStar Publications, Inc.,

a division of MorningStar Fellowship Church

375 Star Light Drive, Fort Mill, SC 29715

www.MorningStarMinistries.org

1-800-542-0278

International Standard Book Number 978-1-60708-526-3; 1-60708-526-7

Cover Design: Kevin Lepp

Book Layout: Kevin Lepp

eBook Layout: Scott Swires

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1977 by The Lockman Foundation. Italics in Scripture are for emphasis only.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

For a free catalog of MorningStar Resources,

please call 1-800-542-0278.

Preface

The MorningStar Vision Bible

By Rick Joyner

Next to His Son and the Holy Spirit, the Bible is Gods greatest gift to mankind. What treasure on earth could be compared to one Word from God? There is good reason why the Bible is the bestselling book of all-time by such a wide margin. The importance of the Bible cannot be overstated. If Jesus, who is the Word, would take His stand on the written Word when challenged by the devil, how much more must we be established on that Word to take our stand and live our lives by it?

The most basic purpose of The MorningStar Vision Bible is accuracy and faithfulness to the intended meaning of the Author, the Holy Spirit. His written Word reveals the path to life, salvation, transformation, deliverance, and healing for every soul who would seek to know God. The universe is upheld by the Word of His power, so there is no stronger foundation that we could ever build our lives on other than His Word. Therefore, we have pursued this project with the utmost care in that what is presented here is His Word and not ours. We were very careful not to let anyone work on it that had an agenda other than a love for the truth and the deepest respect for the fact that we were handling this most precious treasureGods own Word.

The primary accuracy of any translation is its adherence to the original text in the original languages the Bible was written in, Hebrew and Greek. However, there are problems when you try to translate from a language such as Greek into a language like English because Greek is so much more expressive than English. For example, there are several different Greek words with different meanings that are translated as one word love in our English version. The Greek words distinguish between such things as friendship love, erotic attraction, or unconditional love. When we just translate these as love, then it may be generally true, but something basic in what the Author tried to convey is left out. As we mature in Christ by following the Spirit, these deeper, more specific meanings become important. Therefore, we have sought to include the nuances of the Greek language in this version.

A basic biblical guide we used for this work was Psalm 12:6: The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times. Every book we release of this version has been through a meticulous process to ensure faithfulness to the original intent at least seven times. Even so, we do not consider this yet to be a completed work. We are releasing these book by book in softcover to seek even further examination by those who read it. We are asking our readers to send us challenges for any word, phrase, or part that you think may not be accurate, along with your reasons. These will be received, considered, and researched with openness. If you have insights that you think should be added to the commentary, we will consider those as well.

You can email these or any comments that you have to bible@morningstarministries.org, or mail them to us at:

MorningStar Publications375 Star Light DriveFort Mill, South Carolina 29715

Please include any credentials that you might have that would be relevant, but they are not necessary for this.

My personal credentials for compiling and editing such a work are first my love for the Bible and my respect for its integrity. I have been a Christian for more than forty years, and I have read the Bible through from cover-to-cover at least once a year. I do have an earned doctorate in theology from a good, accredited school, but have not used the title because I want my message received on the merits of its content, not by a title. Though I have been in pursuit of knowing the Lord and His Word for more than forty years, I still feel more comfortable thinking of myself as a student rather than an expert. If that bothers you I understand, but when handling the greatest truth the world has ever known, I feel we must be as humble and transparent as possible.

Most of those who have worked on this project with me have been students at MorningStar University. This is a unique school that has had students from ages sixteen to over eighty years old. Some have been remarkably skilled in languages, especially Hebrew and Greek. Some have been believers and students of the Word for a long time. Others were fairly new to the faith, but were strong and devoted to seeking and knowing the truth. These were the ones that I was especially interested in recruiting for this project because of the Lords statement in Matthew 11:25:

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes (NKJV).

Because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (see James 4:6; I Peter 5:5 NKJV), the humility of a relatively young believer can be more important for discerning truth than great knowledge and experience if these have caused us to become proud.

Also, as Peter stated concerning Pauls writings in II Peter 3:15-16:

Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

So the untaught can be prone to distort the truth if they are also unstable. This is why the relatively young believers that I sought to be a part of our team were not just stable but strong in the Lord and their resolve to know the truth.

Even so, not everyone who has great knowledge and experience has become so proud that it causes God to resist them. Those who have matured and yet remained humble and teachable are some of the greatest treasures we may have in the body of Christ. Such elders are certainly worthy of great honor and should be listened to and heeded. Nowhere in Scripture are we exhorted to honor the youth, but over and over we are commanded to honor the elders.

So it seems we have a paradoxthe Lord reveals His ways to babes, but elders are the ones responsible for keeping His people on the path of life walking in His ways. This is not a contradiction. As with many of the paradoxes in Scripture, the tension between the extremes is intended to help keep us on the path of life by giving us boundaries. Pride in our experience and knowledge can cause us to stray from this path, as can our lack of knowledge if it is combined with instability. The vision and exuberance of youth are needed to keep the fire of passion for the Lord and His ways burning. This is why the Lord said that the wise brought forth from their treasures things both new and old (see Matthew 13:52).

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