Dewey Bertolini's Podcast

It was a sermon for the ages. As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was originally preached by a layman. He had no formal training in advanced biblical studies. There is no mention of any degrees. No diploma hung on his office wall, if he had an office. We have no indication that he had studied under a leading rabbi, such as Saul studied under Gamaliel. His only claim to fame? Stephen was (Acts 6:3) “full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom”; (6:8) “a man full of God’s grace and power.” And that was certainly enough! Stephen was a humble, unassuming man, selected by Hellenistic, Greek-speaking Jewish believers in Jesus to be one of “The Seven,” chosen to care for their neglected widows. Through circumstances not of his choosing, Stephen was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, hauled violently before the Sanhedrin, and forced to testify on his behalf. But instead, Stephen chose to testify on Jesus’ behalf. And oh what a testimony it was. You talk about power. Stephen embodied God’s power as he took the High Court on

I LOVE meeting new friends. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, we have the privilege of meeting yet-another. A standout individual. A stellar human being. Though given his humility, I am sure that he would not be comfortable with my characterization. His name is Stephanos. Significantly, a Greek name. (As we learned last week, a not-so-trivial factoid.) A man affectionately known to us as Stephen. A name that means “crown.” In Stephen’s case, a well-deserved crown that he is no doubt wearing in Heaven as we speak. A man who stood as—and at—pivot-point of history. There haven’t been many of those throughout human history. But the event about which you will hear certainly rises to that level of an event after which our world, let alone our lives, would never be the same again. Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. God bless you richly as you listen.

It was a scandal in the making. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, a vast cultural divide threatened to rip asunder the fragile fabric of unity these first believers in Jesus earlier enjoyed. As we learned last week (Podcast #27), the story begins, “But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.” That was, as you will remember, a dire situation for these precious widows. Dire in the extreme. Women who had lost their husbands, and who were now among the most vulnerable in that male-dominated society. Females forced to live in a world that diminished women to a subservient status. One that rendered them uneducated, unskilled, unemployable, utterly without resources. Totally dependent. Now that they had become followers of Jesus, they could not return to their synagogues for support. Not to worry. We read ear

It was a matter of life and death. Literally. Make no mistake about this: As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, these “rumblings of discontent,” as Luke characterized them, represented anything but some small-time, garden variety, trivial church-squabble. What happened here in Acts 6 exposed a clash of cultures that tore asunder the awe-inspiring oneness heretofore enjoyed by the Jerusalem Christian Community. You might remember what we observed as recently as the end of Acts 4. Verse 32, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” Not any more! Now, sadly, at the beginning of Acts 6, that blessed unity coupled with their selfless generosity Was.No.More. Something had changed. Their fellowship fractured. Their unity dissolved into disunity. A rift developed that literally rent the fragile fabric of unity completely in half. Again, at the risk of sounding redundant, I must stress two vitally important point

He is the unsung hero of Church History. As you will hear in this PODCAST, I would not be overstating the case to suggest that if it wasn’t for this individual, there would be no Church History. Indeed, if it wasn’t for him, all twelve apostles would have been executed, summarily stoned to death on the spot. Hear it for yourself in Acts 5:33, “When they heard this, the high council was furious and decided to kill the apostles.” And they surely Would.Have.Killed the apostles—all of the apostles—if it wasn’t for this one man. This one man who wasn’t even a believer in Jesus. This one man who stood as a buffer between the High Priest and the Apostles. His name was Gamaliel. And whether you have heard of him before or not, he factors prominently in the development of the New Testament Church in multiple ways. Gamaliel, a man who certainly lived up to the meaning of his legendary name: “God's Reward.” For God surely rewarded the faithful obedience of the twelve apostles by sovereignly superintending Gamaliel to be

Luke records in Acts 5 that “The apostles (rejoiced that) God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” As you will hear in this PODCAST, a most-interesting word, “disgrace.” Both the NKJV and the NASB translate it “worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” In the ESV? “Worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus. It’s a word that means to render infamous through insult, innuendo, and/or intimidation; to strip someone of their honor and dignity; to sully one’s name and reputation. This is the exact same pattern that we saw with Jesus—a gradual escalation of opposition against Him, that we are now seeing intensify against the Apostles. In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested, imprisoned, warned, and threatened. Here in Acts 5, all twelve Apostles were arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. They were publicly disgraced, purposefully stripped of their honor as well as their skin, insulted, rendered infamous, their reputations sullied before the watching world. It should therefore co

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, The Apostle Paul made an astonishing statement to the committed-Christ-Followers living in Rome. In other words, to those living in the belly of the beast. Rome. The capital of an Empire that redefined hedonism, paganism, unbridled moral perversion. Rome. The city that literally drank itself into daily stupor on cheap wine and human blood. Rome. The city of the Colosseum and Gladiator. Rome. The city where human life held zero value. Rome. The city of which Paul wrote in Romans 1, “They invent new ways of sinning… They are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse, they approve and applaud others who practice them.” Rome. The epitome of a religiously/politically lethal environment for every follower of Jesus. Rome. Where Peter would eventually be crucified. Rome. Where Paul himself would be beheaded. So to encourage these embattled believers living right there as resid

Acts 5:1(NLT)—“But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property.” Hmmm… Just try to imagine for a second this otherwise unimaginable scenario, as related in this PODCAST: A highly-respected individual walks into the cozy confines of Safe Haven, only to drop dead on the spot. Some time later, his unsuspecting wife walks in, and she too keels over, stone-cold dead. That is exactly what happened here in Acts 5, one of the most mysterious and misunderstood narratives in all of the Bible. For starters: That word “But,” δέ—as in “But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property”—is ominous in the extreme. In the technical grammar of the passage, δέ is an adversative particle, signaling something that could be translated: “On the other hand”; or, “Contrary to what you just read”; or, “By way of a startling, scandalous, and jaw-dropping contrast”… Alerted by that pesky particle, I can tell you that we are about to hear a strange story

As you will hear in this PODCAST, I stand in awe of our ancestors in the faith, the very first community of Christ-followers ever to walk this planet. By way of introduction, do you remember when, so very long ago, we studied the Sermon on the Mount? Let me remind you that Jesus introduced His signature sermon with 8 pronouncements of God’s blessing—We call them the Beatitudes. The most enigmatic of the 8 being Beatitude #3 that goes like this: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). You are about to see in full color, in High Definition, exactly what meek looks like, courtesy of our earliest brothers and sisters in the faith. Before we get to that, there is one additional Beatitude to which I want to direct your attention. It happens to be Beatitude #8, the last of Jesus’ pronouncements of God’s blessing. It reads: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and false

It is with a lump in my throat that I present to you this PODCAST. We are about to bid a fond farewell to someone who has become a dear friend of mine—a precious-if-forlorn 40-year-old lame man. It started out as just another ordinary day in Jerusalem, as if any day in the Holy City, in the two months following Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection, could have rightly been described as ordinary. Peter and John made there way up to the Temple for their daily 3 PM prayers. They had no idea that by the end of that up-until-then ordinary day, their personal lives, the entire nascent Christian community, and all of Jerusalem would be rocked to their respective foundations. Peter and John encountered a lame beggar holding out a helpless hand as he sat in Temple Courts. Having compassion on this desperate middle-aged man, lame from birth, Peter and John mercifully proceeded to heal him in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Naturally, at hearing this now-walking man leaping and praising God, thousands of worshippers

Let me take you back to Tuesday of Jesus’ final week. On that Tuesday, as you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus made a most-remarkable promise to His disciples, and by extension, to us. Allow me to remind you of what happened in Luke 21: “Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, ‘The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!’” Now listen to His promise: “But before all this occurs, there will be a time of great persecution. You will be dragged into synagogues and prisons, and you will stand trial before kings and governors because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell them about me. So don’t worry in advance about how to answer the charges against you, for I will give you the right words and such wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to reply or refute you!” At the time, the disciples had no idea what Jesus m

As you are about to hear in this new PODCAST, a new day dawned upon these first committed Christ-followers. If that metaphor of a new day seemingly overstates the case, then at least we can say that a dark cloud now-shadowed the sun for these first committed Christ-followers. Not quite on the level of our eclipse; but portentous just the same. An ominous bellwether that signaled for these early believers a change in the temperature of Holy City. For the first eight-12 weeks following Crucifixion and Resurrection, these early believers were able to bask in the glow of their newfound faith unmolested. Not any more. Persecution was about to break out for first time in the now-2000 year history of Church. Relatively mild at first. No one died. No one was beaten. It was limited to Peter and John. But as you will hear, it did involve intimidation, incarceration, and threats of greater reprisals if the apostles refused to cease and desist as far as their preaching in Jesus’ name was concerned. Refuse they did. This

“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today,” Acts 3:24. What a remarkable statement. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with those eleven words, Peter alerted that unsuspecting crowd that had gathered at the Temple for their daily 3PM prayers that the singular message of the entire OT was now beginning to be fulfilled right before their amazed and curious eyes. Jerusalem in all of its storied history had never before experienced anything like the events of the past two-to-three months. Going all the way back to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into the Holy City, then His cleansing of the Temple, the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Day of Pentecost. And now, for the past two-to-three months, nonstop, ongoing miracles. All of that leading up to this: a very public, and deafeningly loud miracle—the healing of the lame man whom everyone in Temple precincts that day had passed every day on their way up to Temple. I say loud because, as we can only imagine, when this man now went “wal

Ironies abound, in the four verses I just read to you. A full compliment of ten ironies by my count. Ten! The most soul-stirring and hope-producing irony being this—the takeaway of this PODCAST: Your most influential, inspirational, impactful life-message—greatest chapter of your story—will come not out of your successes, but out of your failures. To invoke Jesus’ masterful metaphor — “You ARE the light of the world.” That being true, your brightest beacon of light will shine forth from the depths of your darkest hour. And no, I am not referring to the failure of the thousands who gathered at the Temple on this day in Acts 3 to hear Peter indict them for their greatest failure, as stunning as that failure certainly was. There is buried within the syllables of this story an even greater failure. An absolutely epic fail, one that hinges on exactly one word—one word about which I will tell you as you get into this podcast. A failure that underscores the blessed reality that… “Your most influential, inspirational

“Let There be No Doubt.” As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, If you were going to compose a title for this, only the second sermon Peter ever preached, you could not do much better than this: “Let There be No Doubt.” By the time Peter draws this homiletic masterpiece to its rousing conclusion, there will be no doubt in the minds of his hearers. No doubt about who Jesus is. No doubt about who they are. No doubt about what they have done. And no doubt about what they now need to do. “Let There be No Doubt.” A sermon made all the more remarkable given who preached it: an uneducated fisherman who just weeks before had denied, disowned, and so completely denounced Jesus that he quit as a disciple and returned to fishing. A man who wept bitter/angry tears in the wake of his profound disappointment and deep disillusionment as he watched in horror as Jesus was led away in chains, to be killed as a common criminal by the very people—the barbaric, interloping, country-occupying, universally-hated Romans—whom Pe

We may not know his name. But as you will hear in this PODCAST, we surely know his story. As did some 5000 men plus countless women and children, whose lives—after hearing this man’s story—would never be the same again. This one story—the first of fourteen separate and specific miracles recorded in the book of Acts—exemplifies why I sometimes refer to God as “The God of the surprise.” Both then and now, God can and will—when we least expect it—apply His divine touch to our circumstances that seem to us to be impossible. Trust me, to this man who had been lame from birth for now more than forty years (Acts 4:22), his tragic circumstance was definition of impossible. Yet, as Jesus once declared to His watching and wondering disciples (this in Matthew 19), “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” He is, and ever shall be, “The God of the surprise.” Here’s the point. A grand and glorious point indeed: Within the boundaries of God’s perfect will, there is no such thing as a hopeless sit

“For more than forty years.” As you will hear in this PODCAST, five simple words, easily missed if we hastily read the account as recorded for us by Dr. Luke. Five astonishing words that unlock this entire episode in the life of the first early church in Jerusalem. “For more than forty years.” For more than forty years, everywhere this man went someone had to carry him. For more than forty years this man never knew the simple pleasure of standing on his own two feet. For more than forty years this man knew nothing of the joys of going for a walk, let alone a jog. For more than forty years he could never once kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball, throw a football, or run through the waves as they lapped upon the shore of the Mediterranean. For more than forty years this man never knew a healthy day—never knew for even a minute what it would be like to have two legs that weren’t as limp as dishrags. For more than forty years this man had in his legs no feeling, no movement, no sensations of any kind. For more tha

While I am away speaking at a Junior High/Middle School Camp at a place near and dear to my heart--Hartland Christian Camp--may I welcome to the Upper Room, and Jesus’ farewell address to His beloved disciples. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, as we break the seal on this, Jesus’ final night before the crucifixion, I do so with something of a lump in my throat and the pinkish hue of embarrassment upon my otherwise rosy cheeks. This because this particular portion of the grand story of Jesus’ life and ministry hits me most personally. And if, as they say, “Confession is good for the soul,” then I make my confession to you, my beloved little Safe Haven family, tonight. There is embedded within this most amazing scene, Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, a timeless lesson that, if only I could turn back the hands of the clock and the passage of time, I would have taken to heart way back when I was just starting out in my ministry. This pointed and practical warning is as timely today as it was that night

These were exhilarating times indeed for that original company of committed Christ-followers. In this PODCAST, and in the upcoming weeks, it will be our privilege to relive these salad days of the first ekklesia—in Jerusalem—as we join in a virtual sense these first precious believers, our ancestors in the faith. Last week, we looked at the four foundational dynamics that characterized this first early church. Foundational for them; foundational for us. You will remember that we considered each of these in some detail—that marvelous biblical blueprint for every local church, both then and now! The elegant simplicity and sincerity of which was breathtaking for us to behold. Now, we will consider a day in the life of these very first committed Christ-followers. The precious and precarious first hours of this first church’s delicate-if-exuberant infancy. Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. God bless you richly

After a wonderful week ministering at Hume Lake, it’s so good to be home. And so glorious to be back in the amazing book of Acts. As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the elegant simplicity of what God intended His local churches to look like and how He intended for them to function, coupled with unencumbered sincerity of His biblical blueprint for every local church ministry, is breathtaking to behold. Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. God bless you richly as you listen.