I hope that you've finished all your eating and snacking for the night because the end of this post is a little disgusting. But hey, its about what's in the Bible. I'm not making this stuff up!
Ready?
Acts 12 (Read it here)
Herod Agrippa was a king of the Jews around from about 10 BC to 44 AD. He was named after a then-famous Roman statesman and was devout in his Jewish faith (as in Judaism, not Christianity). So much so that he was wholeheartedly willing to participate in persecuting the followers of what he and most other Jews thought was a blasphemous movement. (v. 1) How could a man (Jesus) be God, they thought?
If only they had read and paid a little more attention to their Old Testament scriptures.
James, the brother of John, was the first apostle to be martyred. (v. 2) James was arrested for preaching in the name of Jesus and, according to the Roman historian Eusibius, was beheaded. Herod loved the attention he received for this, so he had the most influential apostle, Peter, arrested during Passover (which, ironically, was when Jesus was arrested, too).
While Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly (or as the original Greek language suggests, continuously or without ceasing) for him (v. 5) for they thought his life was in danger.
God honored the believers' prayers and sends an angel to free Peter from prison. Apparently Peter was naked (v. 8) and definitely thought he was dreaming. (v. 9) (Do you realize that a naked Peter is chained between two guards? He gets dressed without the guards waking up, most likely with the angel assisting their sleep.) He didn't recognize it was real until he was walking by himself down the street. (v. 10)
Peter is stoked because he expected to be executed, too. (v.11)
And wouldn't you know it, Peter goes directly to the place where everyone was praying for him! (v.12) However, a girl answers the door. Of course, no one believes her when she tells everyone that its Peter (v. 15) until they all overhear his loud knocking. (v. 16)
He told them the whole story and encouraged them to share it with the other apostles. (v. 17, by the way, the James that Peter speaks of must be James, son of Alphaeus, because the other James is dead)
From there Peter went into hiding.
Herod was ticked that Peter had escaped. The two guards that were in charge of looking after Peter were all executed, as was customary by Roman standards. (v. 19)
In what seems like a random mention of a random meeting between Herod and a delegation of people from Tyre and Sidon, Luke makes mention of Herod's downfall. Apparently, Herod got all dressed up in his royal robe and made this eloquent speech (About what? Who knows...who cares?), as stated in verse 21.
What we do know is that the people thought the speech was so good that Herod was praised as a god. (v. 22) As Luke stated before, Herod LOVED this attention so he accepted the worship gladly. God decided to show who the real God was. Herod was struck with a sickness that filled him with worms (v. 23). Another Roman historian, Josephus, described Herod's death as excruciating. From Josephus' descriptions of Herod's autopsy medical experts propose that Herod either died of Fournier's gangrene, scabies or a combination of both.
Before you google those terms, I'll just go ahead and tell you what happened to Herod. He basically had flesh-eating worms (or bacteria) that ate away at the region between his kidney and anus (which also includes the bladder and genitals).
Mmm, glad I had already had my dinner tonight.
After Herod died, the church continued to spread and grow. (v. 24)
Only 2 Questions Tonight:)
1.) What would you do if you were Peter? Would you continue preaching or would you be thankful of your escape and go into hiding permanently? What do you think Peter does?
2.) Why do you believe God punished Herod so severely for accepting worship? Was it because of the principle, because of Herod's prominence (influence & visibility in public) or both? How do you think God deals with people who are egomaniacs like this today?
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