Remember the guy in the rainbow wig who used to go to all the NFL games with a John 3:16 sign? You can bet the guy was not a church of Christer because if he were and he had the chance to show the world the Bible’s most important verse, he would have selected Acts 2:38 instead.
Peter does a masterful job in this sermon. He convicts he audience of their compliance in the death of an innocent man with the logic of a prosecuting attorney and the emotion and passion of a gospel preacher. He also offers us a great outline for what we can tell others when we speak. “Change your mind, change your heart and die (be baptized)”…that’s what it means to decide to follow Christ. And those who do get the amazing gift of he Holy Spirit to guide them in their journey. At the heart of Peter’s plea seems to be this: “You have chosen against God in the past, it’s time to choose God.”
That “plan” has been called by us and others the “plan of salvation”. Peter lays it out pretty clearly and does not want anyone to miss it. (By the way, the most notable group to call it a “plan of salvation” and use that exact same phrase is the Mormons.)
This week we will look at Peter’s first sermon and what it says about him and his expectations for the church. We compare his message with Paul’s later messages in Acts which quite often seem to counter Peter’s “here is how to choose God” messages with “here is how God CHOSE me” messages. Can they both be true? And how dangerous is it to ignore one or the other?
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