'God' in the Bible

The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you killed him by hanging him on a tree.

God has exalted to his right hand this very man as our Leader and Savior in order to extend repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who keep on obeying him."

However, if it's from God, you won't be able to stop them, and you may even discover that you are fighting against God!"

So the Twelve called the whole group of disciples together and said, "It is not desirable for us to neglect messages from God in order to wait on tables.

So the word of God continued to spread, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem continued to grow rapidly. Even a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

So they secretly got some men to say, "We have heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God."

"The glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. God told him, "Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land I'll show you.'

So he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. Then after the death of his father, God had him move to this country where you now live.

God gave him no property here, not even a foot of land, yet he promised to give it to him and to his descendants after him as a permanent possession, even though he had no child.

"This is what God promised: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and its people would enslave them and oppress them for 400 years.

"But I will punish the nation they serve,' said God, "and afterwards they will leave and worship me in this place.'

Later, God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. Later, he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Then Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered the twelve patriarchs.

"Joseph's brothers became jealous of him and sold Joseph as a slave in Egypt. However, God was with him

"Now as the time approached for the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people's population increased a great deal in Egypt.

"At this time Moses was born. He was beautiful in the sight of God, and for three months he was cared for in his father's house.

He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn't understand.

"I am the God of your ancestors the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses became terrified and didn't dare to look.

"This same Moses whom they rejected by saying, "Who made you ruler and judge?' was the man whom God sent to be both their ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

It was this Moses who told the Israelis, "God will raise up a prophet for you from among your own brothers, just as he did me.'

So God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the heavenly bodies. As it is written in the book of the Prophets: "O house of Israel, you didn't offer me slaughtered animals and sacrifices those 40 years in the wilderness, did you?

You even took along the tent of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, and the images you made in order to worship them. So I will take you into exile as far as Babylon.'

Our ancestors brought it here with Joshua when they replaced the nations that God drove out in front of our ancestors, and it was here until the time of David.

He found favor with God and asked to design a dwelling for the house of Jacob,

But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

He said, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

Everyone from the least to the greatest paid close attention to him, saying, "This is what we call the great power of God!"

But when Philip proclaimed the good news about the kingdom of God and about the name of Jesus the Messiah, men and women believed and were baptized.

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaritans had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.

You have no part or share in what we're saying, because your heart isn't right with God.

He immediately started to preach about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "This is the Son of God."

He was a devout man who feared God, as did everyone in his home. He gave many gifts to the poor among the people and always prayed to God.

One day, about three in the afternoon, he had a vision and clearly saw an angel of God coming to him and saying to him, "Cornelius!"

The angel answered him, "Your prayers and your gifts to the poor have arisen as a reminder to God. Send men now to Joppa and summon Simon, who is called Peter.

Again the voice came to him a second time, "You must stop calling unclean what God has made clean."

He told them, "You understand how wrong it is for a Jew to associate or visit with unbelievers. But God has shown me that I should stop calling anyone common or unclean,

and said, "Cornelius, your prayer has been heard. God has remembered your gifts to the poor,

So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. All of us are here now in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has ordered you to say."

Then Peter began to speak: "Now I understand that God shows no partiality.

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, he went around doing good and healing everyone who was oppressed by the devil.

"They hung him on a tree and killed him, but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear

not to all the people, but to us who were chosen by God to be witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

He also ordered us to preach to the people and to testify solemnly that this is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead.

because they heard them speaking in foreign languages and praising God. Then Peter said,

Now the apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also accepted the word of God.

Then the voice from heaven answered a second time, "You must stop calling common what God has made clean!'

Now if God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who was I to try to stop God?"

When they heard this, they calmed down, and praised God by saying, "So God has given repentance that leads to life even to gentiles."

When he arrived, he rejoiced to see what the grace of God had done, and with hearty determination he kept encouraging all of them to remain faithful to the Lord,

So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer to God for him was being offered by the assembly.

The people kept shouting, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man!"

Immediately the angel of the Lord struck him down because he did not give glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died.

But the word of God continued to grow and spread.

He was associated with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. He sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God.

"Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen! The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made them a great people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with a public display of power he led them out of there.

he destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan. Then God gave their land to the Israelis as an inheritance

"After that, he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel. When they demanded a king, God gave them Kish's son Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years.

Then God removed Saul and made David their king, about whom he testified, "I have found that David, the son of Jesse, is a man after my own heart, who will carry out all my wishes.'

It was from this man's descendants that God, as he promised, brought to Israel a Savior, who is Jesus.

"My brothers, descendants of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, it is to us that the message of this salvation has been sent.

But God raised him from the dead,

We're telling you the good news: What God promised our ancestors

God raised him from the dead, never to experience decay, as he said, "I'll give you the holy promises made to David.'

However, the man whom God raised did not experience decay.

When the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who kept talking to them and urging them to continue in the grace of God.

"Men, why are you doing this? We are merely human beings with natures like yours. We are telling you the good news so you'll turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.

strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. "We must endure many hardships," they said, "to get into the kingdom of God."

From there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been entrusted to the grace of God for the work they had completed.

When they arrived, they called the church together and told them everything that God had done with them and how he had opened a door so that gentiles would believe.

When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported everything that God had done through them.

After a lengthy debate, Peter stood up and told them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days, God chose me to be the one among you through whom the gentiles would hear the message of the gospel and believe.

God, who knows everyone's heart, showed them he approved by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us.

So why do you test God by putting on the disciples' neck a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we could carry?

The whole crowd was silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul tell about all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the gentiles.

Simeon has explained how God first showed his concern for the gentiles by taking from among them a people for his name.

"Therefore, I have decided that we should not trouble these gentiles who are turning to God.

As soon as he had seen the vision, we immediately looked for a way to go to Macedonia, because we were convinced that God had called us to tell the people there the good news.

A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a dealer in purple goods, was listening to us. She was a worshiper of God, and the Lord opened her heart to listen carefully to what was being said by Paul.

She would follow Paul and us and shout, "These men are servants of the Most High God and are proclaiming to you a way of salvation!"

Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

He brought Paul and Silas upstairs into his house and set food before them. He was thrilled, as was his household, to believe in God.

But when the Jewish leaders in Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul also in Berea, they went there to upset and incite the crowds.

For as I was walking around and looking closely at the objects you worship, I even found an altar with this written on it: "To an unknown god.' So I am telling you about the unknown object you worship.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live in shrines made by human hands,

so that they might look for God, somehow reach for him, and find him. Of course, he is never far from any one of us.

Though God has overlooked those times of ignorance, he now commands everyone everywhere to repent,

Then he left that place and went to the home of a man named Titius Justus, who worshipped God and whose house was next door to the synagogue.

So Paul lived there for a year and a half and continued to teach the word of God among the people there.

They said, "This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the Law."

He went into the synagogue and spoke there boldly for three months, holding discussions and persuading those who heard him about the kingdom of God.

God continued to do extraordinary miracles through Paul.

I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance to God and faith in our Lord Jesus.

because I never shrank from telling you the whole plan of God.

"I'm now entrusting you to God and to the message of his grace, which is able to build you up and secure for you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.

After greeting them, Paul related one by one the things that God had done among the gentiles through his ministry.

When they heard about it, they praised God and told him, "You see, brother, how many tens of thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and all of them are zealous for the Law.

"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia but raised in this city and educated at the feet of Gamaliel in the strict ways of our ancestral Law. I am as zealous for God as all of you are today.

"Then he said, "The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear his own voice,

Paul looked straight at the Council and said, "Brothers, with a clear conscience I have done my duty before God up to this very day."

At this Paul told him, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! How can you sit there and judge me according to the Law, and yet in violation of the Law order me to be struck?"