The Speeches Of Acts Essay Example for Free

The Speeches Of Acts Essay The two-volume set of Luke-Acts was an ancient scholars attempt at defending Christianity as not only a religion, but also as a way of life. While the first volume focused on the life of Jesus, the second volume, focused on the origins of the Christian Church. The speeches found within the book of Acts are ordered in such a way to plainly demonstrate how Christianity progressed from one mans idea into the dominant religion of the time period in which Acts was written. Each speech given is representative of a theme found in the book of Acts. When studying the speeches from Acts, it is important to keep the broader context in mind. The book of Acts itself is about the spread of Christianity and its church throughout the Roman world. It was the story of a spiritual conquest that eventually spread throughout the entire known world. And as with any epic story, it was made up of many smaller stories. Most of these stories found in the book of Acts revolved around a singular speech or occasionally, a group of speeches. In the second volume of Luke-Acts, these speeches make up about one quarter of the entire text. By inserting these unbroken speeches into the book of Acts, the author was able to convey a sense of immediacy that did not normally exist to the reader. When these speeches are observed in their larger context however, they begin to take on an entirely new meaning and intent. This large group of speeches can easily be sorted into groups and themes by looking at who was orating, what their intent was, who the audience was, and what the audiences reactions were. Because Acts was about the spread of Christian Church, the speakers were predominately Jewish-Christians. Paul and Peter orated the majority of the speeches although they are only part of the many Christian advocates who were spreading the Christian message during this time period. Throughout the time frame that book of Acts hopes to frame, many things were happening that were not recorded. It is important to realize that every recorded event portrayed in Acts, surely created Christianesque ripples that flowed continuously outward from the apostles and other devout followers. Many times, Christian speeches and activities often spurred other speeches that were orated by non-Christians. These non-Christian speeches were mainly negative to the Christian cause and were often preemptive to floggings and violence. Even though these outlying speeches are legitimate, the authors function of these speeches remains fundamentally different than that of the pro-Christian speeches found in Acts. Therefore they should be viewed as mere reactions and complements to the Christian speeches rather than speeches themselves. Many of these negative reactions were spurred when Christian speakers attempted to convert devout Jews into Christians, especially early on in Acts. For example, when Paul spoke to a Sadducees council early on in the book of Acts, the reaction the apostles received was not only a speech negating their preaching, but also a beating at the hands of the council. (Acts 5.29-5.40). The apostles were not deterred by these set backs posed by the council however, and they became more persistent in their witnessing to Jews and non-Jews alike. One method used to persuade Jews to cross over into Christianity was the implementation of history in their arguments and speeches. In Acts 13.16-13.41 Paul explained Jesus Jewish origins and how the same Jews that shared his ancestry had eventually rejected him. This message was extremely effective to small groups of Jews, but when a large group amassed during the next Sabbath day, Paul and the apostles were inevitably rejected once again by the Jews. The apostles were not content with speaking only to Jews because in their opinion, God was universal in his love of humans. They hoped to eventually unify Gentiles and Jews under one religion in which all were equal. In hopes of spreading this message to potential Gentile converts Paul and Barnabas traveled to the town of Lystria and spoke to the inhabitants. (Acts14.8-14.20). By healing a crippled man in public, Paul and Barnabas gained the attention of many Gentiles, who immediately regarded them as the Hellenistic Gods Zeus and Hermes. After convincing the masses about the way of Christianity, they traveled outwards from Jerusalem still into yet another Gentile town called Derbe. This continual path away from Jerusalem into the outer world paralleled what the apostles were attempting to do with Gentiles. By allowing the Gentiles to maintain their customs and culture, the way of worshipping the one Christian god became more appealing to the majority of them than pertaining to the typical Roman Gods. The only thing that Christian law required of Gentiles and Jews was belief in the idea that repentance of sin resulted in the forgiveness of God. As the apostles continued to journey outwards away from Jerusalem, the notion of the Christian church spread with them. In some cases the word of Christianity spread faster than the apostles. When Paul traveled to Ephesus in Acts 19.1 for example, he was met with disciples of Christianity who had been baptized in the name of John, but not yet of Jesus. After Paul had spent considerable time in Ephesus, he began his journey back towards Jerusalem. Once Paul was back in Jerusalem, the style of speeches drastically changed from evangelistic to defensive. Now that Paul was back in the midst of the hub of Jewish activity, he was constantly questioned, attacked, provoked, and arrested. When Paul went on trial before King Agrippa in Acts 26.1-26.32 his speech had a different message than most of his previous ones. Paul attempted to pacify his accusers by reverting to his Jewish roots and demonstrating that he had disobeyed no laws while within the temple. Paul summed up his experiences with the Jews and Gentiles and eventually was allowed freedom once again. The purpose for Pauls arrest in the context of Acts, was to not only sum up the previous themes found in the volume, but to also demonstrate the justification of unity between Jews and Gentiles under the same God. After this was accomplished, Paul was allowed his freedom so that he could continue his travels and repeat all of the subsequent themes that came with his earlier travels. Once Paul was in Rome, he continued his preaching to the Gentiles. While in Rome, he was subject to much of the same treatment he had found elsewhere in the world. On one hand, much praise and jubilation followed him, but on the other, he was also eventually persecuted and sent to jail. He was eventually forced to basically repeat his earlier apologies and arguments to justify his freedom. As before, he was allowed release so he could continue preaching and teaching in Rome. (Acts 28.17 28.28) To summarize the book of Acts, once Paul had conquered Jerusalem in a spiritual sense, he set out to conquer Rome as well. These cities represent both the Jewish capital of the world and the Gentile capital of the world. Upon implementation of Christianity of any giving town, the apostles set out to other towns and cities in order to give their powerful speeches, which signified so much more than the words they contained. Works Cited Ehrman, Bart D., The New Testament: A Historical Introduction To The Early Christian Writers. New York: Oxford, 2000. Harvey, A. E., The New English Bible: Companion To The New Testament. Cambridge: Oxford, 1970. Meeks, Wayne A., et al. ed. The Harper Collins Study Bible. Vol. 44. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Stendahl, Krister. Paul Among Jews And Gentiles And Other Essays. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973.

Cloning :: essays research papers

The first thing that must be cleared up is what is cloning, and what is a clone. A clone is an organism derived asexually from a single individual by cuttings, bulbs, tubers, fission, or parthenogenesis reproduction ("Cloning", 1997). Pathogenesis reproduction is the development of an organism from an unfertilized ovum, seed or spore ("Pathogenesis", 1997). So cloning, biologically speaking, is any process in which production of a clone is successful. Therefore, the biological term cloning is the production of a genetically identical duplicate of an organism. However, people can use the word cloning to intend other meanings. For instance, we generalize many older and new techniques as cloning. This is not a good practice because these techniques are different and impose unique concerns and issues. In the world of scientific technology, cloning is the artificial production of organisms with the same genetic material. Scientists actually call the transferring of a nucleus from the cell of one organism to an enucleated egg cell, nuclear transfer (Wilmut 811). This will produce an organism that has the exact genetic material as that of the donor cell. Scientists are using current techniques exceedingly more, and with a variety of species. Astonishingly, more clones are present in the world than one would think. In nature, and even in the lives of humans, clones are present. As stated earlier, a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism. From this we can say that cloning occurs with all plants, some insects, algae, unicellular organisms that conduct mitosis or binary fission, and occasionally by all multi-cellular organisms, including humans. Monozygotic twins, or identical twins, are clones of each other. They have the same exact genetic information due to the division of an embryo early in development, which produces two identical embryos. About eight million identical twins are alive in the world; thus, already eight million human clones inhabit the world. Today, the only cloning research is occurring in scientific model organisms. These are organisms that research scientists from around the globe have collected abundant amounts of data. All this data is necessary so that advancements in research can continue more efficiently. The most common scientific models are E. coli, mice, fruit flies, and frogs. The first organisms that were cloned using nuclear transfer were frogs. This is because they have large egg cells and scientists can obtain up to two thousand of them from one ovulation. Cloning :: essays research papers The first thing that must be cleared up is what is cloning, and what is a clone. A clone is an organism derived asexually from a single individual by cuttings, bulbs, tubers, fission, or parthenogenesis reproduction ("Cloning", 1997). Pathogenesis reproduction is the development of an organism from an unfertilized ovum, seed or spore ("Pathogenesis", 1997). So cloning, biologically speaking, is any process in which production of a clone is successful. Therefore, the biological term cloning is the production of a genetically identical duplicate of an organism. However, people can use the word cloning to intend other meanings. For instance, we generalize many older and new techniques as cloning. This is not a good practice because these techniques are different and impose unique concerns and issues. In the world of scientific technology, cloning is the artificial production of organisms with the same genetic material. Scientists actually call the transferring of a nucleus from the cell of one organism to an enucleated egg cell, nuclear transfer (Wilmut 811). This will produce an organism that has the exact genetic material as that of the donor cell. Scientists are using current techniques exceedingly more, and with a variety of species. Astonishingly, more clones are present in the world than one would think. In nature, and even in the lives of humans, clones are present. As stated earlier, a clone is an organism that has the same genetic information as another organism. From this we can say that cloning occurs with all plants, some insects, algae, unicellular organisms that conduct mitosis or binary fission, and occasionally by all multi-cellular organisms, including humans. Monozygotic twins, or identical twins, are clones of each other. They have the same exact genetic information due to the division of an embryo early in development, which produces two identical embryos. About eight million identical twins are alive in the world; thus, already eight million human clones inhabit the world. Today, the only cloning research is occurring in scientific model organisms. These are organisms that research scientists from around the globe have collected abundant amounts of data. All this data is necessary so that advancements in research can continue more efficiently. The most common scientific models are E. coli, mice, fruit flies, and frogs. The first organisms that were cloned using nuclear transfer were frogs. This is because they have large egg cells and scientists can obtain up to two thousand of them from one ovulation.

The Summer of My 15th Birthday

This summer was the best summer ever, because it was my 15th birthday. I celebrated on a cruise with 3 of my friends. When I got to the airplane I was very excited. Then I started to watch a movie on the airplane. The movie that I saw was one of my favorites Leap Year. When we landed to Miami, Florida I was more excited because I always wanted to go to Miami. When we got there my cousin picked us up on the airport. Then we went to the most famous place to have fun with friends called Lincoln Road. There we went to the apple store were my cousin works. Later we ate at a Cuban restaurant very delicious. There I order the most famous plate, which has â€Å"congri† rice with pork. Then we were so tired and went to the apartment. The next day we wanted to go to bay side. A very famous place in Miami with lots of stores. Like for example the one that all girls like, Victoria secret. There we ate at a famous restaurant called the Knife also very delicious. We stayed all day there and later went to a boat with music and had a lot of fun. The next day we had breakfast at IHOP. There I ate the best breakfast that is called the pancake combo. That has egg, 2 pancakes, bacon, and hash brown. Later after the breakfast we went to the most famous mall that has all kinds of expensive stores like Dolce and Gabanna, Channel, Louise Vitton, Carolina Herrera, Tiffany and Co., Etc. There I loved it because there it was all my favorites’ stores. From there we started to go to all Miami. The next day we went to the duck boat that goes in the road and then goes into the water. The tour goes to Palm Island and Star Island where the famous people live. The next day was the day to get on the cruise. I was very excited because I knew we were going to have lot of fun. We got in the cruise and first went to do the fun things like rock claiming, the flow rider and ice skating. In the flow rider I fell a lot but that’s part of the experience. When we got to the rock claiming was better because I’m good at it and I did all stages. Then we got to dinner, the next day we went to Haiti there we went to the beach went to a rollercoaster very cool and had a lot of fun. There we ate and the food very delicious. Later we didn’t have too much to do there so we went to the cruise. We stayed there just relaxing and getting some tan. That night we were walking the entire cruise to see it and look for the fun and cool places to go. The next day we were going to Ocho Rios, Jamaica. There we went to a cascade very cool that was slippery and we fell a lot of times but we all laugh we each other and didn’t care. The water was very cold but was a very fun experience. From there we went to a part where there was lots of little stores selling lots of cool thing from there of Jamaica. We went again to the cruise and the next day we went to Grand Caimans Island there we went to the beach and went on a banana boat. That was very funny we rented kayaks and just being in the beach and having some tanning. The next day we went to Cozumel, Mexico and there my father was very happy because his favorite beer is the corona. And there in Mexico were very cheap were at 1 dollar each. There we went to the beach and went snorkeling. We ate Mexican food and it was very spicy but also delicious. That was the last place we went. The next day we stayed all day on the cruise we went ice skating and my friend Bernadette fell, but very funny and I couldn’t stop laughing thank God it didn’t hurt and we all started laughing, that day was very funny she made my day. Bernadette and I every day went to an ice cream machine and at least we ate like 3 ice creams a day that was the best. The next day was the day we had to leave but this vacation was the best. I had a lot of fun and was the best birthday ever I loved it because I did so many things and went to so many cool places. I also had a very good experience in the places that I went, his is a vacation I’ll never forget.

Persuasive Speech - 1153 Words

PERSUASIVE SPEECH OUTLINE Topic: Organ Donation Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience to donate their organs and tissues when they die and to act upon their decision to donate. INTODUCTION Attention: How do you feel when you have to wait for something you really, really want? What if it was something you couldn’t live without? Ladies and gentlemen I’m here today to share with you my views on organ donation, in the hope that you will take them on board and give someone the ultimate gift after you have left this earth- the gift of life. Ladies and gentlemen, at this moment in the US there are 79,000 U.S patients on the transplant waiting list. Three thousand a month are added to this total. Not a lot you may say when the†¦show more content†¦The problem arises when you are thinking about becoming a donor but never do anything about it. Then, no one knows your wishes and your organs will not be donated. The consequences of this are more people waiting for orga ns and there will still be an incredible shortage of available organs CONCLUSION: A. Brake light/Transition: As you can easily see, donating your organs can be one of the most important decisions you ever make and also the greatest gift you could ever give. B. Summary: I’ve told you about the need for organ donors in our area, how you can become an organ donor after you die, and finally, how your family and organ recipients benefit from your donation. You become a donor by talking to your family and making sure they know you want to be a donor, fill out and sign a donor card, and indicate your wishes on your driver’s license. *C. Motivation*: What if the person waiting on the list needing an organ transplant was someone you loved? Imagine if you had a brother or sister who had unexpectedly died and you were able to meet the person who received their heart, for example. Think of the satisfaction and possible comfort knowing that your brother or sister provided life for somebody else. I’m going to leave you with a short message from Michael Jordan who is a sponsor for the Iowa Life Gift Coalition on Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness and appears inShow MoreRelatedPersuasive Speech : Automatic Speech Recognition1610 Words   |  7 PagesAutomatic speech recognition is a tool that allows computers to translate spoken language into written text. This technology can assist users in interpreting and using audio information for applications such as transcribing interviews, human-computer interactions, and many more. Speech recognition is an application the Ministry of Justice has expressed great interest in. They wish to automate the conversion of voice recordings of inmate phone conversations to text, which can then be analyzed forRead MorePersuasive Essay On Hate Speech1612 Words   |  7 Pages In the name of free speech, hate speech should not be tolerated. 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