“24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. 25 This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John. 26 And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue: whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. 27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace: 28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.” – Acts 18:24-28

This section of Acts is a tightly-knit example of discipleship to us today. View it in this context and not merely as a historical aside.

Introduction.

Not necessarily enjoying character studies from the Bible; nonetheless, we find several important markers in Apollos of a man willing to mature in his faith and serve Jesus Christ. Some folks suspect Apollos wrote the New Testament book of Hebrews. But in any case, he received instruction, verified what he was shown by searching the Scripture, grew thereby, and preached Jesus Christ whithersoever the Lord sent him. That, brethren, is Christianity in a nutshell, as God would lead and have us serve; yield yourself unto God as one who has been made alive from the dead, making yourself an instrument of Christ.

Many are willing to be taught but never verify, with God, the integrity of the instruction. That’s how they end up in Christian-sounding cults. Many are eager to be instructed and do absolutely nothing with what they’ve been taught except enjoy a good feeling. They also err. Worst of all, some folks claim to know all they need, rejecting a love for God’s holy word when they should take it upon their honor to become a lifelong student of the sacred writ.

These few verses from Acts teach us exactly how to grow and serve. You might object, saying that you’re not called to preach, but we are all witnesses for Jesus Christ (Mark 16:15), and how shall you answer the man seeking God except you know His holy word to expound the truth to them more perfectly, as Aquila and his wife did with Apollos? Your faithful service may be the spark by which Holy God raises another Spurgeon, Whitefield, or Edwards! Look at what mighty work Aquila and Priscilla did by spreading the truth of Jesus Christ.

Points of instruction.

First, learn by personal study and seeking sound preaching for the purposes of growing in the faith. Growth is sometimes uncomfortable; get over it; God desires your service, having saved you to walk in the works He has foreordained for you to accomplish, and the kingdom needs you, for what kingdom can flourish with ignorant and slack citizens?

Second, verify in Scripture the accuracy of all teaching, taking no man’s word it, but praying for understanding from holy God alone, searching the Scriptures for yourself. Apollos did, so should you search the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11); are these things so? He took seriously the public responsibility of carrying the marker Christian with his name.

Thirdly, be a life-long learner of the word of God. Please don’t allow the understanding that you will never comprehend the entire Bible to discourage you. But apprehending the walk of faith rightly, you are blessed never to stop learning, growing, drawing nigh to the throne of God, bringing glory to Christ, and being sanctified for Father God’s great purposes, which we can only see half darkly now, but knowing all will soon be revealed. Apollos learned (Verse 25), and continued to be instructed (Verse 26).

If we knew all the answers, it wouldn’t be faith! It’s an honor to be born again; look at the gift you’ve received, and pray to the Giver that you will walk worthy of your calling in Christ.

Notes from the text.

In verse 24, we find that Apollos is a student of the word of God, mighty in the scriptures. Believing firmly in the providence of Holy God, it seems to us that Apollos was sent to Ephesus for this very reason; to meet and be further trained by Aquila and his wife. The Christian ought to see life as something other than random chance but readily accept the fortuitous meetings that the Lord appoints. And the Lord may also present a negative contact from which to learn. In all these, give thanks unto the Father because He loves you enough to continue enlightening you in the faith. Also, by the foreordination of God, for whatever practical reason Apollos may have perceived he was traveling, the Lord was already making him an evangelist by practice.

Doing what the Lord says is critical for the life of the believer to continue to walk in faith. The whole object of this life in Christ is to live by faith, from initial salvation to serving Him in love and truth, up to the end, in reliance on Him to take us into heaven. Your faith brings glory to the Father through Christ, our Saviour. And your failures prove His will; we often say the will of God is found in the Holy Bible. If you think you’ve heard from God, yet it doesn’t align with Scripture, then be cautious. For Apollos, he was a man of the book.

In verse 25, Apollos is shown as having been instructed yet willing to be further advised and also to teach. Though, being a student of the Old Testament and a disciple of John, he knew that Christ must come, but he lacked complete knowledge of the New Covenant. Sound encouragement for us on this point is found in the duty Apollos took upon himself, and Acts 17:11 also applies.

He had received some formal training, it appears, but as Mark Twain may have said, don’t let your schooling get in the way of your education. Apollos continued to pursue the truth of God’s word, adding more completely to what he had been taught.

Life for the believer is much different on this side of the cross for us, than for the Old Testament saints. We have the historical record of Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And for Apollos, a firm foundation in the Old Testament; though he didn’t have the New Testament, it was being written upon his heart as he received the truth of Jesus Christ from the disciples and apostles. What more excellent advantage have we also to have the New Testament record, yet we do less with it?

We are supposed to share the Gospel with the lost and encourage the saints. Hide the word in your heart that you might not sin against God, but then share it with others that in so doing iron would sharpen iron among the brethren, and sow the seeds of faith by His word among lost souls for they must all hear of Christ our King.

In verse 26, we see again that Apollos is willing to be instructed further, and beyond doubt if he hadn’t heard, Aquila told him that one Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and the New Covenant had arrived. John 14:1 comes to mind.

These few verses are as much about Aquila and Priscilla as Apollos. They found a man of good faith and taught him in the way of a disciple of Jesus Christ. They did it on purpose with a goal in mind; they took him and expounded unto him the way of God by intentionally training him. It may be that nobody sets about to teach you how to grow in the Lord, but in either case, you must, as Apollos and Aquila did, prepare yourself from Scripture, seek faithful saints from which to learn, and also teach. This section of Acts is a tightly-knit example of discipleship to us today.

Aquila didn’t pursue unwilling subjects to conform them into good little cultural Christians. Sent by God, he found a man, able, willing, and seeking.

In verses 27 and 28, having been converted by grace, Apollos taught and preached with all the more boldness. Even if you only teach a man for a brief season, as Aquila did, or in just a few points of doctrine, you may be setting firm foundations in a future preacher or teacher, missionary, or evangelist. This is serious stuff and oughtn’t to be viewed lightly or pursued haphazardly. All of Heaven desires these things from you, and God will prepare and equip you if, and only if, you will walk by faith, learning from failures as much as from successes, relying on the word of God as your preeminent source and guide.

Conclusion.

Apollos showed publicly, from the Scripture to the lost, that Jesus was the Christ. This requires some things; prayer, knowing the Scripture (study/reading) to present, carrying your bible, and expounding on it to lost souls. Also important is being strengthened and encouraged in the religion by assembling together with other believers. None of this is difficult, but it will take time, commitment, and, most of all, faith.

And so we see the confidence of Aquila, his faithful wife by his side, and Apollos to go where God leads, be taught by others, study the word, and then to go make more disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18-20).

Source.

The Senate on Thursday rejected a GOP effort to overturn the Biden administration’s new rule on pistol braces.

Republicans say the regulation, which reclassifies pistols as short-barreled rifles if gun owners use the firearm accessory, is an infringement of the Second Amendment and universally supported the measure. The legislation nonetheless failed 49-50 in a chamber that Democrats control.

The legislation was at the center of a conservative revolt earlier this month that ground House business to a halt. A group of hard-line conservatives, upset over the deal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) struck to raise the debt ceiling, refused to allow the speaker to move any legislation until he agreed to deeper spending cuts than what the White House agreed to last month.

But the dissidents also claimed Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) threatened to pull a vote on the pistol brace measure if its House sponsor, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), opposed a procedural step on the debt ceiling legislation.

Scalise denied he ever made such a threat, and the House passed the resolution days later in a near-party-line vote.

Republicans argue the new regulation, finalized in January by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, infringes on the rights of disabled people who use stabilizing braces. They take issue with the administration’s requirement that pistols with those braces be registered with the federal government or otherwise destroyed.

“The ATF is just a backdoor way to subject pistols to more smothering regulations,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), the resolution’s Senate sponsor, said in a floor speech ahead of the vote.

Democrats counter that the gun accessory, invented in 2012, is a way to circumvent a law on short-barreled rifles that has been on the books for decades and cite mass shootings in which the gunman used a pistol brace.

Earlier this month, the White House pledged to veto the legislation had it passed the Senate.

They could have just argued that the regulation infringes on the 2A and it would have been simpler.

You do realize that this was all optics and show, right?

This was never going anywhere because of the power of the veto.  They could have stopped it cold though, by the power of the purse.

They gave that up when the current House speaker gave Biden most or all of what he wanted and called it a win.  Sorry bunch of people, yes?

They could have shut down the ATF entirely by defunding any of their efforts, but you see, they didn’t want to be responsible for a FedGov shutdown because that might affect national parks in the summer, SNAP payments, and so on.  They would lose votes in the next election, so they wanted to get the vote on the record and be able to campaign on it next time while leaving everything else intact.

McCarthy was responsible for all of this, but he had his helpers.

Thus is the way of things in the house of wickedness among the pit vipers and demons.

BLUF: Both eyes open.

Frankly, the other option never even occurred to me.  You lose your depth and movement perception without both eyes open, and you need both to shotgun.

Some bad, some good.  A mixed bag.  It takes time, especially when dealing with people who have been taught that they are God.

Eventually, most of the current gun control laws will go down in flames except for the NFA.

I was just looking at lever action rifle optics tonight.  Scopes are just expensive, almost no matter what type, brand or power.  For lever action guns I’m looking towards the low power end of things (1X4, 1X9, etc.).

However, I confess I had never heard of the 7-30 Waters before.  I’ll be darned if you can find them anywhere (the guns, that is).  I’d certainly be interested given the ballistics of the cartridge.

He has a nice lever action rifle collection.  He’s obviously spent some time and money on that collection.

Unlikely buddies.

He says, “What is that?”

Hey, that’s good fishing Eagle!

Dang that bear is big!

These look like fun family handgun exercises or for an Independence Day cookout with friends. These drills are functionally important, and a challenge with other shooters is an opportunity to sharpen your skills.

Have you been to the range in a while? If you have, did you do any fun drills or did you just stare at a paper target and dump ammo downrange? A lot of us don’t go to the range as much as we should because life just gets in the way. Work and other activities make it hard to find time, but the cost of ammo is also a contributing factor.

I remember buying ammo by the case and shooting until there were blisters on my finger. But that was back in the day when ammo was about the same cost as candy. Now, ammo is equivalent to little gold coins that make you cringe every time you pull the trigger. I recently sighted a hunting rifle and every time I fired the gun it cost me $1.50. That adds up quickly when you’re not paying attention and get the trigger jitters.

But the good news is there are plenty of fun drills you can do that don’t burn through gobs of ammo. Getting some quality training, having fun, and not spending all your money sounds too good to be true, right? It’s not. You just need to spend a little more time setting up the range for various drills. Drills and exercises on the range are designed to improve specific skills. This could be accuracy, weapon control, speed, or a mixture of them all. And the good thing is most of them do not require a ton of ammo. Let’s look at some fun drills you could be doing this summer.

Mag Change Drills are discussed along with transition drills, but what he calls the Big-Little Drill can be important. It’s good to train your mind in a few things when shooting targets of various sizes and distances. One aspect of handgun shooting distance is to train your mind that the target is just smaller, not further away. The distance challenge can change the mind’s perspective on handgun shooting and cause less accuracy than simply viewing it as a smaller target at the same range. Also, our perception of a threat not standing squarely to us, presenting a quarter turn or only their side, can change our perception of how to hit the target when we can simply view it as slimmer; center mass is center mass. Those are some mental things to consider for practice; it may help.

Here’s the Big-Little Drill, you can always improvise or modify targets as resources dictate:

I have no idea if this is a real drill or if my drill instructor in the police academy made it up, but it’s fun. For this drill, you can use metal targets or random bottles and other items laying around asking to be shot at. This is an accuracy drill, so you start out with the largest item on the left and move to the smallest on the right.

Mixing the sizes up or shooting from the outside in or inside out for subsequent rounds is a good idea.

I set mine up at 25 yards to make it more fun. I normally use a pop bottle or milk jug followed by a 16oz bottle or something comparable. Next a pop can and then a shotgun shell for the smallest item. If you want to add more items in there, go ahead. The idea is to start with the biggest item and move to the smallest. This drill will also work with rifles, you just set it up further out.

I have metal targets in different sizes, but there is something more satisfying about watching the bottles fly through the air when you hit them. I like to run this drill with my lever action rifle at 50 yards and 75 with my AR-15. One of my old instructors would use the drill at the end of the day so we could shoot at the bottles and cans from our lunch break. Golf balls are also fun to shoot at if you want a really small target.

Check out his other drills at the link, and remember, gun time is a fun time.

I don’t think it should be hard at all – just be honest, tell the truth, and be true to your oath.  Be prepared to find another job if you need to.  It’s better to bag groceries or load trucks at Lowe’s than to answer to God for malfeasance.  But here is his story.

It was 2007 and I was assisting a call with an officer I’d never met before. He was from another team working overtime. Right in front of me he broke a kids nose with a punch. The septum was clearly deviated and blood was everywhere. The kid was handcuffed and the officer enquired of me “what should ‘we’ arrest him for?” “What did he do?” I enquired. “He called me a name.” he said. After 20 mins of him trying to persuade me we should fabricate a crime he had to let the kid go. “We need o do notes, get our story straight” he then told me. I don’t need assistance in writing what happened. I found a quiet place and wrote the facts. As I wrote I was joined by a female A/Sgt who knew this officer. She spent 20 mins trying to convince me this kid was a “shitbag” & my notes should ‘reflect the danger he posed’. I was disgusted. We don’t behave this way.

Read the rest of the thread here.

Oh, but you do indeed behave that way.  This is a Canadian cop and he has all the proof in court documents, but it’s the same in the U.S.

As for all of those “constitutional Sheriffs and Deputies,” it’s important to know where they really stand.  Here is a good analysis of what likely really happened at that gun store in Montana.

Guess what?  The Great Falls, Montana, PD provided perimeter security for the IRS and ATF [5:48 in the video].

There you have it.  Even in Montana, the cops have been corrupted.  The Great Falls PD should have arrested the IRS and ATF agents when they showed up in the city limits.

First: Saving Our School Children from Tennessee Politicians

Tennessee politicians left our students defenseless, and we have to save them. A celebrity-seeking mass murderer killed students in a Nashville private school. That should be a wakeup call that the Republican controlled legislature and Governor have failed us again. We need angry parents to change the status quo and save our kids. As grim as this sounds, there is plenty of good news. We also know how to reduce and to prevent mass murder in our schools. Tennessee parents have been ignored for too long.

[…]

More parents want their children protected at school than want them unprotected. You might think that volunteer defenders at school are rare, but you would be wonderfully wrong. It surprised me too, but we found a higher fraction of teachers who were willing to be armed first responders than the fraction of people who carry concealed in public. (18 percent of teachers vs. 8.0 percent of the general public).

Much more at the link.

Next: (A poll) Tennesseans Want Dangerous People Removed from Community Instead of More Gun Laws

According to a poll published by co/efficient, most Tennesseans would prefer that dangerous people are removed from society rather than removing guns from the hands of potentially dangerous people.

“In the poll, Tennessee voters dramatically retreat from their soft support of proposed Red Flag Laws and do not see this as the solution to their safety concerns when informed that Red Flag Laws merely take guns away from dangerous individuals but do nothing to prevent them from causing harm by some other means. Red Flag Law support erodes even further when informed that there are existing laws to take threatening individuals out of the community right now,” the poll said. “Tennesseans largely support recently passed legislation that puts police officers in schools and believe enforcing the current laws on the books is an effective solution to keeping their families, communities, and state safe.”

Polls can be made to mean anything, but more is at the link.

Cornered Cat:

Words mean things. For example, the word “training” does not mean the same thing as the word “education.” In the same way, the word “practice” does not mean the same thing as “training”, and neither one is the same as “testing.”

Education, training, practice, and testing are all needed for robust physical skills development. But none of these words means the same thing as any other.

The word “training”, in particular, has so often been abused by shooters that it has all but lost its actual meaning. This is too bad, as it expresses a really important concept.

What is “training”?

Let’s look at the word’s meaning in other domains:

Driver education happens in a classroom. It is followed by driver training. Driver training happens on the road, with a teacher watching carefully from the passenger seat as you perform the skills you discussed in class.

College education also happens in classrooms. It is often followed by on-the-job training, which is supposed to involve a qualified other showing you the practical realities of doing the job you studied in school. The observer should look at the work you do and give you feedback on how you are performing the skills the job requires you to perform.

Proper definitions are always important; in them are the details of learning. The article covers training, practice, and testing. Read it all.