Writings of Luke for Easter Season

Lessons from the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts

            Luke 24:1-12 (Year C Easter Day) is a story of the discovery of the empty tomb. The women who come to the tomb on Sunday at dawn are unconcerned about who will roll the stone away. The disciples are in Jerusalem, for his account of the outpouring of the Spirit will take place there. They have prepared spices to anoint the body. The stone was rolled away, but when they went in, they did not find the body. The tomb was empty. They are perplexed by the emptiness of the tomb, showing that the emptiness tomb did not lead to belief in the resurrection. Two men in dazzling white clothes stand beside them. They experience terror and bow with their faces to the ground. However, the men ask, in the words of a popular proverb, why they seek the living among the dead, for he is not here, but has risen. The men then express the heart of this scene, inviting them to recall that while still in Galilee he taught them that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, crucified, and on the third day rise again. Diverging from the account Mark, Luke says they went back to the eleven and all the rest. We now learn that the women involved were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, identified in 8:2-3 as the wife of Chuza, Mary the mother of James, and the other women. They tell the people gathered what they heard. The words seemed like an idle tale, which contrasts with the response of the women. We see further the difficulty involved in asking people to accept the apostolic witness, for at this point, the disciples do not come to faith through the witness of the women. They did not believe their witness. Peter does run to the tomb and cautiously and timidly stoops and looks in, he sees the linen cloths by themselves. He returned to the gathering amazed and wondering what has happened. 

Luke 24:13-35 (Year A Third Sunday of Easter) is the story of the risen Lord coming to two disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Sunday. Mark 16:12, part of the long ending of that gospel, says that after the Resurrection, Jesus "appeared in another form" to two of the disciples "as they were walking in the country," but only Luke gives us the whole story. Jesus joins Cleopas and one other person as they walked from Jerusalem to Emmaus. This story of the risen Lord coming to two followers at a dinner table is a remarkable gift of this gospel. Luke has filled the story with his theological motifs. Thus, as his Gospel heads us toward Jerusalem in the travel narrative, so this story occurs in and around Jerusalem. The risen Lord gradually reveals who he is to the disciples. It emphasizes the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. It has a Eucharistic theme that begins here and continues in his story in Acts. His story-telling gifts are at their height. Christ appears unknown, as a wanderer, the role in which human beings loved to portray deity, in simple human form. The deity becomes a wanderer, clad as a traveler to wander among human beings. Deity reveals the divine mystery through encounters or moments that become revelatory. However, as soon human beings recognized him, he disappears.^[1] We see this basic outline in several stories in Genesis. The divine appeared to Abraham and he responded with building an altar (12:7-8). An appearance of the Lord establishes a covenant with Abraham (17:1). The Lord appeared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (18:1). The Lord appeared to Isaac at Beersheba (26:24). Jacob wrestles with “someone” who slowly reveals his divinity (32:22-32). We need to think of it more like a metaphorical narrative designed to draw us into our own conversation with the risen Lord and recognition of what he means to us. Often unknown to us, the risen Lord is our companion in our journey toward our Emmaus. Yet, we also have moments of recognition of this companion in our life journey. The intent of Luke is to tell a story about how the risen Lord comes to his followers repeatedly, though not exclusively, in the Eucharist. The truth of this story will become real as we share its experience of the risen Lord.

This is one of the many “road” stories in the Bible. Jesus was on the road from Galilee to Jerusalem, and in Luke offered insights concerning discipleship. Paul was on the road to Damascus when he had his vision of the risen Lord. As this story goes, on Easter Sunday, two disciples were walking to a village, Emmaus, a town that remains undiscovered to us, about seven miles from Jerusalem. It opens with the initial meeting of the two on the road with the stranger, whom we as readers know is the risen Lord (verses 13-16). Uncertainty surrounds the location of Emmaus, but on the road from Jerusalem to that village, Cleopas and another disciple were discussing what had happened, including the crucifixion and the discovery of the empty tomb. Not recognizing the risen Lord as the one who accompanies them along the road, reminiscent of the appearances of the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they become part of a tradition of the Lord appearing to key individuals. A common literary device in the ancient Near East is for the audience to be privy to information of which the characters in the story are unaware. Thus, the stranger's ignorance of current events is ironically contrasted with Jesus' followers' actual ignorance of his identity. Luke then provides us with the context of their conversation (verses 17-27). Cleopas may well be the cousin of Jesus, whose son Symeon became a follower of James (Eusebius). One of the women at the cross was the wife of Clopas (John 19:25). Cleopas is baffled that the stranger is not aware of what has taken place, and the risen Lord plays along by asking what things. They respond by pointing to Jesus of Nazareth, who as a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and the people, whom the chief priests and other leaders handed over for crucifixion. They had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel, which in the Old Testament context would mean an intervention that would set one free from slavery and bring one into a new freedom. They are sad because these hopes seem dead. Their assumption of the ignorance of the stranger contrasts sharply with the ignorance they have of their situation. They also reveal how much Jesus of Nazareth had meant to them. Yet, referring to the prophecy of Hosea 6:2, it is the third day since the crucifixion, and some among their group astounded them by going to the tomb this morning and not finding his body but instead had a vision from an angel declaring Jesus to be alive. Other disciples went to the tomb but did not see the risen Lord. Their unknown traveling companion scolds them, telling them they are foolish and slow to believe what the prophets declared. It was necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things, and only then enter his glory. This text suggests the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of prophetic testimonies, primarily the Suffering Servant of II Isaiah. Thus, the stranger explains Moses and the prophets as uttering prophecies that find their fulfillment in the suffering and death of Jesus. what happened to Jesus receives its meaning as we understand in the context of scripture. This passage does so in consistency with I Corinthians 15:3-4, that Christ died for our sins in accord with the scriptures and that God raised him on the third day in accord with the scripture. Luke then relates the meal the two have with the risen Lord in Emmaus (verses 28-32). The meal has Eucharistic overtones. The stranger was going to continue his journey, but the two urge him to stay. The risen Lord was the guest of the two, but he quickly transitions to host as he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. As soon as they recognize the stranger as the risen Lord, he disappears. Luke has skillfully shown the physicality of the risen Lord, but also his eschatological life as not bounded by time and space. The resurrection of Jesus is the basis of the certainty that Jesus really has the power to be present to his disciples in the form of the bread they break and eat.[2] They recognize the burning in their hearts they felt while he was opening the scripture to them. The two disciples return to Jerusalem (verses 33-35), where they find the other disciples gathered. These disciples report that the risen Lord has appeared to Simon, and the two relate how the risen Lord came disclosed himself to them in the breaking of bread. 

Luke 24:36b-48 (Year B Third Sunday of Easter) is a story about the appearance to the disciples. It parallels closely the Emmaus incident and has parallels with John 20:19-21 as well.  It has an obvious apologetic motif, giving assurance to Theophilus, stressing the identity and the physical reality of the risen Christ.     In this story, the risen Lord appears to anxious disciples in bodily form. The emphasis on the fleshly, physical form presupposes a discussion in the community of the nature of the corporeality of the risen Christ such as found in John 20 and I John, as well as I Corinthians 15.  Having first appeared to the women at the tomb and then to two Emmaus road travelers, Jesus now at last appears to all his gathered disciples. The risen Jesus stands among them and says Peace be with them. Startled and terrified, they think they see a ghost, a disembodied spirit. The possibility that the vision of the risen Lord suggests a ghost shows that one could interpret the appearance in differing ways.[3] However, the eschatological expectation of a resurrection from the dead provided linguistic expression and a conceptual framework for the Christian Easter message. This conceptual framework makes it possible for the disciples to identify the appearances of the crucified Lord to them. Thus, they could tell that a ghost did not appear to them. It was the Lord raised to new eschatological life.[4] The risen Jesus perceives their fear and doubt and confronts them with what is happening. He invites them to look at his hands and feet so they can verify that the risen Jesus is Jesus of Nazareth, for a ghost would not have flesh and bones. Luke is combating challenges to the bodily reality of the resurrection of Jesus, like what Ignatius in To the Smyrnaeans 3:2 does two decades later, as he specifically points to the risen Lord bodily eating and drinking with the disciples.[5] The risen Jesus both declares and demonstrates his physicality.  John 20:20, 25ff offers the same demonstration. However, without the terminology of the eschatological hope of Israel, the disciples could not have realized that it was in the reality of the life of the resurrection that Jesus made himself known to them.[6] They have joy while not believing and still wondering. Luke catches the ambiguity of the moment. Indeed, the disciples’ reaction contradicts what many contemporary people often assume about ancient folks — specifically, that pre-moderns were a credulous and superstitious lot. In verse 41b-43, at the directive of Jesus, Jesus prods these disciples into providing the everyday sort of comfort they might offer an everyday visitor -- a bit of broiled fish to eat. It seems as if these ancient skeptics needed additional evidence if they were to trust what they were seeing. Therefore, as he had done before, Jesus once more seeks to corroborate his resurrection by two means. Jesus asks this question and eats with them with two purposes in mind: He wants them to believe in his resurrection; and more importantly, he wants them to understand the meaning of his resurrection. Even so, at this moment Jesus’ disciples were still unable to connect the dots, that is, to make sense of the transformational events they had just witnessed. Thus, to eradicate their confusion, Jesus reminds them of a fundamental teaching, namely, “[T]hat everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Such an account fulfills the promise made in the last meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples that he would continue in fellowship with them in their common meal. Here, the risen Lord fulfills the promise in sharing this meal with them.[7] Caught up in performing familiar hospitality rituals, they forget their fears and learn to treat this risen Christ as they might their old master.[8]

Luke 24:44-53 (Ascension Day and part of Year B Third Sunday of Easter) shares the final commission of the risen Lord. These final scenes serve three purposes. One is to close the initial “orderly account” of Luke. Two is to summarize an important motif of the gospel, that the necessity of messianic suffering. Three is to serve as a literary bridge to his next book. The focus of this appearance shifts from the disciples to the message Jesus brought to them. This account occurs on Easter evening, the risen Lord giving the disciples their marching order while at the dinner table. An important truth is that what God has done in and through Jesus of Nazareth is a fulfillment of the Torah, the prophets, and the psalms. The event of revelation occurs in the process of a history of the Jewish people. The end of this gospel reminds us of the many places in Luke that have referred portions of the Old Testament. In language like that of 24:37, thereby emphasizing the importance of understanding the continuity between Israel’s Scripture and the new event God has enacted in Jesus’ death and resurrection, the risen Lord opened their minds to understand the scripture considering what the God of Israel has done now, through Jesus of Nazareth. Mary recalls the promises God made to the ancestors, to Abraham, and to all his descendants (1:55), and announces God’s faithfulness to this promise. Moreover, Zechariah, in his prophecy in 1:70-73, proclaims that God has shown the mercy he promised long ago and has remembered his covenant. Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah, reads it aloud in the synagogue and announces that today this scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing (4:18-21). He points them to the divine necessity of the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Messiah. God is at work in Jesus of Nazareth by fulfilling prophecies and expectations of the Old Testament. this act of opening their mind occurs only after Jesus’ death and resurrection, suggesting that only after the Christ event can their minds be opened. The reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the event and the lens through which Israel’s Scriptures can be understood. The Christ event continues God’s faithfulness to Israel and at the same time enacts a new understanding of what that faithfulness entails. Another important truth is that they now have a vocation in proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus to all nations, beginning with Jerusalem, the city toward which the Gospel of Luke moves and a city that is starting point of the Book of Acts. Without human witnesses or testimony, others will not know of the action of God. The original witnesses are essential for this process. They need to be trustworthy witnesses. We need to trust them, even when their testimony seems incredulous. As important as their witness remains for us, they point to an event in which we can share and from which we can develop our witness. Our witness will need to focus upon how the risen Lord has altered our lives. Witness is an important theme in Luke. The Christian mission has taken to all nations this summons to turning or conversion to God in the sense of turning to the one and only true God of Israel and of Jesus Christ.[9] All of this is consistent with a theme in Luke of the concealment of the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus. They did not understand the scripture during the life of Jesus, and therefore did not comprehend the events that led to his death and resurrection. We learn this in 9:45 and 18:34. In particular, the prophecies of the future destiny of Jesus in Luke 2:48-50, 9:44-45, 18:31-34, 22:22-23 seemed concealed from them. Their lack of comprehension that they exhibited throughout the ministry of Jesus will end as the risen Lord sends upon them what the Father promised. They are to stay in Jerusalem and remain silent, as did Zechariah at the beginning of this gospel. Luke emphasizes the presence and activity of the Spirit in 1:67, where Zechariah is filled with the Spirit and prophesies, in 2:25-27, where the Holy Spirit rests upon Simeon and reveals to him the Messiah, the Spirit overshadows Mary (1:35) in the beginning and at the end the Spirit is the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4-5, 8, 24, 17-18, 2:38). For Luke, the church is founded by the power of the Holy Spirit given through the risen Lord imparting the Spirit to believers. This model of the church needs to be thoughtfully connected to the Pauline way of thinking of Christ as the foundation of the church. [10] The risen Lord leads the disciples away from the dining table (verses 50-53). The risen Lord lifted his hands, focusing upon the action of his blessing of the disciples, and the Father carried him to heaven. Such a notion of the exaltation of the Son is in Philippians 2:9, where God highly exalted him, giving him a name above every name. We find it also in I Timothy 3:16, where part of the mystery of the faith is that the Father took up in glory. They worshipped him. They returned with joy to Jerusalem. They continually praised God in the Temple. This gospel begins with Zechariah offering incense in the Temple (1:8-23), Mary offers her song of praise with joy in God who has done wonderful things (1:49), and at the end of the gospel, the disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy and praise God in the Temple. Jesus was in the temple, where he sat among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions (Luke 2:46). As an adult, and the presence of the disciples, Jesus taught the people in the temple, telling them the good news (Luke 20:1). Jesus taught in the temple in the morning, with many people coming to hear him (Luke 20:37-38). With the apostles, those who believed their witness spent much time in the temple, as they broke bread and ate together with glad and generous hearts, as the praised God together (Acts 2:46). Despite the opposition of the religious leaders in Jerusalem, they are teaching and proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah in the temple and at home (Acts 5:20, 25, 42). Gratitude arises from remembering past mercies.[11] We receive more gifts than we realize in life. Could it be that we think we are entitled to them? Gratitude and thankfulness arise from recognizing the gift that so many people give us in life. To focus on gratitude means we do not focus upon that which is beyond our reach right now. Gratitude arises from some sense of contentment.[12] Luke has now reached the goal of his Gospel as the ascension of Jesus to the Father occurs. In Phil 2:9, God highly exalted him, giving him a name above every name, and in I Tim 3:16, the mystery of the faith is that the Father took him up in glory. He uses some apocalyptic motifs, which suggests the connection between this event and the end of history, as we know it. what angels announced to shepherds, that “a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:8-11) had lived, died, and rose from the dead. Incredibly, they were witnesses of that unbelievable event and by their testimony, many others would also share in their immense joy. Philip proclaims the Messiah to Samaria, where exorcisms and healings occur, and the city has boundless joy (Acts 8:8). Paul and Barnabas, on their journey to Jerusalem, share the story of Gentiles coming to believe in Jesus, and this news brought extraordinary joy to the believers (Acts 15:3).

Acts 1:1-11 (Ascension Day) and Acts 1:6-14 (Year A Seventh Sunday of Easter) relate the preface of the book of Acts and the final meeting of the risen Lord in which the risen Lord gives the disciples their vocation or mission, the risen Lord then ascending to the Father. Luke limits the appearances of the risen Lord to forty days, placing Pentecost, which was 50 days after Passover, outside the period for the appearances, thereby giving the outpouring of the Spirit a distinct place related to the work of the Father and Son. The 40 days of instruction from the risen Lord echo the 40 days Moses spent on Sinai. Like Moses, the disciples spent time with the risen Jesus before they would go forth to form the people of God. The disciples are to wait for the promise of the Father. The gift of the Spirit was a distinctive feature of Christian baptism, which is symbolized in the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. [13] Throughout Acts, Luke will connect Christian baptism with the gift of the Spirit.[14] The disciples have a concern for the timetable of restoring the kingdom to Israel. The response of the risen Lord is like what we find in Mark 13:32, where only the Father knows when that day will come. Thus, neither the angels nor the Son will know. We see the intimate connection between the Spirit and the church. The Spirit energizes the church to fulfill its mission. This outpouring of the Spirit implies eschatological closeness to God. [15] We see here the significance of the Spirit in the inauguration of the next stage of salvation history, which is the church. The Spirit becomes the power that moves the church to fulfill its commission from the risen Lord. The Spirit becomes the dynamic principle of their existence as Christians and of their role as witnesses to the new phase of salvation history.^[16] The rule of God will come, not through armies, but through witnesses. Witnesses have only the power of words and a life that backs up their words. We will see the geographical interest of Luke as the story of the church begins in Jerusalem, then to Judea and Samaria, and then the ends of the earth. The point is that the mission to the world, like Luke 24:47-48 (repentance and forgiveness preached to the nations by witnesses) and Matthew 28:19 (make disciples of all nations), replaces the notion of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. As Luke records the ascension of Jesus, we might think of some biblical parallels. In Genesis 5:24, Enoch walked with God, but was not, for God took him. In II Kings 2:11, a whirlwind brought Elijah to heaven. Jewish tradition said God took Moses in a comparable way. Yet, Luke does not let us ponder this event too long. Two angels puzzle as to why they continue to stare into the sky. They have work to do. The mission to the world seems to replace the notion of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. They must wait and pray. They would have to let go of their expectations, formed by Jewish apocalyptic, to receive the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. We have here the significant pause before this mission begins. They must wait and pray. “They” here is not just the 11. The group includes a larger circle of men and women who gather to wait and pray. The pause does not mean nothing happens. Openness to experience allows the Spirit to move in a new way in a way that enlightens the path and empowers us for new ministry. Yes, Jesus departed from physical sight so that he might return to the hearts and lives of his followers.^[17]

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 (Year B Seventh Sunday of Easter) relates the fate of Judas and the selection of the twelfth apostle. The text invites an honest look upon the ambiguity of the Christian community. Betrayal is within the family. The church had weak beginnings. It was small. It had betrayal and denial at its court. The disciples failed to take their stand with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Throughout its history, the church has fallen short of its ideal of standing with Jesus. It seems odd that immediately after the risen Lord ascends to the Father, the disciples hold a business meeting. In this case, Peter as leader stands among 120 persons. He refers to the role of Judas, who had shared being a disciple with the Twelve. In any discussion of the role of Judas, we need to remember that he was a disciple in the same way as Peter and John. They share the same calling, institution, and mission.^[18] The figure of Judas has an important teaching function in the overall outline of Luke's two-volume work. After the temptation of Jesus, Satan had departed from him 'until the appointed hour'.  That time came when he 'entered into' Judas and used him as an instrument against Jesus.  The way in which the fate of Judas is used shows readers not to leave any room for Satan in their own lives. Yet, as we move toward the desire to replace Judas to bring the number of apostles to Twelve, is this a story about the church’s dire need for continuity, link with tradition, and linkage with the past? We have here an example of the need for innovation, for modification and adaptation to meet new challenges. The disciples of Jesus have come to a crossroads. One of the Twelve, the inner circle, has betrayed Jesus. The risen Christ, in these fateful days after Easter, has left his disciples. What now? Luke will carefully layout the requirements for being an apostle, requirements which exclude Paul, who counted himself as among the apostles: one who has accompanied the Lord Jesus, witnessed his crucifixion, and who is a witness to the resurrection. One of the major New Testament functions of Christian leadership, particularly as Acts depicts it, is to ensure continuity. Such leadership ensures continuity with origins. The text reminds us that leadership has, as one of its responsibilities, to ensure that there is continuity between the gospel preached today and the gospel as leaders of the church have always proclaimed it since the time of the first apostles. To be an apostle means to see, hear, and touch Jesus Christ.by beholding the glory of Christ. Those who consorted with Jesus during this time and became believers through the resurrection received authorization to proclaim the Gospel.^[19] We can see here the importance of the original event of revelation and the importance of reliable witnesses to that revelation. Luke specifies that the selection must come from among those who with the present apostles are witnesses to the resurrection.  Luke identifies that the primary apostolic ministry was to serve as a witness to the resurrection. They proposed two options, Joseph (Barsabbas/Justus) and Matthias. Their prayer is simple, the Lord knowing the heart of all, so show them as a group which of these two the Lord has chosen to take the place of the ministry and apostleship of Judas, who turned aside and went to his own place. The simplicity suggests they do not think they need to get the attention of God, for they already had it. It is not perfunctory. The prayer relates to the need of this moment. The prayer is not a technique. It In the words of Francois Fenelon: "Lord, teach me to pray. Pray thyself in me." Prayer is the breathing of the soul. This simple prayer moves a community to action. The good news is that in answer to the apostles’ prayer, Christ gives a new person to share in “this ministry and apostleship.” No challenge the church must face, no difficult new turn in the road, is impossible for the church to meet because of the gracious gifts of God. They use a traditional method of discerning the will of God, that of casting lots, which involved placing before the Lord two options. The lot fell to Mathias, who was added to Eleven, bringing the number of original witnesses to the resurrection to twelve, re-emphasizing the vision of the disciples as a form of the faithful remnant of Israel in the Old Testament. 

Acts 2:1-21 (Pentecost) is an account of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the first group of believers in Jerusalem. Only Luke separates the events of Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost into three distinct moments. It is worth recalling how Luke-Acts differs from the other gospels in this regard. The most probable earliest form of Mark’s gospel has only an announcement that the resurrected Jesus is “going ahead” of the disciples to Galilee (Mark 16:7). Matthew’s gospel notices this promise, not only having Jesus himself reassert it (Matthew 28:10), but then recounting its fulfillment in that gospel’s closing verses (28:16-20). But Matthew pointedly does not say that Jesus rises into heaven from that Galilean mountaintop; to have done so would have diminished Jesus’ very final words in that gospel: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20, emphasis added). John 20:22 applied in a profound way the breathing of life into humanity to the breathing of new life into believers. In its final two chapters, John’s gospel recounts a variety of post-resurrection appearances by Jesus but gives no specific reason (such as ascension) as for why they ceased.

For Luke, the fully exalted Jesus - the Messiah and Lord ascended and seated at the right hand of God's heavenly throne - bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit. The significance of this account is that the Spirit establishes the fellowship of believers, and therefore the Spirit is not just the assurance for the individuals of salvation.[20] Yet, the distinction in time that Luke presents has an important theological point.[21] It distinguishes the eschatological reality of the risen Christ from the church itself. One could get the idea from Paul that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Spirit are the same. Luke has opened the door for spontaneity in the experience of the Spirit as the source of the proclamation of Christ.[22] Yet, connecting the imparting of the Spirit with the appearance of the risen Lord and Easter, as we find in John, is a more likely construction. Luke has the theological interest of placing the imparting of the Spirit outside the 40-day period of the appearances of the risen Lord.[23]

What was Luke trying to do?^[24]  Luke wanted to present the most important incident since the departure of Jesus, namely the coming of the Spirit.  He had to depict it vividly so that it would rise unforgettably before the eyes of his readers.  He also had to emphasize the meaning of the event. The event of the outpouring of the Spirit involves a comprehensive account of the church as the eschatological people of God who, in contrast to the Jewish people, has gathered from humanity as a whole and thus becomes the new people gathered out of all peoples.^[25] The whole point of the passage in Acts is to link the extraordinary event in the nascent Christian community with the long history of salvation of the Jews, of which that nascent community was, until the time of the writing in Acts, comprised. Peter’s quotation from the prophet Joel (vv. 17-21, quoting with small but significant variations the Septuagint version of Joel 2:28-32) is intended to show how the events currently unfolding were, in fact, predicted in the Jewish Scriptures.

Luke is stressing the event of the coming of the Spirit took place 50 days after Easter, in association with the 40 days he already made to the ascension.  The use of the feast of Pentecost shows the indebtedness of the early church to its Jewish heritage.  Leviticus 23:15-21 describes the institution of the festival.  Pentecost, or the "Feast of Weeks," or Shavuot, was a festival of the "first fruits," where the faithful brought the first of the grain harvest to the temple and offered it to the Lord. Eventually, the tradition replaced the original agrarian meaning of Pentecost with a commemoration of the giving of the land of Canaan to the Israelites, and even later tradition associated it with the observance of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The very name of this celebration - "Pentecost" or the "50th day" - tied it back to the wondrous events of the Passover/Easter and crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is the one who received the Holy Spirit from the Father, and now pours it out onto his disciples (Acts 2:33), empowering them with talents and initiative they never had before.

Those present, the eleven, Mathias, and the women, gathered in the home at which they observed the Lord’s Supper to wait and pray, as the risen Lord had commanded. In both Hebrew and Greek, spirit and wind have a close relationship. This wind filled the house. Tongues like fire appeared among them. The Holy Spirit filled them, leading them to speak in other tongs, as the Spirit gave ability. The statement in I Corinthians 15:6 that the risen Lord appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at the same time may be the original form of the account of Pentecost.[26] The point here is that the Spirit imparts prophetic inspiration to all members of the covenant people. This event is a collective experience of ecstatic speech that Luke links to the Christian missionary proclamation.[27]  One Jewish background possibility for this imagery is that of Philo. His midrash on Ex 19 describes tongues of fire at Sinai and the people from the seventy languages were present to hear the law.  He presents it as a fire streaming from heaven, from the midst of which comes a voice. He even says that the flame became articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience.[28]From now on, the receiving of the Spirit is constitutive for being a Christian.  However, Luke will still define its specific effects in each case.  It may be Luke's purpose, as well as describing the receiving of the Spirit, also to depict the Pentecost event as a miracle of language.  The fact is that on the very day on which God establishes the Christian religion, the Holy Spirit equips the members of the new movement with the languages of all other peoples.  Thus, Luke immediately expresses his conviction of the universal nature of Christianity.^[29]  From the perspective of Luke, the origin of the church is a prayer meeting of the disciples and women at which one of the manifestations was “speaking in tongues.” In I Corinthians 12-14, Paul saw it as an eschatologically given possibility of praising God with the angels, and of experiencing or repeating the mysteries of heaven.

The setting of this miraculous foundation of the church in the outpouring of the Spirit is that devout Jews other nations are in Jerusalem, thereby emphasizing that other Jews were the primary group to which the early church witnessed. The dialect most spoke would be Greek, although the closer to Israel a Jew was it would be Aramaic. Luke's emphasis on the various nationalities represented by the Pentecost‑day crowd often clouds our image of a basic homogeneity that ran through this group. What they hear is these people speaking about the deeds of power God performed. Thus, they hear of the mighty work of God in Jesus of Nazareth in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” Luke is saying that the Holy Spirit is among them and in them, demanding one thing--speech. The real miracle is the content of the words.  The timid were now proclaiming.  The disciples became conscious of a new inward power that completely transformed their whole outlook; and this they attributed to the possession by the Spirit of God. It is indeed this new sense of power that is the significant factor in the experience of Pentecost. Now they became conscious of the Spirit as power—in accordance with the promise of 1:8—wherein they might go forth to their work of bearing witness. Accordingly, the great central fact of the day was not that the Father and the Son gave the Spirit for the first time, but that it marked the beginning of their active missionary work. The crowd immediately splinters into those who believe and want to hear more and those who reject or dismiss lit, anticipating the reaction to Christian proclamation throughout the rest of the book. Some will hear the mighty acts of God, while others will view the proclamation as unintelligible.[30] This event anticipates the crossing of language barriers that will be part of the early history of the church as well. 

Peter stands and speaks as leader of the church in Jerusalem. He points to Joel 2:28-32, which finds its fulfillment in the group gathered here. Among the “500” or the “120” are men, women, young, old, and slaves. The Spirit has come with power upon them to testify. When an act of God occurs, especially when it offers a new revelation or unveiling of who God is, the event will need witnesses. It will need testimony among the people to whom God wants. In this case, God wants the nations to know of this revelation. This passage is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of female preaching. Of course, other passages show the early church struggled with this notion, but we can see here that it did not matter if you were male or female. You had a responsibility to offer testimony to the work of God in Jesus of Nazareth. The addition of slaves suggests that the distinctions society establishes as barriers need to come down among the people of God. The text refers to apocalyptic signs of Day of the Lord, stressing that the Lord shall save everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. The point of Luke is that this moment is new because of the power demonstrated in it. This outpouring of the Spirit points us to the life-giving, uplifting, empowering, inspiring, creative Spirit. We have met people who bring energy with them wherever they go. The Spirit brings such energy wherever the Spirit goes. If we sense another “spirit” at work, bringing us down, sucking life out of us, and destructive of hope, then we know that this is not the work of the Holy Spirit. The fact that they gathered in one place is a strong suggestion that community provides an important means through which the Spirit energizes. The fact that they communicate, both in terms of listening to the needs and concerns of the crowd and understanding the message they need to give in this moment, provides a way for the creative energies of the Spirit to be at work. These first witnesses endured ridicule as well, exhibiting courage. 

Against the background of the story of the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9) that we can understand the extraordinary event of Pentecost. The sound that was like the rush of a mighty wind signaled a new creation. The fire of the Holy Spirit burned clean, making possible a new understanding. The Jews of diaspora heard these Galilean followers of Jesus telling of the mighty works of God in their own language. The promised people themselves, who had been scattered among the tribes, learning their languages, were now reunited in mutual understanding. The wound of Babel began to be healed first among the very people God had called into the world as a pledge of God’s presence.

The joy of that healing surely must have made them ecstatic. It is a joy not possible except by God’s creation. It is a joy that comes from recognizing we have been freed from our endless cycle of injury and revenge. It is the joy of unity that we experience all too briefly in moments of self-forgetfulness. It is no wonder, therefore, that some onlookers simply attributed this strange behavior to the consumption of potent wine. …

The unity of humankind prefigured at Pentecost is not just any unity but that made possible by the apocalyptic work of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a unity of renewed understanding, but the kind of understanding is not that created by some artificial universal language that denies the reality of other languages. Attempts to secure unity through the creation of a single language are attempts to make us forget our histories and differences rather than find the unity made possible by the Spirit through which we understand the other as other. At Pentecost God created a new language, but it was a language that is more than words. It is instead a community whose memory of its savior creates the miracle of being a people whose very differences contribute to their unity.

This new creation is the church, which is constituted by the story we tell and the story we embody.^[31]

Acts 2:14a, 22-32 (Year A Second Sunday of Easter) is a segment of the message Peter delivered on Pentecost. The coming of the Spirit is a sign of the age to come, breaking down barriers of social convention, such as roles of male and female as well as master and slave. The speech is an early defense of the gospel as presented by the first preachers. The first aim of the Christian preacher was to show to his fellow citizens that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Jewish faith. The Crucifixion seemed to have given the lie to the preaching of Jesus concerning the nearness of the rule of God. The stress is not so much on the content of the gospel as on the evidence of its truth. The supreme argument for the messiahship was the Resurrection. It removed the impression left by a disgraceful death, proved that Jesus was no impostor, and vindicated all his claims. Once the disciples saw this connection between their recent experience of the crucifixion and resurrection on the one hand a scripture on the other, they became the first to proclaim of what God had done in Jesus of Nazareth. To a Jewish audience no other argument would be necessary.  If the early church could show to a Jewish audience that scripture prophesied an event, they would have enough reason for believing in its truth and its divine significance. Peter directs this portion of his message to the group who had the greatest responsibility for the rejection, condemnation, and crucifixion of Jesus. If any group needed a message of salvation, it was this community. He calls upon this community to repent and offers it forgiveness and salvation. He witnesses as to who Jesus was among them, offering an example of the early preaching or kerygma of the church, as one to whom the Father granted deeds of power, wonders, and signs, but whom the Father, as part of a plan to bring the message of salvation to all persons, handed Jesus over to them for crucifixion by the Romans, and who intervened by raising him and freeing him from the power of death. To this Jewish audience he refers to Psalm 16:8-11b, which stresses that the poet lived in communion with God lived with the hope of continuing to participate in life with God. This hope of the poet anticipates the resurrection of Jesus. He expresses no doubt that he is witness to the Father raising this Jesus from the dead. The resurrection is not an isolated event but has a direct relation to the earthly course of the life of Jesus.^[32]

Not surprisingly, the focus is upon the disciples who gather for prayer. We must not forget the women, who play an important part in Luke in the discovery of the empty tomb and the narration of the appearances. We know that the “mission” that was “launched” was to be crewed by both women and men because Paul names members of both sexes in his various letters. Read Romans 16, for example, where Paul mentions 29 people who have been workers for Christ in the church in Rome. More than a third of the people on the list are women, and one of them, Junia, is even described as an apostle (v. 7). In all four gospels, women are the first to learn of Christ’s resurrection when he appears to them, and they are the very first people to share this news with others. Depending on which gospel you read, the first proclaimer is either Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9-10 and John 20:17-18), Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (Matthew 28:8-10), or Mary, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and others (Luke 24:9-10). The first time the story of the resurrection is told, a woman proclaims it. There is Anna, who was a prophet (Luke 2:36) along with the four daughters of Philip who also prophesied (Acts 21:9). A “prophet” in the biblical sense, is a truth-teller delivering God’s message to the world — in other words, a preacher. Priscilla, along with her husband, is someone Paul names as a “co-worker” in Christ, and in Acts 18, Priscilla teaches Apollos, a “learned man, with a thorough knowledge of scripture.” Despite his considerable expertise, Priscilla can explain “the way of God more adequately” to him, and he expresses no dismay at her gender. In many of the passages where she is mentioned, Priscilla’s name is listed before her husband’s, which is noteworthy in a culture that usually placed husband’s names first, suggesting Priscilla, rather than Aquila, was the leader of this couple.[33]

Acts 2:14a, 36-41 (Year A Third Sunday of Easter) present the conclusion to the sermon of Peter at Pentecost. The resurrection of Jesus and his exaltation to the Father results in the fulfillment of the prophecy from Joel concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The new age of the work and power of the Spirit has begun. The Crucified One is the one who God raised. Jesus of Nazareth, whose life resulted in crucifixion by Jewish and Romans leaders, is the same person the Father, through the life-giving power of the Spirit, raised from the dead. The Father has made this crucified one Lord and Messiah. He relies upon the witness of Scripture to interpret this event. Scripture reveals who Jesus was in the eyes of the Father. The response of those who heard the message was a troubled heart that led them to ask what they must do, the same question the crowd asked John the Baptist (Luke 3:10). In answer, Peter will answer briefly and in imperatives. First, they must repent and thereby attain forgiveness. Second, they must receive baptism in the name of Jesus, baptism becoming the standard ritual of initiation in the Christian community. While the conviction in the heart or soul of a person and the decision to repent are within the sphere of what the person does, baptism is an act of submission to what others do for the person. Baptism in the name of Jesus may well have been the early practice of the church, but out of it grew the Trinitarian form of baptism we find at the conclusion of Matthew. Such repentance and submission to baptism will bring with them forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness has strong links with the ministries of John the Baptist (Luke 3:3) and of Jesus himself (Luke 5:20-24; 7:47-49; 11:4; 17:3-4; 23:34; 24:47) and is one of the hallmarks of the Christian community (Acts 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 22:16; 26:18). The baptism of the believer links the believer to Jesus Christ. ^[34] The third imperative is that they will receive the gift, which is the Holy Spirit. The link between baptism and reception of the Spirit was part of primitive Christianity.^[35] The fruit of repentance and baptism will be the reception of the Holy Spirit, just as Peter and the others had just experienced (2:1-4).^[36] The promise of the outpouring of the Spirit is to them as Jewish people, but also to the nations (Joel 2:28-32). In another imperative, Peter will urge them to save themselves from this corrupt generation. It will take discernment to see where in the culture in which one lives the corruption manifests itself. 

I have a question for you. Have some people in your family lost their way? Have some people in your neighborhood or at work lost their way? They might even lash out at you. Maybe the corruption of this generation has grabbed them. I confess I have not always responded well in that situation. I keep trying to respond as a disciple, by which I mean, with forgiveness and love. 

The church in America struggles. The American landscape has changed. Many people have lost their way. Some people have developed intellectual struggles. They find they can no longer believe what the church believes, and often have no place to go within the church to raise their questions. Some people develop spiritual problems with the church, for it seems as if many churches have lost their way. They care more about buildings and the way they have always done things, rather than reaching people with the good news. Some have moral questions but are not sure they can raise them within the church. Some people notice that the church has too often supported injustice. Of course, still others see the imperfection of the church and its members. That ought to sadden us. If we have failed to reflect the love of Christ to others, it ought to call us within the church to repentance. Yet, in another sense, people within the church are imperfect, and in fact, the church is for imperfect people. If you are perfect, you have no need of what the church offers. If you need grace, we want you to find it within the community of faith.

Acts 2:42-47 (Year A Fourth Sunday of Easter) is an editorial summary of the life of the first Christian community, like that in 4:32-35 and 5:12-16. Luke notes that the 3000 persons who repented, received baptism for the forgiveness of their sins, and received the Holy Spirit, now persisted in exhibiting certain qualities that we could suggest ought to mark the church of every culture and generation. First, they were committed to learning apostolic teaching, which is like admonition in the psalms to guard our way according to the word (Psalm 119:9) and to treasure the word of the Lord in the heart (Psalm 119:11), as well as meditating on the law and act in accord with it (Joshua 1:8). Their teaching became the foundation of the first community, a sharp contrast with how the gospels portray them as lacking in comprehension to the point of deserting Jesus in his final hours. The decisive moment that transformed them into the persons we find in Acts is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The power they receive is a newfound clarity and comprehension of Jesus’ identity in God’s plan of salvation, the core of Christian instruction. The apostles took the lead in forming the community in Jerusalem. We should understand this teaching as an understanding of scripture through the new revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The history of the church affirms the necessity of the church to remain apostolic. The way the church is apostolic is to heed the teaching of their writings. It takes time with the Word of God, for we need to learn its rhythms. One can study it like any other ancient text, one can master it, and one can increase in knowledge. Yet, if we stop there, we stop short of what the Bible wants of us. We study the Bible not primarily to learn what to do as Christians but how to be as Christians. Second, the first believers persisted in sharing life together, learning who they are to become by the choice of uniting to this community. Third, they were committed to breaking bread and sharing fellowship meals. Such sharing of meals satisfies the natural hunger for food but also the natural hunger for sociality. Many of the parables of Jesus including meals, an acted parable of their importance. While family meals can be stressful, these persons were together with glad and generous hearts. Fourth, they persisted in prayers, connecting with the pious Jewish community pattern of prayers morning, noon, and night. At this early stage of the Christian movement, they still met in the Temple courtyard as well as in the homes of people. An example of how they lived out these four values was that they gave due honor and respect to the God of Israel because of the apostolic wonders and signs. Another example is the freedom these believers had regarding possessions, holding possessions in common and sharing with any who had need. In this sense, the offering in churches is a test of our devotion and the depth of our commitment. Yet, this sharing in common, which duplicated the life the apostles had with Jesus of Nazareth, was not a pattern duplicated in other Christian communities in the next few decades. Believers continue to work, own property, but now learning to share generously with others. Another example of how they lived out these four values was that their life together became a witness to others.

Acts 4:32-35 (Year B Second Sunday of Easter) is another summary of the life of the church in Jerusalem regarding possessions. The church exists for the benefit of its nonmembers.^[37]

The focus is on the common ownership of property (κοινά). Most informed readers of the Bible realize, considering Acts 4:32-35 and other key passages, that the idea of a community pooling its resources and redistributing them so that none would be in need is not an idea that began with Marx and Engels.^[38] For the Bible, however, it is not even an idea that began with Acts! The ideal of the community, whose leader is God, and whose resources the community is to share equally, is an idea that finds expression in the Old Testament (especially in Deuteronomy 15). One also finds it as early as the third millennium B.C. in the temple-run city-states of Samaria. In these cities, the people brought all the grain to the temple and the members of the priesthood redistributed it to the people. The idea is that God is the land- owner of all the earth, and so all the produce of the earth belongs to God. Food offerings are merely returning to God what is the best of the produce of God's fields and orchards and flocks. Access to shared resources is the right of all God's people. In Deuteronomy 15:4, God commands that "There will however, be no one in need among you because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy." As children of God, we inherit the earth and its bounty, no one of us more than any other does. Thus, the community of faith does the right thing in assuring that God's children receive his or her inheritance. The Old Testament law had many mechanisms to assure that the community would not effectively disinherit the poor. The tribes were not to sell land given by divine lot to each of the tribes. This assured that the poor would at least have a right to farm the land or glean off the land of others in a hard year. The Lord gave specific laws mandating that the community allow the poor to glean in fields and orchards provided a safety net for the poor (Deuteronomy 24:19-22). They were to make loans to the poor without asking for collateral (Exodus 22:25-27; Deuteronomy 24:10-15, 17-18). There was also a tradition of "redemption" for those who fell into debt. One's nearest kin, called the go'el or "redeemer" had the social responsibility to pay one's debts or buy one out of debt servitude so that dire poverty did not afflict a member of the family. The laws of Jubilee in Deuteronomy 15, however, mandate the remission of debts and the manumission of slaves every seven years just in case one did not manage to escape serious debt or debt servitude by appealing to one's kin. The intent of the idea that everyone lives under God's protection and survives because of God's bounty was to place everyone on an even footing regarding possessions and property. As with so many ideals, however, there is no certainty that ancient Israel ever fully realized this ideal. In Luke's gospel, Jesus continually challenges his followers to sell all they have and share the proceeds with the poor (12:33; 14:33; 18:22). This implies that Israel was not actively practicing the old covenant law and the laws of Jubilee at this time. If they were, theoretically, there would be no "poor." Divesting of one's property, however, also made one free to follow Christ and this freedom, as well as the benefit to the poor, was of the utmost importance to the disciples. 

Given the political history of socialism over the past two centuries, it should come as no surprise that commentators on this passage have divided over its interpretation. Is the practice of the Jerusalem church recounted here a ‘failed experiment’ or an ‘ideal of the kingdom’ to which all Christians should endeavor to return? However, before coming to either of these widely separated conclusions, it is best to understand precisely what the practice may have been in the early Jerusalem church and how their practice would have related to the ideals and customs of their broader society.

This text relates one of the many epoch-making moments related to God’s missionary community. Only in this way can we explain a miraculous eschatological moment described when those who believed were of one heart and soul (ψυχὴ), suggesting an equality between those not of equal rank. No one claimed private ownership but held everything in common (κοινά). They knew the wisdom in recognizing that where your possessions are your hearts are also. A surprisingly large amount of the book of Acts deals with economic issues within the community, just as much of Luke’s first volume, his gospel, deals with matters of money (consider the parables of the Debtors, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Unjust Steward, the Rich Man and Lazarus and the Pounds.) Wealth is not, for Luke, a sign of divine approval — it is a danger.^[39]

“How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” says Jesus in the gospel of Luke (18:24). Yet, the verses following this passage reveal that the power of God enables a man named Barnabas to sell his field and to give the proceeds to the apostles, who then distribute these riches to persons in need (vv. 35-37). The early church is clearly a community that takes care of its own and serves as an example of the kind of world that God intends for all. Justin Martyr observed about his own church, one that existed not too many years after Luke wrote Acts, “We who once coveted most greedily the wealth and fortune of others, now place in common the goods we possess, dividing them with all the needy.”^[40]  

The source of this unity and generosity was the Lord gave great power to the apostles, and great grace to all, the latter enabling people to receive the testimony of the apostles concerning the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. They sell lands and possessions, and they bring proceeds from the sales to the apostles for equitable distribution. This general statement would appear to find confirmation by the specific example of Barnabas who “sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money” to the apostles (4:37). Yet, it does not seem as if the practice was that simple. Does it make sense that Barnabas might have owned only “a field” and not a house somewhere? So why is there no mention of Barnabas selling that property and him bringing its proceeds to the apostles? Notice as well that Peter will comment to Ananias that both his “unsold” house and the “proceeds” from its sale were his “own” and remained “at [his] disposal” (5:4). There was not a universal expectation that all members of the community would convert all their real assets to liquid ones that one might more easily share. Additionally, unless the community adopted some form of communal living arrangement, one must wonder at the logic of selling all homes and thus increasing the need for housing among members of the community. 

A more likely description of the actual practice, then, would seem to arise from keying in on the phrase “laid it at the apostles’ feet” (4:35, 37). While it is certainly possible that people contributed money in this manner, more important than the physical gesture would be what the language conveys about the apostles’ authority. The responsibility of the members of the community was to provide for the needs of others and in the process acknowledging the authority of the apostles to direct and manage such distributions. The gift of great grace creates an actively empathetic community which naturally does all it can to provide for its poorer members. Grace enabled these early Christians to transcend the fixation on self and replace it with concern for the whole community as the highest priority. The holy power that broke the bonds of death on Jesus has now broken the grip that Christians have on their private possessions.

However, was this goal of fulfilling the needs of everyone within the community a uniquely or even a particularly Christian one? Luke Timothy Johnson (in his Sacra Pagina commentary on Acts) does an excellent job of documenting that it was not. Within the Hellenistic world, two fundamental traits were associated with bonds of friendship. One is that a person did not consider possessions restrictively one’s own; they were always to be available for the common need (cf. Plato, Critias 110C-D). The reason for this sense of the common good was because friendship was ideally a bond that forged the parties to it into “one soul” (here in Acts 4:32 as ψυχὴ μία; see Johnson for specific citations of parallel statements from Euripides, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and others). When Luke says no one was needy among them, he echoes the promise of Deuteronomy 15:4 that the blessing of God would mean there would be no one in need among them. The best elements of Hellenistic friendship ethic and Jewish Torah find their fulfillment in these early years of the church in Jerusalem. The outpouring of the Spirit and acceptance of the authority of the apostles led to this appreciation for the common good.

Thus, these early Christians divested themselves of their belongs, having all things in common, selling their possessions and goods, distributing the proceeds to all who had need. The Bible contains much honesty about projects that did not work. One such project was the experiment of holding all possessions in common and distributing to everyone as they had need. The disciples had this kind of life with Jesus. Jesus called them to become part of his community of followers only after they sold everything they owned. After the resurrection, the disciples thought they could duplicate their experience with Jesus in the new life of the community. They discovered it did not work. I find this amazing. The disciples had the most authentic of Jesus anyone could have. They thought they could repeat it in a literal way. It did not work. Could this be a lesson to history? People often come to Jesus through sets of experiences: unknown tongues, tears, intellectual persuasion, warm feeling, spiritual retreat, a denomination or other religious group, and so on. In our immaturity, we tend to think everyone must pass through the same funnel. We gain in spiritual maturity when we recognize that people come to Jesus in many ways. We might also suggest that Jesus invites people to him through multiple means because people are so different from each other. Our immaturity desires the duplication of our experience in the lives of others. Our maturity desires the duplication of Jesus in the lives of others, regardless of the experience it may take another to be in that place. 

One effect of developing a friendship with Jesus is to experience community with others who follow Jesus and to share generously what one owns. Virtues such as generosity or compassion increasingly become part of one’s life. One reason why high tax rates are morally questionable is that it lessens the moral choice of individuals to practice generosity toward others, since our first obligation is generosity toward our families. God granted Adam and Eve the nobility of care for the portion of the earth God gave them. Every human being ought to have the same nobility granted him or her. The commandment not to steal suggests ownership of property. We can give generously only that of which we already possess. Compassion helps to bridge the gap between those who have and those who do not.

Contract ethical theory encourages the ethical principle of rescue. Those in need of aid are in a crisis: some external force threatens their lives, starving, in great pain, or bare subsistence in living conditions. Further, contract theory encourages the ethical principle of helpfulness. If I have information that would be of significant help to another that would save them time and effort in pursuing their life project, I have a moral responsibility to help them. 

When we give to others what belongs to us, we act generously. Generosity is subjective, individual, affective, and spontaneous. Generosity owes more to heart or temperament than to mind or reason. Generosity means doing more than what the law requires, conforming to the sole requirement of love, morality, or solidarity. 

Compassion imagines the suffering of another and recognizes one’s own vulnerability to it. It allows us to move beyond our group. One of the many problems of identity politics is that it views everything from within the context of one’s group, such as African-American, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. It refuses to imagine life in the context of what is not one’s self or one’s group. Compassion recognizes the common humanity that unites all individuals, groups, and nations, minimizing at least for a moment the differences that divide us. 

Nietzsche views kindness as a weakness of the Christian community. Kindness is a form of cowardly life, in that people expect only that others should not hurt them. They want to please and gratify others, and so fail in the courage to seek their own happiness. The type of weakness as kindness does show itself in the actual community of the church, which can be a community as prestige and power oriented as any other human community. 

Greed is the second cardinal sin of the church and works against the development of compassion. We cannot reduce generosity or greed to money. Still, money has the merit of being quantifiable. What percentage of our incomes do we devote to helping those who are poorer or less fortunate? Remember, taxes are mandatory and what we give to family or friends is out of love, not generosity. Most of us give less than one percent. Although generosity is not just financial, why would our hearts be more open than our wallets? We value generosity precisely because we lack it, our selfishness wins out, and it is conspicuous by its absence. 

Generosity is the virtue of giving. We can give only what we possess and only on condition of what we own not possessing us. Generosity elevates us toward others, and toward ourselves as beings freed from the pettiness that is the self. The opposite of generosity is one who is low, cowardly, petty, vile, stingy, greedy, egotistical, and squalid. We are all these things; however, not always and never completely. Generosity sets us apart and frees us from these impulses.

Compassion takes its stand with others in their distress. It means to suffer with; yet, we often say that suffering is bad. How can compassion be good? This virtue takes seriously the reality of other persons. It shows concern for their inner life as well as their external circumstances. David Hume once said, “There is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom, some spark of friendship for humankind, some particle of the dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau agreed: “Compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species.”  Compassion is at the heart of moral awareness. To experience kinship with the other person is the beginning of compassion. Sympathy is an emotional participation in the feelings of others. Compassion participates in the suffering of others. All suffering deserves compassion. Compassion lets us open ourselves not just toward all humanity, but also to all suffering beings. Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, suggests that compassion is a pain for an apparent evil, destructive or painful, befalling a person who does not deserve it. We recognize that such evil may fall upon us as well, and hope that someone may be there to help us. Yet, what difference does that make? The feeling of compassion is no less real, even if it includes self-interest.

Yet, pity entails some degree of contempt or superiority in the person who experiences it. Pitiful is justly a negative term, synonymous with inferior, pathetic, or contemptible. Compassion, however, presupposes no value judgment about the object of compassion. We can have compassion for someone we admire as well as for someone of whom we disapprove. We convey compassion or sympathy to one who suffers. Pity comes from the top down. Compassion realizes the equality that exists between the suffering person and the person who feels it; they become equal in sharing suffering.

Acts 3:12-19 (Year B Third Sunday of Easter) relates the message of Peter to those who witnessed the healing of a man in verses 1-10. He admits that this healing did not occur through his power nor his own piety (godliness). He emphasizes what he shares with the audience in affirming the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their ancestors as the one who healed the man. This God has also glorified his servant, Jesus. This passage invites us to reflect upon the event nature of our relationship with God. God has acted in a specific, unique, and universal way in this suffering servant, Jesus of Nazareth. Peter will now emphasize the malicious work of the audience, distancing himself from them, even though he shares with them the Jewish heritage. It serves to highlight the contrast between divine and human action that we often find in Acts. Jesus is the one whom they handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, even though Pilate decided to release him. They rejected the Holy and Righteous One, asking a murderer be given to them, killing the Author or Prince of Life, affirming the Jewish eschatological hope involved in resurrection to new and eternal life.,^,[41]  a title that remains intelligible to our modern ears. ^[42] Yet, the one they killed is the one whom God raised from the dead. Since he is speaking to his fellow Jews, he does not want to say anything that would distract from truth and the need for these persons in this unique situation to repent. The fact that some later generations used this passage as a basis for saying that all generations are “Christ-killers” says more about the anti-Semitism of the interpreter than it does the text. Crucifixion itself could not have been used to execute Jesus without the cooperation of Rome. While some non-Jews will always ask why God chose this people, for Christians, we only need to observe that the New Testament goes to great lengths to explain how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled Jewish scripture. Divine light shined upon the Jewish people. If we want to bask in the light, we need to be with the Jewish people, for God fulfilled their scripture in Jesus. In the continued existence of the Jewish people, we as non-Jews come against the rock of divine choice. Yes, salvation of the Jews, for Christians believe the Jew on the cross is the one through whom God brings salvation to all people.^[43] Peter then affirms that to all this we are witnesses. The event nature of the action of God means that if others are to know of the event, someone needs to witness or testify to it. We call them apostles. Believers throughout history have relied upon that their testimony. The reliance upon such a subjective and common thing as testimony means following Jesus will always be a matter of faith. The certainty that math and science have is not something preaching or theology can have. Peter then makes it clear that it was by faith in Jesus that this man received healing in their presence. The event nature of the action of God has meant that even Peter needed to respond with faith. Even separated by millennia, we unite with Peter when we receive his testimony and place our faith in the same name, Jesus. Peter specifically identifies the source of the healing of the man they now see as the object of faith, Jesus Christ. Peter shifts his focus from the action of God to the implication of that action for his audience. If God acts in an event that impinges upon our time and space, and if we have witnesses to that event, then the event will have implications for how people are to live. Peter addresses audience, whom he has said were responsible for the death of Jesus, as his friends and says they and their leaders acted in ignorance, reminding us as readers of Luke that Jesus prayed from the cross that the Father would forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing (Luke 23:34). Clearly, the text is not anti-Semitic, but many readers of the text reveal their anti-Semitism by certain interpretations. In this way, God fulfilled what the prophets of Israel foretold, that the Messiah of the Jewish people, who would be the Savior of all peoples, must suffer. Christians find the action of the God of Israel located in the suffering of the Jewish Messiah. Luke now invites us to reflect upon the earliest preaching of the church. Peter urges his audience to repent, allowing God to wipe away their sins, as the poet prays that God would blot out his transgressions (Psalm 51:1-2). Despite their cruel actions recently, their repentance has the potential to result in forgiveness of sins. 

Their repentance will mean that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. The Lord may then send the Messiah appointed for them, namely, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through the prophets. Here is an example of early Christian proclamation, that the risen Lord is to be the end-time messianic King whom Jewish future expectation hoped for and whom God will send. It merged the expectation of the return of Jesus with the Jewish expectation of the Son of Man who will come on the clouds of heaven.^[44] This notion is quite consistent with the theology of Luke. What is unique to this passage is that it makes the return of Christ dependent on the conversion of Israel. The conversion of Israel becomes the prerequisite of the arrival of eschatological salvation.  Furthermore, the parallelizing of the coming of times of refreshment with the coming of Jesus is striking.  The whole passage is a primitive Christian conversion tradition that had its context in a Jewish-Christian community the faith of which was strongly orientated on the future.  Historically, one can best connect verses 19-21 with the earliest Christianity in Jerusalem in terms of the significance of the idea of the Parousia and the role of the Jewish people. He refers to Moses, who said the Lord would raise up for them from among their people a prophet like him. They must listen to what Moses says. Everyone who does not listen to that prophet God will cast out of the people. We should note that in 2:21, God has already promised grace to all who call upon the name of the Lord. In Acts, repentance is the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 3, repentance finds fulfillment in the return of the Lord Jesus. Both speeches find fulfilment of scripture in the present through the ministry of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter then points out that beginning with Samuel and the prophets after him predicted these days. He reminds them that they are descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to their ancestors. God told Abraham that in his descendants all the families of the earth shall receive divine blessing. When God raised up the servant, Jesus, God sent him first to them, to bless them by turning them from their wicked ways. Barth, in a discussion of Jesus as the Lord of time, considers Jesus as the one who was, is, and about this passage, the one to come. In this case, the basis for repentance is that seasons of refreshing are coming. The prophets foretold the first advent of Christ, but also implicitly the second as well, to which the church looks and the entire world actually moves.^[45]

Acts 4:5-12 is the message before the Sanhedrin. This passage reflects the desire of Luke to provide an orderly account based upon the observation of eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-4). They hold the trial, according to legal code, "the next day" after the arrest. When he refers to “their rulers, he expresses the strained relations between the church as Luke experienced it and the Jewish community. Elders provided leadership services in concert with religious and civil authorities. Scribes were important in transmitting the written religious tradition and interpreting it as well. During the diaspora of the Jewish people throughout the Mediterranean, as Jews confronted new social, geographical, and political situations, the interpretation of that tradition heightened their importance. The gospel tradition classes them with the Pharisees (Luke 5:21), but Luke associates them with the Sadducees here (4:1). To complete the list of those aligned against the early Christian community, Luke adds members Annas the high priest, appointed by P. Sulpicius Quirinius in 6 or 7 AD, and member of his family: Caiaphas, his son-in-law (John 18:13) serving as high priest during the trial of Jesus, John, and Alexander. These rulers ask John and Peter by what power or name they healed the lame man. Given the numbers of those who joined the early church (4000 in 4:4) these leaders have concerns. Throughout the biblical material, the divine name carries significance and authority. Thus, it is not surprising that Peter, filled with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a phrase prominent before important speeches in Acts, makes it clear that the good health of the man is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they as Jewish authorities crucified through Roman law, but whom God raised from the dead. Luke points us to the event nature of revelation, summing up as briefly as one can the chief event in the relationship between God and humanity, as Christianity understands it, in the revelation of the God of Israel in Jesus of Nazareth.  For Christian faith, it matters who it was that God raised from the dead, namely, the Crucified, Jesus of Nazareth.^[46] Referring to Psalm 111:12, Peter says that Jesus is the stone that was rejected by them, the builders, but God has made him the cornerstone. The Psalm became part of early Christian apologetic, as we can see in Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; 1 Peter 2:7. The Old Testament text applies to Israel, but as often, the New Testament applies it to Jesus. The rejected one is precisely the one God has exalted to the most important one. Continuing with the theology of the divine name, Peter declares that the uniqueness and universality of this kerygmatic event means that there is salvation, rescue, or safety in no one else, for with this name alone is healing, rescue, preservation, deliverance, and protection, promising the unwavering and dependable presence and power of God. The emphasis is on the one name that God has given in revelation rather than on any other that God has not given in revelation. Believers receive baptism in his name, acknowledging the authority of the risen Lord over them and being part of a community of the saved.

Most of us will agree that it is not helpful for Christians to claim an absolute corner on truth. It led to the arrogance and abuse of power that would divide the church between East and West and eventually to the split in the West between Protestant and Roman Catholic. Within the church itself, we sometimes question some of our own doctrines, and certainly, the church has modified some of its beliefs over the centuries. All religions may have a unique testimony regarding their experience of beauty, truth, and goodness. 

Atheism has its witness to its truth. Atheism will always be a valid response to human experience of this world, given the ambiguity presented by our search for the wholeness of truth, the nature of goodness, and the extent of beauty. Thus, science makes the quest for salvation from outside human efforts irrelevant. Millennia from now, the universe will fade to black. It will simply cease movement. It will die. The same is true of us. We will cease moving. We will fade to black. Nothing can save us from this destiny. We are the ones who will give any healing and saving that exists in human life. Further, the depth of suffering in nature, human history, and in our lives, creates enough problems for belief in God. 

Some persons would argue that since the truth claims of all religious cannot be true, therefore, none of them are true. Multiple witnesses to truth-claims do not nullify the possibility that one of them is true. Others would argue that all religious properly understood promote peace and good will, so it does not matter which one a person follows, for they all lead to the same place. This would be a radical form of pluralism which would say that Christ is one among many ways to God. The problem here is that if we listen to religions with integrity, they have competing claims to what is true, good, and beautiful. Your life will look differently when you take the inner claim to truth each religion has seriously. Yes, we can find many paths that lead to Chicago. Yet, we may be talking about differing cities. If we are, then we need to reflect upon which city we want our lives to look like. Each religion is more like the varying cultures of a city. The point, then, is the destination as well as the journey.

The particularity and event nature of the proclamation of the church makes the notion that there is no salvation apart from the hearing of the gospel and responding with faith in the God proclaimed in that gospel at least unreasonable and borders on being heartless. To respond to this, some approaches will place emphasis upon what happens in eternity. Thus, God will save all persons through Christ (Barth), or after death the risen Christ gives persons who have not heard the gospel an opportunity to respond, based upon I Peter 3:19-20. I have no objection but find myself attracted to another notion as well. People who have never heard the gospel, which given the long history of humanity would number far more than those who have heard, may obtain salvation if they respond with the light they have. Billy Graham is an example of this approach. Thus, anyone who responds to the hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the covering the shame of nakedness, the sick, the imprisoned, is responding to Jesus (Matthew 25:35-6). Further, anyone who is humble, who mourns over their shortcomings, weaknesses, and moral failings, who is gentle, who longs for righteousness, who is merciful, who has a sincere and genuine intention, who brings a reconciling and peaceful spirit into conflict situations, and who is willing to do the right thing even if it means suffering (Matthew 5:3-10) will receive salvation, which means healing and liberation. If people respond to the light they have from God, then the event nature of salvation is a reality in all who experience it. Sharing the guiding, healing, and liberating name of Jesus with all is an act of caring for the flourishing for friends and neighbors. Thus, the Father sent the Son to open a way to healing and liberation, that responding to the Son with faith is a valid path to God, but that some the light of the Logos (John 1:1-18) resides in all cultures and in all generations, and that God will judge based upon what people do with the light they have. Understood in these ways, salvation is indeed in no other name of Jesus. Such statements respect the authority of the biblical witness and the tradition of the church. Such statements also grant respect to the choices others make to lead their best life in accord with the best light they have, while respecting ourselves enough to share lovingly and faithfully what God in Christ has done for us. Each of us needs a faith robust and complex enough to bear the weight of the messy world in which we live. We need a faith that empowers us to live in exquisite, terrible humility before reality (Richard Rohr). Such a faith is not thin or one-dimensional. The God who embraces me in Christ embraces me in a deep, mysterious, and high place. Such an approach to faith requires from me patience and alertness. It requires a longer gaze.^[47]

These reflections lead me to think about divine judgment. Among my many problems with a traditional view of hell is that it is an infinite and eternal punishment for a finite and temporal set of acts. This would hardly be an eye for an eye type of justice and would make God unjust in delivering punishment. Further, eternal punishment becomes punishment for the sake of punishment. Divine punishment has the purpose of redemption. Granting that all persons will have some characteristics of the light, I think a person could decide that the orientation of their lives would be toward darkness rather than light. It would be reasonable to say that divine judgment in that case would be to extinguish that person, but not before they were confronted with the horrors they have perpetrated upon others. Although such horrors would include Hitler, it could be at a more mundane level as well. I am reminded of a movie that had the theme of a reverse of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Butterfly Effect, where the main character learns that his friends would have had a better life had he not be born. It may well be that some persons lead that type of life, and in eternity God makes it so. It would also be reasonable to think that regardless of how evil one has been, God would find a way to confront the person with the horrors they have perpetrated upon others in a way that heaps burning coals upon their heads, meaning that shame and remorse for what they had done would flood the soul in such a way that it would lead to repentance and reconciliation in eternity. I am reminded of the end of the novel Dracula, when he is finally killed, but the hint of a smile, contentment, and peace is upon his face as even is released from the nightmare in which his evil had forced him to live.

Regardless of how we work our way through such matters, the actual judgment is in the hands of God. Although I think it worthwhile to puzzle about these matters because of the biblical witness and the witness of church tradition, these matters are in the hands of God, whom we have right to presume, as the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, will be just and merciful.

Acts 5:27-32 (Year C Second Sunday of Easter) provides the message of Peter before the council. In context, the authorities arrested the apostles for performing numerous healings and for telling the story of Jesus. Their time in jail did not last long, however, because an angel opened the prison doors and brought them out to continue their teaching (Acts 5:12-21). This council had recently judged Jesus. For Peter and John, this is round two, while for the rest of the apostles, it is their first time. The human authority of the high priest is at work, seeking to silence that which they no longer want to hear. The apostles disobeyed the strict order authorities had given them. They were not to “teach in this name.” However, giving two accusations against them, they have filled Jerusalem with their teaching and are determined to make them responsible for the death of Jesus. Peter assumes his role as leader of the apostles and responds that they must obey God rather than any human authority. The passage is notably like Socrates in Plato's "Apology" 29D, "I must obey God rather than you," which Luke may have used as a model. The members of the council are confronting the apostles with a choice, but in one in which it is obvious which is the right course to take. Thus, the first response of Peter to the accusations of the high priest testifies to his own innate Jewishness. How can a religious body like the Jewish council take issue with a fellow Jew who claims he must "obey God rather than any human authority?" If any theological concept united a first-century Judaism struggling to maintain its identity within the Roman political machine, it was their claim to recognize only the one God as their Lord and ruler. Peter further unites apostolic testimony to Jewish history by affirming that it was the God of our ancestors who raised up Jesus. The only God Peter knows is the God of Israel, the God who chose Israel from among the nations to be a witness to the nations. Followers of Jesus need to recognize this deep bond with the Jewish people and Israel. Their common Jewish tradition leads Peter to describe the wrongful crucifixion of Jesus the way he does. While stressing the common ground he shares with the Jewish leaders, he is not afraid to detail the differences by invoking the name of Jesus and denouncing the council's participation in Jesus' degrading death. Peter reaffirms, stressing the unique setting of his testimony, that they killed him by hanging him on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23). Peter then witnesses that the Father exalted the Son to the right hand as Leader/Prince/Originator/Captain/Author (Ἀρχηγὸν), an uncommon term, and the more common term, Savior. God did this to offer repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. The point is not fixing blame for the death of Jesus, which, since his death is “for us,” we are all culpable, but to testify to the wondrous good news that they people who condemned Jesus of Nazareth to his death can receive forgiveness for having done so. Peter condemns the wicked actions that resulted in Jesus' crucifixion while keeping open the door to redemption that the crucifixion and resurrection now make possible especially for the Jews. Despite their despicable behavior, then, Peter continues to offer these most elite and most duplicitous members of the Jewish establishment, the gift of Christ's salvation. Nevertheless, Peter reveals there are some genuine theological revelations that his listeners must accept to receive this gift. Peter describes the relationship between God and the risen Christ as one of shared authority and lordship. Jesus is at the right hand of God through God exalting him to that position. Peter suggests that Jesus himself is now one with God -- working to dispense divine forgiveness and acting with divine authority. Peter stands as an example of the Holy Spirit's ability to act as a witness for Christ.  The apostle who had so often spoken without thinking, acted without consideration, and even run away without hesitation, has now twice stood before the power and authority of the Sanhedrin without once misspeaking. The significance of the resurrection of Jesus is that if God has raised Jesus, this can only confirm the pre-Easter history of Jesus. That which was ambiguous has become clear.

Acts 7:55-60 (Year A Fifth Sunday after Easter) reports the death of an early Christian witness who offered criticism of the law and the Temple and introduces us to the leadership of Saul in the first persecution of Christians by Jewish leaders. Stephen was in good standing and full of the Spirit and wisdom. The text records an act of violence in the name of religious passion for God. In the history of religion, religious devotion has often led this violent result. Yet, such whole-hearted devotion to any cause can lead to acts of violence toward those outside the group. The modern era has seen this violent result in political ideology as well, especially embodied in the political Islamist, the Marxist, and the Fascist. Luke says that the Holy Spirit affirmed the faith of Stephen, as he received a vision of the Son of Man standing next to the Father, this standing indicating the urgency of this moment and the active presence of the risen Lord he senses. The communication of this vision to the crowd enraged them. Leading them to drag him out of the city and stone him to death, with the authority of Deuteronomy 19:15 behind them, since they accused him of blasphemy. The Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin 7:4 lists the blasphemer as one whose crime merits stoning. Sanhedrin 7:5 outlines the conditions under which this sentence can be issued, namely, the person must have misused the formal name of God, the Tetragrammaton (Tractate Shevuoth 4:13 also affirms this), and there must be at least three witnesses to testify before a judge as to what exactly was said. All the witnesses, interviewed separately, must repeat what was said, and they must agree. Finally, the mechanics of stoning a blasphemer are outlined in Sanhedrin 6:4, including the fine point noted in Leviticus 24:14, that the witnesses are to hold the accused, and all the congregation are to stone the person. It is not clear, then, why Saul merely holds the coats of those stoning Stephen instead of participating in the execution himself. Perhaps not being from Jerusalem, they did not consider him a member of that congregation. It is also possible that just as all the conditions of Sanhedrin 7:5 were not followed in this case, local practice of such judgments was still variable at this point in history. The final word of Stephen appeals to the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit, from Psalm 31:5 and like the death of Jesus (Luke 23:46). Recalling the death of Jesus again (Luke 23:34), Stephen asks the Lord not to hold this sin against them. His spirit is that of sacrificial love, forgiving in the spirit of Jesus. There may be some wisdom in the saying that urges us to forgive our enemies, but never to forget their names.^[48] To forgive is extraordinary and uncommon. It runs counter to our instincts, which is to declare our pain, nurse our hurts, gain sympathy, and get justice. The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem needed forgiveness. Without forgiveness, they would never be free of the consequences of their actions. Their act of crucifixion of Jesus, their act of stoning Stephen, would be their defining act from which they would never recover. They would remain the victims of its consequences. Forgiveness breaks the spell of their act.^[49] Jewish leaders carefully brought about the death of Jesus by legal manipulation.  Stephen's death was the act of a vicious, spontaneous, lawless act.

Acts 8:26-40 (Year B Fifth Sunday of Easter) describes the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Luke is drawing from a Hellenistic source in Acts 6-8. The story, which stands as a complete story with little links to the surrounding material, represents a missionary success of the Hellenists that were part of the early church and of Philip as their representative. It occurred in the decade of the 30s or 40s. Luke has an interest in showing the movement from Jewish roots into the Gentile world, although as a God-fearer he is acquainted with the Jewish scripture and tradition, and this story, along with the story of Peter and Cornelius, is part of that movement which will find its fulfillment in the ministry of Paul. In these stories, the Spirit is the one who leads them into this mission. The two stories together, in the contrast between the readiness of Philip to heed the Spirit and embrace change, and the hesitancy of Peter who needs a strong push before he embraces change, we can see that we must neither dismiss change nor embrace it too quickly, but rather, to confront it prayerfully, open to the fresh winds of the Spirit. In this case, an angel of the Lord speaks to Philip, functioning like the word of the Lord coming to a prophet in the Old Testament, telling him to go from Samaria, where he went without hesitation (8:5), and in these chapters his travels are like those of Elijah (I Kings 18:12, II Kings 2:16), as well as the sudden disappearance of Jesus (Luke 24:31). He travels to the middle of nowhere, to the wilderness road in Gaza, without hesitation, an attitude that contrasts sharply with that of Peter in the following story. In the view of the Hellenistic source, the Ethiopian Eunuch, an official the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, is the first Gentile convert. Ethiopia represents the ends of the earth, to which the Risen Lord had commissioned them to be witnesses (1:8). Deuteronomy 23:1 would prohibit him from being a full proselyte into the Jewish faith. He was man of wealth and power. He had been in Jerusalem to worship, identifying him as a “God-fearer,” and was returning home. He was sitting his chariot reading from a portion of Isaiah. The Spirit told Peter to join him, so he ran up to the chariot and heard him reading aloud, a common practice for the one percent who could read at all, so Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading. He asks how he can understand unless someone guides him, a sentiment with which many of today’s readers of the bible can sympathize, so he invited Philip to sit next to him in the chariot. For the Ethiopian official, this portion of Isaiah was 500 years old, so it spoke to a different culture and time. Today, Christians differ as to which books are in the Bible, as well as how to interpret what we read, although the creeds and affirmations of faith of tradition provide some guidance in that matter. We have our own “Philip,” interpreters of the Bible we respect. Recognizing the difference in language places us at even greater distance from the text. The Ethiopian was eager to learn from a teacher, a worthy attitude of any seeker or one who is beginning in their walk with Jesus. Paul will say that a specific task in the church is that of teaching, one of the gifts that enable the equipping of the saints (Ephesians 4:11-13). The Ethiopian was reading Isaiah 53:7-8 from a scroll, a sign of his wealth, since such copies were rare. The text refers to the Servant led to slaughter like a sheep, but remaining silent, denied justice in his humiliation, his life taken away. in Mark 9:12 and Luke 17:24-25, Jesus taught that the Son of Man and the Suffering Servant were the same. Therefore, the Son of Man, usually considered a powerful and victorious figure, Jesus viewed as identical with the suffering servant of this passage in Isaiah. The Son of Man undergoing suffering was not the standard Jewish interpretation of the relevant passages of the Bible. An opening arises when the Ethiopian asks of whom the prophet speaks, himself or someone else, and Philip started explaining scripture and proclaiming the good news about Jesus, carefully distinguishing the established scripture and the tradition of Judaism from the new message of the gospel. The new event, the act of God in Jesus of Nazareth, in his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, has thrown light upon the meaning of the Old Testament passage. The Ethiopian notices water along the side of the road and asks if anything prevents his reception of baptism. Although this baptism may seem quick to us, his enthusiasm was enough to justify it in the eyes of Luke. Christ has won the Ethiopian. ^[50] In the missionary practice and theology of the early church, the relation between baptism and faith involved faith first and then baptism. We see that practice here, especially as Tertullian used the term “sacrament of faith.” For the baptized, baptism testified to faith and confessed it. A presupposition, then, was instruction in the content of faith such as the catechumenate of the early church received.^[51] Both men went into the water, and Philip baptized him. The Spirit immediately snatched Philip away, bringing him 20 miles north of Gaza, where he will proclaim the good news to the towns there and all the way to Caesarea, while the eunuch went on his way rejoicing. Given the context of most of the baptisms that occur, it an open question whether we are to see an earlier form of Christian baptism without the gift of the Spirit when Luke does specifically mention of the gift of the Spirit in the baptism of the eunuch. For Luke the imparting of the Spirit is usually through the laying on of hands, but that does not happen here.^[52] Philip will not return in Acts until 21:8, where he is still with his family in Caesarea and remaining an active witness of the Lord.

Acts 9:1-20 (Year C Third Sunday of Easter) relates the conversion and calling of Saul (Paul). It would be historically and theologically more accurate to speak of a movement from one mainline sect of first-century Judaism, Pharisaism, to another sect which saw itself as a “light for the nations.” Within this episode, Paul never expresses repentance for his actions. We understand his praying and fasting more easily as the preparation for his acceptance into the new community.^[53] I will be emphasizing, as does this account, the role of the community in the conversion and calling of Saul, contrasting with the account by Paul in Galatians, written four decades earlier. There, Paul insists that he received the gospel from no human, but from God alone (Galatians 1:11-12). The words calling and conversion imply a second chance. The cost involves recognizing that the path down which one is traveling is the wrong path and recognizes the possibilities contained in a new path. Growing dissatisfaction with one’s life, growing doubt, and increasing tension may move one away from the present path but hope for something rewarding and fulfilling pulls one toward a new path. Although Paul has a different account in Galatians, the focus here is on what Luke seeks to convey. Conversions in Luke-Acts are stories about the beginning of a new chapter in the life of the church, the initiation of a new mission, as well as the beginning of a new life for the individual person. Acts 2 is the converting of the disciples to their mission as the Holy Spirit falls upon them. Philip goes to the Samaritans in Chapter 8, being the messenger of their conversion. The apostles arrive, lay their hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. He is also instrumental in the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian along the road. Peter experiences the vision of unclean foods in Chapter 10, which leads him to share the good news with Cornelius, who receives baptism and the Holy Spirit. In such stories, God is calling individuals to a godly work. Further, such conversion and vocation are always the gift of God to the individual. Such change is the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people. 

Saul is obviously a dangerous and formidable enemy of the church. Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest, Caiaphas, asking letters empowering Saul to root out those who belonged to the Way (19:9. 23, 22:4, 24:14, 22), from the synagogues at Damascus, wanting to bind them, and bring them to Jerusalem. Such an alliance between a Pharisee and the Sadducee high priest would be unusual. Both groups had a concern for Temple purity. Thus, he is the initiator of this persecution, not the high priest. The Romans allowed Jewish leaders to extend such documents as part of the illusion of self-governance the Romans wanted to communicate. Damascus was one of the "check-in centers" along the journey for observant Jews making the annual pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. At Damascus, Alexandria and other central locations, leaders could examine the ritual purity of the pilgrims and they could establish their identity as faithful Jews. The Jerusalem priests were worried that sectarian believers, such as those professing to follow Jesus, would be willing to look the other way and perhaps even allow Gentile believers to continue undetected to join the throngs at the Jerusalem temple. The entry of a Gentile into the temple would defile the whole structure.^[54] As we see from 26:9-11, Saul believed he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth, including acting under the authority of the chief priests against the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem. He put them in prison and voted against them when the punishment was death. Thus, we see that although Paul seems consumed with hatred and rage against the preachers and practitioners of "the Way," Saul's legal training cautions and constrains his actions, enabling him to calculate carefully how he may best destroy these followers of Jesus. The trial of Jesus was an example of how Jewish leaders could use Roman authorities and let the violent justice of the Roman state take its course.

Luke emphasizes the sudden quality of the revelation Saul receives. In the background is common biblical language, with resemblance to the legend of Heliodorus in II Maccabees 3. It has its source in events between 187-175 BC. It involves intrigue surrounding the Temple. Heliodorus, present with authority from the king, desires to take Temple money to the king. A vision of two “men” or angels stops him. He is near death, but Onias III prays for him, he returns to health, and offers sacrifices to the Lord, “the Savior of his life.” He offers testimony of the deeds of “the supreme God, which he had seen with his own eyes.” The point of the story is that God protected the treasury. As to the vision, everyone present with Heliodorous experienced a manifestation so powerful that the power of God astounded them, making them grow weak due to their terror. A rider on a magnificent horse struck at Heliodorus. The rider had weapons of gold. Two young men also appeared, strong and beautiful, standing on either side of him and flogged him. Heliodorus was so weak that they carried him out on a stretcher. After his healing, another vision by the same two “men” said he should be grateful to Onias, since for his sake the Lord gave him the gift of life. He needed to remember that he had received his flogging from Heaven. The vision Saul receives begins with the appearance of a light from heaven, causing him to fall to the ground, assuming the posture of worship. He hears a voice asking him why Saul is persecuting the risen Lord, completely identifying himself with the church. Saul saw the form of Jesus in the light, while those around saw a glare. Saul's response is to inquire about the identity of the voice. Dialogue is the natural form taken by divine revelations in the biblical tradition. Like Moses, Saul is asking for the name of God as the divine now comes before him. The identity of this Lord is Jesus, and to persecute Christians is to persecute him. In contrast to Moses, this miraculous revelation of God goes by a different name -- "I am Jesus." This now identified voice instructs Saul what to do next. The uniqueness of this vision is that it occurs to an unbeliever. In the Old Testament tradition, such experiences were reserved for those faithful to the covenant, and in the Gospel tradition, the other appearances of the risen Lord were to followers of Jesus. It is the only appearance of the risen Lord outside of Israel. Yet, Saul was a believer in the same God of Israel as were Jesus and the disciples, the vision enabling him to accept that Jesus is the promised Messiah who become a light to the nations. The Christophany having blinded him, his companions lead him by the hand to Damascus. He fasted for three days and could not see, which may suggest that the Christian community represented by Luke practiced a fasting period before baptism. The vision or revelation physically affected Saul, making him helpless and dependent on the graciousness of his companions. Another man, Ananias, a disciple, receives a vision from the Lord. Here is the last account of a direct revelation by the risen Lord. Ananias makes himself to the Lord in the language of Isaiah 6. The Lord tells him to go Straight Street, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. Saul has a vision of a man named Ananias laying his hands on him so that he can regain his sight. Common in such revelations, and as Luke 1-2 already showing prospective parents objecting that such births are impossible, Ananias objects, having heard of what this man Saul has done to the saints in Jerusalem. The risen Lord reassures him of the role Saul will play in the mission of the church. Jesus’ depiction of Paul to Ananias as a “chosen instrument” recalls Isaiah 49:1 (“. . . The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me” and Jeremiah 1:5 (“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations”). Thus, although conversion properly understood might be an appropriate word to describe what Luke is relating, it is more like the prophetic calling of the Old Testament.^[55] The Lord offers a sign that Saul is praying and having a vision of the entire episode. We as readers are reminded of the extent of the transformation the risen Lord is bringing to the life of Saul. The one who was persecuting the risen Lord will now bring Christ to the world. Saul will now suffer for the name of Jesus. Ananias enters the house, lays his hands on Saul, addresses him as a Christian brother, and says the Lord Jesus appeared to him on the way to Damascus and has now sent Ananias to help him regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, scales fell from his eyes, the Spirit restored his sight, and he received baptism. He regained physical strength by receiving some food. He is with the disciples for several days and began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues that he is the Son of God. The entire community at Damascus is as accepting and trusting of Saul, as was Ananias.

Luke records this event three times, with the second account in Chapter 22 assuming the Chapter 9 account, and with the third account in Chapter 26 an abbreviated version of the first two. In the third account, Luke heightens the contrast between Paul's pre-Christian and Christian periods. He takes the story of the conversion in Acts 9 and steadily applies it to the Gentile mission. In Luke’s plan for Acts the mission of Paul is not yet a theme in Acts 9. Luke probably deliberately interpreted the tradition of the story of a calling of Paul as a conversion story and put it in a series of three conversion stories. The event had great importance to Luke. Paul was the key Christian thinker and missionary through the middle of the century. The story recounts the appearance of the risen Christ to Paul on the way to Damascus. Paul refers to this event I Corinthians 15:8 and Galatians 1:15. The persecutor became the one who proclaims. The enemy of Christ becomes a disciple of Christ.  Thus, the text combines the conversion of Saul and his call to be an apostle to the Gentiles. Luke emphasizes that one who had been such a menace to the Christians and caused much suffering would not become a Christian and experience suffering for the sake of Christ.  This can be nothing other than an election of grace. In later autobiographical notes Paul testifies to his extreme sense of righteousness and his wholehearted love of the Torah-Law he sought to both follow and protect. In fact, Saul's precise knowledge of both Jewish and Roman law makes him an effective persecutor of the first Christians.

Acts 9:36-43 (Year C Fourth Sunday of Easter) relate the story of Peter raising a soman to life in Jaffa. This story, like that of Elijah, Elisha, and Jesus show the traditional Jewish concern to care for the poor, personified by the widow, and that death should lose its hold over humanity. Luke makes the point that the apostles can stand comparison with the prophets of the OT.

The details of the story hearken all the way back to the Elijah-Elisha cycle in I and II Kings. For example, Peter has everyone leave the room so that he is alone before the healing (Acts 9:40), just as Elijah does in I Kings 17:19 and Elisha does in II Kings 4:33. The use of the “upper room” might recall the story in I Kings 17:19, although in a typical home of this time period, the upper room would likely be the only place with the requisite privacy for exposing a corpse. I Kings 17:10-24 tells the story of Elijah and the widow who lived in Zarephath. She helps him with lodging, and he provides the miracle of the jar of meal and the oil, which have endless supply. Yet, her son dies, so she is angry with the prophet. The prophet carries him to the upper chamber, stretches upon him, prays, and breath returns. The widows, whom Tabitha supported and cared for, and their obvious distress at the death of the one who so helped them, remind one of I Kings 17:17-24, in which Elijah is called on to raise the son of the widow of Zarephath from the dead. Again, here is a poor widow, robbed of her only support in the world, who finds salvation in the power of the prophet to raise her lost loved one from the dead. Similarly, Elisha raises the only son of the Shunammite woman from the dead (II Kings 4:18-37), a child he had interceded with God to provide so the woman would not be left without support when her elderly husband died and left her a widow (II Kings 4:14). Elisha dismisses people from the room of the dead son of a woman, lying on him, the boy sneezed seven times and came to life. I will grant, however, that a closer parallel to the Elijah and Elisha stories is Jesus' raising the only son of the widow of Nain from the dead (Luke 7:11-17).

Visitors asked Jesus to visit the house of Jairus where Jairus' 12-year-old daughter was dying (Mark 5:35-43, Luke 8:40-42, 49-56). One difference is the absence of the motive of faith in Acts 9. Nevertheless, this is no argument against a strong connection, as the theme of faith is dispensable here because Luke made that clear in the description of Tabitha. By the time Jesus reached the house, the child had died. Since a crowd of family and professional mourners had already arrived, Jesus showed them to the door so that he could be alone with her, with Peter, James, and John there as observers. When Jesus said, "Child, get up!" (Luke 8:54), the child arose and was given something to eat.  Both the raising of Tabitha, and the healing of the paralytic Aeneas, which occurs in 9:32-35, echo miracles performed by Jesus in his earthly ministry. Peter tells the paralytic to rise and make his bed, much like Jesus tells the paralytic in Luke 5:17-26 to "take up" his bed and walk. Tabitha's healing echoes the healing of Jairus' daughter (Luke 8:49-56), but strangely enough, the most interesting parallel comes from the Markan version (Mark 5:41). In this version of the story, Jesus takes the girl's hand and says in Aramaic, "Talitha qumi," "Get up little girl!" In Acts 9:40, Peter says to Tabitha in Greek, "Tabitha anasteythi," "Get up Tabitha!" Although the Lukan version of Jesus' healing of Jairus' daughter does not quote Jesus in Aramaic, both Luke's and Mark's version of the story tell us that Peter was in the room to witness the miracle! Another similarity to the gospel miracle is the fact that before raising Tabitha, Peter is said to clear the room of nonessential persons just as Jesus did in Mark 5:40 and Luke 8:51. Thus, in some ways, the miracle story of Tabitha’s healing is unremarkable. It follows the pattern of other miracle stories in the synoptic tradition.

In context, Tabitha's story takes place at a critical juncture of the story of Acts. At the beginning of Chapter 9, Saul of Tarsus is still an active threat to the Christian church, but by verse 30, he had had his experience on the Damascus Road, and Luke tells us in verse 31 that the church in Judea, Galilee and Samaria now had peace and flourished. Luke is interested in the two stories because it brings Peter from Jerusalem to Caesarea and shows the spread of the church.  They have established congregations in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. These three territories constitute the Jewish homeland. By stating that the church in these areas was doing well and growing in number, Luke sets the stage for the expansion of the church into Gentile lands. 

The two miracles that follow the conversion and calling of Paul in Chapter 9 clearly demonstrate that the church, and especially its leader Peter, received the power of Christ in a way that filled it and prepared it to convert the world, beginning with the Gentile centurion Cornelius, who appears immediately in Chapter 10. Even the physical setting of Tabitha's story is halfway between the Jewish world and the Gentile world. Tabitha's city, Joppa, is modern-day Jaffa, just to the south of Tel Aviv. The town of Joppa was just a few miles from Samaria on the Plain of Sharon.

Luke describes Tabitha/Dorcas (gazelle) as living in Joppa and as a disciple (μαθήτρια), the only occurrence of the female form of a word that means one who has received instruction, devoting herself to good works and acts of charity. She is in company with Phoebe, a deaconess (Romans 16:1). Such a summary of her life might inspire us to reflect upon how someone would summarize our lives. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?^[56] We will all die. How will people summarize your life? You will have little control over that. How do you want them to summarize your life? We quickly learn that Tabitha/Dorcas became ill and died. Her family and friends washed her and laid her in a room upstairs, like its model in I Kings 17:17 and II Kings 4:32. There are several disciples in Joppa, an area that Luke has not mentioned until now. These disciples heard Peter was only three hours away, so they asked him to come without delay, stressing the urgency but not indicating what they desire from Peter. Peter complied with their request, taking him to the room upstairs. The widows, which could refer to an office in the church or to professional mourners, stood beside him, weeping, and showing him tunics Dorcas had made. Peter had them leave, knelt, and prayed, the content of the prayer being unknown. Given the story thus far in the narrative in Luke, we could assume he prayed in the name of Jesus, but this time, Luke does not say this. Peter than turned to the body and invited Tabitha to get up. She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up, verbally echoing II Kings 4:33 and Mark 5:40. Peter took her by the hand and helped her up. He called the saints and widows and showed her to be alive. This miracle became known in Joppa and many believed in the Lord. He stayed in Joppa with Simon, a tanner, who will play a small role in the subsequent story of Cornelius (10:6, 32). Some scholars have noted that the Judaism of the rabbinic era despised the occupation of “tanner.” Throughout several sections of the Talmud, rabbis suspected tanners of immorality and general uncleanness, perhaps because their work involved an unpleasant smell. Therefore, by lodging with a tanner for several nights, Luke might portray Peter as furthering the transition from the Jewish mission to the Gentile mission. His acceptance of hospitality from this man, viewed as unclean by many Jewish leaders, foreshadows Peter’s subsequent interactions with Cornelius and eventually, the Gentile mission of Paul.

The combination of resurrection with the care for the poor, just as Peter and Paul are poised to spread Christianity to the Gentile world, echoes Jesus' own statements about his mission in Luke 4:26. Here Jesus holds up Elijah's rising of the son of the widow of Zarephath as the pattern of his own ministry, contrasting her faith with the lack of faith he has found among his own people. Jesus himself begins the mission to the Gentiles in Luke's gospel, and here in Acts, just as Peter is to take up that mission, he performs a miracle that echoes the very one Jesus used to validate his own acceptance of and ministry with Gentile persons. To complete this miracle tradition, Paul also raises a boy from the dead, in Acts 20:9-12, but there is no widow in the picture here. Thus, one sees an emphasis on the more complete gospel soon to spread throughout the world in the story of Tabitha, where God denies death and the poor have their champion restored to them. Peter, reflecting on both events, now arrives at the home of the deceased where the widows had already gathered, including those who had been the recipients of Tabitha’s good deeds and much kindness. They already displayed her needlework and passed among the crowd as a reminder of the industrious character that had possessed this woman whom they now sorely missed.

We might give voice to the thought that each of us is replaceable. This story says it is not true. Each death has a tragic dimension to it. This story also reminds us of the value of a small gift or skill and the influence it can have upon the lives of others. Tabitha/Dorcas combined character with a skill. Luke tells us a little story, sandwiched between two big stories. Genuine happiness is for those who have sought and found how to serve that which is beyond them.^[57]Therefore, I am glad for this little story. I assume that there were many such women in the life of the first century church. I assume there were many in the two thousand years since. They lived their lives in faith, hope, and love. They found small acts of service to others as fulfillment of their calling or vocation to witness to Jesus Christ. They used traditional skills in a beautiful way that attracted people to the Christ they served. Luke draws our attention to a small-scale and immediate event. We must never forget that such persons are the heart of the church. We need apostles, evangelists, pastors, and bishops to make important decisions. The church also needs such persons as Tabitha/Dorcas. I count a privilege to know many in the churches I have served. When you meet such persons, please remember, you are meeting the heart of the people of God.^[58]

Acts 10:34-43 (All Years, Easter Day) records the message of Peter to those gathered at the home of Cornelius. It is the fifth scene of the larger story of the conversion of Cornelius and his household that we find in Acts 10:1-11:18. At this point in the story of the early church in Acts, we are seeing an expansion of the mission of the church. It has focused upon witnessing to the Jewish people and the people of Samaria. With this story, we see that Peter, the same man heading up the mission to the Jewish people, acts as a bridge to the Gentile world. This extension of God’s fellowship to the Gentiles is a truly momentous event, as it opened the door for the Gentile ministries of both Peter and Paul, which led to the urban growth of the Christian movement throughout the Roman Empire. What Jesus has taught him as a Jewish person is that God does not lift one group of humanity over another. In referring to the acceptability of those in every nation who offers proper respect to God and to other people, he is speaking of the acceptability of those without knowledge of the covenant of the Lord with Israel. Yet, this God sent Jesus as the promised Messiah of the Jewish people and made the Christ Lord of all, an affirmation that arises out of the experience of what the Father has done in the sending of the Son. He even has another version of the great commission. He will stress that the mission of the church embraces humanity, for Christ is Lord of all. To this Gentile audience, he does not quote the Jewish scripture, yet he still offers a powerful witness. Instead, he focuses upon the way Jesus lived his life in care for others. What he shared was the heart of the early preaching, its kerygma. This Jesus, baptized by the Baptist, and anointed by the Spirit to spread a message in Galilee through doing good and liberating the oppressed. Peter was among those witnesses of what the Father was doing through Jesus, but in Jerusalem, they put him to death by crucifixion, but the Father intervening by raising hm on the third day, with the risen Lord appearing to those who would be witnesses, verifying it was the risen Lord by eating and drinking with them. Luke then offers a version of the great commission to preach and testify that the Father ordained Jesus of Nazareth to be judge of the living and the dead. This preaching is consistent with the prophetic testimony, so that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. All people may receive forgiveness. The past can hold us in bondage, like a prison. We can carry our prison around with us wherever we go. We need freedom from the past when it has become a prison for us in the present. He sees the new direction the Spirit is leading the church.

Acts 10:44-48 (Year B, Sixth Sunday of Easter) is the response to the preaching of Peter. It contains the sixth section of the story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius was a God-fearer (10:2), as was the Ethiopian Eunuch. This section validates Peter's interpretation of his vision by the interruption of the Holy Spirit's descent on Cornelius and his family. The Spirit has moved and the church must now respond. This story raises an important question we need to consider when reflecting upon the history of the people of God in the Bible. History is the record of new knowledge and experiences of a people. Being new, a people need to respond and adapt themselves to such change circumstances. Even today, the church looks back to the Patriarchs, to Moses, to David and the Jewish prophets, viewing itself as a continuation of the actions of God in Israel, even if now, these acts occur among the nations.  The question of how we remain a people of God with such a history while addressing the challenges of current times and places is difficult. In this case, the result of the proclamation of the Gospel to Gentile household is that while Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word, the Jews who had accepted Jesus as their Messiah coming with Peter being amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on Gentiles, hearing them speaking in tongues (like 2:1ff), offering their praise to God. Peter asks if water for baptism can be withheld, since they have received the Spirit in a fashion as described in Acts 2, so he ordered them to receive baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. Primitive Christian practice may have been that of baptism in the name of Jesus, preceding the use of the Trinitarian formula.^[59] The event becomes a Gentile Pentecost. Early Christian testimonies usually link the giving of the Spirit to baptism. An exception, as we have here, proves this rule, for water baptism in this case follows reception of the Spirit.^[60] Early Christianity quickly came to relate baptism to the eschatological gift of the Spirit, in this case suggesting that the prior reception of the Spirit brings baptism after it.^[61]The kerygma to which Peter witnesses before Cornelius extends salvation itself to all people, Jew and Gentile, who receive the gospel and believe the Good News it expressed. With this act, the apostolic witness and the church's future have expanded beyond all boundaries. The world is suddenly Peter's mission field. All who will hear this witness and believe Luke now fully understands as brothers and sisters in Christ.  To seal Peter’s acceptance of Cornelius and his household, Peter stays with them for several days — an action that causes some discussion among others in the community. His admission to baptism without circumcision was a departure and violated the principles that had hitherto controlled the extension of the church. Peter has been pulled and pushed by the Spirit to see the action of God through the gift of the Spirit in this moment, even if it moves against his Jewish perspective. The question in the history of the people of God is always how it will change. At critical moments, the people of God will need to let go of things they once viewed as essential and re-learn what is essential in the new missionary situation of the people of God. For the New Testament, the Torah had become a blockage that hindered the people of God from witnessing to the nations. 

Acts 11:1-18 (Year C Fifth Sunday of Easter) relates the justification of the behavior of Peter that Peter offers for what he did in the gentile household of Cornelius. The specific issue of the departure of the early church from Jewish rules regarding clean and unclean foods is a good case study of how and why the church should be flexible in its approach to tradition. The apostles and believers in Jerusalem heard that Gentiles accepted the word of God, so when Peter arrived in Jerusalem, circumcised believers criticized him for eating with the uncircumcised. Many readers of the Bible forget that the Jewish community debated the matter of inclusion in the Jewish community after the Babylonian exile, in the 400’s and 300’s BC. The camp exemplified by Ezra and Nehemiah favored the complete expulsion of all foreigners who had joined Israel and sought to settle with them in the restored territory of Judah (Ezra 9; 10:6-17; Nehemiah 13:23-31). In this period, Jewishness meant ethnic purity through the line of the mother. The only way to guarantee the purity of Israel was to close the door to all foreign influence. However, we find another outlook in Jonah and the latter part of Isaiah, especially Isaiah 56:3-8. Such views urged Israelites to consider opening the doors to all Gentiles who would worship the God of Israel. In this vision, Israel would survive by letting the world in — by inviting the entire known world to see their “light to the nations” and come to the religion of the one true God. In a way, Christianity’s decision to seek actively the conversion of the Gentiles is a continuation of this thoroughly Jewish mindset — namely, that all creation should return to the worship of its Creator. In this view of Israelite religion, it is the job of the faithful Israelite to spread the religion of Israel’s God as widely as possible. In this case, the recently turned Christians in Jerusalem accuse Peter of table fellowship with gentiles. They have no problem with him baptizing gentiles. They resent the implications that this new gentile mission has on the traditional Jewish emphasis upon clean and unclean foods. Peter must explain to them why he has made the bold move of accepting non-Jews into the Christian community. Peter is discovering a new way of being the people of God when he returns to Jerusalem after his coastal swing through Lydda and Joppa. Back home in Jerusalem, the center of religious and cultural life, other leaders debriefed him about his activities in the homes of non-Jewish persons who had received the good news with enthusiasm. Some disciples had criticized Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews. Did their unity in Christian baptism mean that in Christ, God wanted the social barriers between Jew and Gentile broken down? His explanation, however, does not end discussion of this issue by any means. Paul and Peter continue to argue this issue with the Jewish part of the community for many years to come. Many scholars refer to the problem that Peter has trouble eating with non-Jews in Antioch, as recorded in Galatians 2:11-13. Luke is point out that even the apostle to the circumcised, Peter, was open to the inclusion of Gentiles, even as Paul never claimed uniqueness to his vocation of reaching the gentiles, but rather, that he was building upon what those who had gone before him had done. Luke will tell the story of Chapter 10 in verses 5-16, emphasizing the importance of the vision of a Jew eating unclean food and the conversion of Cornelius. The fact that trebling occurs in this vision, where Peter is told three times to arise and eat unclean food, is a way of underscoring the importance of this detail in the story. Luke is stressing that the ministry of Paul is in continuity with that of Peter and the church in Jerusalem. He is also emphasizing the divine origin of this mission of the early church. After his vision, the men from Caesarea arrived and asked him to join them, the Spirit telling him to go with them and make no distinction between the gentile household and his Jewish background. These men had seen an angel standing in the house, telling them to bring Peter from Joppa to this household, and Peter would give a message by which Cornelius and his household would be saved. As he began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as the Spirit had done and was recorded in Chapter 2, and he remembered the saying in Luke 3:16 that John the Baptist baptized with water, but one is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Luke is getting the sense of it correct. Of course, the attribution of the saying to Jesus rather than John is curious. More significantly, we see here that primitive Christianity found in the gift of the Spirit the decisive feature of Christian baptism as an effective sign of salvation, especially in distinction from the baptism of John. Although the text does distinguish between Spirit and water baptism, the aim is to show the connection between water baptism and reception of the Spirit.^[62] Since the gentiles received the same gift as did those present at Pentecost, who was he to hinder what God was doing? Good question. Until now, the early church clearly had positioned itself solidly within the traditional Jewish religious context. This experience, however, began a separation process in which the new, young faith that would be known as The Way, whose followers would soon be called Christians in the non-Jewish city of Antioch, would soon emerge with its own identity, quite distinct and apart from its Jewish roots. The reference of course is not to the Spirit-baptism that has already taken place, but to the water-baptism clearly willed by God. This story about Peter changing his mind can teach us a lot, especially that it is okay to change one’s mind, opinion, or point of view. Peter's opponents hold their peace. Out of their silence, they offer praise to God, who has given to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life. 

Those who practice infant baptism look to passages like this for biblical support. We can draw no firm conclusions as to the baptism of infants from such statements relating the baptism of the household. Such verses inform us that turning to faith in the message about Christ was not always an isolated individual decision. From early times, it might be a family matter.^[63] Such passages remind us of the importance of the ancient household to the social, cultural, and economic fabric of ancient life.

Luke views this portion of his story as showing the resistance within the church that even Peter encountered. We know from the accounts of Luke and Paul that this incident does not settle the question of gentiles and the early church. The Council in Jerusalem, which occurred around 48 AD, recorded in Acts 15 and Galatians 2, seems to re-consider the legitimacy of opening Christian baptism to non-Jews. The proceedings of the council imply that the legitimacy of Gentile missions had never been before the mother church, and that it was the arguments of Paul that first induced the apostles to give their sanction to the new development. Yet, the council at Jerusalem took place at least ten years after Paul's conversion. By then, Paul had already been preaching to Gentiles, as he states in Galatians 1:16. The church at Jerusalem must have been aware of what he was doing. The question of the legitimacy of such a Gentile mission must have occurred to its leaders. Further, the leaders in Jerusalem “glorified God because of me” in Galatians 1:24, so clearly, they approved. Moreover, Galatians suggests that the new factor that precipitated the trouble later at Jerusalem was not the preaching to Gentiles for the first time, but the renewed question of its legitimacy. The "false brethren" (Gal. 2:4) had come only recently into the limelight and did not represent the hitherto prevailing attitude of the Jerusalem church. Thus, the fact that the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity was re-examined at the council is no proof that at an earlier date the Christians in Jerusalem at least tacitly recognized its legitimacy. Such recognition may well have come first because of just such an event as the conversion of Cornelius. I grant the puzzling nature of the flow of events. If this incident in Acts occurred, why did he need the correction provided by Paul as recorded in Galatians? However, this problem overlooks the difference between accepting people into Christian baptism, which Peter clearly accepts in this story, and participating in table fellowship with non-Jews, which was another step that Peter needed to take as a Jewish Christian. For example, in Acts 11:3, the disciples at Jerusalem criticize Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews. The vision concerning eating unclean foods seems to have the same emphasis. However, the church “glorifies God” in 11:18 because of the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity and baptism. It was quite another step for the church to suggest that Christian Jews no longer followed Jewish law in matters of purity and impurity. In other words, did their unity in Christian baptism mean that in Christ, God wanted the social barriers between Jew and Gentile broken down? Peter's behavior toward Cornelius is entirely in line with his impulsive nature, and shows the same uncalculating spirit that later led him to throw aside traditional scruples and live in intimate fellowship with Gentiles at Antioch (Gal. 2:12). Yet, again, if the story of Cornelius is indeed historical, how are we to explain Peter's subsequent change of front when "he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party"? If the circle around James had sanctioned Peter's conduct with Cornelius at Caesarea, they could hardly have found fault with him for doing the same thing at Antioch; nor could Peter have been so vacillating as thus to disown the crucial step he had taken when he admitted Cornelius to fellowship. This objection rests on a misunderstanding that, we must confess, is due partly to Luke himself, who is throughout confusing two distinct questions—social intercourse between Jews and Gentiles, and the admission of Gentiles to the Christian community. In Acts 11:3, the disciples at Jerusalem criticize Peter for having table fellowship with non-Jews, and it is to this question that we are to relate the vision Peter received on the housetop (cf. also 10:28). The question to which Peter successfully directs his defense is the admission of Gentiles to Christian baptism—a quite different matter. Note too that at 11:18 the church "glorifies God," not because the social barriers between Jew and Gentile have been broken down, but because "to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life." In other words, in the conversion of Cornelius the Jerusalem church recognized what, after renewed criticism by the "false brethren," they reaffirmed at the council—the legitimacy of Gentile Christianity. They did not yet admit the right of a Jew to disregard the social prohibitions of the Jewish law. Luke may not have clearly realized the distinction between these two steps; hence, he too, like modern critics, may have been so puzzled by Peter's vacillation at Antioch that he omitted the incident altogether from his narrative. A clearer perspective may not excuse Peter's conduct, but it at least makes it understandable. 

The notion of food that is ritually clean or unclean is not a live one for most of us. For Orthodox Jews and Hindus, it remains a live issue. When a religion goes down this path, it limits its circles of friends. The positive side of this approach is that you can maintain your identity for a long time, for your primary influences are with each other. The negative is that it limits the ability of a religion to become part of the culture and therefore witness to it. Realistically, some cultures do not allow such influences. I think of military dictatorships, communist governments, and Islamic governments. In some cultures, the church must take on the character of a close-knit culture within a culture. We can be thankful for not being in cultures like that. 

The church confronted such questions early in its life. It was slowly moving toward making disciples of those who did not share the Jewish tradition. An important part of that tradition was ritual purity laws. Some of these rules related to food. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Jewish dietary laws are silly.  Israel has endured centuries of scorn and persecution by its pagan neighbors by lovingly adhering to these laws.  Laws about food were not only clear in Scripture; they were a life and death issue of Israel. Another related to circumcision of males. Another related to women. The list went on. In the end, the focus was on maintaining Jewish heritage in distinction from the world around it. Many of these rules focused upon separation of Jews from their culture. It certainly inhibited friendships with non-Jews. Other religions, Hinduism being another example, would develop different rules, but having the same effect. It kept them so separate that it inhibited friendship with others. Through the ministries of Peter and Paul, the church was able to break down some of these barriers. Jesus himself, of course, was not afraid of challenging the purity rules of his time. He set the example.

In any case, I think this passage illustrates the difficulty of altering traditional practices. It clearly suggests that the Holy Spirit wants to move us in new directions for the sake of the witness of the community in the world. The church needs to develop some openness and sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit. Every human community or culture is a mixture of the old, tried, and true things that have stood the test of time, on the one hand, and the possibility of the new thing that has come along on the other. How and why does the community embrace the new thing? Granted, most of us know churches for their ability to conserve the past. Yet, they have often shown the strength of their faith and the power of their God by their willingness to make significant changes to accomplish their mission. 

First, that which precedes dramatic change is the challenging task of dismantling of what people might think of as the tried and tried and true practices du jour. People do not embrace such agents of change quickly. Many people have invested themselves in that which is tried and true. One can expect opposition. Thomas Kuhn, in his book, The Structures of Scientific Revolutions, called these changes paradigm shifts, a phrase that writers used widely in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. Galileo chopped down the tried and true. He helped to move us from a pre-Copernican and geocentric view of the cosmos to a modern, solar-centric universe. Martin Luther. Louis Pasteur. Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell. Orville and Wilbur Wright. Henry Ford. Albert Einstein. Thomas Watson. Rosa Parks. Martin Luther King Jr. Steven Jobs. Bill Gates. All these persons chopped down what people thought of as the tried and true as they reached out for the new possibilities. A paradigm shift changes the way we view the world and therefore reality. The world has not so much changed as our understanding of it. It affects the way “facts” fall into place for us. 

Part of the job of a pastor is to be open to new understandings, and to share these developments with the congregation. We have the example of Jesus, of course. He was not afraid to chop down some tried and true notions of the Jewish faith. Jesus knocks down the old law to replace it with a new love.

Second, at the same time, God calls us to be faithful guardians of the big picture of Christian faith while being open to fresh expressions of that faith. I want to be quite honest here. It is difficult for a minister to know how much to change and how much to preserve. I “draw the line” in a different place than my clergy colleagues and probably than some of you. We need to make the time to see the big picture. 

The world of tomorrow will not look like the world of today. We have known for a long time that the West, the cradle of Church, has become a mission field for the church. North America is a mission field. Society is becoming increasingly hostile toward Christian teaching and values. Clergy and laity are forging a new relationship, with some analysts suggesting the distinction will disappear. Improving what they are doing will not be a fruitful approach to the ministry of the church. Improving the success of yesterday may well be the sure way to fail in fruitful ministry. We can see hints of the reason for the decline of many Protestant denominations as they maintain bureaucracies and traditional structures. Yet, churches need to remember that amid it all, Christ is the center, and the Bible is the primary source of faith and practice. As the Body of Christ, the churches are to find a way to faithful witness to Christ in their setting.^[64]

Acts 16:9-15 (Year C Sixth Sunday of Easter) describes the first travels of the missionary team of Paul from Asia into Europe. In context, Luke is reporting on the second missionary journey of the ministry team of Paul. In 15:36-41, Paul and Barnabas part company. In 16:1-5, Paul goes to Lycaonia. Timothy converts and receives circumcision. Given the battles Paul fought over circumcision, what do you think of this incident? In 16:6-10, Paul has a vision of a Macedonian man. Portions of the passage appears like the fragment of an itinerary.^[65] These verses seem designed to show how "the Apostles, guided in surprising ways by signs from above and contrary to their own plans, conducted no mission at that time in Asia Minor, but were driven on to Troas and beyond into Europe itself."^[66] The Holy Spirit forbids them to speak the word in Asia and the Spirit of Jesus does not allow them to go to Bithynia. In 16:11-40, they are in Philippi, witness and heal as the authorities arrest them. In 17:1-9, they go on to Thessalonica. In 17:10-15, they go on to Beroera. In 17:16-34, they go to Athens and Paul delivers a speech to the Gentiles there. How does this sermon differ from what we have read so far? In 18:1-17, they arrive in Corinth and the authorities arrest Paul. 

At this stage in the journey, after receiving to “no” messages, Paul receives a “yes” through a vision of a man of Macedonia, known as such by dress and accent, pleading with him to come to Macedonia and help us. Paul shows that it is best to do something rather than nothing. We need to head in a direction, which God can then correct if necessary. Paul and his team also expected God to do something to give him direction in fulfilling the vocation God had given him. “We” tried to cross over to Macedonia because God had called “us” to proclaim the good news to them. What Paul sees is their need of the good news, whether they were aware of that need or not. The openness of Paul to the Spirit directing his life in prayer, and even in sleep, is not easy. We need to learn from his example. Paul's turn toward the West into Macedonia marks the first step in the church's missionary movement into Europe itself, historically significant because the West is the direction of mission activity, while the East, present-day India and the rest of Asia, which at this time was Hindu and Buddhist, remained, for the most part, untouched by the missionary activity of the church. In verses 11-15, the missionary team arrives at Philippi. Philippians 4:15 refers to the significance of the help the Philippians offered in the early days of the ministry of Paul in Europe. Their destination of Philippi was the largest city in its district of Macedonia. “We” went to a place where people pray by the river, speaking to the women gathered there. He sat down, the usual posture for a teacher. Such preaching moments are significant in the Book of Acts, Acts 2 and Peter, Acts 8 and Philip, Acts 10-11 and Peter, and now Paul with these women. Here, the focus is Lydia, or a Lydian woman, from Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth, a worshiper of God, linking this incident with Cornelius (10:2) who was listening to “us.” God having “opened her heart” to accept Paul’s message, both “she and her household were baptized” and extended hospitality to him, as with Cornelius (10:48). The parallels suggest why this woman is important in the narrative for she is the first European convert. She is a widow and the head of the household. Her relationship with Paul serves to frame Acts’ full account of his ministry in Philippi, which both begins and ends with her home as its base of operation (see vv. 15 and 40). Lydia's conversion experience sets a classic example for future converts. Even though she is a "worshiper of God," and even though she is a well-established "dealer in purple cloth" (a luxurious, upper-class commodity), Lydia herself is active only as a listener. It is the Lord who "opened her heart." This change of heart is what enables Lydia to receive Paul's words "eagerly" and seek baptism. When Paul baptized her, her household, consisting of family and slaves alike, would compulsorily follow her into the new faith. This sense of family solidarity, admirable in many ways, must have led to some quite superficial "conversions."

Acts 16:16-34 (Year C Seventh Sunday of Easter) shows circumstances surrounding the imprisonment of Paul and Silas and their deliverance. Verses 16-24, Luke contrasts the Lydian woman of prominence as the first encounter in Philippi with a nameless, possessed slave-girl, who supports the owner of the household as a fortuneteller. “We” were going to a place of prayer, but meet a woman who had a spirit of divination (Πύθωνα, Python, the snake guarding the oracle at Delphi whom Apollo killed, but now could refer to persons who claimed a god spoke through them), like Simon Magus (8:9-24) and Bar-Jesus (13:6-11), making her owners money. This was a money-maker for her owner. This woman needs liberation from her unique prison. She declares that Paul and Silas are slaves of the most high god, which to Jewish ears would have sounded like a truthful affirmation, but to the Gentiles in Philippi could designation any divine being of the Greek and Roman pantheon of gods. She did this for many days. Thus, the rebuke by Paul is because he did not want others to perceive him as working in conjunction with other gods and powers. He must differentiate his gospel of the true, living God, (14:8-18) who made the cosmos, from the perceived power of an oracle believed to have the authority to tame the cosmos. He commands the spirit to come out in the name of Jesus Christ. The simplicity of his act dissociates his action from magic. This story of Luke is in accord with what Paul said in Romans 15:18-19 and II Corinthians 12:12, so Paul did perform miracles. In the two books by Luke, we could expect next a demonstration of the departure of the spirit, astonishment from the crowds who witness the exorcism, and a reference to the spreading of the good news. This time, Luke records the opposition the action of Paul causes, the owners, demonstrating the profound economic ramifications of this act, seizing Paul and Silas, dragging them in the marketplace before the authorities. Yet, the owners focus on none of this in their accusation before the authorities, saying Paul and Silas are disturbing the city, as Jews, are advocating the practice of customs that undermine Roman law and practice. The crowd joins in the accusation, causing the magistrates of Rome, here punishing with little reason, to strip Paul and Silas and had them beaten with rods, and after the flogging had them thrown in prison, ordering the jailer to secure them. All this agrees with what Paul says in I Thessalonians 2:2, referring to the great difficulties Paul and Silas experienced in Philippi, and thus go back to tradition. The jailer placed them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. Beginning in verse 25, the story shifts to the deliverance of Paul and his companions from prison. Paul and Silas praise God amid their circumstance, while other prisoners, no doubt true criminals, are hearing them, and God acts. In the middle of the night, amid darkness, and amid their chaos, God acts through the form of an earthquake that effectively removes the fetters of all the prisoners and opens all the doors while miraculously not harming a single person. In Euripides, Bacchae 455ff a similar incident occurs.  The Bacchae, who were chained in the state prison, were freed by calling on the god Bromios: 'The chains dropped off their feet by themselves and the bolts on the doors were opened without mortal hands.' This deliverance of Paul and Silas is reminiscent of Peter’s escape from jail in chapter 12. The story of the jailer becomes another example of a proper conversion, which is the purpose of this story. When the jailer sees the doors open, he is ready to kill himself, since the failure of duty was reason enough to commit a final honorable act of suicide, since the prisoners should have escaped. Paul urges him not to harm himself, since the prisoners are here. The jailer falls before Paul and Silas trembling. He brings them outside and asks what he must do to be saved. Just as the possessed woman had predicted, Paul and Silas proclaim the way of salvation. Their answer is to believe in the Lord Jesus and he and his household will be saved. They speak the word of the Lord to the jailer and his household. The response of the jailer is similar to that of the first convert in Europe, the Lydian woman. The jailer dealt with the wounds they received in their flogging and he and his household were baptized without delay. Some students of the Bible take the reference to the baptism of the household as the New Testament basis for infant baptism. Such verses were a slender rope upon which to build a biblical basis for infant baptism, for even in these verses, the sequence is that of preaching, faith, and baptism.^[67] We can draw no firm conclusions as to the baptism of infants from such statements. All such a statement tells us is that turning to faith in the message about Christ was not always an isolated individual decision. Rather, from early times it might be a family matter. However, it is likely that this family decision in the first century became the basis for the widespread practice of the baptism of infants by the third century. One could also refer to Acts 16:15, 18:8, and I Corinthians 1:16. ^[68] The jailer fed them, the household rejoicing that the jailer had become a believer in God. The gift of salvation elicits a response of gracious hospitality from the new converts. The one who had been responsible for keeping Paul and Silas securely jailed escorts them out to freedom and welcomes them into his own home.

Acts 17:22-31 (Year A Sixth Sunday of Easter) relates the speech of Paul in Athens. These verses are the only discourse addressed to Gentiles in Acts. We best understand the speech as like other speeches in Acts as a missionizing performance. It has a more logical than emotional appeal. His format is precise, his argument progressive, giving it the shape of a learned philosophical presentation. The speech shows its concern to pick up previous knowledge of the Christian God by means of the theme of affinity between God and the works of creation.  He will refer to creation, preservation, and redemption. Paul begins with a compliment to their desire for truth and the fact they are more religious than other Greeks are, or at least more than Paul had expected. It shows a generous approach and appeal to those who do not share the knowledge of the Bible that Jews and Christians had. I Thessalonians 1:9-10 refers to a report of how his readers turned away from false gods to serve the true and living God. This would be like the opening of this speech. He commends them for their curiosity in spiritual matters. Paul is recognizing their worship as an expression of their desire for the divine character, even if they have not yet identified the one who is to be truly worshipped. Polytheism has an ability to absorb into itself conflicting beliefs regarding the gods. God made all that we see but does not live in the shrines we make. Paul is drawing upon monotheistic argument against polytheism and idolatry among Hellenistic Jews. He is using similarities between Christian theology and the belief systems of other cultures to lead the listeners gently toward some commonly held truths. The focus of the missionary preaching of the church needs to be more on human motivation than on human behavior. When people have a religious impulse, no matter where they direct it, we should acknowledge that they are moving in the right direction. They are seeking something, and, like Paul, we need to be ready to point out the real object of their search when they are ready to hear about it. We have a common ancestry and therefore a common spiritual quest. In Romans 1:18-2:16, Paul also refers to the anger of God in connection with creation only here the focus is upon how people can know God but refuse to do so. Instead, they turn to immorality and physical images of God. The judgment of God was allowing action to have consequence. His argument expands to those who would judge such persons also judge themselves. God will be angry with those who pass judgment on those whose only knowledge of God is creation. Whether Jew or Gentile, those who do what is right receive glory, honor, and peace, for God does not play favorites. He grants that those who sin without having the law will receive condemnation. Yet, those who have the law and disobey it will also receive judgment. Those who obey will receive approval. The conscience will be law enough by which God will judge those who do not have the law. The point here is that taken as a whole, the argument of Paul is almost taking the typical Jewish polemic against the Gentile and turning it back upon itself, opening door for some graciousness and judgment from God upon both Jew and Gentile. The Acts speech continues with the idea that God preserves what God has created. He will quote from Greek poets as he makes his appeal. Paul is in the heart of intellectualism, where Epicureans and Stoics were especially prominent. Showing he is not afraid of confrontation, he says that if all this is true, then surely, they see the absurdity of idolatry. In making his appeal for repentance, he points to the promise of the redemption of creation through the one whom the Father raised from the dead. Again, in I Thessalonians 1:9-10, Paul says they wait for the Son to come from heaven. The Son is Jesus, whom God brought back to life. Jesus is the one who rescues us from the coming anger of God. However, mentioning resurrection shuts down the conversation, demonstrating a willingness to engage in confrontation even if it means rejection of his message. His words have a blend of generosity with confrontation and even a combative spirit. What Paul does here is increasingly narrow the focus from creation to humanity to Jesus. Only a few people will respond. Damaris and Dionysius the Areopagite are historical, though not necessarily connected with this mission, since Paul says the household of Stephanus in Corinth was the first fruits here. Paul did not have much missionary success in Athens, for an Athenian community has no recognizable role in his plans for his mission, journeys, and collection. Church history will not record a significant congregation in Athens until around 170 AD.

 

---

[1] Hermann Gunkel

[2] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 283, 304

[3] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 344.

[4] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 348-9.

[5]           For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh,(7) and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, "Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit."(8) And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors.(12) And after his resurrection He did eat and drink with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father.

     And I know that He was possessed of a body not only in His being born and crucified, but I also know that He was so after His resurrection, and believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, "Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit."(8) "For a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have."(9) And He says to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger into the print of the nails, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side;"(10) and immediately they believed that He was Christ. Wherefore Thomas also says to Him, "My Lord, and my God."(11) And on this account also did they despise death, for it were too little to say, indignities and stripes. Nor was this all; but also after He had shown Himself to them, that He had risen indeed, and not in appearance only, He both ate and drank with them during forty entire days. And thus was He, with the flesh, received up in their sight unto Him that sent Him, being with that same flesh to come again, accompanied by glory and power. For, say the[holy] oracles, "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go unto heaven."(13) But if they say that He will come at the end of the world without a body, how shall those "see Him that pierced Him,"(14) and when they recognise Him, "mourn for themselves?"(15) For incorporeal beings have neither form nor figure, nor the aspect(16) of an animal possessed of shape, because their nature is in itself simple.

[6] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 349.

[7] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 283.

[8] The text says nothing more about the disciples' thoughts, their doubts or fears. Instead, “Do you have anything here to eat?” (v. 41b).; thus when “[t]hey gave him a piece of broiled fish ... he took it and ate in their presence” (vv. 42-43; cf. Luke 24:30; John 21:9-14). 24: 44-49, Story About Jesus' Final Commission (L & Lk, Concise Narrative)

[9] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 245.

[10] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 15.

[11] Charles E. Jefferson 

[12] John Sandel, 

[13] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 241.

[14] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 259-60.

[15] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991), Volume 3, 15.

[16] (Joseph Fitzmeyer, Acts of the Apostles [Anchor Bible; New York: Doubleday, 1997], 200). In his classic work The Theology of St. Luke(originally Die Mitte der Zeit), the great biblical interpreter Hans Conzelmann delineated the three-stage unfolding of God’s plan in Luke and Acts. He called the plan Heilsgeschichte, a term usually translated as “salvation history.” This passage marks the transition point between stages two and three of Conzelmann’s schematic. The period of Jesus’ ministry ends in his glorious ascension, and God will presently inaugurate the era of the church. The church has not yet received its baptism of the Holy Spirit, promised in Acts 1:5 and delivered at Pentecost (Acts 2), but in this passage, it does receive its commission. This verse marks Conzelmann’s transition quite clearly and serves as a programmatic foreshadowing of the ensuing narrative. This verse introduces the importance of the Holy Spirit in Acts. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God on earth in the third phase of salvation history, the era of the church. Readers of Acts acknowledge the profound agency that Luke ascribes to the Holy Spirit in his account. In the words of Joseph Fitzmeyer, the Spirit becomes “the dynamo of the Lukan story in Acts ... the power given to disciples, the dynamic principle of their existence as Christians and of their role as witnesses in the new phase of salvation history.”

^[17] Augustine of Hippo.

^[18] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67)II.2 [35.4] 459.

^[19] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), III.2 [47.1] 448. 

[20] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 13.

[21] Scholars have evaluated the historical dimension of this passage negatively.

[22] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 14.

[23] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 14.

^[24] Lohse and Bauernfiend.

^[25] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 13, pointing to A. von Harnack, Mission and Expansion, I (London, 1904, 300ff.

[26] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 14.

[27] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 13.

[28] Philo, Decalogue 46 on Ex 19:16ff. "Then form the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven there uttered a voice ... for the flame became articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience, and so clearly and distinctly were the words formed by it that they seem to see rather than hear them.” 

[29] Ludemann.

[30] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 13.

[31] —Stanley Hauerwas, “God’s New Language,” The Hauerwas Reader, eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright (Duke University Press, 2001), 146–150.

^{[32] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)}Volume 2, 344.

[33] —Kyndall Rae Rothaus, “What Does The Bible Say About Women In Ministry?” Sojourners, June 14, 2021.

^[34] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 240.

^[35] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 279.

^[36] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 260.

^[37] William Temple.

^[38] Karl Marx (Critique of the Gotha Program).

^[39] (William H. Willimon, Acts [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988], 52).

^[40] (I Apology 14:2-3).

^[41] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 347.

^[42] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 421.

^[43] Why do we so dislike to be told that the Jews are the chosen people? Why does Christendom continually search for fresh proof that this is no longer true? In a word, because we do not enjoy being told that the sun of free grace, by which alone we can live, shines not upon us, but upon the Jews, that it is the Jews who are elect and not the Germans, the French or the Swiss, and that in order to be chosen we must, for good or ill, either be Jews or else be heart and soul on the side of the Jews. "Salvation is of the Jews." It is in their existence that we non-Jews come up against the rock of divine choice, which first passing over us is primarily made by Another, a choice which can concern us only in that it first concerns him and cannot affect us except in him and through him. In the "lost-ness" and in the persistence of the Jews that Other One looks down on us; the Jew on the Cross, in whom is salvation for every man. --Karl Barth, "The Jewish problem and the Christian answer" (1949) in Against the Stream: Shorter Postwar Writing (SCM, 1954), 200.

^[44] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 608.

^[45] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67)III.2 [47.1] 495.

^[46] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 2, 344. 

^[47] --Debie Thomas, "A Light to See By," Journey with Jesus for August 6, 2017. journeywithjesus.net. Retrieved October 12, 2017.

^[48] Attributed to both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

^[49] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 237.

^[50] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67)759-60.

^[51] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 112, 257.

^[52] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 240, 260.

[53] (James D.G. Dunn, The Acts of the Apostles: Narrative Commentaries [Valley Forge Pa.: Trinity International Publishing, 1996], 119-120, 124]

[54] C. S. Mann ("Saul and Damascus" Expository Times 99 [1988], 331-334)

[55] (Krister Stendahl, “Call Rather than Conversion,” in Paul among Jews and Gentiles [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976], 7-23, especially 7-10.

^[56] Line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” You can find the poem online.

^[57] Albert Schweitzer.

^[58] Inspired by the comments of N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-12 (SPCK, 2008), 154-55.

^[59] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 240.

^[60] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 267.

^[61] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)Volume 3, 240.

^[62] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991), Volume III, 241, 259-60.

^{[63] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1998, 1991)}, Volume III, 258.

^[64] Inspired by William Easum, Dancing with Dinosaurs, 1993.

^[65] Ludemann

^[66] (Weiss, History of Primitive Christianity, I, 279-80)

^[67] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), IV.4, p. 180)

^[68] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), Volume 3, p. 258)