A short thought on Euodia and Syntyche

Larry Hurtado makes some interesting observations this morning about women in Acts, but even before I checked my blog reader (!) I had been reading Philippians and among other things was struck by the Euodia and Syntyche bit (Phil 4:2-3).

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord.  Yes, and I ask you, loyal Syzygus, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

No I don't think I've noticed this passage coming up in the complementarian/egalitarian debate (perhaps I just didn't notice), but it seems to me highly relevant.  Firstly, in pleading with the two women Paul is hardly assuming either their submission or his inherent gender based authority. Secondly in saying they contended at his side (along with Clement and others) he is presumable referring either to their joining with him in preaching and evangelism or their participation on Paul's side with internal disputes within the church - all of which render highly problematic the suggestion that Paul did not allow women to teach or have authority.

Let me know what you think :-)

Reformed Baptism Critique #1

OK, before I start this I should say that I was baptized as an infant and I'm very grateful for the faith legacy of my family and my parent's commitment to raise me as a Christian.  I also have the utmost respect for the godliness and sincerity of many of my paedo-baptising brothers and sisters, that doesn't change the fact, however, that on this subject I think they are totally wrong and that my own baptism as a baby was no baptism at all and so when I was later baptised as an adult, that was my first and only baptism and not a "rebaptism" at all. 

I came across this article via TC Robinson who did so via Will Lee.  The article is written by Richard L. Pratt, Jr. professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida, and so I don't think I can be accused of attacking a straw man.  If someone reading this thinks his presentation is not representative they should let me know. This should not be taken as an attack on any person but as a genuine attempt to engage the ideas in a robust fashion.

In its own way, the Reformed understanding of baptism is highly sacramental. That is, Reformed theology views baptism as a mysterious encounter with God that takes place through a rite involving physical elements and special ceremony. Through this encounter, God graciously distributes blessings to those who participate by faith and also judgment to those who participate without faith. (p1)

In this I have little to say except that I am perhaps a less typical Baptist in that I don't object to sacramentalist language being applied to baptism (nor to the Lord's Supper).  However, for any talk of sacrementalism not to degenerate into mystical superstition or magic, "particpation by faith" has to be a key concept.  Any idea that just having a rite done to you regardless of your own disposition towards God can be efficacious is superstition pure and simple.

For example, Paul spoke of baptism as “the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Tit. 3:5). He also wrote that, through baptism, believers are united to Christ and die to sin (Rom. 6:3-7). Peter, in turn, when asked what was required for salvation, replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Elsewhere, Peter boldly declared, “Baptism … now saves you also – not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 3:21). These and many other New Testament passages at least seem to indicate that baptism is much more than a symbol. In the language of the Bible, spiritual realities such as rebirth, renewal, forgiveness, salvation, and union with Christ are intimately associated with the rite of baptism. (p2)

Although Pratt wrongly conflates the "wasing of rebirth" with the "renewal by the Holy Spirit" which are two separate things, every one of the scriptures he cites clearly links baptism with repentance, there is no suggestion of the "baptise now, repent later" aproach to baptism found in mainline churches.  Instead baptism and repentance go hand in hand.  As Pratt points out, "spiritual realities" are "intimately associated with the rite of baptism."  Infant baptism surely severs the rite from the reality when it is given to an infant incapable of repentance.  The most important verse in this regard is perhaps Romans 6:3-7, rather than some sort of spiritual reality or philosphical metaphor Paul understands "dying to sin" to be a very real concrete ethical process of ceasing to perform the works of the flesh (see Rom 6:11-14, Col 3:5-11) how can a baby die to sin?  They cannot, they are cute, but they are not yet moral agents.

Pratt is yet to make his case for infant baptism, but I must confess at this stage to be at a loss to see how he can build a case for such on the foundations he has laid so far.  Stay tuned.

Let me know what you think,  :-)

Are Acts 15:36-41 and Gal 2:11-13 Describing the Same Event?

Will Willimon in his Interpretation commentary on Acts states,

The reasons that Luke gives for the breakup of the Paul and Barnabas team does not square with Paul's version in Galataians 2:11-13.  Paul's own assertion that he had doctrinal differences does not fit in with Luke's purposes (p133)

But it is surely incorrect to conflate the two events.  Paul gives no hint in Galatians that his disagreement with Peter led to a schism between him and Barnabas, but only expresses surprise that Barnabas should be led astray by Peter's actions (Gal 2:13).  Which statement surely evinces a high regard for Barnabas.  Rather, in this instance I think the criterion of embarrassment suggests that this episode in Acts does not show Paul in the best light, especially given the fact that Barnabas' trust in Mark is eventually proven correct (Col 4:10, Phil 24) and Paul and Barnabas later reconcile (1 Cor 9:6, Col 4:10), and is therefore a reliable account of the reason for the division. 

Is anyone aware of anything that would support Willimon's assertion?  Is there something I have missed?  It seems rather cut and dried to me.  let me know what you think :-)

Christian Preaching from the Old Testament #1

[This is the first in a serialisation and slight revision of an old essay of mine, in the hope of getting some interaction from others and also making it more accessible.]

Hebrew Scripture for Christian Preaching

One of the Early Church’s most famous heretics, Marcion, decided that the God of the Old Testament and the God revealed in Christ were incompatible.  In what was arguably the first attempt to create a Christian canon of scripture, he sought to dispose of the OT entirely and purge OT references from the New Testament.[1]  Notwithstanding Marcion’s many other theological quirks, his objection to the OT is perhaps something we can still relate to.  It is still not uncommon to hear a Christian today describe themselves as a ‘New Testament Christian’ as opposed to an ‘Old Testament Christian.’  Apart from the apparent dichotomy of legalism and grace between the testaments there are also ethical issues raised by the text: genocide, incest and misogyny, among others.   These and other perceived problems translate into a general neglect of the OT as a source for preaching and, when it is used, uncertainty in the appropriate way to do so.[2]  Three problems confront any Christian wanting to preach from the OT: how to relate the OT and NT, how to correctly exegete the OT, and how to discover the contemporary relevance of any particular OT passage.[3] 

However, evangelicals are rightly restrained from following Marcion’s lead, primarily by the NT itself.  Verses such as Luke 24:44 and John 5:40 show Jesus clearly stating that the OT is in some significant sense about him.[4]  Numerous passages in Acts reveal that apostolic preaching repeatedly argued that Christ fulfilled the OT.[5]  The gospels, epistles and Revelation are laced through with OT quotations and allusions to the OT scripture.[6]  In addition to this, the historical record clearly shows that the primary source for the theological reflection of the early church on Jesus Christ was the OT.[7]  So by using the OT as a source for preaching we are following Christ, the Apostles, the authors of the NT and the Early Church Fathers.

Part of the problem arises in the fact that Christ and his early followers drew upon a deep and established tradition of scriptural interpretation that modern scholars only have limited access to and the ordinary Christian has no understanding of.[8]  Not only so, but many of the hermeneutical devices employed quite satisfactorily in the 1^st century appear dishonest and unscientific in the 21st.[9]  If the early church relied on Second Temple era hermeneutics to make Christian sense of the OT should present day preachers use the same methods or can modern hermeneutics also find that the OT speaks of Christ?

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[1] John Bright,, The Authority of the Old Testament, (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 16, 60-62; F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, (Glasgow: Chapter House, 1988), 134-144

[2] Steven Mathewson, The art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002) 13, 23-4; Walter Kaiser, Preaching and teaching oorm the Old Testament: A Guide for the Church, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 10; Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching The Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), VII, XII; SG 15-6; Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 15-16, provides statistical data on the subject, un-named denominational statistics show <20% of Sunday sermons are on OT passages and a preaching journal reports <10% of submission are on an OT text.

[3] Martens, Elmer A., ‘Preaching from the Old Testament: A Bibliographic Essay’ Direction  (April 1982 Vol11 no 2, 30-39), 1.  http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?433 (accessed 16/04/08)

[4] David Peterson, Christ and His People in the Book of Isaiah, (Leicester: IVP, 2003), 12; N.T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God, 32

[5] Peterson, Christ and His People in the Book of Isaiah, 23; e.g. Acts 2:16-39, 8:30-35. 13:16-41, 17:2-3. 

[6] Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: a comprehensive introduction to Biblical interpretation, (Downers Grove: IVP, 1991), 323, ‘There are approximately three hundred quotes and literally thousands of allusions.’

[7] See Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old testament in Early Christianity; Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God, 35-6

[8] See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The One Who is to Come, (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007); and G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson (eds), Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), XXV

[9] See Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids:Baker, 2005), 158-160; Of course the operative word here is ‘appear’, but the method of NT writers in their use of the OT is still a topic of considerable debate and requiring knowledge of Second Temple Judaism far beyond most pastors, see Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, 332

Unity is bad for Human Health

Whilst sitting in on a lecture on Gen 11, I was struck by Tim's remarks concerning the way human unity is always bad for someone.  Unity is always at the expense of someone, usually a minority.  For example in Iraq, Sudan and Burma conflict is occuring primarily because some factions are trying to bring unity to a geographical area where other resident factions exist which want to maintain their diversity (or bring a different sort of unity).

In NZ there is a popular polemic against difference that suggests everyone in NZ is simply Kiwi, but of course what they mean is that those in ethnic minorities should simply confrom to the majority (pakeha/european).  In conversation with a Maori Christian leader I was told that the churches are always saying to Maori that we should be one in Christ, but the Maori response is "one what?"  Because the implicit message they receive is that to have unity they need to become european.  And yet Christ's prayer in John 17 was for the unity of his church and in Acts 2, 13, Eph 2-4 and Rev 5, (among many others) we are confronted with a vision of a church where in difference and diversity there is unity around Christ. 

And as if that wasn't enough, today we had a Kenyan missionary to NZ speaking and who told us that using other languages and singing the odd song from a different culture wasn't enough but he wanted the church to be interested in the "way" he wanted to worship as an African and that once a year they should let him lead worship.  So I had this vision of him stood up front of his Kiwi church exhorting them to be temporarily more African which I just couldn't see going well.

My hunch is that true multicultural church needs to follow the model of Antioch (Acts 13) and have multicultural leadership.  Are there any churches out there today that are truly managing to be multicultural?  If so what do they look like and how do they do it?

Hurtado on Why S/Paul Persecuted Christians

In pp6-7 of his review essay of James Dunn's new book, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?, Larry Hurtado gives a concise and convincing argument for what Saul of Tarsus (later to be Paul) found objectionable in Christian belief and praxis:

More directly to the question about why Paul opposed Jewish believers, nowhere in Paul’s letters or Acts do we find a statement that Paul’s persecution of them was on account of their supposedly lax (or non-Pharisaic) Torah-observance, their association with Gentiles, or their critique of the Temple. Instead, Acts depicts Paul as proceeding against “all who call upon [Jesus’] name” (9:14), as “opposing the name of Jesus” (26:9), and as seeking “to make them blaspheme” (i.e., probably pronouncing a curse upon Jesus, 26:11).

Moreover, nowhere does Paul say that his conversion was basically a capitulation to accepting a more relaxed Torah-observance, a more negative attitude toward the Temple, or more relaxed associations with Gentiles. Instead, he refers to the cognitive effect as a “revelation of God’s Son” (Gal. 1:15-16), and in Philip. 3:1-11 he contrasts his former Torah-centric life with his present fervent devotion to Jesus. The Damascus Road experience did not convince Paul primarily to approve a relaxed halakha, but to change his view of Jesus. In my view, that also suggests a lot about what he had previously found objectionable in Jewish believers.

It was therefore the way in which the Christians used and revered the name of Jesus that made them offensive to Saul, and it was Saul's encounter with that Jesus on the Damascus road that resulted in his change of heart towards the Christians and his acceptance and consequent advocacy of their beliefs and praxis (to put it mildly).

George Wieland on Messy Mission

A sermon on the relationship between church and mission, using Acts, by Dr George Wieland. Given at Manurewa Baptist church on 13/06/10.  A very engaging and accessible introduction to the idea that the church does not have a mission, but that God has a mission, which has a church.

Download from here, or listen to it here.

#300! A best of blog . . .

This is my 300th post on Xenos. Too celebrate this milestone I have collected one of the better posts from each lot of 50.  It's interesting to see how the blog has changed over time.  It started of when I thought I knew a lot, having just finished my undergrad studies.  Now I know a lot less, coming to the end of my research degree. :-) Thanks to everyone who has contributed, interacted, and read it.  As I come to the end of my MTh degree it will be interesting to see how the blog develops, whether it gets more attention (due to no looming deadlines) or less (due to no dealines causing procrastination reflex).  Eitherway, I'm looking forward to the next 300 and hope you'll join me on the journey.  :-)

A reflection on 1 Samuel from Dec 2008 
I used to do more of these kind of devotional readings of the OT.  Will have to get back into the habit.
As sermon about the ethiopian eunuch from March 2009
This sermon works best delivered whilst holding two rocks suitable for crushing testicles and grinding them together whenever you talk about the eunuch's experience (but not on any actual testicles).
A critique of Charles Stanley's preaching from June 2009
This was a cheap shot, an easy target, but gets heaps of hits, and got me called "a muslim."  Whoever wrote that was probably misguided enought to think it was an insult.  I would like to do some more critiques of TV preachers, but really life is too short to sit through that drivel. Maybe one day...
A reflection on why bad music is good from Sept 2009
One of the regretably few anecdotes I have about my missionary/pastor grandfather inspired these thoughts about music.
Some biblical contradictions explored in Nov 2009
This was the first post linked to by one of the mega-blogs, whch saw a massive spike in hits to the blog . . . for that post only.  Then I learned, getting people to come to your blog once was no guarantee that they would return.
A first stab at a theology of scripture in Dec 2009
A subject dear to my heart and something I still feel contemporary Christians are all at sea about.  This post is hardly a life boat, but it is perhaps a first lesson in doggy paddle?
An coversation about vengeance and the gospel in March 2010
Sometimes my dander just gets up and I have to stick my oar in.  This was one of those times.It doesn't mean I think i'm right, it just means i'm agitated.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Love is NOT all you need

Richard Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament, (p202)  gives three reasons why "love" is inadequate as a unifying theme for NT ethics (and by implication why it is inadequate for ethics today).

1.  Mark, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation "resist any attempt to sythesze their moral visions by employing love as a focal image . . . Despite the powerful theological uses to which the motif of love is put by Paul and John, that motif cannot serve as the common denominator for New Testament Ethics."  Instead Hays suggests "community, cross and new creation."

2.  "What the New testament means by love is embodied in the concretely in the cross."  and so to treat love apart from the cross is to result in "conceptual abstraction, away from the specific image of the cross."

3.  "The term ["love"] has become debased in popular discourse; it has lost its power of discrimination, having become a cover for all manner of vapid self indulgence."  "We can recover the power of love only by insisting that love's meaning is to be discovered in the New Testament's story of Jesus - therefore, in the cross."

So who do you believe, Hays or the Beatles?

Are there really no imperfect people in heaven?

OK, quick rant here, in the last couple of months I have come across two different evangelistic messages (and it's not like I read a lot of them, being already converted and all!) which have as a central premise in their description of the human problem of sin the fact that we cannot get into Heaven because we are sinners and only perfect souls/people can get in.  There are huge problems with this for all sorts of reasons but the most glaring one is that such an idea contradicts the Bible even upon the most cursory and literalistic reading.

[The Ascension of Enoch, from here]

Three people are recorded in scripture as bodily going to Heaven to be with God.  Enoch (Gen 5:24), Elijah (2 Kigs 2:11), and Jesus (Acts 1:11).  How many of them were perfect, or were perfected before they were "taken up"?  I count one, the other two were presumably as flawed as the rest of us.  This fundamental tenent of some evangelistic tracts is thus fundamentally wrong.  Not being able to "get into Heaven" for one reason or another is not a part of the human problem.  If God wants you there, God is more than capable of getting you in!

Two Sermons on Sin

Well, often you hear people complaining that preachers never preach on sin, they just keep it light and fluffy and entertaining. Well, without consciously setting out to do so, I have preached the last two Sunday mornings on sin. The first was on 2:Kings 5 @ Waiheke Baptist and today's was on Acts 5:1-11 @ my home church, Mount Wellington Community Church.

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2 Kings 5, I did this one following the flow of the three sections of narrative calling attention to the "small things" on which the story turns:

Vs 1-7. The contrast between the mighty military commander Naaman afflicted with a nasty skin condition and the nameless Israelite slave girl who takes pity on him. And the contrast between the King (Jehoram?) of Israel's poverty of faith and that of the slave girl.

Vs 8-19. We then have Naaman learning about the god of Israel. A God who is no respecter of persons. Who cannot be bought. And yet who gives his grace and healing in return for the simplest of obediences. It is another nameless servant who convinces his master to humble himself to such a small deed. And Naaman is healed and is converted to the worship of the God of Israel.

Of course this is a great point to talk about how God saves us in Christ, something we could never buy or acheive but that is given to us in the simple act of obedience when we come to Christ to be cleansed of our sin - so that's exactly what I did.

So far so good, God at work in the little people and the small things, and an OT gospel message as an added extra. At this point we are all feeling pretty good. But this story has a sting in its tail . . .

Vs 20-27. Gehazi, Elisha's servant, doesn't get that Naaman is being taught about God and doesn't want him to get let off lightly. He tells a little lie and gets a little treasure. in doing so he undermines the lessons Naaman has been taught, makes out that God's grace is something that can be bought, and on the cheap at that. Then he tells another little lie to Elisha. His punishment, he gets stricken with Naaman's skin disease.

So, the small things matter, both the good and the bad. Don't despise the little people and the small deeds, and don't imagine the small sins don't matter either.

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Acts 5:1-11, I did a little differently to normal as it is one of those texts where I think we need to acknowledge our discomfort and difficulty.

First I talked about the contrast between our cuddly domesticated God and the "wild God" of the Bible, who is dangerous and does things we don't expect or like. Christian maturity comes when we still seek to know and serve God when it turns out he is not tame and may allow or even cause bad stuff to happen to us and the people we love.

Then I pointed out that most of the questions we tend to come to this text with simply aren't answered here. E.g. why did they die? or, why didn't Peter try to warn them or intercede for them? Instead we are really told two things with certainty.

Vs 3 & 9. As Jews who had the history and scriptures, they knew about their "wild God" and as Christians they knew they and the community had received the Holy Spirit, and yet they still lied. In that moment they were acting as atheists, as if God were not dangerous and as if the Holy Spirit were not in them. In many ways the surprise is not that they were treated so harshly but that the rest of us get off so lightly.

Vs 5 &11. What happened to Ananias and Saphira had the effect of inspiring reverent fear in the church. I took some time to explain the difference between that sort of fear (fobos - terror awe, respect, reverence) and the fear described in 2 Tim 1:7 (deilia- cowardice, timidity, weakness). It should not be so much a case of, “God is watching you so don’t do anything naughty!” but instead of, “God is with you, wow! Live a life that is holy!”

I finished up with the suggestion that the issue is what we fill our hearts with (vs 3) and that we need to cultivate our sensitivity to and awareness of the Spirit and guard against getting filled up with sinful desires. I almost used the Native American illustration of the two wolves but didn't at the last minute. I also majored on the importance of being a people of truth and scrupulous honesty. I felt the application of this one needed more work, it seemed to go a bit flat at the end, (although it may just have been me running out of blood sugar) but hopefully that is something people can do for themselves anyway, I just dig for treasure it is up to them how they spend it . . .

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So, there you go, two sermons on sin, exactly what it said on the tin.

Let me know what you think :-)

The Gospel for Eunuchs: A Sermon on Acts 8:26-40

Here is in rough outline the flow of thought from the sermon I preached this morning.

A man is returning home from coming to worship at Jerusalem, he is an official in charge of the treasuries of Ethiopia and as a sign of his prestige rides in a chariot. Philip, following the instructions of an Angel and the prompting of the Spirit runs over to the chariot and hears the man reading from Isaiah.

Why Isaiah?
The official is also a Eunuch. As a foreigner there would have been some restrictions on his worship at the Temple, but as a Eunuch he would have been considered ritually unclean (Deut 23:1, Lev 21:20) and it is unlikely he would even have been allowed into the Temple. And yet something about Judaism has attracted and convinced the Ethiopian eunuch to be a worshipper of Yahweh. Who knows, perhaps it was the attraction of a God who, in contrast to most other ancient deities, was neither sexual himself nor demanded sexual acts as part of his worship; perhaps it has some connection with the extraordinary fact of 120,00 Ethiopian Jews living in modern day Israel today, or perhaps this man had already had some touch of God's Spirit upon his life to draw him closer and prepare him for the revelation of Christ? That is all speculation, but what I do know is is that if I was a eunuch and a worshipper of Yahweh, my favourite scripture would be Isaiah 56:3-7. Here a eunuch finds an extraordinary promise that despite his deformity God would find him acceptable, that God could give him something even better than children and grandchildren, if he lived in covenant relationship with God.

Why Isaiah 53:7-8
So why was the eunuch reading this bit? As Christians we are used to reading this as being about Jesus. We read those words and we understand that the prophet spoke them pointing towards how the messiah would die on the cross. But for the Eunuch he must have been struck by how the experience described mirrored his own of being castrated... humiliation, injustice, his descendants destroyed before they ever had a chance to live, his life blood taken from the earth as the family tree finds a dead end in him. That's why the question for Philip is "who is this about?" It could have been about him.

How is the news about Jesus good news to this eunuch?
Philip starts with this passage. This passage that describes the messiah suffering humiliation, injustice, and destruction of his potential at the hands and for the purposes of others. But that was not the end of the story. Because despite what others had done to the messiah God contradicted all of that by raising Christ from the dead to eternal life. Because of Jesus enduring Isaiah 53:7-8 the day promised in Isaiah 56:5-7 was now dawning. Something better than children was being offered to the eunuch. Because everlasting acceptance and honour were his if he would live in covenant relationship with God through Jesus. The eunuch's final question to Philip is incredibly poignant "is there anything to stop me from being baptised?" All his life he had been prevented from worshipping, from acceptance, from being a whole human in a society in which having children was how you secured your immortality, and now his question is one final doubt.. "is there anything?" And Philip answers this question "no!" because in Jesus no deed done by us or to us can cut us off from God's acceptance and grace.

So what?
1.) This story shows us something of how the Spirit of God flows. Prompting and prodding us towards the eunuchs of the world, those whose lives are without hope or meaning by the world's estimation. The Spirit calls us to find them, walk alongside the, join them, find out where they are at with this God stuff, and then starting with where they are at, tell them the good news about Jesus Christ.

2.) It tells us too that those things of the world which we might be tempted to measure ourselves by, either positively or negatively, our offspring, our legacy, our success, are nothing compared to the being accepted by God and to enter into his eternal life. If we are willing to live in covenant relationship with God there is nothing to stop us, no matter who we are, what we have done, or what has been done to us by others.

Acts 1:1-11: Sermon Outline

Here is the outline of the sermon I preached this Sunday (08/02/09), questions for discussion at the bottom.

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all the Jesus began to do and teach from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the Kingdom of God. While staying with them he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

• Acts is a sequel, and like all good sequels starts with both a recap (of Jesus’ ministry on earth) and links the two parts together (how we got from A to B, from Christ to the Church).
• Jesus ministry/work is not finished with his earthly ministry, death, and ressurection, he still has more to do, Jesus the baptizer- see Luke 3:16 (this, of course, does not exhaust Jesus' "heavenly" ministry, see esp. Hebrews on that one).
• And the disciples’ job is to wait. Even after all that good teaching (pre and post ressurection), knowledge is not enough.

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

• Not only is knowledge not enough but it is not for us to have complete knowledge.
• It is not for us to have all the details of the end times, BUT it is for us to receive God's power to witness (to fulfil God’s saving mission in Jesus). We cannot all be evangelists, but we all must be witnesses.
• Holy Spirit is not wishy-washy feeling based nice churchy experience, but the Spirit of the living God that empowers our words and deeds to witness to the saving action of God in Jesus Christ. Spirit-ual not spiritual. Spirit-uality always comes from God then moves out from us to others.

When he has said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

• Understand God's story of salvation in Jesus and where we fit into it. Understand that we cannot play our part without the Holy Spirit's enabling. Know that this story ends with Jesus returning to earth and bringing heaven with him.
• Stop looking up to heaven wondering what the time is; it is time to be Christ's witnesses.
• Wait for the Holy Spirit. There is a time to go, and a time to wait. To receive first and then give from what we have received. How much time do you give for the Spirit to work and speak in your life, or are you just running around on empty wondering why nothing is happening?

Questions for discusion:

1. Can you find any other passages in Luke-Acts where the movement of the Spirit is outwards towards other people? Have you been aware of this movement at any point in your own life?
   
2. What does Luke mention in his 'recap' at the beggining of Acts and what does he miss out? Does this surprise you? What can we learn from this?
3. What does it mean practically to wait on the Holy Spirit as an individual, as a family, or as a church?
   

Preaching the Gospel

Over the summer I hope to revisit on the blog some talks I did earlier this year on 'how to read the Bible' and 'why preaching?' But till then, and continuing the theme of 'what is the Gospel?', there are some insightful thoughts from Paul Windsor's blog about lessons from Acts for preaching here. Enjoy :)

[updated 16/12/08] And here is a second post on a series Paul did on whole books of the Old Testament and linking them in different ways to Jesus of Nazareth.