Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] The Book of Acts in a Nutshell by Bart D. Ehrman Read by John Paul Middlesworth the Book of Acts is a truly important book for anyone interested in knowing how Christianity began. It is our only narrative of the spread of the faith in its first 30 years.
[00:00:17] Acts is a relatively long book about the size of its companion volume, the Gospel of Luke, and there is a lot going on in it. Have you ever read it all the way through? Do you know much about it? If not, this is the post for you. If so, then try to summarize the major themes and emphases of acts in one sentence of 50 words or less. Here's how I would do it today. A companion volume to the Gospel of Luke, Acts narrates the miraculous spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome, from Jew to Gentile, through the miraculous deeds and inspired preaching of Jesus, original apostles and the convert Paul, all empowered by the Spirit and in complete harmony with one another.
[00:01:01] In this post I'll unpack this statement and in the next one discuss who wrote the book, when and why.
[00:01:08] The full title, the Acts of the Apostles, is a bit of a misnomer. The book is not really about the activities of all of Jesus apostles after his resurrection. The opening chapters of the book focus on the activities and preaching of Peter, with some attention to John, but the final 2/3 of the book is almost entirely about the life and work of Paul, who converts to the faith. In chapter nine it is clear from the opening lines of Acts it is meant to be the second volume of a two volume work. Just as in the Gospel of Luke, the anonymous writer addresses the dedicatee Theophilus, reminding him that he has already written about what Jesus said and did. He is now going to continue the story starting right after the resurrection. We are told that Jesus spent 40 days with his disciples, providing them with many proofs that he was alive.
[00:01:57] It's not clear why he would have to prove it if he was talking to them, or why it would take 40 days.
[00:02:03] They ask him if now is the time the promised end will come when Israel will receive the kingdom. He tells them not to worry about the end. They are to be his witnesses to spread the Gospel throughout the world, so starting in Jerusalem and going to the ends of the earth. But first they must receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. Acts 1:8. That will be the theme of the book, the spread of the church from Jerusalem to the capital of the empire, Rome. This is our only account of the early years of the Christian movement, its mission, its internal struggles and Its massive success for Luke, as I'll continue to call him, even though we don't know his identity. The spread of the faith, both geographically and ethnically, from Jew to Gentile, was all part of God's plan. The delay of the end was not inadvertent. It was necessary to allow time for the world to convert. Moreover, it happened through the power of the Spirit himself, not by human planning, inventiveness, rhetoric, or force of will. The continuity of the two volumes of Luke and Acts can be seen in their shared themes. Among other things, what happens to the apostles in Acts reflects what happened to Jesus in Luke. Jesus receives the Spirit at his baptism. The disciples receive the Spirit at Pentecost. Acts 2 the Spirit empowers Jesus to do miracles and then does the same with the apostles. Like Jesus, they can heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. They are similarly rejected by Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who seek to kill them, sometimes succeeding other Jews repeatedly reject them. As a result, they take their message to Gentiles who are far more receptive. The Gospel story, in other words, did not end with the death and resurrection of Jesus. It continued on through the work of his apostles, as planned by God and empowered by the Spirit. Moreover, the apostles preach a message similar to Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is not a message of Jesus atoning death. Recall Luke, alone among the Gospels, does not speak of the crucifixion as an atoning sacrifice. In Luke, people are made right with God by repenting of their sins and asking for forgiveness, no price penalty atonement required.
[00:04:25] So too, when the apostles preach in Acts, whether Peter chapters 2 and 3 or Paul chapters 13 and 17, they do not say a word about Jesus dying for sins. Instead, his unjust execution drives people to realize they are sinners and they turn to God in repentance so that he will forgive them. Even Paul preaches this message in Acts in contrast to his own letters, especially Romans and Galatians, where he never talks about repenting for sins and being forgiven, but about Jesus bloody sacrifice for others.
[00:05:01] Acts portrays Paul as key to the success of the Christian mission. Possibly this is historically true. Here he is portrayed as a violent opponent of Jewish followers of Jesus intent on destroying the church. But Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus and he becomes his follower. Chapter 9. Most of the book is about how Paul takes Jesus message to Gentiles without requiring them to become Jewish when they accept the Jewish Messiah. This is a driving theme of Acts, just as it is in the letters of Paul himself. In his letters. Paul insists he received this message directly from Christ, not from the other apostles, and that in fact he had to persuade them out of it, not in Acts. Here it is Peter who has a vision from God that reveals that Gentiles can receive Christ's salvation without keeping the Jewish laws of kosher, circumcision, etc. And he immediately convinces the other apostles.
[00:05:59] Only after that does Paul begin his missionary work. Chapter 13 going on three major missionary journeys, converting Gentiles in major places such as Thessalonica, Philippi and Corinth. Acts stresses that the Spirit of God ensured the huge success of the mission to Gentiles and that all the apostles were in complete agreement about it. So too the Christian converts, many thousands of them, on the day of Pentecost and soon after they are completely unified, setting up a communal form of life where all shared with one another so no one was in need. Chapters three and four when problems did arise, they come to relatively quick and divine resolution, as one would expect in a community inspired by the Spirit. Persecutions nonetheless happen, and in the end, Paul himself is arrested because of Jewish opposition to him and his message in Jerusalem. Chapter 21 Most of the final eight chapters describe his time in captivity, where he makes repeated defenses of his actions and beliefs, showing that he has never broken the Jewish law or done anything to deserve punishment. These speeches allow Paul to preach the Gospel to Jewish and roman authorities. Chapters 22 through 26 eventually Paul realizes that he cannot get a fair trial, and so as, as a Roman citizen exercises his right to appeal for a trial before Caesar, he takes a harrowing journey to Rome involving a miraculous escape from shipwreck. Chapter 27 and the book ends with him arriving in rome and spending two years there in jail, preaching the gospel. Chapter 28 the major themes of Acts can thus be summed up as follows. It is principally about the spread of the Christian faith from Jerusalem to Rome and from Jew to Gentile, all according to God's plan, which cannot be thwarted through miracles and inspired preaching, as miraculously guided by the Holy Spirit, who brings complete unity to the apostolic band and harmony to the Christian communities, largely comprised of Gentiles who do not need to become Jewish as recognized just by Paul, but first by Peter and all the other apostles. Because this divine plan to convert Gentiles takes time, the end of the age was not ordained to come immediately. The convert Paul is the hero of this story as God's main instrument for converting Gentiles. Eventually he's opposed by Jewish authorities in Jerusalem and arrested but he can never be stopped. In the end, he continues to preach from prison in the heart of the Roman world.
