Road Trippin With Rachael

Keeping in mind what we discussed last time setting the scene for the Book of Acts, we are ready to launch into the scriptures themselves. 

To begin, I want to make sure that we are on the same page moving forward as we go through the the book. A few things to keep in mind: I’ll be covering only one or two chapters at a time. There is a lot that takes place, many characters we are introduced to that we need to know, and occasional shifts in focus as Luke is recording events. I want to try and avoid overload as we go through. Also as we go through, I think its important to keep the historic overview in mind as we are going through the book; much of what we see going through Acts, and the later epistles, needs to be viewed through a historic context and we need to be looking for the principles that apply to modern life. 

Now that we have some of this established, I think it is time that we begin to look at the Book of Acts. 

Establishing Credibility

As I stated in the previous post, the Book of Acts was written by Luke, who is also the author of the gospel that bears his name. As Acts is a letter being sent to someone, it’s important that Luke establish his credibility as a recorder of events. He does this in a few different ways.

First, Luke addresses the letter to a specific individual. By referencing someone specific, it confirms that Acts is a much a report as it is a story line of the history of the early church. It also indicates, that if someone later had questions about the content of the letter, someone would be able to contact the individual whom the letter was addressed. Granted, this doesn’t do much today if we have questions, but for the time that this was written, it adds credence to the letter. 

Second, Luke references things that are from the first letter. As with directing the letter to a specific person, referencing the letter previously written (the Gospel of Luke) also assumes that the person who is receiving this letter has previously read the other one. In the same way, I would recommending approaching Acts. I wouldn’t launch into it without have read the Gospel of Luke first. (Although I’m not following that order for this study, that is something I recommend). 

Third, Luke talks about events that are well known. Luke shares some details about the last days of Jesus before his ascension. He tells us that Jesus was around for forty days. He also tells us that Jesus commanded the people to remain in the area of Jerusalem – this is something that historically makes sense. When Pentacost came, which was also the end of another Jewish feast, the people who became Christians would then carry the Gospel out to other places. This coincides with Acts 1:8 “And you will be my [Jesus’] witnesses in Jerusalem, Juda and Samaria, and to the ends of the world” which is a compliment to Matthew 28:19. 

By Luke taking this approach at the very beginning and establishing historical events that others would know had taken place. We tend to think that the wold is a small place today, but the same could be said even during Pax Romana. The practice of the Jewish people traveling to Jerusalem for feast days at least once in their lives was not a new concept, so the dispersion of the Gospel after Pentacost makes sense given the cultural calendar and movement of people – much of which we discussed in the previous post. 

Maintaining Order

If you have ever seen multiples of any animal that doesn’t automatically move in packs, you have a pretty good idea what it would look like if there wasn’t some kindof sense of order immediately established at the start of the Church. Unfortunately, the Church really isn’t any different. Because it is made up of people, there needs to be a sense of organization. Since those who were a part of the church at the onset were members of the Jewish community, it makes sense that the structure of organization would take its cue from what these men knew. This includes two major decisions early on: having a mouth piece and keeping structure.

When it comes to having a mouth piece, the most obvious person for the job was Peter. Now, we can all say whatever we want – Peter was the best person for the job. He was already a mouthpiece for the apostles during Jesus’ ministry, and it seemed to be a natural occurrence for him to keep that position after Jesus’ ascension. This could have been because Peter was the eldest of the apostles, meaning the others would culturally defer to him anyway. Peter, for better or worse, does have the gift of gab when he wasn’t putting his foot in his mouth. If you go back throught he gospel accounts, you can see a maturing that takes place in Peter between Luke’s descriptions of him between his gospel and Acts. From a completely practical position, having a single person making the statements kept multiple voices from saying anything that could be contradictory. 

Once a spokesman was decided, the Church also needed a way to maintain order. Taking their cue from Moses in Exodus 18, the remaining eleven apostles decided to stick with the theme of twelve and select someone who would be able to sit among them in the early years of leadership -although, the Church would soon grow to the point that the office of deacon would eventually be added. As a result, they decided to replace the seat that had previously been held by Judas Iscariot. They established the parameters they were looking at and narrowed it down to two men, Barsabbas and Matthias, and ultimately selected Matthias (Acts 1:21-26).

In Conclusion…

Luke spent this first chapter establishing his authority for why he is supposed to be heard. He references a specific person to whom the letter is written, he references historical events that were witnessed by hundreds of people, and he demonstrates how words of Jesus were lining up with other recorders of the gospels. Additionally, we can also see how order was being established early on. Although it would be nice to believe that even at the very inseptionof the church we didn’t need to have a pecking order (so to speak), but we are human and it works better to have one person established as a mouthpiece, and for there to be a plan in place for handling other parts of management. Hence the reason Judas’ place was filled by Matthias – they wanted to maintain some order that the Jewish people who were recent converts would be familiar with.