Monday, November 29, 2010

Acts 3:11-16

Peter Speaks to the Onlookers
11 While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade. 12 When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. 14 You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. 16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.



Dig Deeper
There is a classic old story about a Sunday School teacher who was trying to teach his class an important object lesson that they would use throughout their class that day. He started out by saying, “I'm going to describe something, and I want you to raise your hand when you know what it is.” The children nodded eagerly. “This thing lives in trees (pause) and eats nuts (long pause).” No hands went up. “And it is gray (pause) and has a long bushy tail (long pause).” The children were looking at each other, but still no hands raised. The teacher continued, “and it jumps from branch to branch (pause) and chatters and flips its tail when it's excited (long pause).” Finally one little boy tentatively raised his hand. The teacher breathed a sigh of relief and called on him. “Well,” said the boy, “I know the answer must be Jesus. . . but is sure sounds like a squirrel to me!”

This humorous little story drives homes the point of the ultimate importance of Jesus in the Christian community. At some level or another it seems that Jesus is the answer to every question, as this little boy assumed. We know that Jesus is the source and sustainer, through the Spirit, of our life in Christ and, as Christians, we are quick to give him all of the praise and glory. For instance, when another Christian praises something we do, most of us get to the point where we at least instinctively know that we should deflect that praise immediately to Jesus. He is the one that deserves any credit that we might get. This is exactly how Peter and John responded in the aftermath of the incredible miracle that came upon the beggar from the previous section.

John and Peter have just healed a man, lame from birth, and enabled him to walk. It is understandable, I suppose, that as they entered into the Temple, specifically the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade, an area that the early Christians evidently congregated in quite often, the crowds of Israelites pressed in around them. They all wanted to see this miraculous event and get a glimpse of this formerly lame man that was probably a familiar site to those who regularly went to the Temple as he walked around and praised God. The Israelites were apparently following into the normal human trap of praising the man rather than God. But Peter and John wanted none of this. They were in just as much awe as everyone else.

It reminds me of a recent situation where a friend of mine came over to help me fix my oven which was not working properly. He called the manufacturer who told him a little trick to reset the oven and get it working properly. When he came over, he pushed a button, turned a knob, and lo and behold, it worked. I was amazed and thanked him intensely, but he was just as amazed. He repeated over and over that it wasn’t him. He didn’t even really know what he did. He had simply appealed to someone who had the proper knowledge and who had told him how to do it. In the same way, Peter and John knew that they were nothing special and had done nothing amazing through their own ability. They just happened to know someone with the power to do such amazing things. They were simply the conduits not the power source.

It was the misconception that Peter, John, and any of the other apostles were great and powerful men in and of themselves that Peter wanted to clear up. Peter and the others had no mistake about this. They were present during the repeated times when Jesus warned them that they would fail him and even deny him when the crucible of crucifixion came. Peter had vociferously denied ever abandoning Jesus. He knew that he would follow him unto death (Lk. 22:33) and so did the others (Jn. 11:16). But when the time came they had indeed failed. They faltered, they ran, they hid, and Peter had straight up denied even knowing Jesus. After his death, they locked themselves up in an upper room and cowered. But then they had experienced the pouring out of the Spirit and the power and strength that had come upon them. They experienced the effects of the Spirit that had transformed them from a cowering and defeated group of men and women into men and women who boldly stood up and pronounced that Jesus had risen from the dead and that he was the true King of the world. The Spirit transformed them into men through whom God’s power was flowing so strongly that they could command a lame man to stand up and walk in the name of Jesus and he had. So, they were under no self-delusions that they were great men in any way. They knew that they were just simple men through whom God had chosen to work.

This is such a stark reminder for those of who do so much less incredible things for God and yet yearn for the attention and accolades that come with the tiny things that we do. How many times do we wait for our name to be mentioned, or wait for recognition, and do little manipulative things so that other people will notice what we have done all the while we pretend that we don’t want to be noticed? All the glory and praise should go to God. That cannot just become something trite that we say. We need to be as horrified as Peter and John were if people incorrectly want to give us applause and praise that go to God. It all belongs to God and to steal any of his glory is theft.

Peter said that this was the work of God, period. It was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who did this. This formal way of referring to God goes back to Exodus 3:6 in the account of the burning bush as God revealed himself to Moses and told him of how he was going to free his people. This was the mighty God working through his servant Jesus. By referring to Jesus specifically as the servant of God, Peter connected him with the book of Isaiah which details the plight of God’s suffering servant (chs. 42-55), the one who would represent Israel and fulfill God’s plan to take the afflictions of the sin of the whole world on to himself and remain faithful to God’s plan. Thus, Peter has connected Jesus to the God that frees his people from their bondage and the servant that would suffer as a representative for all men, and he insists that it was none other than Jesus, the Messiah, who was bringing both of those themes to bear in the world once again in new and powerful ways.

The reality of who Jesus was, declared Peter, was extremely ironic. The Jewish people had the choice given to them by Pilate to have the Holy and Righteous one released or to have a known murderer let go. The choice was between one who did God’s will perfectly or one who typified everything about going against God’s will and going the way of violent revolution that Jesus repeatedly warned Israel against. They chose poorly and asked Pilate to release Barabbas rather than Jesus. They had a choice between one who took lives and the one who gives life as the Author of life.

The irony continues, though, in that it was not just a matter of a choice between a taker of life and the giver of life. They did actually take the life of the Author of life, but God showed who was really in charge. They tried to erase the author of life but God wrote a book that will never disappear when he resurrected Jesus from the dead. Through the power of God, Jesus thoroughly defeated death and it was their job to be witnesses to that fact. In essence, sharing the Christian faith is the reality of being a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The apostles were witnesses to the physical resurrection of Jesus that left the tomb empty, a truth to which Christians today can obviously not personally testify. Yet, as we die to self and enter into the life of the Messiah, sharing in his death, burial, resurrection, and life, then we too become witnesses to the resurrection of Christ and the power that it has had in our lives. That is why Paul insisted that Christians have the very same Spirit living within us that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11).

So how was this man healed? It was the power of God working through the name of Jesus. When Jesus walked out of that tomb on the Sunday following his crucifixion, God’s future age came crashing through in the resurrected person of Jesus Christ. It was in the life of Christ and his name and authority where the eternal life of the resurrected age could be found. It seems that everywhere humans came into contact with that name, they felt the powerful effects of this new and eternal life. Those who were baptized into that name would receive forgiveness of sins and God’s own Spirit within them (Acts 2:38), both earmarks of the life of the age to come. This man, who had faith in the name had the new life rush through is body and make him whole, demonstrating in a physical way the kind of spiritual life that would be available in the life of Christ. What we must never forget is that the power of that name and life are just as real and needed in the twenty-first century as they were in the first century.



Devotional Thought
Can you identify with the temptation that so many humans have to allow attention to focus on themselves rather than tirelessly direct the praise to God where it belongs? Spend some time today thinking about whether you have occasionally fallen prey to that and what you can do to give the glory where it is due.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Acts 3:1-10

Peter Heals a Lame Beggar
1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.

6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.



Dig Deeper
I have a friend whom I admire very much. He is a brilliantly intelligent young man who is incredibly kind and talented and has a deep and abiding love for God. When he’s around, he can be very quiet but he’s always a joy to have around because when he does talk he adds life to any setting. What sets my friend apart is that he struggles with muscular dystrophy which keeps him confined to a wheelchair. He doesn’t let that limit him, though, as he is still one of the most faithful disciples you could ever meet. He is full of wit, charm, and life and it’s just not the same when he’s not around.

Sadly, though, I recall him telling me a couple of years ago that going out in public places like his school at that time could be tough. When I asked him what was tough about it, I admittedly was not expecting the answer he gave me. He didn’t talk about the difficulty of getting to places in his wheel chair or the challenges of navigating his way around public places. He shared with me that the most difficult aspect for him is when people ignore him. He could go out in public or even to school and find that people wouldn’t look at him, talk to him, or even acknowledge that he was there as though he was somehow less than a human being. The sad reality of this sort of dehumanizing behavior is that it is their loss. Not only are the missing out the chance to get to know this incredible young man, they are really dehumanizing themselves as well as they engage in this behavior that dehumanizes my friend.

It’s easy, I suppose, to read or hear about something like that and get outraged, but before we get to worked up, we should probably take a moment to consider whether or not we do similar things. How many times have we walked by a maintenance worker or a beggar and not even looked at them, let alone not talked to them, because their whole situation just made us feel uncomfortable?

I would imagine that the man described by Luke, the man who was begging at the gate of the Temple, was quite used to that sort of dehumanizing behavior. He would have been a regular at that spot where visitors to the Temple could have passed by him each and everyday They surely got used to his normal plea for mercy and requests for money. We should remember, though, that it wasn’t as if this man was completely ostracized by his community. He had friends who brought him to the Temple gate every single day and then came at night to carry him back to his house. They were doing the best they could for him but there were virtually no other options for the physically disabled in those times other than to beg for money on a daily basis. He did have those who loved and helped him but it doesn’t take much imagination to believe that this man sat there day after day as people streamed by him. Some might have glanced quickly without looking him in the eye or taking time to stop and talk and would just quickly drop a coin onto his cloak. Others probably hurried their gait a bit to get by him faster without stopping to look at him or give him anything. When we treat others with contempt or we even just ignore them, we rob them of their dignity and humanity. Without “doing” anything we can absolutely strip someone of their humanity. That seems to be one of the points that Luke wants to bring out in this passage. God’s new family was not just some religious group, they were his restored humanity, called to act in a way that brought and demonstrated to the world what it looked like when people committed themselves to doing things God’s way and to leave behind, as best they could in this present age, the dehumanizing behaviors of sin.

Peter and John were going through what had apparently become their normal routine as they went to the Temple each day to meet together with the Christian community (Acts 2:46). They were making their way to the normal time of afternoon prayer when they saw the common sight of a beggar asking for money. Luke doesn’t tell us if this was somehow the first time that Peter and John had come across this man or if he called out to them specifically for help because they had been generous with him before. Whatever the case may have been, he was simply asking for them to give him some money. He was about to get far more than he had ever bargained for. Luke mentioned the signs and wonders of the apostles in 2:43 and now he will give us a specific example of one of those signs and wonders.

The man was used to people walking by him and dropping money down without ever stopping or looking at him but this day would be different. Luke saw great significance in the fact that Peter and John stopped and they looked at this man. They didn’t just glance in his direction; they looked straight at him, into his eyes, and did not look away. In fact they told him to look back at them. This was different. Why would they have been calling him to look up at them directly? If the man at the gate thought that perhaps they were going to give him an extra generous donation, he was wrong. The first thing they did for him was that simple act of looking at him intently. Just as Jesus brought his humanizing touch to the lepers who had been cast off from society and dehumanized in nearly every way, so did Peter and John demonstrate the humanizing behavior that should be a primary characteristic of God’s kingdom (that is not to argue that only Christians can act in humanizing ways or that Christians always do so but it is the pattern that Christians are called to embody).

Peter didn’t have what this man wanted, silver or gold, but he only wanted those things because he didn’t know that something far superior was available. Peter didn’t have the wealth of the present age but he did have a sample of God’s age to come. That’s, after all, what miracles really were. They were a demonstration of God’s power as the wholeness and restoration of that future age broke into the present realm in a manner that was outside of the physical laws of the present age. Peter then did more than just look at this man and confer dignity to him, he reached out grabbed his hand and ordered him to get up and walk in the name of Christ. This was no magic trick. Peter was appealing to the authority of the one who had been given all authority (Matt. 28:18). He was appealing to the power of the name that is above every name (Phil. 2:9). In first century vernacular, to appeal to someone’s name meant to invoke the entirety of their character, authority, and life. Peter was, in reality, appealing to the life of Christ which was the life of wholeness of the age to come, eternal life. He was giving this man a physical sample of the age to come and we can only imagine his full response as he rose to his feet and for the first time in his life felt that his ankles were not buckling under his weight but they were firmly and strongly holding him up. He no doubt felt the strength and power surge through his legs and he walked. This was a true miracle that could be seen and verified by all.

As he continued to feel joy and strength pulse through his body, the man took a walk that was far more significant than just being the first time he had ever walked. Based on Levitical law (Lev. 21:17-20) this man would have been quite unable to take part in full Temple life. He faced a life of being cut off from the fullness of God’s people and his Temple but now he had been healed. Peter had brought him his full dignity and humanity and would accompany him on his walk into the Temple. He was a living, breathing fulfillment of God’s promise that “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. . . . only the redeemed will walk there, and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isa. 35:6-10).

When Peter, John, and the man walked in to the Temple courts together, the miracle was undeniable. The people were well familiar with this man. Many of them passed by him on a regular basis and had probably seen him for years. This was not some claimed but largely unverifiable “miracle”. Here was a man who was unable to walk now strolling around among them and praising God. Jesus’ power and the evidence that he was indeed the Messiah had been made manifest through his apostles once again and the people were amazed. He had come in contact with Jesus through those that submitted themselves to his name and the power of God had flowed into his life. Not everyone will be able to stand and be physically healed but the truth remains the same that when we come in contact with Jesus’ life, our lives are made whole and will never be the same again.


Devotional Thought
Peter and John didn’t have the kind of wealth to contribute that this man was looking for but they could share what they had of Jesus with him. Are you willing to do the same with those in your life that need to truly know Jesus and the power of his name and life? How can you demonstrate or share about that power today with someone else?

Monday, November 22, 2010

Acts 2:42-47

The Fellowship of the Believers
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.


Dig Deeper
Quite a few years ago my wife and I made the decision to invite one of her younger cousins to move to the state in which we live and come join our family for a few years until he could complete high school. This was before our youngest son was born and our oldest son was five at the time so he was pretty excited about the idea of having his 16 year old cousin move in with his. The young man was a pretty good kid who was raised well by his single mom. He had several adjustments to make with this big move, but the biggest for him was to join in the life of our family which was quite different from what he had experienced living with a single mom that often had to work long hours. It was difficult for him to become part of a very involved family when he had gotten used to doing what he wanted when he wanted for the most part. In short, he had to learn to adjust to family life, at least the Burns’ version of family life. It was not something that he had been familiar with but he learned pretty quickly that part of being in a family meant participating in the central aspects of the life of that family.

That is not just true of my family. All families have a rhythm and pattern to their family life, good or bad I suppose. There are just certain expectations that almost all families have and each member knows what it looks like, for the most part, to be part of that family. The early church was no different. They were a family. God always promised that he would remedy the problem of sin through a family of all nations and that is exactly what he delivered in Christ.

As the first group of Jewish believers responded to God’s incredible call to become part of his family, Luke gives us the amazing details of their response. If Jesus came to bring about the church as a religious institution that individuals chose to attend on Sunday mornings, as we have so often reduced the church to in our culture, then this scene makes little sense. The first century had many different kinds of religions and religious groups of all shapes and sizes but virtually none of them looked anything like this. This is just not like anything that would normally be seen as the characteristic behavior of a religious group. In fact, it was rather strange behavior for a religious group. The challenge for us is that Luke’s description of the early Christian community often doesn’t sound very much like our churches today either. Churches in the twenty-first century world tend to look a lot more like a religion than they do families.

Families in that culture shared their lives together. They were committed to teaching and training one another in the word of God (see Deuteronomy 6 for example). They prayed together every day. They ate together. They made decisions together. They made sure that everyone had enough and if they didn’t then everyone else pitched in and shared to make sure that they did. Acts 2:42-47 is the perfect picture of a large group of people that were becoming a family, sharing their lives, and forging a common identity.

The first thing that we are told in Acts 2:42 was that they devoted themselves to was the apostle’s teaching. We don’t have the space here to fully consider what that teaching consisted of, but it is a fair bet to assume that Peter’s Pentecost sermon, using the Old Testament Scriptures to demonstrate Jesus as the resurrected Messiah who demanded the loyalty of the world as its true king, serves as a good outline for much of the early teaching.

The first church family was devoted to the apostle’s teaching but doesn’t that sound like something that a religious group would do? Yes and no. Certainly most religions are committed to some type of central teaching or holy book but within Judaism, from where virtually all of the first believers came, the primary means for learning the Scriptures came from within the family as was called for in Deuteronomy 6:6-9: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Family was the context for devotion to the word of God and it would be no different in the Christian family. They surely continued to take up the charge to learn Scripture and wrestle with the apostle’s teachings in their smaller family groups, but because they all saw themselves as family, they devoted themselves to doing this within their group. So the early church took one important element of Judaism and applied it to their new community, but as we will see, they went far beyond just a family-centered devotion to the Scriptures. They applied the family model to every area of their common lives, something that Judaism did not do.

The next area of devotion was fellowship. Fellowship is a somewhat vague term that does not have one specific meaning and perhaps that’s exactly what Luke intended. They weren’t just devoted to specific weekly gatherings like synagogue services or a specific Sabbath-type day, although they did have special worship gatherings and a day of focused worship, which from the very beginning was on Sunday because that was the day that the Lord was resurrected. The word used for fellowship here is “koinonia.” The word had many applications but in its broadest form it meant the sharing of one’s life. They were sharing their lives and everything about their lives because, again, that’s just what families did. They shared everything to the point where their lives where inextricably intertwined. In fact, it is this word “koinonia” that is translated as “partnership” in Philemon 6 where Paul argues that fully embracing this intertwined life will lead to a full understanding of every good thing that we have in Christ.

This seems almost completely foreign as we look at the landscape of twenty-first century Christianity. We have largely lost devotion to fellowship, to the intertwining of our lives. Our Western minds are so committed to our lives and our own little bastions of privacy that it almost seems offensive to many people to suggest the kind of common life that the early church shared but if they were devoted to it, why should we not be? What might happen if we truly went after being devoted to throwing our lives in together like this? What would it demand of us? What would be the spiritual benefits? These are all questions that I believe can only be answered fully within each individual church family but questions that need to be asked and answered.

The third area of devotion was the breaking of bread. This could include both the regular eating of meals together but also the more specific meal that we call the Lord’s Supper. At first glance the Lord’s Supper doesn’t seem like a family type meal but in the first century that’s exactly what it was. The Supper that Jesus gave his disciples was a new Passover meal, in essence, and the Passover was a meal that was eaten in families so as to remind God’s people what he did for them to give them freedom and create them as his family, his people. That’s precisely what the Lord’s Supper was. It was a reminder to God’s people of what Jesus did for them to create them as a family.

The fourth area of devotion was in the area of prayer. It certainly should come as no surprise that Jesus’ family was one that was dedicated to praying with one another. Their life in Christ was not just some individual spiritual endeavor. In each of these areas of devotion of the Christian community they approached these things as community not individuals. It was Jesus himself, after all, who had taught his disciples that when they prayed they should pray to “our” father who would give us “our” daily bread, forgive “our” debts, and to keep “us” from falling into temptation and the clutches of the evil one.

The records of the early church show them both praying both individually and in groups or as an entire body, but it seems quite apparent that their regular prayers were much more of the central focus than were individual prayers. The early Christians prayed together frequently and they prayed from a group mindset much of the time. This is a challenge for us who are trained to often think almost exclusively in individual terms. It doesn’t mean that it is wrong to pray alone or to pray for our own individual needs, but it certainly is a challenge to regain some of the devotion of the early church to communal prayer.

This new family was together constantly and they were strengthened by the signs and wonders that were performed by the apostles. God had poured out his Spirit in a new way which explains the presence of the miracles. The vast majority of biblical miracles are confined to short periods of time when God offered miraculous verification that he was indeed working in a new way. Although the miracles of the early church weren’t limited exclusively to apostles, that is where they were centered. With this new revelation of God’s people in Christ and the establishment of the New Testament, the need for verifying miracles slowly faded. Appealing to the presence of these verifying signs and wonders, then, as a justification that a true church today will also have these same kinds of signs and wonders is quite problematic. God is capable of miracles whenever and wherever he would like but we must remember that the usual purpose of miracles coming specifically through humans was to verify new revelation and was generally limited to small periods of time. This means that we can certainly pray for miracles from God but it seems unlikely that God would continue to establish communities where people regularly perform miracles due to the obvious fact that Jesus Christ and the New Testament have been clearly established as God’s final revelations.

As a sign of their devotion to God’s family and their love for one another, the believers shared everything they had. They took a radical view of their wealth and possessions by applying a family ethic of common possessions to the group of believers. This was their new family and they would act like it. This was such an important aspect in the early church, that we will consider it much more fully when we come to Acts 4:32-37. Luke ends this passage with an important note, though. As they continued to act like a devoted family, the Lord added to their number daily. It is a reminder that when God’s people love one another and act obediently he will bless them.


Devotional Thought
Are you truly committed to a body of believers as your primary family? Does your church family have the kind of family devotion that we see pictured here in Acts? What can you do today to help increase these things in your church family or bring them about if they’re not there yet?

Friday, November 19, 2010

Acts 2:37-41

37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.




Dig Deeper
Some people seem to have a natural sense of direction wherever they. At any given point and time they seem to know exactly where the cardinal directions are and how to get where they want to go even if they have never been there before. I am the exact opposite of those people. I have no sense of direction at all, can easily forget how to get to places that I have already been many times, and can get lost almost anywhere. I recall one incident in particular when I was driving somewhere that I had not been before. I had the directions written down telling me where I wanted to go but when I came to one turn I had to make to get on a highway, the directions simply said to get on that highway without indicating whether I should go North or South. I probably should have been able to figure out the right direction but knowing that I’m terrible at that sort of thing, I just guessed. I quickly realized that I had chosen the wrong direction and needed to turn around, but then things got worse. As I was looking for an exit at which I could turn around I saw a sign that said that the next exit was 20 miles down the road. It’s a sinking feeling to know that you are going in the wrong direction and cannot turn around.

A major part of Jesus’ ministry, one that Luke stressed even more than the other gospel writers and one that is often missed, is Jesus’ constant warnings to the children of Israel as a nation. They were heading in the wrong direction. They were believing that God would exalt them no matter what and that someday the Messiah would come and defeat their enemies, namely the Romans. Because of that belief they moved closer to war with Rome all the time believing that God would give them victory. Jesus constantly and firmly warned them that this was not the way and it was not God’s plan. If they continued going down that road any longer they would soon find that there were no exits where they could turn around and that the only thing that awaited them was destruction. Jesus’ death was the final exit for the nation as a whole. There was no turning around now. What can be worse than finding out that the next exit is twenty miles down? It is to find out that there are no more exits at all.

Jesus had warned that if Israel did not turn off of the path on which they were heading that things would end with the judgment of God pouring out on them in no uncertain terms. This is what would happen to God’s people if they rejected his way and substituted it with their own. Yet, the message of the Cross was stunning in its implications. Jesus, as the Messiah, was not only the true king of Israel, he would also serve as their representative and take on the very wrath and judgment of God that was due to them. He went into Jerusalem, the very city where he promised the judgment would be poured out, and took it on himself so that they would not have to bear the brunt of it.

He was the Messiah. He was the one that God had promised and had sent to fulfill all of God’s promises (2 Cor. 1:20). Jesus was the one that could bring salvation and reconciliation to the people who would embrace God’s plan and come to faith in Jesus. It was too late for the nation of Israel as a whole but anyone who would believe in Christ as Messiah and Lord could receive a pardon and turn around. As Peter declared all of this, the hearts of many were moved. God had promised that one day he would remove the stone hearts of his people and give them a new heart of flesh animated by his own Spirit. Now they were cut to the heart and those that responded to God’s plan could receive what God had promised. They had been moved in their hearts and wanted to know what they could possibly do.

Realistically what could they expect? Would it have been that shocking if Peter replied that there was nothing that they could? Would it have been completely unexpected if he said that they had killed the Messiah and now the only thing that their generation could do was to expect judgment? But that’s not the response they heard from Peter. They would not be treated as they deserved. The reality was almost beyond belief. They had killed God’s Son and would now be offered sonship. They had taken the life of the Messiah but would be offered eternal life. They had tried to seize the vineyard and take the inheritance for their own and would now be offered the full rights of co-heirs. They had turned their hearts from God and hardened them and now God was offering to give them completely new hearts.

How should they respond then? Peter offers two conditions and two results, but in both cases they can almost be said to be one-in-the-same because the two conditions are inseparable from one another just as the two results are inseparable from one another. Baptism was not unknown to the Jewish people. It appears that Jewish converts by the first century were being baptized to signify their purification as they became Jews and John the Baptist had called people to be baptized to identify themselves with the repentance and forgiveness of sins that was to come as they aligned themselves with the new thing that God was doing in the world.

Repentance was not merely a desire to try something new. It was a complete change of mind and to turn one’s entire life in the opposite direction. It meant to leave behind one’s life and way of doing things and enter into the life of the Messiah. Luke seems to make no effort, try as many might have since then, to separate repentance and baptism. They cannot be separated as one is contingent upon the other. To repent and show faith in the life of Christ over one’s own is to submit to baptism into his life. But this is no magic ceremony. Baptism without repentance and true faith in Christ is little more than a bath.

What set this baptism apart was that it offered the ability to enter into the life of Christ and brought with it the fulfillment of God’s promises to deal with the sin of his people once-and-for-all. Being baptized into Christ would bring with it the incredible mercy and grace of God, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who enter into Christ will find themselves hidden in Christ (Col. 3:3) and clothed in him (Gal. 3:27).

It has become increasingly popular in the last two centuries to marginalize the necessity of baptism, as it has been relegated to the status of a symbolic act, despite any lack of scriptural citation to make such an assertion, as well as the high place given baptism in the Scriptures themselves. Paul places the one baptism (it is clear that Paul said “one” and meant “one” despite modern claims by some that there are actually three different baptisms) into Christ with pretty lofty company such as the one faith, one Lord, one Spirit and one Father (Eph. 4:4-6). Luke will later go in to make it clear in Acts that the symbolic baptism of John was not adequate (Acts 18:24-19:7), nor was the simple act of prayer to receive the forgiveness of one’s sins (Acts 22:16). The early church continued that same view of the necessity of responding to God’s offer of mercy by being baptized. The late first century work, Shepherd of Hermas, a highly respected work in the early church, states “[T]here is no other repentance than that which takes place, when we descended into the water and received the remission of our former sins.” Similalry, second century church leader Justin Martyr wrote that “Accordingly, we have believed and testify that the very baptism which he announced is alone able to purify those who have repented. And this is the water of life. . .” While writing around 180 AD, church leader Irenaeus argued that the Gnostics, false Christians according to the early church had actually been “instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God.” We would be wrong, though, to think of baptism as a simple ritual. It is a birth (Jn. 3:5). It is the incredible moment when God allows a repentant sinner to move from the family of fallen humanity and be born again into his new family (see Rom. 6:1-14).

Although this incredible offer of grace was being given to individual Jews and would eventually spread to be announced to all the nations of the world, it was much more than just personal salvation. Salvation is an individual event but we are saved into a body, into God’s family. This is likely what Peter meant by declaring that the promise that God was making available was for them and their children and even those who were far off. Peter’s audience that day would likely have understood him to be referring to Jews that were scattered around the world far off but the part about the promise being for them and their children would have been clear. This wasn’t a reference to infant baptism (something that proponents of that doctrine often claim) which would contradict Peter’s conditions for the promise, namely repentance and a baptism of faith into the life of Christ. As infants can neither repent or have faith we can safely conclude that baptism into Christ and the reception of the Holy Spirit is not something that can truly be available to infants. What Peter was likely referring to was the formation of those who accepted his message into the family of God. He wasn’t just issuing a call to a new sect of Judaism or any other religious group. They were becoming the people of God and were receiving the same kinds of promises that God had given to an obedient Israel (Deut. 6:1-3). The choice was theirs: they could enter into God’s promised family or remain as part of the corrupt generation, a phrase that connected them with the Exodus generation that rebelled against God (Deut. 32:5, 20), and a concept that came to be connected with those that rejected Christ (Matt. 12:39, 45; 16:4; 17:7; LK. 9:41; 11:29).

About 3,000 people present that day responded to Peter’s message through the faith of repentance and baptism. Some critics have argued that this is an unrealistic number but recent scholarship has demonstrated that the population of Jerusalem was likely approaching 200,000 plus all of the festival’s pilgrims. In addition, recent archaeology has shown that there were more than enough pools present around the Temple to accommodate all of the baptisms in short order. Truly Jesus’ promise to them that because he was ascending to the Father and sending the Spirit that they would do even greater things than he had done (Jn. 14:12) had begun to be fulfilled. As amazing as this day was, it was just the beginning of God’s great reconciliation project with the family of fallen humanity, a task that continues to this day.



Devotional Thought
Peter placed repentance in the category of something that was needed in order to enter into the family of the Messiah. To repent means to totally turn one’s life in the other direction. It means to live the life of Christ rather than the life of our own identity. It is something that we must continue in constantly (1 Cor. 15:31) as Jesus called people to the standard of carrying their cross daily (Lk. 9:23). Have you continued in the way of repentance and dying to self or have you try to resurrect the dead of your old self?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Acts 2:22-36

22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25 David said about him:

“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’[e]

29 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
35 until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’[f]

36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”



Dig Deeper
Our youngest son has an absolute knack for asking mind-numbingly difficult questions to answer. He’s especially skilled at doing so when you are most tired and feel the least like doing any sort of mental wrangling to explain some inquiry that he has cooked up in his over-active little mind. Recently he was insistent on wanting me to explain what the government is. You might think that sounds like an easy question but try explaining to a seven year old what government is in a way that will properly satisfy his inquisitiveness. I was doing a particularly poor job of explaining to his young mind the vast wonders of government with all of its elected officials, bureaucracies, and seemingly infinitely expanding powers.

As I was failing disastrously in my meager attempts to explain to him exactly what government is, he looked up at me with his brow furrowed and asked “so, what I really want to know is where is the government?” That threw me back for a moment. Once again, that’s a difficult question to answer. After stumbling around for a moment I finally explained to him that government is more of an entity of ideas and laws that has people all over a particular region or country that work for the government but that there is no particular place that a government is at. The reason I couldn’t explain is because he was making a category mistake. Asking where a government is at assumes that it is a type of thing which it is not. He was not satisfied with that, however, and I knew that I was going to have to find a way to stay within the reality of the situation (I didn’t feel like I could just say that the government is in Washington DC and be done with it because that would be to present the government as something that it is not) and still explain it to him in a way that was satisfactory to him in the moment. Finally, I said, “Government is the direction and control exercised over a specific community and in our country government is by the people and for the people so that means that the government is in each of our minds and hearts.” He either understood what I was saying or had just given up by that point because he just turned around and walked away.

The problem that he was having was that of a category mistake. A category mistake is when we talk of something in terms that really only apply to something of a completely different kind. For the average Jew, the gospel message that Peter preached on Pentecost and that the early church continued to preach seemed like just such a category mistake. They were preaching that Jesus was the Messiah but that he had been crucified. That was impossible in their minds. The Messiah would be a victorious conqueror who led God’s people out of oppression. To speak of a Messiah that was killed by the Romans was a pure category mistake. If he was crucified then he simply could not be Messiah. Theologian Gordon Fee has said that this category mistake would have made as much sense to early Jews as it would seem to talk about “fried ice.”

If the Christians were going to declare that Jesus had indeed been crucified at the hands of the Romans and that he was the true Messiah sent from God they were going to have to come up with some way to explain it so as to remove this stumbling block for those that were open to truth. They had to show that Jesus did die on the Cross but that this was exactly what was supposed to happen and what had to happen in order for God’s word to be shown to be true and reliable.

The first thing that Peter does to lay common ground is to establish that Jesus was indeed a man from Nazareth just as they supposed him to be. They were not making any wild-eyed claims about Jesus but were going to talk realistically about who he was and stick to the facts. He had, however, done incredible miracles, signs, and wonders among them. That much never really seems to have been in dispute. Even those who wished to discredit Jesus during his lifetime and thereafter didn’t claim that he had not done amazing things. They simply argued for a malevolent source of his abilities rather than the power of God. Peter didn’t try to convince them that the miracles and signs were from God, he simply stated that they were. Jesus had already quite ably answered that objection (Lk. 11:14-20) and Peter felt no need to improve upon that answer (although he may have dealt with that issue using just such an argument and Luke chose not to include it in his summation of Peter’s speech for the very reason that he did already address that in the book of Luke).

The next plank in his argument was vital to Jewish acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. All of those who had a hand in Jesus’ death were guilty of evil acts of rebellion against God, yet at the same time, all of this was part of God’s will. What we see Peter arguing is the incredible co-mingling of man’s free will and God’s sovereignty. Those who were responsible for Jesus dying on the Cross really did act wickedly but God knew the wickedness of man and would use it to further rather than subvert his plans. God knows how powerful evil can be but he is greater. He sucked the power from evil and nullified it by sending Jesus to take on the very worst that humans acting in opposition to good could muster up, the violent death of a perfect and sinless human being who was sent by God himself. God, embodied in the Messiah himself, took the full force of human evil straight onto himself and delivered it a death blow.

God allowed Jesus to die on the Cross but it wasn’t a sign of his displeasure. And then God raised him from the dead to confirm what the miracles had been pointing to all along. Jesus was from God. Peter used stunningly powerful language when he said that God freed Jesus from the “agony” of death. The word translated “agony” was actually the specific word used for labor pains. Peter’s powerful point, then, was to give a picture of death itself in the throes of labor unable to hold back the Messiah, who burst forth from death, not as a ghost or some spiritual entity after death. Jesus walked into death and defeated it. He physically rose from the dead and left no body behind in his tomb or anywhere else. Death couldn’t hold him anymore than a pregnant woman can stop a child from coming.

Their mistake was in thinking that the Messiah could not taste death. There was no category mistake when it came to a dying Messiah. It wasn’t that he couldn’t die according to God’s will, it was that death could not keep its hold on him. That is the point that Peter makes in verse 25-28 as he quotes from Psalm 16:8-11. His logic was as simple as it was elegant. David wrote prophetically that the Lord would not allow the godly subject of the Psalm to be abandoned permanently to the grave. He would not let him stay in the realm of death like ordinary people because the “paths of life” were his inheritance. Peter’s point was dramatic. The site of David’s grave was still well-known in Jesus’ day. He had died, been buried, and stayed that way just as every other human being before him and since him. But David was a prophet so if his words did not apply to him then they must have been intended for one of his descendants, the promised Messiah. It was not that the Messiah could not die; quite the opposite in fact. It was God’s plan all along to take on the greatest weapon that evil has in its arsenal, that of death, and defeat it. The Messiah would die, but through God’s power he would be raised to life and never again experience the incorruptibility and decay of death.

The resurrection of Jesus was the central tenet of the gospel. It is what everything else hinged on. It was what showed him to be the Messiah. It was what proved Jesus to be correct when he boldly declared to the Jewish leaders just before his death that he would be exalted to the right hand of God (Lk. 22:69). It was because of the resurrection that Jesus received the inheritance and promise of the Holy Spirit and it was Jesus who was now pouring that same Spirit out on his people. The apostles would act as witnesses to the resurrection but that would simply be a matter of their word. The pouring out of the Spirit that would guide God’s people into sonship and truly being a family (Rom. 8:15-17), was tangible proof that what Peter said was true. Jesus’ resurrection and his pouring out of the promised Spirit would remove the stumbling block of a dead Messiah if they would respond in faith and humility to the truth.

Peter goes on to make the case that David made it clear that Jesus was not just the Messiah and the giver of the Holy Spirit but that he was also Lord, the one to whom their allegiance was due. He was not just a fulfillment of some of God’s promises as Messiah, he was the fulfillment of all of them as both Messiah and Lord. Peter demonstrated this once again by turning to the Old Testament Scriptures themselves, specifically to Psalm 110. Assuming that David was the speaker of the Psalm then he confirmed that the Messiah was also Lord. Messiah carried the idea of being the deliverer and the bringer of salvation but “Lord” spoke of the sovereign rule and kingship of Jesus. Jesus was the true Messiah and the rightful Lord of the entire world. This meant he was on a collision course with the rulers of the world and those who stood apart from God. When one is faced with the rightful King and Lord, there can be only one response. It is to that proper response that Peter will turn in our next section.




Devotional Thought
Many people relish the idea of Jesus being Messiah, the savior. A much small number of people, however, equally embrace the idea of Jesus being Lord. Have you embraced Jesus as Lord as much as you have enjoyed the aspects of him as savior? Have you truly submitted every area of your life to his lordship?

Monday, November 15, 2010

Acts 2:14-21

Peter Addresses the Crowd
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 “‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’



Dig Deeper
According to Nelson Mandela in his auto-biography,” A Long Walk to Freedom,” the official movement of his organization, the African National Congress (ANC) began in 1912 as they sought to gain the political and social freedom that had been denied to non-white Africans for hundreds of years. The movement gained momentum as a force to be reckoned with in the 1940’s and 1950’s as they held out the promise of freedom for the African people. They continually and constantly laid out to their supporters what true freedom would look like. They wanted them to not be fooled by counterfeit offers of freedom from the Nationalist Party that held power in South Africa at the time and settle for something less than real freedom. But they also wanted them to know the signs of what it would begin to look like when they were gaining power and the power base of the exclusively white government was beginning to slip. Surely then their freedom would be near. One of those signs that they always pointed was the time when the government would recognize the ANC and agree to negotiate with them.

Mandela was placed into prison as a political prisoner in 1963 and the ANC continued to be unrecognized by the South African government as a legitimate group. By the 1980’s, the ANC was still banned and its leaders were either in prison or were in exile having fled South Africa. What people did not know was that in the late 1980’s in a quiet little prison cell near Cape Town, negotiations had begun. The South African government realized that they could no longer keep their grip on power without a bloody civil war and had begun to negotiate with Nelson Mandela while he was still in prison. This was certainly not what anyone would have expected and very few people knew that it was going on. But indeed, the beginning signs of the great promises of the ANC had taken place in a very unlikely way. The process was not complete and had not come in full but it had unmistakenly come in a way that fulfilled the signs that had always been taught but just not quite how anyone envisioned.

The people of South Africa had been waiting for the promises of freedom for decades but the Jewish people had been waiting for many hundreds of years for the great promises of God to finally come upon them. Israel believed that although they had returned to their homeland after the Babylonian exile some 500 years earlier that they were still in exile because the presence of the Lord had not yet returned to the Temple and the nation. The promises of God to return to his people and pour his Spirit upon them in a great and new way had not yet happened. But they had expected that the coming of the Messiah, the crushing of Israel’s enemies, the exaltation of Israel to rule over the nations with God’s presence in full display, and even the resurrection of the righteous would all take place at one time in what they knew as the Day of the Lord. God would pour out his Spirit, but probably in the way that he always had, meaning that he would give the Spirit to come upon one or two specific people at a time, usually leaders of the people such as kings, prophets, and priests. Based on many things, including some of the prophecies of Daniel concerning a 490 year exile (the exact time of the end of that exile varied depending on how specific dates of the exile were calculated), the people of the first century were awaiting this Day of the Lord in eager expectation. This is when God would separate his people from his enemies and set things straight, brining the long awaited salvation and freedom to his people.

When Peter stood up early in the morning of Pentecost it was with all those expectations and hopes swirling about that provide a context for what he said. As the commotion of the disciples speaking in tongues and praising God in the native languages of Jews from all around the world began to command the attention of the large Pentecost crowds, Peter stood up with the other eleven apostles, creating the important symbolic statement that they were hearing from the twelve leaders of the renewed Israel. Through the Messiah, these twelve men were now the place where people would find the promises of God being fulfilled.

First things needed to come first, though, and so Peter cleared up any misconceptions that the crowd may have had. No, they were not drunk. No good Jew would be pounding wine down that early in the morning. Peter wanted to make this clear. They were doing what Paul would later call all Chrsitians to do when he urged his readers to not be “drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). The amazing things that the people were seeing and hearing were not of human origin or spirits but were divine in origin and from God’s Holy Spirit.

To explain to the crowds what was going on that day in Jerusalem Peter turned to words of the prophet Joel. Joel was dealing with the question of the people of his concerning the apparent absence of their God. When would he act? God would, said Joel, send rains that would heal the damage to the land and make a way for Israel to be restored, words that pointed to the coming of the Messiah. Afterwards, said Joel, God would pour out his Spirit on all people and then would come the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

That was beginning now, declared Peter. Not in a way that anyone expected but it was beginning nonetheless. What Joel said would be a time “afterwards,” or after the coming of the Messiah, Peter specifically defined as the last days (v. 15). So many people today read the phrase “last days” and assume that this means the end of the world and that the “saved” status that Peter holds out to all those who call on the name of the Lord to be refernces to the time of final salvation from judgment before resurrection. But this is not what Peter meant by “last days.” The last days were the time when God’s promises began to be poured out. No one expected that to begin with a small band of disciples speaking in other languages, but here it was, said Peter.

If they considered Joel’s words carefully they would see that God had promised to pour his Spirit out on all people, not just kings or priests, or even just the Messiah. This is exactly what he was doing now. Here they were, young and old, male and female, people of all types that were the recipients of God’s mighty Spirit being poured out. Their praising of the Lord in other languages (tongues) was the sign that God had fulfilled his promises. In this action, Peter saw the beginning of the prophecy that sons and daughters would prophesy, young men would see visions, and old men would dream dreams. This unlikely beginning was indeed what they had all been waiting for.

It was the beginning of something ground-breaking and earth-shattering. Just as both of those common phrases in the previous sentence have a specific and rather understandable meaning outside of a woodenly literal interpretation, so could the prophets speak of incredible events like the stars falling from the sky or the sun going dark to signify events of epic proportion rather than thinking of these type events as being actually literal. Incredible things that would happen that would shake the foundations of the earthly order. All of this was common Jewish language to describe events of epic proportions.

As was common in prophecy, Peter could place these monumental events that he calls the last days right next to the day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord, which the early church quite comfortably transferred from referring exclusively to Yahweh as Joel would have intended to referring to Jesus Christ, was a time of definitive judgment laid out by God. In one sense, this day of the Lord would be fulfilled in 70 AD when the judgment of God was poured out in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. That was the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” that Joel has spoken of. But Peter speaks of the “great and glorious day of the Lord,” likely because he saw the dreadful day of the Lord for Israel, the judgment upon Jerusalem, as an early fulfillment and foreshadowing of the ultimate day of the Lord at the resurrection. The day of the Lord that was dreadful for Israel will be glorious for God’s people, even though it will still be a day of judgment and humbling of God’s enemies. In essence the “day of the Lord” occurs anytime that God pours out judgment and though there will be one final and definitive day of the Lord, it cannot be said that there has been or will be just one day of the Lord.

This means that the last days were the strange time between the beginning of God’s promised action and the final fulfillment of those things. The last days had begun. The Messiah had ushered in the kingdom of God. God’s Spirit had been poured out on all his people and the life of the age to come would actually be available in the present time through Jesus Christ. The last days began then and we are still in the last days, the days of God’s final act of salvation, awaiting the resurrection of all believers and the onset of the age to come in all its fullness (and that final and definitive day of the Lord).

Entrance into that salvation is as wonderfully universal as it is specific. It is available to anyone without limitation regarding nation, language, tribe, ethnicity, or gender but is limited to those who call on the Lord. Joel had promised that this would be God’s means of final salvation and now that time had begun. In many respects, the first part of Peter’s speech here has great parallels to the end of his speech that comes later in chapter 2. Ben Witherington III, in “The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary,” says, “The two parts of the speech material in vv. 14-40 have a certain unity and coherence: (1) “to call upon the name of the Lord” (v.21) is another way of speaking about the event that involves being baptized “in the name of Jesus Christ” (v. 38); (2) the promise in vv. 17-18 prepares for the promise of receiving the Spirit (v. 38).”

Peter seamlessly transferred Joel’s promise to call upon the name of Yahweh (the Lord in most English translations) to a fulfillment in Jesus Christ as though they were one in the same (the early Christians certainly believed that Jesus could fulfill promises made of Yahweh because they were one in the same in a Trinitarian way). To call upon the name of the Lord was a specific act, however. It didn’t mean to just cry out to God or even to pray. Peter will define it in verse 38 as the act of repenting and being baptized into the life of Jesus Christ. This is precisely Paul’s line of thinking in Romans when, in chapter 6, he refers to being baptized into the life of Christ, and then culminates that great argument in 10:9-13 by affirming that Christians must repent and confess Jesus as their Lord and call upon his name. Acts 22:16 confirms quite clearly that calling on the name of the Lord was the act of being baptized into the life of Christ and taking part in the incredible gift of the Spirit that had been made available here at Pentecost.

Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved just as God had promised through the prophet Joel so long ago but being part of God’s salvation doesn’t just mean that individuals have a private experience with God and then can look forward to dying and going to heaven one day. Salvation was a much bigger concept of being part of God’s family and actively taking part in his reconciliation project for the whole world (2 Cor. 5:14-21). To be baptized into Christ and take part in this baptism of water and Spirit (see Jn. 3:5; Acts 2:38) into the life of Christ (Rom. 6;1-4) was to be baptized into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). As Luke will make clear at the end of this chapter, to enter into God’s salvation and take part in his Spirit would be to enter into his family and take up the work of the family. That’s what salvation was and it continues to be what salvation is.


Devotional ThoughtSalvation is not just a future hope but a present reality for God’s family as we show the world what it looks like to live a saved life. What can you do today to demonstrate to your neighbors, co-workers, fellow students, etc., the salvation life that is available to all those who call upon the name of the Lord?

Friday, November 12, 2010

Acts 2:5-13

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”




Dig Deeper
On a recent trip my family and I had a few extra hours to spend in a rather large airport in Washington DC on our way to Africa. While we were sitting there, we realized that our youngest son had quite a bit more energy coiled up in his body than would really be helpful on a long flight in a confined plane, no matter how large the jet was. So I decided to take him for a nice, brisk walk through the airport to burn off some of his effusive energy. As we made our way through the airport we found one long walkway that had the flags of all kinds hanging from the ceiling. First we went through an area where they had the flags of every state and territory that was part of the United States. Then came a very long walkway that had the flags of countries from all over the world. My son had a great time walking up and down this long hall that was probably nearly a half mile and trying to name the flags of the different countries. Because of his older brother’s affinity for world cup soccer video games, he had an uncanny ability to rattle off which flags belonged to which countries. He was, in fact, far better at it than I was, due in part to the fact that I realized that many of the countries and flags that I had learned and become familiar with while in school no longer exist and many of these flags were new to me. As we made our way back through the flags for the third time (he really enjoyed the flag naming game) he asked me if this was absolutely every flag of every single country in the world. That was a good question. As we walked further, I realized that it wasn’t. He didn’t understand the point, though, of having so many flags up there if they weren’t going to have them all and he was quite concerned about the poor countries that weren’t represented. I explained to him that the point of the flags was not necessarily to give recognition to each and every country around the world but was, rather, to make the point that this was an international airport that sent and received people from all over the world. The hanging flags were a symbol that this airport was actually a gateway to the world.

The great detail that Luke goes into in this section, especially when it comes to the home countries of those present, as he describes the incredible outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost can seem largely unnecessary and even pointless if we fail to remember the promises of God. When God came to Abraham and promised him a family, he told him that one day this family would make him the father of all nations (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:1-5). Paul argued that when God came to Abraham he knew that he would declare the nations to be part of his family one day (this is basically what justification is—the time when God declares us to be in his family and therefore saved from our sins). Paul says, in Galatians 3:8-9 that “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you’. So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. “ The declaration that all nations would be part of God’s family, says Paul, was a proclamation by God of the gospel in advance. The promise of all nations joining God’s family was an important and central aspect of the gospel.

If we remember that this was a central promise of the gospel then this section makes perfect sense. God’s promises were finally coming into focus and they were being poured out just as he promised. He had promised to pour out his Spirit and bless all nations of the world through his Son and that was now happening. So if the goal of the gospel was to create one family of many nations then it would be important that all nations would be represented somehow on the day when the family was finally opened to all.

This is why God tells us that there were God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven that were present when Jesus’ disciples came pouring out from the house where they had been overwhelmingly baptized by the Holy Spirit in ways that could only be compared to the power of wind and fire. As they came into the public arena, they were surrounded by Jews from every nation. These would have been Jews that were scattered during the diaspora, the time when Jews were exiled hundreds of years previous and scattered throughout the known world. The word that Luke uses for “staying” seems to imply that these Jews were people who had grown up as natives of other nations who had come to basically retire in Jerusalem and live out their lives there, although there were, no doubt, many who were there as temporary pilgrims during the Passover.

Luke described that these people were from all directions and all reaches of the known world. It is not, however, a list of every country in the known world. Many have tried to find some sort of rhyme or reason to this list but there seems to be none on Luke’s part, and that is, I believe part of the point. What he describes is a hodge-podge of people from countries all over the world. Luke well knew that these weren’t all of the known parts of the world and he surely knew that there was much more out there beyond the traditionally “known” parts of the world but this was not a geography lesson. His point was that the gospel was a message that, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the people of all nations could finally join God’s family and no longer be aliens and strangers to God’s people (Eph. 2:19). This day of Pentecost was not the complete fulfillment of that promise but the firstfruits of it. It included only the Jews that were present but they were Jews from every nation. This was the beginning of a family that would spread to the very ends of the earth.

It is a great reminder that God’s people have always meant to include every tribe, language, people, and nation (Rev. 5:9). This was God’s plan for his family all along. It means that his people are called to make sure that the gospel goes out to all the nations (Matt. 28:19: Lk. 24:46). It would be easy to make ourselves feel better by saying that this call is being fulfilled by the likes of missionaries and such as they take the gospel around the world, and that would be true in one sense. But being God’s one family of all nations also demands of us that every outpost of God’s family is committed to being comprised of and reaching out to the people of every tribe, language, people group, and nation that are in the reaches of their influence. There is simply no room for racism in the church of God. There is no room for separation of people groups in God’s family. The fact that there are traditionally white churches, black churches, and the like are declarations of exactly the opposite message of the gospel.

In Nelson Mandela’s auto-biography, “The Long Walk to Freedom,” he describes that while being in prison for the crime of fighting for freedom from apartheid for the non-white people of South Africa, that the guards would mistreat him and his fellow prisoners all week and remind them that they were merely “black boys.” Then on Sunday they would conscientiously make sure that the prisoners would have worship service because of the commitment of the whites to their Christian religion. Situations like this are an abomination to God. When people encounter God’s true family they should see and feel an acceptance of people of all nations and should see a people that are deeply committed to taking the gospel constantly to all people, not just the ones that share their culture, their nationality, or their color of skin.

They were from all nations but was it necessary to have languages from all over the world? It is likely that these Jews from all nations would have all spoken Greek or Aramaic in addition to the native language of where they were born but that is hardly the point. The apostles came out praising God in tongues so that people could understand them in their home language. It is not necessary to assume that they could not have understood them if they spoke in Aramaic. In fact it is likely that when Peter began speaking in verse 14 to preach to the crowd that he did so in Aramaic rather than in other tongues. The gospel was going to go too all nations and people of all languages so just as the crowd was symbolic of that truth, so the fact that the disciples came out praising God in tongues that could be understood by the people of the crowd in their own distinct dialect and language would have been not only a powerful verification that this was from God but would have set a precedent and been a strong symbol of the goal of the gospel. The main point was that the Spirit was not limited by the barrier of language. No language, no national border, no tribe identity, or anything else would stand as a barrier to the spread of the gospel.

The response of some in the crowd was to accuse them of being drunk but this does not mean that they were speaking in unintelligible languages that sounded like nonsense to some in the crowd. Quite the opposite. This was the reverse of the Tower of Babel incident. There the confusion was caused by people not being able to understand all of the languages. Here, however, the confusion was caused by people hearing languages that they did understand. How could these Galileans be capable of such a thing (Galileans were viewed as a bit backwards by the rest of Israel, much the same way that someone from the United States might make jokes about someone from the deep South)? The gift of tongues was apparently the God-given ability to speak in a language that the speaker had never learned. It was primarily used to praise God as a sign to unbeliever (1 Cor. 14:22) not as a private prayer language or some such thing to edify oneself as is often claimed today by those who argue that the gift of tongues is the ability to speak in an unknown language. Thus, if the disciples were coming out early in the morning praising and singing of the wonders of God in languages from all over the known world, that by itself would likely be enough to induce some to accuse them of being drunk. Truly, however, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, not wine (cf. Eph. 5:18).

This all leads to an important thought. At every turn, God’s new family was taking on boundaries. They were pushing the boundaries of nations, tribes, languages, people, and proper behavior through the power and leading of the Spirit. And at every turn, they were criticized, ostracized, and persecuted for it. When is the last time that you and your church did something at the Spirit’s prompting that was even criticized? When is the last time you allowed the Spirit to lead you right past one of those boundaries that human beings are so good at constructing?


Devotional Thought
Do you actively seek to take the gospel beyond your normal comfort zones? Do you personally make attempts to spread the gospel to people of every tribe, language, nation, social status, culture, etc.? That is, after all, what the gospel is all about. What are you waiting for?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Acts 2:1-4

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.




Dig Deeper
I haven’t been to very many college football games in my life and have never been able to go to a regular season professional NFL game but I did get the opportunity to go a game a few years back and watch my home state college team play a big home game. It was my first time being at their stadium, known as Camp Randall, and it was a pretty cool experience. We made our way through the tailgating cookouts and the incredible noise and crowds to find our seats in the chilly autumn afternoon and watch the game. As the end of the third quarter neared and our team, the Wisconsin Badgers, were winning as usual, I got excited because something called the “Jump Around” was nearing. The Jump Around is a Wisconsin football tradition that is nearly twenty years old now. In between the third and fourth quarters, the stadium blasts the 1990 rap hit “Jump” by the group known as House of Pain. It is a fun song with an infectious beat and as the beat begins to pound, the entire stadium of well over 60,000 spectators begins to jump up and down rhythmically with the song and in unison with one another. I had heard people describe the Jump Around and I had even seen glimpses of it on TV, but as I experienced, I realized that it’s just not something that you can describe and do justice to. You have to be there to see it, hear it, and especially to feel it. It was an incredible thing to experience and it’s one of those amazing memories that you hold dear in your mind because you can never really share it with someone and have them fully appreciate it unless they have been there themselves.

I have to believe that the day of Pentecost was something like that, only a much grander and more incredible and meaningful scale. How could you possibly begin to describe such an event? Luke has given us the facts of Pentecost and done it justice on that level, but this is something that we cannot break down into a series of facts and formulas anymore than you could really completely grasp what it was like to be in a war by watching war movies or reading about it. The Holy Spirit is not something that can be described. He must be experienced to be fully appreciated and understood. Keep that in my mind as we read this passage and the remainder of the book of Acts. On one level, Luke is trying to give us a picture of the coming of the Spirit and the formation of God’s family. On another level, the book of Acts is less a description of God’s people and more of an invitation to come and experience God’s family and the power of the Spirit for oneself.

Pentecost is one of those terms that has become so identified with one particular religious group that many Christians get nervous about the term and almost stay away from it completely. It has become so associated with the Charismatic Pentecostal movement that it’s almost like they own the name. It almost reminds me of the way that many people refer to any tissue as a kleenex even though kleenex is a brand of tissues and not the product itself. Pentecost, though, is in many respects the day that God’s church was born. It was the day when the kingdom of God that had broken into the present age through the person of Jesus Christ was focused into the creation of God’s family as the people that had received the promised Holy Spirit and realized the prophecy of Acts 1:4. It is a day of incredible importance and the word “Pentecost” should never be given up or ceded to one group. In the true sense of the word, all Christians are Pentecostals.

Pentecost itself was a Jewish festival that took place fifty days after the Passover. It was known as Pentecost by the time of Jesus but was the same festival known as the Feast of Weeks (or Feast of Harvest) in the Old Testament (see Ex. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:15; Num. 28:26; Deut. 16:9-16; 2 Chron. 8:13). It was a celebration that showed gratitude to God for the coming harvest and also dedicated the firstfruits to him in the prayer and hope that the rest of the crop would soon be brought in as well. It was also the time when the Jews celebrated the moment when Moses received the law at Sinai, fifty days after the Passover. It was the time when God had given his people the standard which would guide them in their way of life as his people.

An interesting parallel can be seen from the writings of the Jewish philosopher Philo, in the first half of the first century as he wrote of the giving of the Law to Moses: “Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame became the articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience.” Historian Ben Witherington III, in his book “The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary,” says that “If Luke knew such traditions, his portrayal of these Pentecost events could be taken to suggest not only that Christianity will have a worldwide impact, but that the giving of the Spirit is parallel (and supersedes?) the giving of the Law.”

What this is all means is that this was the day when God unleashed the fullness of his promises for his new covenant people. He had finally given his people the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit and made him available for all time to all those that would enter into Christ. The Spirit would be the fulfillment of God’s promises and would guide them in their way of life as God’s people. This was an event that was parallel to but even greater than the moment when God gave his law to the nation of Israel.

As the morning dawned, the Jerusalem believers were all together, presumably praying although Luke des not say that specifically. He says that the entire house was filled with a sound that he can only describe as sounding like a violent wind. The imagery here is powerful, especially considering that the Greek word for “wind” and “spirit” are the same word. The presence of God being accompanied by the wound of a violent wind was a common Old Testament symbol (2 Sam. 22:16; 1 Ki. 19:11; Job 37:10; Ezek. 13:13). The primary Old Testament connection here, however, seems to come from the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 where the wind and breath of God came upon the dead and dry bones and brought them back to life, telling his people “Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live” (Ezek. 37:13-14). Jesus himself compared the work of the Spirit to that of a strong wind when he declared “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going” (Jn. 3:8). The power of the Spirit was clearly palpable and Luke says that it sounded “like” a violent wind, but what exactly it was like we can’t really even imagine. The Spirit is someone to be experienced not analyzed.

Another powerful symbol of the Spirit and the presence of God consistently through the Old Testament was that of fire as can be seen in such accounts as the burning bush (Ex. 3:2-5); the pillar of fire in the wilderness (Ex. 13:21-22); and passages where God is referred to as a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24; see also Heb. 12:29). The fire denoted the divine presence of the almighty God, but once again Luke actually says that it looked “like” tongues of fire (Some theologians, it should be said, see significance in the fact that Luke says that this phenomenon that was like tongues of fire came to rest on each of them. This, they argue, is a sign that the Spirit would belong to all of God’s people but also in an individual way that was never available to all of God’s people in the Old Testament). He is doing his best to put into words something that could only fully be experienced. This is the time that John the Baptist spoke of the Messiah, declaring that “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit [literally “wind”] and fire” (Lk. 3:16). The once-for-all promised baptism of the Spirit had been poured out into the present age like a rushing tidal wave.

As the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit during this incredibly unique event, they began to speak in other “glossa,” a word that clearly referred to a regular known language. This was no doubt an incredible event but Luke describes quite succinctly and clearly that the believers were filled with the Spirit and able to speak in other known languages. There has been much confusion about the gift of speaking in other languages, the gift of tongues, but it really makes a great deal of sense. Why would God give the early church the ability to speak in other languages? [It seems clear from both this passage and a proper reading of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 that the gift on tongues was precisely the ability to speak in other languages rather than forcing the Bible to say something that it does not, namely that this gift of tongues was different from that described in 1 Corinthians, claiming that the tongues of 1 Corinthians is one in the same with the ecstatic utterances practiced today by many Christian sects in the last two centuries as well as many pagan religions throughout world history. Although pagan religions engaged in ecstatic utterances there is no convincing evidence that the Bible ever describes any such practices and no clear evidence that the orthodox early church of the first three centuries did either.]

The reason for this gift of other languages is actually quite sensible. If God’s promise was always that he would have one family of all nations, tribes, and languages (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:1-5; Isa. 2:1-4; Rev. 5:9), then that would be a daunting task for a church that was starting in one place that would consist of a similar people group (namely Jews) that would be limited in the languages that they could speak. God was serving notice through this gift that he was serious about his family being available to all nations of all languages. The sin at the tower of Babel had split humans into people groups and languages and God was now finally reversing that. As we will see, he would start with the Jews from all over the world that were gathered at Pentecost. But the gift of other languages would be invaluable as well as deeply symbolic for a church that had the commission of taking the gospel to all nations. Once they were there and established, the gift could slowly fade away. The family of Christ still speaks in all tongues and languages today albeit not through the supernatural means of the early church. The means may be different but the message of the gospel and God’s one family of many nations is still the same. That will never change.



Devotional Thought
When is the last time that you really experienced the Holy Spirit personally? Set aside some special extra time (as long as you can) during a day or through the night sometime soon to just pray and experience the Holy Spirit. Ask the Spirit to really make himself manifest in your life and be willing to follow his lead. Make sure, though, that as the Scriptures warn to test everything that you experience against the word of God as found in the Bible.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Acts 1:15-26

15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) 16 and said, “Brothers and sisters, the Scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus. 17 He was one of our number and shared in our ministry.”

18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

20 “For,” said Peter, “it is written in the Book of Psalms:

“‘May his place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in it,’[e]

and,

“‘May another take his place of leadership.’[f]

21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, 22 beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”

23 So they nominated two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24 Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25 to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” 26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.



Dig Deeper
When I asked my wife to marry me I was much more interested in the part of actually being married than with the wedding itself. She seemed to be much more interested in the actual wedding ceremony than I was, but it was important to her so we went about planning it and getting ready for it. She wanted to have five attendants stand up with her including the maid of honor. This meant that I had to get five friends to be the groomsmen. After some wrangling and working through some scheduling conflicts with my potential groomsmen, I finally settled on the five guys that I wanted to stand up there with me on the big day. We went through all of the preparations and getting tuxedos and all of that. Then I got a phone call. One of my friends that was supposed to come from Oklahoma to be in the wedding could not make it as something rather unpreventable had come up that would preclude him from making the trip. That might seem bad enough but to make it worse, it was five days before the wedding. I was in real trouble now. Then I realized that I had a cousin who was a particular favorite of mine and who had been joking around for weeks that she was hurt because I hadn’t asked her to be one of my groomsmen. So, I decided to go outside of tradition and ask her to be one of the groomsmen. I had to have five groomsmen; it was just absolutely necessary. Five days later, there she was, tuxedo and all to help me out and fulfill the necessary number of groomsmen that I needed.

We obviously are not dealing with a wedding here but there was a sudden and unexpected shortfall for the apostles just the same. It was important that they had twelve apostles. It was highly symbolic. Having twelve apostles was a signal to the potential Jewish believers in those early days that Jesus’ people were the restored Israel, the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. Israel had traditionally had twelve tribes (although the tribe of Dan was removed from the list of twelve in Rev. 7:4-8 and replaced apparently for their persistent idolatry; this is an interesting detail as we see that one of the twelve apostles in this passage is removed from his place and replaced) which signified who they were as the people of God. A new movement that was claiming to be the fulfillment and true embodiment of the people of God would make that statement clearly and strongly to Jews by having twelve leaders at the helm. Having eleven just did not make the same statement. Although my situation at the wedding wasn’t as deeply symbolic, in both situations it was important to get another person fast. The apostles knew that they needed to restore their number to the count of twelve.

But before Luke described how they went about that choice, he recounted quickly how they arrived at such an emergency shortage in the first place. Peter, as he often did during Jesus’ ministry, took leadership of the twelve and the other disciples, and stood up before the group of believers in Jerusalem. It is not clear if Luke saw particular significance to the number of one-hundred twenty but that was the number of men required in Jewish practices in order to constitute a community with its own council (We should not think that these were the only disciples at the time, forgetting that there was a group of at least five hundred in Galilee who witnessed Jesus’ resurrection. This was simply the number of believers in Jerusalem at that time). Luke may have simply been recording the number of believers present, but he may also have been sending the message that they were a legitimate community with a legitimate leadership.

They found themselves in a rather unpleasant situation as a community. Not only was Jesus no longer with them but one of their own had betrayed him. Up until the night before Jesus’ death, Judas was one of them by every standard that they understood. Jesus had known that Judas would be his betrayer but had so loved Judas and treated him without contempt to the degree that when he declared that one of their number would betray Jesus, none of the other apostles even suspected Judas. Then came the shocking news of what he had done coupled with the dramatic events surrounding Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus was dead and word soon came that so was Judas. Luke’s details of this differ from those that Matthew gave in his gospel and it is difficult to know precisely how the two accounts fit together but it can easily be done without assuming that they contradict one another. Luke says that Judas bought a field and fell headlong in it as his body burst open. Matthew said that he hung himself and that the Jewish leaders bought the field with the money that Judas returned to them. The simplest way to harmonize these two accounts is to assume that Luke’s description was an assumption of the fact that his audience knew that Judas had hanged himself and was a rather graphic way of describing his fate when he was cut down from the tree. Almost as if to say, “here is the sad fate of this man who once walked with Jesus.” The Jews may have bought the field but they did so with Judas’ money, so it may have became common to simply speak of the field as being bought by Judas.

This situation with Judas left the apostles in uncharted waters. So they turned to prayer, as we saw in the previous passage, and to the word of God, the Scriptures. The early church saw the Psalms as being full of foreshadowing of the Messiah and so they saw them to be full of prophecies that related to Jesus and events surrounding his life and death. Psalm 69, which was quoted by Peter in verse 20, had to do with the one who would desert and betray God’s suffering servant. He should be removed from his place of salvation and be “blotted from the book of life” (that Peter related this Psalm to Judas’ condition should put to rest the arguments that some make that Judas was acting nobly and should still be considered righteous). In Psalm 109, the second quote in verse 20, we have another scene of a betrayer of the righteous, suffering servant. Let this betrayer, said the Psalmist, be stricken from his place and replaced by another. Luke’s point in the previous passage and in this one is that God was in control of all of this. Judas’ betrayal was not some unforeseen tragedy, but was prophesied about and fell into the strange purposes of God. It was difficult and unknown waters for them but not for God. When faced with such trying times, they turned to prayer and the word of God, a pattern worth following.

They decided upon the method of choosing lots after they had narrowed their options down to two men. They prayed and then let the Lord decide through the lots. I have, over the years, had people ask me if I think that the church today should decide matters based on this method. I would say decidedly “no” for at least two reasons. The first is that just because something is described in the Bible does not mean that it is prescribed as something we should do. It is significant that we never again see this method used anywhere in the New Testament Scriptures. Secondly, it is important to note that this event took place before the Holy Spirit was poured out on the community of believers. That is not to imply that this was a superstitious act. They narrowed the list down as best they could to two men in whom they had confidence in, then they prayed fervently, and felt that putting it to lots would be to let God decide. Later in Acts, when faced with difficult decisions, we see the leaders turning to the guidance of the Holy Spirit within them (Acts 15:28) to determine God’s will. That means that their actions were taken faithfully before the Holy Spirit was given to God’s people and so actions like drawing lots are no longer necessary or desirable for us who have the Holy Spirit.

As they determined who would be the replacement apostle, Peter made clear what the qualifications for the apostles were. The first was that they had to have been with the disciples from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. They could hardly serve as witnesses to Jesus’ ministry to the Jews if they were not there during that time. The second qualification was that they had to be a witness of the resurrection for that would be their primary role. These are qualifications that should be kept firmly in mind for men who would inappropriately claim the title of apostle today.

One interesting question that arises from all of this, though, is why Judas was replaced as an apostle but when James was martyred much later (Acts 12:2), he was not replaced. It appears that it has to do with their early role as witnesses to the people of Israel. Noted author I. Howard Marshall points out that when the community that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls chose twelve leaders it was intentionally done so to signify that they saw themselves as the renewed Israel, the faithful remnant. This was no doubt the same for the role of the twelve apostles. Jesus was always big on symbolism and saw the twelve apostles as a powerful statement to the children of Israel. This was the renewing of God’s people, his new family (see Luke 22:30). So, eleven apostles just would not do at the beginning, but as the gospel began to expand beyond the borders of Israel, the symbolism of having twelve apostles was no longer necessary. Paul would be added to the number of apostles as one “abnormally born” (1 Corinthians 15:8) and the twelve apostles would not be replaced continually. Once the twelve had served their primary symbolic function in Israel, they would have fulfilled their mission and the role of apostle could eventually give way to those that God called and to whom he gave different gifts.

Eventually the apostles chose Matthias. According to church writings of the early centuries, Matthias went on to spread the gospel in Ethiopia. We don’t know what happened to Joseph but I always have wondered about him. Neither man is mentioned again in Acts and neither is held up as being more important than the other. That’s an important reminder in God’s family. There are different roles but there are no greater or lesser roles in God’s kingdom. Everyone is called to do their part and bring glory to God no matter what role they have called to.


Devotional Thought
In everything that the early church did, they showed a reliance on God and a desire to be led by him through prayer, his word, and eventually the Spirit. Do you have the same reliance on God or does self-reliance sneak in more than you care to.