The Book of Acts and Christians Today

#5: Acts 28: The Final Word

I had the privilege of preaching yesterday for Pastor Ron Wymer and I used the occasion to wrap up the book of Acts. As we read Acts, here are a couple of things to remember. First, it is part of a two-book set, the first volume being the gospel of Luke. The author is writing with the assumption that when you get to the last chapter of Acts (chapter 28), you have not only read the other twenty-seven chapters of Acts, but you have also read the twenty-four chapters of Luke.

Second, the author knows the end of the story when he is writing the earlier chapters. He knows what is coming. I think that Luke was a literary master of a type, a skilled craftsman of narrative story telling. Everything he tells us earlier is in play at the end, where he makes his final appeal to the readers. Even more than this, we should remember that Luke and his readers know what happened after the ending of Acts. Luke is writing and publishing some time after AD 70, so the Jerusalem temple is already destroyed, and the Jews of Palestine have been decimated and scattered. Temple Judaism, centered on priests and sacrifices, is defunct. The great narrative setting for many things in Acts (Jerusalem and its temple) no longer exist. Luke (and his original readers) know this when he begins his story with the account of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, serving in the temple, a place existing only in memories.

There may be a symbolic reference to this in Acts 21:30, where Paul is seized by an angry mob and dragged from the Jerusalem temple. Luke adds the detail, “the [temple] doors were shut.” Some see this as the Jewish people of Jerusalem missing their last chance to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as their promised Messiah, the message Paul has been preaching to them.

So, it is not surprising when Paul’s final words in Acts are these:

Therefore, I want you to know that God’s salvation 
has been sent to the Gentiles, 
and they will listen!
(Acts 28:28)

Luke’s church had moved on from the rejection of Jesus by most of the Jewish people of Paul’s day. Luke, himself a Gentile, saw the wisdom and the fruit of Paul’s strategic decision to preach the gospel to non-Jews, Greeks and Romans who were hungry to have a relationship with the Lord. Luke knew Paul, but Paul had been dead for 10-15 years when Luke wrote Luke/Acts. Luke knew that the period of Jewish leadership in the church, emanating from Jerusalem, was long gone. The future church would honor its Jewish roots, especially the Scriptures it inherited from the Jews, but the leadership would come from non-Jews. It was a strategic and necessary move that allowed the church to expand exponentially. Today, the total number of Christians in the world is somewhere between 2-3 billion and only a tiny percentage of these have any sort of Jewish identity.

The church is called to evangelism, to disciple all the nations, but time and resources are always limited. Like Paul, we must sometimes make strategic decisions. We must share the gospel with those who are ready to listen. For us, these are especially children and young adults, those whose faith-decision for life has not been made. God, in his wisdom and providence, may lead us to older adults who are ready to listen, too. But may we understand the urgency of evangelizing the next generation of Christians and church leaders.

Mark S. Krause
Wildewood Christian Church

The Book of Acts and Christians Today

#4 Acts 12: Divine Rescue (or Not)

Pastor Ron Wymer’s message for last Sunday was admittedly a product of isolation due to his Covid-19 condition, a deep and thoughtful reflection on the lessons from the story of James, Peter, and Herod Agrippa in Acts 12. Ron offered ten lessons from the text and they are each worth pondering. You can view the sermon and its ten points at this link.

In my analysis, the story in Acts 12 is a three-part, self-contained narrative.

Peter’s Escape from Prison, Gustave Dore

Part 1: Herod, a ruler in Palestine with Roman backing, boosts his popularity with the non-Christian Jews by arresting and executing James, one of the Twelve Apostles. Finding this to be effective to increase his approval ratings, Herod arrests the leader of the Jerusalem Christians, Peter, and plans to execute him.

Part 2: Hours before his execution, Peter is rescued from his imprisonment by an angel and returns to the house of Mary where the Christians of Jerusalem gather.

Part 3: Herod’s arrogance leads him commit a blasphemous display of himself in public, for which he dies a hideous death.

Overall, we have three situations:

1. Herod deserved to die and did.
2. Peter did not deserve to die but did not.
3. James did not deserve to die but did.

My theological curiosity has always returned to Part 1 of this story. Specifically, why did James have to die? I would like to do further reflection on two of Ron’s points from this chapter and apply them to the case of James. Here are Ron’s points:

1. Although God is all-powerful, He does not prevent all problems in life.

3. No evil act happens without God knowing about it.

Let me begin with #3. It seems obvious to me that the arrest of James was known to God. Even the intent in Herod’s heart to murder an innocent man to gain favor was not hidden from God. Add #1 to this. God’s knowledge of Herod’s evil intentions did not cause him to save James.

The gospels present James as one of the inner circle, the most trusted disciples of Jesus. He is the older brother of John. James and John were fishing business partners with another set of brothers, Peter and Andrew, in the village of Capernaum. They had likely been friends and companions since childhood. James was tried and tested as a leader of the church in Jerusalem. His death was blow, the loss of a person who would not be replaced. We see this in that the church does not seek to select a new “apostle” to get the number back to twelve. James, with his knowledge, experience, and personal relationship with Jesus, could not be replaced.

In one of the first churches I served, the chair of the elders was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer the first month of my time there. He died three weeks later. He was not easily replaced, for his patience and wisdom had served the church well. In fact, in the four years I served that church, no leader from among the board filled his shoes adequately. His death was a tragedy that God did not prevent (#1). Why?

In the end, it seems to me that two things are at play here. One is the long-time belief of the church that death comes in God’s timing, not ours. He calls us home to him when he is ready, and we don’t always know why. Even with James, this must be the case. (We could push this further to say that it was not Peter’s time to die, but that it was Herod’s time as revealed later in the chapter.) Acceptance of this does bring a measure of peace in a time of grief.

Second, no single person is indispensable to the church. Paraphrased John Donne might say, “any man’s (or woman’s) death diminishes [the church].” But the church was never intended to be a one-generation organization. James was surely missed, but when we get to Acts 15 we see a new James, the brother of Jesus, who has emerged as a leader for the Jerusalem church. The church needs to be constantly replenishing its leadership stockpile.

Mark S. Krause
Wildewood Christian Church

The Book of Acts and Christians Today

#3: The Name “Christian”

One of the subplots in the book of Acts is the relationship between the Jerusalem church and the newer church in Antioch. Acts 11:26 records a remarkable factoid: “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” Why is this noteworthy?

From the Standard Bible Atlas

Because of the mention of a severe famine during the reign of Emperor Claudius, we can date this to AD 45-47, or about ten years after the beginning of the church in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. If so, what were they called for the first decade? The most common designation in Acts is “disciples,” used over twenty times. Other names were followers of “the Way” (Acts 9:2) and “Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5).

But the name “Christian” is the one that has endured. Reading between the lines here, we can guess this might have been seen as an unauthorized innovation by the mother church in Jerusalem. Those upstarts in Antioch! Who do they think they are, coming up with new names without asking permission! If so, Acts does not record friction between these two churches at this time. (That comes in chapter 15.)

For us, there is value in understanding what the name means. A common explanation is that “Christian” means “little Christ.” This is because the “i” in the name is a way the Greek language forms diminutives. We do this names in English by adding a “y” at the end. So “Bob” becomes “Bobby,” with the connotation of “little Bob.”

But this is not really the meaning of “Christian” as used in Acts. We should remember that Luke was writing about thirty years after what he describes in Acts 11, and by then the name Christian was well established in the Roman world.

In Greek, the ending -ian is applied two ways. One is to indicate a partisan for a certain political faction. We see this in the term “Herodian” (Mark 3:6). These people were politically affiliated with the various rulers of Palestine who used the family name “Herod.” They were not “little Herods,” but partisans for the political interests of the Herod family. There is some connection here for us. If we are Christians, we are loyal supporters of Jesus Christ in all things.

The second way the -ian ending is applied is to indicate citizenship in a certain country or province. We see this in Acts 20:4, where two men (Tychicus and Trophimus) are literally identified as “Asians,” meaning they are from the Roman province of Asia.

The name “Christian” has both senses, I think. If we wear this name, we are loyal to our Lord, Jesus Christ and we find our spiritual identity and citizenship in him. Christians carry a spiritual passport signed by King Jesus which marks us as citizens of his Kingdom.

It is not an accident that our church is named Wildewood Christian Church. Those who chose this name did it because “Christian” is an identifier that is biblical and should not be divisive in the Christian world. We sometimes say we are not the only Christians, but we are “Christians only.” We do not sit in judgment of other believers who might adopt other names beyond “Christian,” such as Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Presbyterian, or Orthodox. Such names have historical origins and may be beloved by those who use them. But we are not “Wildewoodians.” We are Christians and we wear this name proudly to show our loyalty to Jesus.

Mark S. Krause
Wildewood Christian Church

The Book of Acts and Christians Today

This week I am beginning a new series on the book of Acts. These blogs are designed to go with the sermon series at Wildewood Christian Church, mainly preached by Pastor Ron Wymer. You can access these sermons using this link.

#1: The Cornelius Incident: Legalism Challenged

Why are there few Jewish Christians today? A common misunderstanding is that these are exclusive, non-mixable categories. You can be Jewish. You can be Christian. Or you can be neither (like Muslims). But many people think you cannot be both Jewish and Christian. However, this is not what we find in the book of Acts.

A major plotline in Acts is the march of Christianity from the ancient Jewish community in Jerusalem to become a faith available to non-Jews (Gentiles) throughout the Roman empire. A pivot event in this story is an incident involving Peter, the leader of the church at that time (and a Jew) and Cornelius, one of the most influential and respected Romans living in the Jewish homeland of Judea (and a Gentile).

Acts 10 tells a dramatic story of Peter’s providentially directed trip to the home of Cornelius in Caesarea. A few details. Cornelius was a respected military leader and government functionary from Rome. He lived in one of the most Gentile cities in that part of the world. Caesarea had been built by King Herod about fifty years before Peter’s visit and improved by the Romans. In some ways Peter is the most Jewish of all Christians visiting the most Roman (non-Jewish) of all cities, a contrast that is difficult for us to appreciate now. Peter’s preaching of the gospel, the acceptance in faith of Cornelius and his household, and the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit and following baptisms make for a terrific story. This is sometimes called “Gentile Pentecost.”

Peter and Cornelius

But for Acts, the story is not over until Peter returns to Jerusalem and reports the “Cornelius incident.” Then, for the first time in Acts, the issue of circumcision is raised. Some of the Jewish Christians challenge Peter’s actions, claiming that his willingness to eat with uncircumcised (and therefore “unclean”) Gentiles was an unacceptable violation of Jewish laws. Peter retells his version of the incident and wins the day for his actions and for Cornelius and Gentiles in general. If God has been actively orchestrating the events leading to the conversion and acceptance of an uncircumcised man, what Jew is to argue?

This is not finally resolved until the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. There, the church decides a Gentile does not have to become a Jew to become a Christian. The church leaders acknowledge that you can be both a Jew and a Christian, but that you can be a Gentile and a Christian, too.

Let’s dig a little deeper. What is motivating Peter’s Jewish-Christian opponents when they object to his contact with Cornelius? Let me suggest the underlying dynamic is their tendency for legalism, a tendency we too often share with them.

I define legalism as our interpretation of rules to control the behavior of others. Rules are important. They bring order to our lives. The Bible has various guidelines on human behavior that Christians believe are ordained by God. Following the commands (rules) of Jesus is a sign of our love for him (John 14:15). But Jesus does not take this to level two: if you really, really love me, you will make sure that every other Christian keeps my commands as you understand them. This is the move to legalism. Legalism can use rules to hammer others into submission.

Legalism can use rules to hammer others into submission.

Another version of this involves those who publicly demand others keep the rules (legalism), but privately disregard such commands. Jesus calls such people “hypocrites,” a designation of justifiable scorn. What could be more illogical and disrespectful than a hypocritical legalist?

But that’s the point, I think. We are all hypocrites to some degree, aren’t we? We want to give the appearance of keeping Jesus’ commands, but we are all too aware of and embarrassed by our personal failures. When, however, our obsession becomes enforcing the rules with others more than cleaning up our own lives, we are both legalists and hypocrites.

This is what Peter encounters in Jerusalem. The legalists were not condemning Cornelius. They were attacking Peter for breaking Jewish laws against eating with Gentiles. They wanted to use the rules they loved to control the behavior of Peter. Only when it is shown that God (the Rulemaker) was orchestrating events and leading the stubborn Peter to accept Cornelius did they back down.

And may we, too, back down when we find ourselves practicing legalism. Let us always begin with policing our own lives and showing our love for Jesus by keeping his commands. And let us show patience with those who are keeping the rules inadequately in our eyes.

Mark S. Krause
Wildewood Christian Church