well greetings and welcome to this lecture on the Acts of the Apostles of course the book of Acts in the New Testament is a companion volume to the Gospel of Luke which we talked about in the previous lecture Luke itself written by Luke for a guy named Theophilus written for him as Luke describes in that gospel as a way to sort of help confirm some of the things that he's been taught by other people so Luke gives this a very detailed description about uh main character of that text who is Jesus his life the people around him that surrounded him the work that he did in his life the things that he did for people and then his uh the events leading up to his death resurrection and Ascension um fascinating text fascinating book well the Acts of the Apostles or acts for short as most people will call it is the second volume uh that Luke wrote now for the purpose of describing to Theophilus what happened after Jesus was no longer around and what his followers then did in carrying on the work that Jesus himself had instituted um according to Luke's narrative so the ax does that so it's concerned with the ministry of Jesus apostles specifically in the course of the Apostles as they're called being what in the Book of Luke were called his disciples the specific ones anywhere the specific 12 of them now uh they're called Apostles because well as the word apostolis in Greek is defined those who are sent out right those who are sent out on a mission to go and do something well that mission itself is what is given to them at the end of The Book of Luke in chapter 24 where the text here Luke records Jesus as telling them that um really the entirety of the Old Testament or the entirety of the Hebrew Bible um in to some to some degree is centered or focused around him and around his life and that his life has really been a fulfillment of everything that's been said in the law of Moses the prophets and the Psalms and so at that point he describes to them really then what those scriptures were all about how to understand them now in light of he himself who is Jesus and that the point was that he should suffer the rise from the dead that the mission might be extended that is the mission that will be extended to the apostles to go and preach repentance to people for the Forgiveness of sins proclaiming his name to All Nations beginning from Jerusalem well in a very real sense then that's where the beginning of the acts picks up it picks up with the apostles now given this particular they're made Apostles given this Mission according to Luke in this narrative and how they actually execute this throughout their lives John Paul Hill uh very helpful scholar who does a lot of work or has done a lot of work on the book of Acts um notes that one of the things that we see time and time again in this particular book is a repeated pattern right there's a cycle to the narrative it picks up and it goes on and it stops again and it goes on and stops again and it's just sort of over and over the same things happening in different places with different people and in somewhat different contexts but it's this same cycle that is first of all we'll see a narrative of uh early church or Christian leaders who preach and teach the message of Christ of Jesus which is called The Gospel in this context that people listen to it and they respond positively and thus are converted they become Believers of Jesus and are added to the church thirdly opponents then will rise up against them sometimes they're Jewish sometimes they're Gentile depending on where the evangelization and the work of the Apostles are taking place and then we'll begin to put pressure on these early Believers and especially start persecuting their leaders and then fourthly God will come come and intervene and rescue them uh in one way or another thus protecting the church and then when this part or this number four this Crescendo happens then we start back at number one with the next part of the narrative so we see this over over and over again in the text and I mean it raises a really uh interesting and important question as to why Luke would present these events in this way in terms of this repeated pattern and maybe because ultimately the point in talking about how that the church grows and how that followers of Jesus grow in this text that that's really about number four it's really about showing how that um Jesus's promise to uh protect his church and to grow his church indeed actually happens right which is fascinating think about that in contrast in comparison to other texts we've looked at already so even something like the immediate where um in the Aeneid the mission or the purpose of Aeneas is to go and found a kingdom right that's not so much here um obviously uh but but but the point there is about about this this one man and this this man-made stuff that he will that he will do and founding an Empire whereas ultimately there's something much different going on here in this text even though they're written fairly close to each other in terms of uh in terms of the dates of them so it's a fascinating comparing and contrasting we can do and maybe we'll do it more implicitly as we go along in this lecture well the book of Acts begins with this new question put forward by the disciples prior to as Luke will describe Jesus's Ascension into into the heavens into the skies um where he in a sense disappears and now leaves his ministry for his followers to take over as Luke puts it so they have this new question and this is probably as liquid see it is overlapping with uh Luke 24 the Gospel of Luke in the 24th chapter right these events taking place about the same time the question now is this these disciples these Apostles they look to Jesus and they ask him they say Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel I mean they've been tried to be patient so far right they don't like the fact that the Romans have uh controlled who they are as a people and they control their lands and they're not able to have their own King anymore like they did you know hundreds of years prior at least in an authentic sense they have Herod but it's not really an authentic King per se it's not like King David here it doesn't even come from the line of King David so we've got problems that abound all over the place so their question right finally at this time will you restore the kingdom really to us will you give our kingdom back to us as a people as an ethnicity um and of course Jesus's answer to that is uh not what they expected probably not what they want to some extent uh first of all he tells them I don't have it on the slide here but he tells them it's not for them to know these things right that's in other words what he's saying is it's that's not priority here but what he does tell him is this he says instead of worrying about that think about this you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you then you will be my Witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the Earth in other words um there's a mission to be done here and it's not sort of uh the restoration of the old Israeli Kingdom let's say it's not about that um triumph over Rome as I have it here is not the mission uh in a way that for Aeneas right the founding and the Triumph of Rome itself was was the mission of Aeneas but that's not it for Jesus's followers rather uh nor triumphing over it but rather being Witnesses of this Jesus this Christ to the entire world so their mission that they're given is spreading a message and the message of Jesus himself it's not saving the monarchy um so we get a sense here that as Luke is presenting this narrative there's something very um just sort of counter-intuitive about this to these disciples um surely they believe the Hebrew Bible surely they believe that this Jesus man will indeed be the Fulfillment of what was promised there as Luke is presenting this to us anyway um but but they see this in terms of a political Kingdom a visible Kingdom a throne actually there in their region in Jerusalem right this is this is what they have in mind but it's not that at all indeed it's it's a it's a lessening of that it's not about it's not about becoming triumphant over the world but really it's about becoming a servant to the world it's about spreading a mission as a sacrificial servant to other people um so that indeed they might be saved as what the text himself will use and of course the Salvation language that's used in Luke and in Acts really is old language it goes back um their understanding of what's going on in Exodus when the Israelites are in captivity in Egypt and Moses is called to come and help them be saved from this uh Egyptian captivity so this notion of Salvation has that in mind being saved from captivity into freedom of course the context here in these texts now with Luke is not being saved from Egypt it's really being saved from sin it's being saved from one's own corruption we could put it that way and that's the mission spreading a message of Salvation not saving or even re-establishing monarchy as they knew it several centuries prior so this particular Mission this or this answer that he gives them right be Witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaria and the end of the earth right this essentially is then the outline of all the events that take place in this book the first seven chapters of Acts deals with the mission as it happens in Jerusalem the next few chapters Judea and Samaria and then the rest of the book really about the last half of the book to the end of the Earth which is fascinating in and of itself and and we'll see some reasons why uh that I'll go into in more detail but basically too because um white significant I'll give you a little hint here and it has to do with sort of um as Luke presents It Anyway understandings that Jews of that time have about in a sense their sort of ethnic superiority um or at least uh the distinction that needs to be made between their ethnicity and others and the sorts of rules and disconnect and boundaries that have to be set up at least as they think anyway because of their ethnicity so that the fact that we have these Jews now going to the end of the Earth and half of this book is about these Jewish converts going to the ends of the Earth to spread this message um is a bit scandalous we can put it that way all right so let's move on then what's going on in Acts well in Chapter 2 the mission of Jerusalem begins and the first part of how this happens is through the Fulfillment as Luke presents It Anyway the Fulfillment of Jesus's promise of the spirit that that Jesus would send his spirit to them and fill them with that and then that will be the impetus that they will have and need frankly for continuing on the mission so the text tells us that there's about 120 of these disciples and there we're not talking about the specific 12 they were just talking about them plus others that are Disciples of them so these are all just people following Jesus that believe and and are trying to figure out what do we do now um that we have put such trust in him and he has left us and and has given us this message this Mission uh of this message and of spreading this message and what Luke says here in the text is that all 120 of these people are hanging out in an upstairs room and uh they begin experiencing the sound of a mighty rushing wind as it's put so you can sort of put that think about what that would sound like and at the same time that this happens they all begin to speak in other tongues the Greek word they're used as glasa which literally means languages so they begin to speak in all these different kinds of languages of which when you look at the text at least 15 can be identified in terms of the different ethnicities of people who who are in the area on the street below and they start hearing all these different languages at the same time and every all these foreigners all these Internationals who are visiting uh in that area let's say on that block all of a sudden start hearing their language and they hear it being said really well and so they're amazed at this right how does this actually happen uh we're here for a three-day weekend and all of a sudden we know our dialect of our language is spoken perfectly and as a result of this right people are questioning what's going on are these people mad are they crazy what's happening and so as Luke presents it here uh sort of the head Apostle the Elder of all the apostles who is Peter he stands up to give an explanation of this he gives this I guess we could call it a sermon right an explanation of why this happened of what happened and how to understand it uh of course the first thing he does is rule out alcohol right it says he says it's not because we've been boozing after all it's only 9 A.M right the third hour of the day as it's put in the text which should be about 9 A.M apparently he didn't know the adage that it's always five o'clock somewhere but uh anyway it doesn't matter so it's not that it's too early to drink so it's not that but rather he says what this actually is is a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy which as Luke is presenting all the stuff is kind of fascinating because at the end of the of the Book of Luke 24 where it says that Jesus has this like literal come to Jesus meeting with his disciples and is trying to explain to them all right what all of this stuff is about and then puts it all together we start seeing Peter's ability apparently here to put it all together he's he's citing an Old Testament Prophet who is Joel where Joel said that in the last days I will pour out my spirit on All Flesh so this is God speaking uh in in Joel's context as he sees it um and these people shall prophesy and I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below uh these these new tongue deal or all these people speaking these languages would definitely be a sign on the earth below and this Mighty rushing wind sound coming from nowhere would be uh a Wonder in the heavens above and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved so Peter is connecting this to Old Testament Hebrew Bible prophecy I think it's fascinating too then to sort of see how Peter's trying to do this because Peter makes a very interesting claim here in this that that what this whole Miracle event right here does is that signals that this is the last days now last days I think you know and of course I'll not get into this in detail because there's been a lot of people for a long time that have tried to explain the the meaning of that in all kinds of ways and I've tried to be very focused and narrow and very prophetic and try to do all kinds of things with that I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole in in a class like this but I will say this that that it at least means or at least gives us a picture of Peter and the early Church's view of history that indeed if they're calling these last days now then um it's it's a it's akin to what Aristotle was saying when he's talking about how that people choose things uh that that are good for them right there that there's some sort of purpose ingrained in us to achieve our purpose to achieve fulfillment in one way or another ultimately that being what Aristotle identifies as eudaimonia well I think there's something similar going on here at least in terms of these early Believers understanding now of History which is related to our main question right what is humanity or what does it mean to say that we're human right how do we reflect on that for these people here that are hanging out in this room and as he is explaining this to everybody else now who's asking questions about this event um these are last days that is all of history now has come to this point and it is finding fulfillment in what's going on now so that's a very interesting way to to answer the question about how they think about what humanity is because they're tying it to history Peter's tying it to history that humanity is that which has had a purpose from the very beginning and all throughout history up to this point it's been moving it's been progressing towards this point towards its sort of eudaimonia I guess and now it has been achieved and it has been achieved through this miraculous work um and that we're speaking all these languages is merely a sign of that it's a symbol of that showing that indeed our view of the world of the T loss of the world of the progression of the world of the goal and ends and purpose of the world now is in its final stage and then he goes on well then why all of us why do we have these Miracles going on and why did Joel prophesy all of this and why is it that all this is happening now and Peter explains to them well it's because you because he's in Jerusalem after all right and he's speaking to fellow Jews who were part of the mob that asked pilate to crucify this Jesus he says well because you all crucified and killed him I mean it was according to God's plan as he'll put it right it's part of their theology is understanding that Jesus himself is a result of in his life and his death as a result of a divine plan that goes back uh in eternity past so it's ultimately under God's sovereignty but it's them that are culpable for what they did in crucifying and killing yet and Peter goes on just like David and of course he's he's mentioning David here for several reasons probably number one being is that everybody loves David in the first century I mean first century Jew David is your Exemplar he's your model um indeed in wanting a kingdom back given back to you to have on your own is is really looking back with very nostalgic and longing eyes to the time when David was King and things were really great for your people so that's what that's what these people want so you talk about David people perk up but also he's talking about David too because of uh texts that David himself wrote in the Old Testament that are that later Christians will come to understand as ultimately being prophetic about Jesus not so much about David himself but about this Jesus character and so these new testament Believers as we call them I suppose um are looking are looking to David and are interpreting his words and his prophecy uh in light of Jesus and so just like David promised and the particular promise that Peter is referring to is one where um David writes in the Psalms you will not abandon my soul to Hades David talking about himself New Testament Believers and Peter pretty much saying that really what David was talking about was Jesus was using the first person and talking about Jesus um Hades itself being the grave it's a it's a work it's a word for the grave or a word for death so just like David promised that God would not abandon his soul to the Grave Jesus has been raised up by God of which all of these here all these people here that he's talking to that Peter's talking to are witnesses of and furthermore this Jesus is exalted at the right hand of God in the way David described in Psalm 110. so Jesus says both Lord and Christ so just like David promised that David is the great king that promised that God would not leave him in the grave um in a sense what Peter is saying is that this new and greater David now has risen up and is exalted at the right hand of God I mean that's enthronement language and pretty much what Peter's saying now is that this exalted Jesus is King and by calling him Lord later on he's pretty much saying that that he's both Lord that he is that he is Lord in Christ to put differently he is both King and Messiah all at the same time so what are these people to do now in response to that all of these who are wondering what's going on in this upper room with all these languages and and all this this crazy stuff that's going on he tells them that what their proper response is then is to repent that is to turn their mind away from uh from old beliefs and and uh um and and turn it towards uh the life and model and Exemplar of this Jesus so to repent of their Corruption of their sin of their transgression be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the Forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit for the promises for you and for your children which is interesting carries on a lot of Old Testament stuff from there right like circumcision for instance where where these sorts of signs are are done and understood to be to be done in a family context um but not only within the family context but also for all who are far off that is for those who are non-jews for those who are Foreigners for those who are gentiles obviously a scandalous point to make everyone whom the Lord Our God calls to himself in other words there's really going to be no difference here a distinction between those right just anyone whoever God calls to himself um and the result of this 3000 versions so Luke is getting his book of Acts started off with this really mind-blowing major event that's happening as the text continues on Luke describes what life is among together among these first converts or these these early Believers and followers of Jesus he talks about how that they are devoting themselves to the apostles teaching the fellowship the breaking of bread and a prayer um I mean it's it's not a stretch to say that even this basic pattern of these four things here characterized the way in which a lot of uh churches do what they do let's say in our context here in the United States devoting themselves to the apostles teaching I mean this is part of what goes on for instance in the Christian service the preaching or the teaching of scripture which is understood as as having the stamp of the Apostles approval if indeed it is from the apostles I suppose um and not from something else uh fellowship or the time that they spend together I mean this is what happened they were in the upper room breaking of bread or eating oh one thing that that is very much a part of the the Christian Church context in the United States is that especially here in the South where we're at is people like to get together and they eat very much a part of it and obviously prayer too which happens in the context of a worship service as well as outside of it by individual Believers I suppose we could say so so these four basic tenets characterize how these converts are now doing life how they are exercising uh this this new life and this new devotion that they have that they haven't had before and Peter will go on and also talk about how that they're sacrificially helping to meet each other's material needs the text says that they're also selling stuff that they have so that they can give the money to each other to help them when they have needs when they have problems I had someone ask me one time well there's a kind of a form of Communism then they're just sort of everything they're owning everything all together as one big commune and of course the answer to that is no right there's there's no uh Communist party or state or hierarchy that is taking their stuff away from them and then trying to equalize it to everybody else equally disseminated or distributed to everybody else right that's not what's going on rather they're voluntarily uh willingly doing this on their own as they make relationships with each other and come to understand what their needs are and trying to help them and they're also practicing Hospitality with one another in verse 46 right they're spending a lot of time in each other's homes um which is interesting because the reason for that is probably because they are cultural pariahs now I mean they're outcasts in a sense they do not hold strictly to the post-exilic Jewish religion as it is being practiced there indeed most really uh hardcore uh Jewish believer uh Jewish folks are as the text at least is telling us as Luke is describing it to us think that they're actually blaspheming by calling Jesus the son of God uh and the new David and all these kinds of things um that's that's very scandalous so um so they're not being accepted back into their old circles and old friendships um in the same way that they were before so there's a so there's a necessity to this Hospitality but also it's kind of interesting too how it describes something that we don't see in other texts like uh like Aristotle's politics for instance just which just comes to mind which talks about you know very clearly sort of family units and village units um to help each other economically speaking uh but this text is getting a little bit deeper and talking about the hospitality practiced among among various families because these Believers themselves are pretty eclectic um and as a result of that the there's sort of a new community that arises out of that that blurs the lines of of um of local Villages and states and things like that it's a new kind of family I guess we could put it that way something that Aristotle himself did not anticipate so um so it's fascinating isn't it well moving on then chapter six of the book of Acts there's an interesting uh vignette here now in this text where it is where these early Believers um uh indeed they're helping meet each other's material needs but because they're growing so much I mean the very first report that we have uh on the earlier slide from chapter two is as Luke notes that 3 000 people convert and now become Believers so I'll automatically automatically the church has become a mega church at the very beginning I didn't put him in the slides but as you already read through the text which was assigned you see where Luke gives these little status reports at the end of a lot of these vignettes that the church continually grows the Believers and continually grow and become more and more and more quantitatively so now we have organization issues right we we need people to be able to handle the growth of this especially since is helping each other in life um so indeed as they are helping out each other in life uh it just so happened that some of these people were sort of falling through the cracks not having their material needs addressed by others uh within this community of of Jesus Believers due to we could just call it unintentional neglect it's not as though they were trying to be outcast by others within the group necessarily at least that's not what Luke is getting at what Luke seems to be getting at is just that uh there wasn't enough people to sort of manage this and organize how to how how to help everybody to take care of everybody else so their solution was to appoint people specifically for this task the apostles themselves said well we're going to devote ourselves to time so that we have enough time to pray and to minister the scriptures or the minister the word to people we're going to vote ourselves to that and then others then will be appointed to helping meet others material needs and the person that they appointed here the first one at least as Luke presents it here is this guy named Stephen but the interesting thing about Stephen is that he becomes the first martyr uh of all these Jesus followers at least as what Luke is presenting and Stephen's an interesting character as he's being described in this text he's someone who's full of wisdom and the Spirit uh effectively then serving as a witness to the Gospel of Jesus to the point that even Jewish priests were beginning to repent and believe right which is scandalous in and of itself those who are considered leaders within the Jewish religion strictly are now coming to understand that in light of who this Jesus Jesus person is and by believing repaying and believing in Jesus as the Fulfillment all of that it offends the status quo religion especially since the status quo religion as Luke described it to us anyway at that time um it's cool right it has it has quite the um that religion has quite the uh a power over people um that is very very influential so to mess with it a little bit in the way that they're doing here right is problematic so what they do with Stephen is they bring up false charges against him they say that he's speaking Blasphemous words against Moses and against God and these are all made to the council or the Sanhedrin which is sort of the Supreme Court in a sense of of Elders within Jerusalem who uh who hear these charges and try to make a decision on the basis of them well how does Stephen himself respond to all of this well the first thing he does is he reminds them that is he reminds this Council of Elders of Jewish elders of their nation's tendency to distrust God by going through a wide sweep of their history he starts out talking about Abraham and his family and the promises that God made to them talks about how Joseph then was used to preserve that family in the time of famine Joseph takes those people with Abraham's DNA right the Israelites the family of Israel it really would be of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel takes them into Egypt helps them to stay alive talks about how unfortunately however that turned into Egyptian captivity but how even though those Israelites though that family of Abraham hundreds of years later were taken as slaves and kept as slaves in Egypt Moses was raised up to deliver them to save them out of this captivity to save them from this slavery and yet in spite of all of that uh not long after they were delivered out of Israel these people in their hearts longed for Egypt for whatever reason they you know the grass they thought the grass was greener back in Egypt and thus went back to the old Egyptian idolatry uh kinds of worship of not worshiping the one true God that brings them out of Egypt but of of of of of going to the to such a low that they make a golden calf they take all their gold they melt it down and they make this cow this calf out of gold and that they worship it and we have the description of that event in Exodus chapter 20 Exodus chapter 32. so that's crazy business um and then after he talks about that and with and the point I think he's getting at there as Luke presents it here trying to help these people understand sort of the incessant idolatry that's at the core of their hearts after he talks about that he discusses the role of the dwelling place and sort of an interesting thing here he the temple is probably in the background there and they can see it he's pointing to it and say you know let's let's talk philosophically here a little bit about this notion of a Dwelling Place of God's presence in the early days of post-egyptian Israel it was the tent of meeting right it was the tabernacle that they would meet in in order to worship and to experience God's presence until Solomon the great King Solomon some hundred years later was able to build the temple itself which was a more permanent place um uh part of it part of it was there when uh when Stephen was making this although the temple itself had been rebuilt by Ezra and Nehemiah a few hundred years earlier nonetheless right the point that Stephen is making as he points to it is that the reality of it is that that God that he is who most high does not dwell in any of these places he's not saying that they were bad things to have he's just noting that what these things did what these buildings did what these temples and Tabernacles did was they witnessed the presence of God they weren't the actual physical sites of God's presence the implication being is that God's presence is in people um especially now in light of this person Jesus so then he after making these points he points his finger at them at the Council of people who are who are trying his case and says to them that they are stiff-necked that is they're pretty stubborn and arrogant along with it and they are uncircumcised in their heart and in their ears that is that they have not been uh uh I don't want to put this uh that they're sort of calloused um in their heart in their ears that they're not willing to be open to anything else especially the person Jesus and what's going on now with all these Jesus followers um they're always risk they always resist the Holy Spirit and as he points to them and really just essentially tells them they simply follow in a long line of persecutors who killed those who prophesied the messiah's coming and also the Messiah too pointing to the fact that even a lot of prophets of the Old Testament were killed and were martyred who were talking about the coming Messiah um because people didn't want to hear it even back then so uh quite a bold thing to do and a bold thing to say and so what does the council do or they Stone him to death however they do it whether bearing him up to his waist where he can't move and then stoning him or tying him to a post to Stone him nonetheless they Stone him which is not the most wonderful way to die like crucifixion I suppose except and unlike crucifixion in some way because if people are throwing rocks at you you may not die instantly it may take a while before your body just wears down at all the rocks being thrown at you and just eventually run out of energy and resolve and and you die a pretty pretty messed up weighted eye frankly so we have the first martyr we have then moving on out of Jerusalem many vignettes that talk about how this mission of gospel Ministry of this person Jesus continues on even internationally to some extent we could call it that as the mission now moves in Judea and Samaria we see a little bit of this flavor in chapter 8 of Acts there's this International flavor really Christianity as I'm calling it in a couple of instances here that Luke talks about one of them has to do with this other newer disciple newer convert now that goes out preaching the word in Samaria that is talking about Jesus to people who live in Samaria doing all kinds of healings exorcisms such that much joy has brought in that City and even the apostles Peter and John do the same preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans this is huge and I won't take all the time to explain why uh the the details of why it's huge except just to say that historically speaking at this time in history we know this for a fact really that Jews and Samaritans pretty much hated one another it's there's a long list of reasons why it goes back historically to who the Samaritans are having intermarried with the syrians and sort of becoming their own race of people um that even although they believed Torah they believed the Hebrew Bible there was significant things in there that they thought were different that they changed a little bit from what probably could be called the more Orthodox view of of uh of of Hebrew Bible worship and theology so in other words there's just a lot going on there something of a race war frankly I could put it that way between Samaria or between Samaritans and Jews um so for for Jews who are converts but they're still Jews to go into Samaria as servants right with the best interest of the Samaritans um at heart in what they're doing is selfish scandalous right they're going to the people that their own people their own people back home in Jerusalem absolutely hate and they're having to go with uh with a very soft heart um and a servant's heart in order to do that uh so that's that's crucial I mean that's important for Luke here um that scandalous in and of itself as well as another vignette that follows that where Philip is uh traveling along and he comes across an Ethiopian eunuch who is reading the Old Testament he's reading chapter 53 of Isaiah which talks about as some will will put it uh the suffering servant uh passage and in doing this um he asked Philip you know can you explain what all this is about and Philip says sure I'll be glad to explain what it's all about and Philip says this is all about Jesus right this is the good news about Jesus that he is the suffering servant that Isaiah prophesied about obviously not everybody believes that then believe that then obviously not everybody believes that now right there'd be many um Orthodox Jews who would take issue with that maybe some of you who are listening to this lecture and fair enough right I'm not trying to persuade anybody about anything here I'm just trying to explain what's going on in these really important Western texts one of those being indeed Luke in Acts um but this is what Philip does and he explains to them this and as a result this Ethiopian eunuch becomes a Believer becomes a Christian let's say uh interestingly enough right it's not just a eunuch that is someone who's and I'll try to make this as rated G as possible this would be a male whose ability to reproduce has been surgically removed from him we'll just put it that way taken away from him probably intentionally because being a eunuch and being a unit from a place far away like Ethiopia he's probably there on official business works for an ambassador or on behalf of royalty or some government or something like that but we could speculate about that but a lot of Scholars think that that's probably what's going on here so as he's uh so he's that he's eunuch but he is Ethiopian I mean and Ethiopia is in Africa um the skin tone of many people from Ethiopia are very dark are very black it's going to be very different from the more Olive complexion kinds of people that are in Jerusalem right so this is somebody who not only is culturally different I mean which the Samaritans are obviously that from Jews but also looks different right has has a different physique and a different look and a different appearance um so it's one thing for Luke to say that uh the work of these Apostles is going to Samaria but it's a whole other thing now is to say that it's even as far as those who are Ethiopians uh even as they're here in Jerusalem but nonetheless they are receiving the good news as well so there's all kinds of international Flair that's happening with this early set of Believers and followers of this guy named Jesus well moving on right the the knot it's ramped up even more to a greater degree in this vignette or story about the conversion of Saul whose name will eventually be changed to Paul he'll start identifying himself as Paul later on but Saul is an interesting person here is in chapter 8 and verse 1 of Acts it's noted that as Stephen was being stoned or as a result of Stephen's execution Saul himself approved of it uh which shows that you know being a fervent public Christian was pretty dangerous at this time but one of the reasons why Saul approved of it was because uh as he will later talk about as Paul will later talk about his job more or less being as the Zealot that he was at that time it was to persecute these kinds of people it was it was to put the lid on uh this thing called Christianity and This Thing Called Jesus followers was to Outlaw this get rid of it nothing but a problem even later on Paul will admit openly in Acts 28 and say that he was convinced or I'll just quote him he says I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth and I did so in Jerusalem I had not only locked up many of the Saints in prison after receiving Authority from the chief priests but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them and I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and enraging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities so that's fascinating he's saying that not only did he uh throw many of these people in prison but he actually voted to execute them and uh he punished them when they rose up in synagogues tried to get them to say bad things would be easier to convict them and even went and persecuted them outside of the jurisdiction in which he had to actually do his work right I mean this guy was pretty uh motivated let's say in this work and yet as Luke describes it he is on his way one day to a place called Damascus and Jesus comes out of nowhere right in this very glorified form and presents himself to him on this road to Damascus and Saul becomes a Believer because like like literally he's he sees him right he sees them in this as Luke presents it sees him in this glorified State and they have a little conversation and Saul comes away from this a completely transformed and changed person well one of the texts one of the things the text says is that as a result of this he is blinded for a few days um which is an opportunity then for other faithful disciples than to go and help him and help him find his way since he can't see anymore at least temporarily as the text says and uh sort of help get him acclimated or assimilated to the uh to the community of Jesus followers that already exists well one of the people in this community his name is ananias and ananias is very skeptical about this because the voice comes to ananias and says you know you need to uh uh go help this guy out ananias says but he saw this is a guy that kills people like me why would you want me to do this and then the Lord responds to ananias and says well don't worry about it just go for he's a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel what's going on there well as the text is describing it here right the international Flair let's say is being ramped up now because now we're taking one of the greatest persecutors ever in the history of the early church or the church period but as it's happening now in the time of the early church or the early Jesus followers and telling him uh telling ananias that this persecutor now is going to be the instrument uh to even uh sort of uh make the message of the Gospel sort of like the flame of a blowtorch now throughout the rest of the world he'll be um carrying my name he says before Gentiles that is you know the entire Empire through Kings through royalty but also through Jesus or two Jews as well that is the children of Israel so it'll be it'll be a multicultural multi-class level Ministry that this guy will have and this is the guy that I'm choosing to do this and the text goes on to say that indeed with other disciples right he sort of vetted they're they're testing him a little bit to see how genuine his faith is how genuine his new confession now is because obviously we don't want a trojan horse we know what happened with Aeneas right so we don't want the enemy infiltrating the community here in order to end up uh uh getting many of them pinched as the mafia would say um uh sorry about that that just come to mind um so they do and what the text goes on to say is that following this this guy Saul proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue saying he's the son of God which is very different from what Saul was doing in those synagogues earlier wasn't it he himself joins the ranks of Those whom he persecuted and then joins up with other disciples preaching boldly in the name of the Lord and even disputing against the hellenists who are seeking to kill him that is greek-speaking Jews who are pretty smart and sophisticated and have a pretty broad world view and uh pretty intelligent about these things and and is able to uh stand toe-to-toe with them and argue about these kinds of things and have a discourse about these things such that uh apparently they were losing those arguments because now they just want to kill him but even more so now the mission as it is going throughout um going to go throughout the rest of the world is ramped up even more in chapter 10 where we have this very interesting story about sort of the other main character of the book of Acts right Paul will be one of them Saul Paul is one of them but the other main character is Peter and we've already talked about Peter a little bit um but in this particular vignette in chapter 10 there's an interesting issue regarding how to understand the relationship now between two ethnicities between Jew and Gentile um as noted earlier there was this real hatred between Jews and Samaritans and historically we see that and people talking about that a lot even back then there's also a sense in which for Jews there's a separation that they felt they had to have with with the Gentiles that is with non-jews period uh whether they're Samaritans or whoever especially Romans and it has to do with how they interpret it or understood Old Testament law as well as how some of that law had been interpreted or built on or commented on and sort of added to in some sense and what we would call post-exilic Judaism which is uh or second temple Judaism also is what it would be called which is the dominant form of it here in the first century A.D um and the basic point there is that you know if you're a good post-exilic Jew what you would do is you would not associate whatsoever with Gentiles not have anything to do with them frankly except what is necessary and in the context being overtaken by the Roman Empire it would just be necessary for your leaders to have to interact some with you know with pilot and with other uh Roman dignitaries who are controlling everything but that's it nothing else frankly well in this particular story there's this Roman soldier who is also a god fear that is he's a Roman who has become a Jewish Converse so he's a convert to the Jewish let's say the post-exilic Judaism his name is Cornelius and he has this Vision that tells him to send for Peter so he does so he sends for Peter to come see him well of course Peter's probably got all kinds of trepidation because this is a gentile guy right and Jews don't mesh well with Gentiles we need to keep our distance and not associate with one another but while Peter then is on his way to go see him because he is a Roman soldier right and this would be necessary at a very in a very basic sense he gets hungry starts praying and as the text goes while he's praying he has this vision of all kinds of reptiles and birds that sort of come out of this blanket as it's as the text says it's sort of laid down on the ground like all four corners of the of the earth and and all of these animals that technically would be considered unclean or non-kosher let's put it that way uh to eat um he starts seeing in this dream and then in this dream in this trance the the text says that a voice now says to him you know get up kill these things and eat these things well Peter responds I can't do that because they're unclean or they're common according to Old Testament law but then the voice of the Lord comes back to him and says don't say that because what God has made clean do not call Common in other words it may be according to the old ceremonial laws here that these things will be considered unclean but in essence what the Lord is saying at this point according to Luke in this text is that God is making these things clean right the the division between what's unclean and clean what you can associate with and what you can associate with that line is being erased to some extent and the point here that ultimately this is about because it's a very long chapter and I will go through every single detail but the ultimate point trying to be made here is that Peter realizes that even though it is unlawful in some sense for him to associate with non-jews that is Cornelius um nonetheless that line has been erased to some extent that he should not call any person common or unclean and then Peter himself then exclaims as the result of this his lesson that he's learned truly understand that God shows no partiality but in any Nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him and he command us to preach to the people right and he goes on and on and on about this to everyone who believes in him they might receive the Forgiveness of sins through his name right so so the distinction between people who are worthy of being associated with and those who aren't that distinction is being erased it's being thrown out indeed as the the message or as the thesis statement of the book is right as to how the outline of the book is we're going to start in Jerusalem going Judea and Samaria into the uttermost parts of the Earth this is stuff that got to get figured out before they can really go to the ends of the Earth that is to the rest of the world and going to the rest of the world indeed uh forgive the expression is what happens on steroids starting in Chapter 13 and going to the End of This Book of Acts right it's this book is all about this Mission and how this Mission can go and how this mission is to be put into practice and it is put into practice chapter 13 then Paul uh remember the The persecutor Saul his name has been changed to Paul he gets up with a buddy named Barnabas and so they go to Greece specifically they go to Cyprus uh and then after that they go to Antioch and pasidia which would be in modern day Turkey so they're way outside the bounds of of Jerusalem and the surrounding regions and now they're out in the Empire they're evangelizing people there with this message about Jesus and the way that Peter and Stephen did earlier to local Jewish context they're connecting Jesus to the Hebrew Patriarchs and the prophets although down in chapter 17 I'll skip over that middle line now on chapter 17 it talks about how Paul then will go on to Athens Greece and he'll talk to people there but his strategy is a little bit different he won't necessarily do it the way that Peter and Stephen did it in connecting Jesus to the Hebrew Bible but he'll try to give this message of Jesus by appealing to their common Humanity so not a common history as Peter and Stephen does but appealing to their common Humanity and we'll use things that those people already in Athens would know such as their poets like f amenities and eretus he'll talk about things that they've written and use lines from some of their very famous poems such as the lines in him we live and move and have our being which is attributed to EP amenities and the line that we are indeed his offspring which is attributed to eridus and what Paul will say is that these poets were right even though they're Pagan they were right on one hand but they may not be right in terms of who the exactly they were talking about and Paul will say so I will tell you who that all this is really talking about and it's the god that indeed has been manifested in this person Jesus so we are indeed this God's Offspring and God commands everybody everywhere to repent Jew Gentile what have you so uh fascinating the strategy is different here it's a different audience than what the early Believers are are are are are spreading this message to um but nonetheless right it's it's this journeying it's this tea loss going out and of course uh chapter 15 the Jerusalem Council this is another interesting vignette um where uh just like Peter himself personally has to settle this issue on how to think about the different races of people and ethnicities of people and how the mission itself is to go to all people and interesting as that's actually taking place a problem arises and the problem is well if we become Believers if we become Christians because all these Christians already are Jews to begin with does it mean that we all need to become Jews first and then we can become Christians it's that part of the process and what the council settles on is that in light of the the universality of the message of Jesus uh no that's not necessary at all um to follow ancient Jewish customs and ceremonial requirements that they have been given to Jews it's not that any of those things are necessarily wrong I guess some of them will be and some of that will be discussed later on in some of the Epistles one can definitely be an ethnic Jew and and and and be a cultural Jew let's say um and maybe even a nationalistic one to some extent um and that would that would work but it would be wrong to require everybody else who's a Believer to follow those same kinds of rules and then the rest of the book of Acts what we have is uh a description of all these different Journeys throughout the rest of the Roman Empire that Paul himself will take he'll take these Journeys he'll visit all these different towns and Villages and regions starting communities of churches helping convert Believers and then later on writing letters to these places where he's been and summary hasn't been to sort of help them grow to help them mature in their faith and in their belief which is pretty fascinating isn't it so the mission really has taken since the Ascension of Jesus as Luke is describing It Anyway from a room in Jerusalem where 120 people are meeting to where you get to the very end of the book at the very end of the book of Acts it says that Paul is in Rome so he's made his way all the way out here uh to the left side of the screen in the top left he's in Rome preaching and things are going great that's how the book ends so from a hundred people in a room in Jerusalem to him being in Rome and thousands upon thousands of people having converted according to Luke right into how Luke is describing all of this so uh it's a fascinating work right a fascinating text and when we ask the question you know why have we read this for a class like this and done this and and really the reason is is because on the one hand no doubt Christianity has been an incredibly influential movement in western civilization anyone who denies that is just you know being silly you can't deny that um but one of the questions we could ask is why and maybe one of the reasons why just simply has to do with with a particular view of humanity that is being disseminated or understood or even just assumed and all the stuff that's going on here interestingly enough you know we talked about earlier how that you know Jesus has a sort of come to Jesus meeting with his disciples as Luke is presenting it here in his narrative where he more or less tells them hey you know that your mission is not about saving a monarchy it's about disseminating a message the message being the message of me and of my gospel of my resurrection of my death and of the need to repent in order to be saved type of thing um that mission itself as it's presented throughout the Book of Acts and especially as it's presented here and sort of the work that Paul does notice for instance and I'll do a couple slides here notice for instance how similar that is to what's going on with aeneases um Journeys here we have you know Western turkey Eastern Greece Western Greece and Italy uh with a stop off obviously in Carthage right for Aeneas but this is the world of the Mediterranean the world of the Empire um prior to becoming an Empire that Virgil has his mythological figure um Aeneas take in order to found a people well it's not unlike what's kind of going on in some ways here although there's a little bit more back and forth taking place but Paul starts out in Israel but he's in Western turkey Eastern Greece Western Greece and then ends up in Rome and that's the end of the book just like ending up in Rome sorry hope I'll make you dizzy here just like ending up in Rome is the is the part of Aeneas you know it's not that I necessarily want to compare Paul to Aeneas although we maybe could and and then and find some interesting textual comparisons there on sort of an understanding of humanity that's being expressed in both texts but I think it's fascinating all right so what is it about Humanity that Luke believes in both Luke and ax and uh we can take his description of Jesus and and the things that he said that he taught that he preached um as well as what's going on in Acts I think one of them that's already been explicitly taken is that there's a sense in which uh Humanity itself has uh this sort of uh universality to it maybe universality when it comes to corruption and the need to follow Jesus that's as they're presenting these things but there's a universality too in terms of who's worthy of doing this you see reconciliation between people um uh being preached and being taught and being practiced in something like The Aeneid is not so much reconciliation as it is um sort of the casting off of enemies in order to found a new and greater people so there you don't have reconciliation as much as you have I think just more division all for the sake of Empire here you have reconciliation in Luke and acts not for the sake of Empire but for the sake of Kingdom as it's being described in its ultimate sense Jesus's Kingdom let's say so coming together reconciliation for Kingdom instead of war and fighting and conquering and Triumph all for the sake of Empire like with the Aeneas um so that's one thing we could say about how they believe about what humanity is or how they would reflect on Humanity um just in just in a very abstract way so that's a positive I guess the negatives would be corruption uh maybe even some of the inevitabilities or the nature of humanity itself um that there's this inevitability to be arrogant to be stubborn to be corrupt and to some extent that all of this is really underlying that is assumed uh and why the specific things happen as they do how people are treated because they have a different mindset or a different view from what the dominant one is treated with violence and persecution let's say so that's that's obviously a nasty aspect of humanity but nonetheless the best way to respond to that is uh as it's presented in these texts with love with compassion with reconciliation uh but with truth also as as they perceive what the truth is in these texts as these characters do so how would that contrast with such views in the Aeneid or Gilgamesh or a public or or Aristotle's politics and uh talked a little bit about the Aeneid already as far as that goes but um I don't know I mean think about Gilgamesh for instance here we have reconciliation or not so much reconciliation as we have friendship between and kedu and Gilgamesh right and it's this friendship that they that they have together that forces them or not really forces them but encourages them that gives them the impetus to go out and um do amazing things together to be able to conquer some things together and have these amazing Journeys and adventures together um interestingly enough right that's that's a common theme in all these texts is this notion of Journey and he is on a journey the early Church of Believers is on a journey especially Paul Gilgamesh and kidu are on a journey they're on a journey to conquer all these kinds of things so journey is a crucial way it's a crucial metaphor of talking about all these types of uh purposes that these texts have and their characters have but the friendship between inquito and Gilgamesh comes to an end when in kiru dies and then Gilgamesh is trying to figure out how to overcome death himself and then he realizes he can't and so he gets depressed and he realizes the inevitability of life and just goes back home and tries to be happy the rest of his life well something like Luke and acts it's it's arguing something the complete opposite that death itself is not the end but it's sort of the beginning of something and that is the death of this person Jesus begins a brand new life of salvation for those who would uh align themselves with that so there's an interesting uh contrast with that uh the Republican the politics and it obviously is a different kind of text there these are more tree disease of treaties is about uh that's a fun word to try to say in the plural about uh about what uh Society is or should be or how it should be understood and definitely in the Republican politics we have uh what they give us are very strict guidelines as to how people should be classified as in one camp or another as in one lane of of being the Elites for instance in the Republic of philosopher Kings or of the the military class or of the merchant class and that's it you are that and that they're to be treated differently in different ways and we see a little bit of something like that not necessarily in those categories but we see a little bit something like that in Aristotle's politics well we don't see anything like that at all like that at all in what's going on in Luke and acts these class distinctions are not being made as essential ones whenever these distinctions are made in Luke and acts they're made just to describe who people are how they would be understood to be in that time in that context um thus to give the reader a sense of of what they're dealing with here given what other cultural attitudes would be about those people um so whereas now these these texts Republican politics want to classify people to put them in boxes um what Luke and ax is trying to do is open those boxes sort of get rid of those kinds of classifications in order to talk about I suppose what the text is assuming as the Integrity just of their Humanity to begin with and the sort of equality of the Integrity or dignity let's say of their Humanity when it comes to that are there similarities and themes between Luke and x and these other texts I guess I already mentioned one of those earlier that the notion of Journey all right journey is a massive theme in all of these at least in the Aeneid in Gilgamesh in Luke and acts right Jesus himself was on a journey ministering to people all around the land of Israel uh until he comes to Jerusalem his ministry ends there but that's where the ministry of the Apostles begins and then they go from Jerusalem and go out really to the entire Roman Empire so everything is progressing on a journey uh that's what we see in the need that's what we see in Gilgamesh although the journey sort of comes back home at its end when Gilgamesh returns home to his throne sort of lives out the rest of his days there um so that's a similar theme there's probably others too that you can think of and also fourthly and maybe this is an unfair question because this is something we really would need to discuss in person but what is it about The Narrative of Acts that might explain why Christianity has come to dominate throughout Western Civilization even to this day and I know that there's been a lot of polling I find these things very interesting the polling about how that sort of an understanding of biblical Christianity or a practice of biblical Christianity is is fading and that is shrinking as uh Western countries become more secularized yet in spite of that it's still bigger and more popular and populist than anything else that would compare to that in terms of a a distinct world view um category as well as a religion I suppose um so I don't know this could be answered in all kinds of ways um maybe it'd be best to not speculate on what too much of what an answer is but maybe an answer could be conjured up in terms of all these other questions we've been asking so far on this slide and trying to answer you know what is it about these texts that are so distinct from any other kinds of texts and ideas about what humanity is that makes it much more attractive that makes it uh much more positive for people to adhere to versus the message of something like Gilgamesh I mean why would somebody be more apt to align themselves with the message of what's going on in Luke and acts than they would the Aeneid or they would especially Gilgamesh obviously because right there's there's more let's say maybe Hope For Humanity given or offered by what is being said in Luke in Acts than there is until the mesh right Gilgamesh ends up in futility but Luke and ax ends up sort of in a kind of Triumph about what humans are able to do in light of what this God has already done for them as Luke would put it uh in his text so anyway interesting stuff like all this we've been doing in this course I hope you've enjoyed this hope this has got you thinking really hard maybe it's got your brain uh hurting a little bit that's not a bad thing as always I hope you have a great rest of your day and we will see you metaphorically next time