This is the 1st lecture material for the online series of lectures on Survey of Acts to Revelation by Dr. Thomas Schreiner. 

Recommended Reading includes: Article on Divorce and Remarriage – Craig Blomberg, Trinity Journal, 1990; The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross by Leon Morris; Are there Two Will in God by John Piper; Two views on Women in Ministry by James Beck and Craig Blomberg; Word Bible Commentary: Pastoral Epistles, Volume 46, by William D. Mounce and Recovering Biblical Manhood and Biblical Womanhood, by Wayne Gudem and John Piper (article by Vern Poythress entitled, ‘The Church as a Family’)

(Any slides, photos, notes or outlines that the lecturer refers to should be downloaded separately. If they are not available, you may be able to find something similar using the Google© search engine.)

Introduction to Acts

A.  Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the book of Acts; the redemptive work that was accomplished by Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, in fulfillment of the Scriptures. We thank You that You have poured out Your Spirit upon Your people, that You have given us, by Your Spirit, the ability and power to bear witness to You to the very ends of the earth. We do pray that we would understand this book as we begin to study it. We pray that we would be filled with Your Spirit and Your power as we bear witness to unbelievers, both in our words and in our actions. Help us now to understand what You have given to us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Well I’m gonna work through the notebook there, first of all, I just want you to see in the notebook—I’m really not going to spend time on it, but I just have…(hopefully our page numbers are the same, they aren’t always). In my notebook, I have pages 2-6, those are just comments I make on various commentaries for you on each New Testament book. You know, every semester people ask me about what commentaries I recommend. Well, I’ve updated this a little bit and then I have comments on every New Testament commentary for each New Testament book that I would recommend to you; and if anything I have more commentaries than I wanna list, you know I have five, six, seven, even eight, in some cases. That’s just for your benefit, so…

Student: [inaudible] 

Dr. Schreiner: No, the numbers are just arbitrary. I don’t necessarily list them in order of preference, although…I do sort of list, I guess…usually the one I think is best for pastors first. That is typically true as I just glance at it. Now, there may be some exceptions. I don’t know in the pastoral epistles if I think George Knight’s is the best for pastors. I think it is a good commentary. But generally speaking I guess I do do that. 

If you have a question about a particular book, I’m just happy to talk to you about it and tell you which one I’d recommend. But it sort of depends on what you are looking for, because I try to say, “Well this one’s real technical, this one’s a little less technical,” and that sort of thing. It’s just amazing how many commentaries are out there isn’t it? I mean, I was just updating an essay I wrote in 1995 over the break, and it was from the pastoral epistles and I had five or six major commentaries to read in the pastoral epistles that were written since 1995 – that just blew me away! 

I just have spaces on some pages, I mean that’s just on purpose in case I wanna expand my notebook. I’m trying…‘cause I also teach this course online…I’m trying to arrange my notebook so I don’t change the pages in the future. That’s so I never have to teach it online again, but I may have to anyway. But that’s my hope. I—over Christmas, right after last semester I had to sit in a studio for four days and give these lectures, this whole course I’m doing right now. And I tell you, it’s a lot more exciting to have faces in front of me. So, I’d just sit down at a table and away I’d go. So…the camera person fell asleep a lot of times, but we all made it. 

Okay, I go to page 8 in the book of Acts. That’s where we start.

B.  Authorship and Date

Authorship and date: you notice that I don’t have anything there really, I just say “See notes on Luke.” I know you didn’t all take me for Luke, but, I think it’s the same author. Hopefully you covered that in your Gospels class. I just don’t wanna cover that again. I think there are good reasons to think that Luke wrote it so I’m not going to linger there. 

C.  Structure of Book

In terms of the structure of the book, not in any New Testament book is there consensus on structure, but you can see that I have just various ways to structure it, just three there.

You can structure the book by Peter and Paul – those 2 major persons. I think that’s a doubtful way to structure the book. It doesn’t seem that Luke is really interested in Peter and Paul biographically, at least not primarily. One of the pieces of evidence for that is after Acts 15, after Peter makes his speech, he just drops out of the book altogether. We just have no information about what happened with Peter so… There’s so many things we’d like to know. I mean, what happened to Paul at the end of his trial? Was the book completed before that trial ended in Acts 28? Well…it’s hard to know because is Luke really interested in telling us what happened to Paul? Does he really have a biographical interest primarily? So it’s hard to know.

The other two outlines are rather similar, I mean they’re just geographical…you can see them there. I prefer the third outline there from the summary statements. And I see summary statements…and you see the verses there: 6:7, 9:31, 12:24, 16:4, 19:20 and 28:31. I view those as summary statements that are at various points in the narrative and as readers they alert us to the structure of the book.

Almost every one of those summary statements say something like “the Word of God was increasing and multiplying.” So it seems to me that Luke causes—steps back and says, you know “the Gospel is increasing and multiplying,” and that will help us see how it’s structured. We’ll look at some of these again when we look at the outline of the book.

D.  Purposes of Luke-Acts

What are the purposes of Luke-Acts? Notice I put both of them together. It’s a very tough thing when you put the canon together. Do you put Luke next to Matthew and Mark? That just makes imminent sense doesn’t it? The three synoptic gospels together. Then if you put the other gospel next to them, John, you separate Luke from Acts. But Luke and Acts were written by the same author, to the same person, Theophilus, and they were meant to be read together. So you could see another arrangement of the canon where Luke and Acts would sit right next to each other. Yet the gospels relate to one period of history, and Acts another. So we can see why our canon was arranged the way it was. But, we just oughta put in our minds, “Yeah, it’s a good thing to read Luke and Acts together.” 

What are some of the purposes? Well, there’s clearly—everybody knows this, don't they? There’s an expansive purpose. The inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God. That’s a huge theme in Acts isn’t it? And those of us who are Gentiles (and that’s most of us), it’s almost routine to us now and we’re used to this theme. But it was a very remarkable thing to the Jews in the early church, because they were the chosen people and the way the Gentiles ended up being part of the people of God was surprising and astonishing to them. 

Luke has a theological purpose to write about salvation history in the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Luke is interested in the fulfillment of prophecy. And that comes up from the very first verse of Luke, isn’t it? He writes about “the things that were fulfilled among us” that’s in the gospel of Luke, and of course that fulfillment continues in the book of Acts. Of course we don’t have a detailed organization of the church in Luke and Acts. I mean, Luke doesn’t stop and tell us how churches should be ordered specifically. That doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to learn from Acts regarding this. It’s just that it’s not its purpose to detail everything for us. 

There’s a historical interest in the book, isn’t it? It’s not a comprehensive look at the early documents but we have some of the activities of Jesus and the early church recorded for us. Of course, it’s often been pointed out, the title “Acts of the Apostles,” may not be the best title for the book because the only apostles that really do anything are Peter and Paul, right? John appears with Peter in the early chapters of the book but he ends up never saying a word. Have you ever noticed that? Just Peter and John…Peter does all the talking. James appears in the book. In chapter 12, we’re told that his head was removed from his body – that’s it. The other apostles, nothing at all. So it’s hardly the Acts of the Apostles. Luke is hardly saying, is he, “All the other apostles were miserable failures,” right? We’re not to interpret the book that way – there’s just much that we don’t know. So, you know, people have said we oughta call it “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” or you know, “The things that Jesus began to do and teach” – that’s what he says in chapter 1 verse 1.

But that’s the title it has now and so it is. But when we say it’s historical, we have to remember it's hardly comprehensive, right? Some things that are recorded, under the providence of God surely – it’s evangelistic, it’s a proclamation of salvation to its readers. Some have even wondered whether Theophilus is an unbeliever himself…it’s impossible to know, but surely anybody reading Acts and Luke-Acts together would learn about salvation. And it’s political; it’s an apologetic for Christianity. If you read Luke and Acts together it is interesting to note that again and again Luke emphasizes, in the case of Jesus, and Paul, and Peter, that they are prosecuted by the authorities but they’re innocent. There are no grounds for the political prosecution. Again, for many people in the United States, that hasn’t been a real interesting theme but if you’re in a country where Christianity is considered to be politically subversive, that’s important, isn’t it? That the grounds on which charges were leveled against Christianity were not persuasive. And perhaps that’ll become more relevant to us as the years go on in our country. 

Here’s some questionable purposes – I’m not going to go over those, you can just read those on page 8.

E.  Theology of Acts

The theology of Acts. We have the theology of mission; we have the expansion of the church through the message of the Gospel, Acts 1:8. I take it that that is the theme of the book. I think it’s the expansion of the Gospel through all the world. The power of the Holy Spirit in the church. It’s often been pointed out (if you’ve had Gospels already, you don’t need to have had the Gospels to take this course) but, Luke has a particular interest, doesn’t he, in his Gospel, in the Holy Spirit. And of course that continues in Acts, doesn’t it?

The church progresses, not because these people were so noble, not because they were so great, not because they were so spiritual, but because of the Holy Spirit’s work in them. Which is encouraging for us because we’re not great, we’re not noble, we’re not strong in ourselves, but we have the same Spirit that was given to the church. That the early apostles and leaders are not glorified, are they, as gods, but as ordinary people whom God used in remarkable ways.

We have the kerygmatic speeches in Acts. And the kerygmatic speeches (and I’ll say more about this) are the Gospel speeches, and you see the passages. We have speeches where they’re proclaiming the Gospel – the kerygma – the preached Word of the Gospel. Look at those passages there, see how long they are. They’re very short aren’t they? Every one of those speeches, we could read out loud, probably in less than one minute, maybe it’d take two in a couple of cases. How many of us believe that on the day of Pentecost, Peter’s sermon lasted one minute? 

I don’t. You don’t believe that either. Therefore we can fairly conclude that Luke summarizes the main points in Peter’s speech. Accurately summarizes, but summarizes. Does he use some of the exact words? Probably. But it’s a summary, isn’t it? It’s an accurate summary, I think it’s an inspired summary. But then we realize, maybe he spoke an hour, I don’t know, you know. He probably spoke a long time and we’re just getting the boiled down version of the Gospel that was proclaimed. That’s helpful to remember, isn’t it? When we read these speeches, that it’s just boiled down for us, readers, so that we can get this in a form that’s digestible. Well, so that Luke could fit it on, you know, the scroll. And the book’s long enough as it is, Luke and Acts together are 28% of the New Testament. So that’s a lot of the New Testament.

Stephen’s speech in chapter 7 is a very important speech in the narrative. Just think about this right now: are you familiar with Stephen’s speech? Maybe you’re not, but if you think about it…all I want to say now (maybe I’ll get to it even later today), why is that speech important in Acts? That’s a good question to ask isn’t it? I’m saying it’s a programmatic speech in the book. Why? One of the best things to do, you all know this, correct? When reading the Bible is to ask yourself questions. Questions that trouble you, that make you wonder about things, are a great way to learn, aren’t they? And expand… ‘Course I have questions that remain unanswered. But that’s just the best way to learn, is to question and ask and think. All under the umbrella, I think of faith seeking understanding. And I’m not speaking here of a kind of skepticism here, but faith seeks understanding and has questions that need to…that we ask…that we want to be resolved. Some people have just grown up in context in which they feel hindered in their spirits from asking any questions at all. That’s one reason they don’t learn as much, somehow they think it’s not pious.

The inclusion of the Samaritans in Acts chapter 8. That’s a very fascinating passage, given the cultural division between Jews and Samaritans. We read about that in John’s gospel, don’t we? Since I’m talking about it, and—I forget the exact date now, I think it was 116 BC or something like that. One of the Maccabean rulers, John Hyrcanus, he burned down the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerasene. So you know, maybe 150 years before the New Testament was and Jesus came on the scene.

Obviously, the Samaritans had ill-will towards the Jews. I mean, the Jews had burned down their temple and so forth and so on. So we see some of that in the New Testament.

Paul’s conversion is recounted three times. Again, you’re using up valuable space in your manuscript, aren’t you? Apparently, Luke wants us to ask and to see Paul’s conversion is very important, so important that he gives it to us from three different angles. And even emphasizes different things in the different accounts. We won’t have time to look into that. But that’s an interesting question to pursue. I don’t think they contradict, but there are different angles in the three accounts, different details that are emphasized or de-emphasized. So that’s an interesting study.

The significance of the conversion of Cornelius. Again, that story is told twice. And we do hope to say something about that. Any story that is told twice, Luke wants us to see how very important this account is. ‘Course I’ve already said something about the inclusion of the Gentiles, everything—that relates really to everything else in this book. 

The Apostolic Council in Acts 15. On what basis would the Gentiles become part of the people of God? Most say, as the Old Testament says, “be circumcised to be part of the people of God.” Genesis 17 says, “If you’re not circumcised, you’re cut off…” (I think that word is deliberate.) “…you’re cut off from the covenant.” You’re not part of the people of God. Now the Judaisers would say, “How can we ignore what the Old Testament so clearly teaches us?” So that’s a very important passage. The early church, as you know, decided that circumcision was not required. That’s just programmatic for the rest of the book as well. 

And then we see Paul’s journeys in the book, preaching the gospel, spreading the gospel and he ends up in Rome. Which I think is symbolic for Luke.

Luke ends the book in Rome. He’s at the capital of the empire. The Gospel, so to speak, has gone to the ends of the earth. But of course at the same time, Luke knows it’s not the ends of the earth, doesn’t he? I mean Luke traveled with Paul. Paul knows Spain exists. I mean the Roman empire was in England even, so they know there’s more work to be done, they know about India. ‘Course there’s some early tradition that seems to be accurate, that Thomas got to India – which of course we don’t read about in the book of Acts. So they knew there were other places and the Gospel needed to go to.

Salvation history, I already said that, the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Of—another interesting theme in the book is progress in persecution. The Lord used persecution to advance His church. And of course, any of us know, it’s of course it’s the 21st century now, but that’s still happening today, isn’t it? The 20th century, in a remarkable way – we think of what the Lord has done in China, where there’s been some significant persecution and yet the church has continued to expand and grow. And many times the Lord has used persecution to purify and strengthen the church. 

Persecution shows, doesn’t it, the preciousness of Christ to those who are persecuted. People see that and they’re attracted to people who believe in the midst of difficulties and struggles. We have to be balanced here, the church never prays for persecution. And sometimes people stay and sometimes they run, even in the book of Acts, don’t they? Sometimes they stay in a place and endure it, and sometimes they run to the next city. So I don’t think there’s any just simple answers on whether you stay or go. You know sometimes people get real dogmatic about those sort of things. I mean the Lord leads people in different ways and you see the same person sometimes running to the next city, and then sometimes staying. 

I probably won’t have time to get to it later…in Acts 16, Paul and Silas are Roman citizens and they’re, you know, flogged, and as Roman citizens they could have avoided that. ‘Course some people argue that they flogged them so quickly they didn’t have time to tell them they are Roman citizens. But I don’t believe that, I mean it takes a little bit of time, you know, it just didn’t happen that quickly. Just rip off their clothes, flog them and… “By the way, you know, we just want to tell you, before you did this…” I think they had time. I agree…there’s a book out by Brian Rapske on Paul’s imprisonment, and Rapske argues, and I think this is correct, that the reason Paul, that time, and Silas endured the flogging is because they didn’t want to communicate to the converts at Philippi, that they could always get out of the persecution. Isn’t that interesting? That they wanted to identify with the people, they didn’t want to always use their privileges. So sometimes, they, you know, would endure flogging and yet, later in the book, when Paul’s about to be flogged in Jerusalem, what does he say? “Hey, how can you flog me? I’m a Roman citizen.” So that time, he does something different. So we trust the Spirit had led him in various ways. 

By the way, the Philippian account is very interesting, because at the end of the chapter before they leave the prison, Paul demands a public apology from the political officials before he leaves. Why does he demand such a public apology? Because he’s hurt or something like that? No. He does it for strategic reasons. He wants a public apology from the political officials because he doesn’t want a precedent set politically that says, “Yeah, it’s okay to mistreat these Christian speakers.” He wants the precedent set instead, that says, “What you did was illegal.” So that he has freedom in the other cities to continue to preach the gospel. 

So, at least I would argue, that what Paul and the other apostles did, I mean, it was thought out. They thought about what was happening, they—Paul didn’t want revenge in that case, or anything like that. But he thought of what was best for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So, it’s just a remarkable message, it still speaks to the church today. ‘Course we always ought to say and we never know…I remember when Joseph Song, do you know that name? Came to our chapel a couple of years ago, and he said, you know, “All it might take in our country is for some crisis to strike and suddenly we might be persecuted.” And I think that’s true. There are levels of persecution in our country, but it’s not real intense. But some crisis may strike and our culture, which is becoming increasingly secular, may change their mind and start to discriminate against us in even more overt ways. Now there is some discrimination and persecution now, but it’s not as intense as it could be.

F. Some Final Points

Some final points: remember Acts is the second volume of Luke-Acts. It was not meant to be studied alone, I already said that. Look at Luke 1:1-4, we see that this is intended to be history. It’s interesting – this is just an observation – the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts touch on many of the same themes. You see the verses in Luke that I have there: Luke 24:36-53. That’s helpful for us isn’t it? Because it’s a bridge between the 2 books. If you read the end of Luke, it looks as if the ascension took place the 1st time Jesus appeared to them, or the 2nd or 3rd time. But we know from Acts that it was 40 days later, right? So again he compresses the account in Luke and in Acts we’re told a little more.

Then finally, be careful of absolutizing historical narrative of Acts, description does not necessarily equal prescription. Some people have really gotten into laying on of hands, I’ve no problem with laying on of hands. But I mean, you know, it’s been virtually sacramental in some communities. Well, I mean, if you actually read Acts, they lay on hands for different reasons and they don’t always do it, and how much are we going to read into that? I think it’s a fine thing to lay on hands and pray for people before they go, but it isn’t a sacramental act per se. And the passage on communal living…I do think Luke is saying that our churches should be marked by generosity and care for the material needs of others; I don’t think he’s prescribing a certain social experiment that all churches should follow today.

There’re a number of places where Acts is considered to be historically inaccurate. I’ve got a lot of notes there, you can see that on pages 9 and 10 on those sort of things. I’m not going to spend much time on that. Let me just say a couple things, people especially doubt that the Paul of Acts is historically credible, because Paul in Acts does things like circumcises Timothy. So some scholars say, “No, Paul never would have done that.” Remember in Galatians 2, how he refuses to circumcise Titus? But then he circumcises Timothy. He actually pays for a sacrifice in the temple in Acts 21 and presumably offered sacrifice himself. And some people say, “That’s just impossible. Paul would never have done that. He never would have offered sacrifice in the temple, and paid for other people’s sacrifices.” He’s just too observant of the Law in the book of Acts, and so it is argued that this is a Lukan invention. Why did Luke invent this? So that he could show more unity in the church. 

This is the old F. C. Baur thesis. “Peter and Paul were really at logger-heads,” the famous New Testament scholar F. C. Baur said. And then Luke brings them together and in an early Catholic form of Christianity. So where we have everything being reconciled and the real Paul is muted and that sort of thing. My response to that, I mean of course we need to say much more than we can say here, but I think there are indications in the Pauline letters themselves, that what we have here does not contradict the real Paul. Because Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 9 that when he’s with the Jews, he behaves as a Jew. When he’s with the Greeks, he behaves as a Greek. When he’s with those who observe the Law, he observes the Law. When he’s with those who don’t observe the Law, he doesn’t do that. So I think that accounts for the offering of sacrifices. There’s this period of time in which the apostles still offered sacrifices and then there came a period of time in which it just was not done anymore, ‘course the temple was destroyed, right? But there was this period of flexibility, right? Peter and John, when the guy’s healed in Acts 3, they’re going up at the hour of burnt offering, presumably to be part of the burnt offering sacrifice. So they just didn’t withdraw from the temple and all that immediately.

Paul’s not against observing food laws. He just doesn’t want to require Gentiles to observe them. But why would he circumcise Timothy and not Titus? That’s really been troubling some people. But I think there’s a very good answer to that and it is this: Titus is a Gentile, Timothy was considered Jewish because he had a Jewish mother. So for Paul to circumcise a Jewish person for cultural reasons (read Acts 16), so that he could bring Timothy into the synagogue with him for evangelism, he didn’t have a problem with it. Because it wasn’t being required for Timothy’s salvation but people were saying that circumcision (Galatians 2), was required for Titus’ salvation; then Paul was dogmatic. 

If somebody said circumcision’s required for salvation, he said “Absolutely not.” So no to Titus. But if just for cultural reasons and to promote evangelism, then Paul’s okay with it. So he’s flexible on the case of Timothy and he does it. It’s interesting because I actually think this is a mark of Paul’s breadth of spirit. You know, sometimes if you’re in a great controversy, and people are saying “Circumcision is required for salvation” and you’re saying “No.” Then you’d say “No matter what, I’m against circumcision.” But Paul’s not that way, is he? Even though he’s been in a great controversy, he can step back and say, “You know what, there are circumstances in which it’s okay. I’m not against circumcision per se. I’m against demands required for salvation.” And Paul says this in Galatians himself, doesn’t he? “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing.” Paul says “Don’t think I have a big thing about being circumcised. God doesn’t care about those things. What matters is faith expressing itself through love.” Or as he says in Galatians 6:15, “What matters is the new creation.” Or as he says in 1 Corinthians 7:19, “Circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing. What matters is keeping the commandments of God.”

Is there anything else we should say about historical accuracy? Well, many people have argued that all the speeches come from Luke and not really from the apostles, that Luke invents the speeches. They’re not really historically reliable. Martin Dibelius argued that and others. This is especially argued because it’s an interesting fact: Acts chapter 2, Peter’s speech and Acts chapter 13, Paul’s speech. They’re really, really similar. And so the argument that is made is “Well, Luke just made these up – put them on their lips.” Yeah, they are really similar, that’s true. And it’s an interesting comparison, to compare these two speeches. 

Still, there are some differences and actually, it just so happen in my Bible reading today, I’m right here in Acts 13 and I just read the speech this morning. And one of the remarkable things about this speech is, this speech mentions in verses 38 and 39, that you can’t be justified by observing the Law. That you’re justified by faith, that you receive forgiveness of sins by believing. That’s not in Peter’s speech. It’s not that Peter didn’t believe it, but isn’t it an interesting and distinctive Pauline teaching on justification is in this speech and not that one?

I think that’s a piece of evidence that we’re dealing with an authentic speech of Paul. And then the second thing I want to say is: of course there’s a lot of commonality. There’s a lot of commonality today in our culture and in our communities between how…say how person X and person Y would preach the Gospel, right? We don’t argue from that… “Oh, they must not have really said that. I mean they said a lot of the same things.” I just don’t think that follows. So I don’t have a problem with that. I’m going to leave that behind there.

Now, I actually come on page 11 to the book itself. But let me pause for a minute. Do you want to ask me a question? I mean we just—I just hit those introductory issues, just touched out on some things. I know this is a big class but I want to give you a chance to ask a couple of questions here, make a comment if you want to do that. Well I hope you avail yourself of that in other times and places. I know it’s hard to, when the class is bigger. 

Page 11 and 12: here’s an outline summary of the book of Acts. Again all I’m going to do in the days that we look at the book of Acts, is just touch on some things in the time that we have. Notice my outline, that outline is structured per the summary statements that I mentioned to you before. So the summary statements I have listed in the outline at each point, I’d like you to look at those as you’re reading the book of Acts in your own reading.

So, first of all, if Acts 1:8 is our programmatic verse, and I think it is. “The gospel will be preached in Jerusalem. Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” We’re not surprised that the first section of Acts is the Gospel as proclaimed in Jerusalem. We see that Luke, in the first verses, gives us a reminder of some of the things that we saw at the end of Luke. And then particularly he tells them, doesn’t he, in chapter 1 verses 4 and 5, about the promise of the Spirit; the promise of the baptism of the Spirit that John proclaimed. Sometimes people say, “The gift of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost is not the baptism of the Spirit because in chapter 2 there’s no mention of the baptism of the Spirit.” But they’re wrong, aren’t they? Because chapter 1 verse 5 says, “In a few days or not many days you’ll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So clearly that is the baptism of the Spirit that is fulfilled in the day of Pentecost. But they’re to wait – this is the distinctive period in salvation history. We don’t have to wait today, do we? The Spirit has not been poured out, because what do the Gospels say again and again? The Spirit won’t be poured out until Jesus is what? Ascended and glorified! And He hasn’t ascended and glorified yet. In fact that’s the very next thing that happens in Acts, isn’t it? 

Jesus ascends into heaven right before the eyes of the disciples. That’s a very important event in the story because the apostles don’t know that Jesus won’t be appearing every few days. I mean that’s what’s been happening right? Over 40 days, they walk around the corner, there He is. Suddenly He’s in the room. Suddenly He’s at the beach. Suddenly He’s there. Maybe that’s going to happen their whole lives long, right? You know, just—you walk around the next corner, there’s Jesus. But the ascension tells them, “No, that’s not going to happen anymore. The next time you see Me will be at My second coming. When I come with the clouds of heaven.” So, “Now I’m being exalted. The Spirit’s going to be poured out and you’re to bear witness. The Spirit’s going to come and he’s going to give you power to bear witness to the ends of the earth.” 

Meanwhile, what did the early Christians do? The 120, they pray, don’t they? They pray for the Spirit to come. ‘Course we already have the Spirit don’t we? But the New Testament teaches again and again, we’re to pray to the Spirit that’s already in us will empower us. So there’s a model for us there. There’s a lesson for us in what they did, they pray for the Spirit to come. And very interesting to see some of those listed, who are in that upper room. 

And then the last thing they do before the day of Pentecost is they select the 12th apostle. There’s some controversy about this. Some scholars and Christians argued that they made a mistake that day. That they should have waited for the apostle Paul, and instead, not relying on the Holy Spirit – after all they cast lots – they chose Matthias. I don’t agree with that view. I think that Luke is intending to teach us that what they did was inspired by the Holy Spirit. And that they were doing God’s will. I just want to say a few things why I think that’s so.

First of all, Luke tells us, doesn’t he? That they thought they were fulfilling Scripture. Luke gives no indication that he disagrees. Peter says, “What we’re doing here is fulfilling the Scripture.”

Secondly, even more important to me, I think it's theologically significant that the number 12 is fulfilled before the Spirit falls. Because the people of God are comprised of the 12 tribes of Israel. And now we have the 12 apostles, signifying the new people of God. If you want to be part of the true Israel, you have to belong to this group of 12. So before the Spirit comes the 12 are formed – whole and complete. Yeah it is true, sometimes people say “You never hear of Matthias again. See? He was a bad apostle.” But we’ve already seen the weakness of that argument. Then you have to argue that for virtually all of the other apostles. Since we never hear of them again in the book of Acts. So that argument is not a good argument at all. I don’t think that advances the case.

What about the fact that they cast lots? Well you could argue, well they cast lots before the Spirit fell. So that’s not a wrong thing to do, necessarily. I’m not an advocate of casting lots for making crucial decisions today. And yeah, it is true, isn’t it? That there are some instances, even today, when we’re very evenly divided over what to do and yeah, basically our decision is not much more than “Okay, we’ll go this way.” And that even happens today. So I’m not moving in that direction. I don’t think it’s clear that they did anything wrong.

Should they have waited for Paul? Well Barnabas is also called an apostle, you know, in Acts 14. So that makes 13 in any case. And then you look at Galatians chapter 1, and James the brother of Jesus is called an apostle and he clearly functions as an apostle in the books of Acts. So I agree with Wayne Grudem when he says “Actually the apostolic circle kind of expanded out to at least 15 or 16.” So it was just not 12 anyway. But the title “12” is used before the day of Pentecost and it becomes a traditional title to use, after all, Jesus selected 12 apostles initially. So the number 12 is more important for its symbolic value in the book.

So now, see, everything’s ready. See…I mean why even tell the story otherwise, right? I mean, even if they made a mistake what’s the point? What’s Luke saying, “Don’t do that”? I don’t know the function in the narrative is – but it makes perfect sense if all these things are required before the Spirit— “You need to wait before the Spirit comes in Jerusalem.” You’re praying and you have the 12.

Chapter 2: here comes the Spirit. 

Well times up. So we’ll see you tomorrow.