Chapter 10

The tenth chapter of Acts brings to focus the central theme of the book. Chapter 9 had offered scenes of the working of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 10 slows down the narrative for emphasis. 
The two key people in the chapter are Cornelius (a gentile) and Peter (a Jew). The chapter is about joining. Cornelius, who prays to God, is confronted in spiritual vision with the instruction to send some of his employees to go find Peter. In the meantime, Peter is experiencing a vision of his own. He is tired and hungry after a long day. He is resting on the roof of Simon the tanner. He has a vision of a sheet being lowered in front of him. The sheet is filled with what could be food for Peter, but disturbingly this food includes animals forbidden by Jewish law and interpretation. The sheet has to be lowered three times, even in the vision, for Peter to begin to listen. 
In the vision, Peter hears a divine voice telling him to eat. Peter is disgusted. He resists. The vision is not about food, it is about Cornelius. 
God is reaching beyond the bias of a small group, a religious tribe, to others outside that tribe. 
Peter can’t understand this, but he accepts the guidance of the Holy Spirit to go to see Cornelius. Peter speaks of Jesus there and his message is received with joy. 
Peter says something that has still to be heard and acted upon in much of the Christian church; 
“God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean.” 

The United States of America has perpetuated a Christian faith that has not accepted what Peter was shown. 
Canada has often perpetuated a Christian faith that has often not accepted what Peter was shown. 

We have a long long way to go.

Chapters 6-8 - Conflict, Persecution, Trouble

There has been a kind of ideal community forming. Repeatedly, in the first chapters of Acts we have seen descriptions of a community of compassion and love. There has been trouble, too. Ananias and Sapphira died suddenly and violently. Some of the disciples had been imprisoned. Still it has seemed that a community of faith has been forming with relative ease, until chapter 6. 
In these three chapters the new community of believers is faced with the reality of strife and pain and conflict and its consequences.  
Chapter 6 begins the narrative of Stephen who most of us know will be violently killed. What is less known is that Stephen’s death is in part due to difficulties within the community itself. In chapter 6 we see that disputes have arisen in the community. The groups of people in the dispute are named. Basically, some of the community who were from a different place than many others issue a complaint that their vulnerable people are not being cared for as others are. The leaders and apostles decide to appoint people to oversee the distribution of food and help. When Stephen is appointed all seems to be well as he is a strong and loving leader. However, another group of people in the community, a group who had at times been excluded, opposes Stephen, even to the point of slander. This is how Stephen comes to be arrested. 
The world is terrible sometimes.  
The ideals of the community are hopeful and benevolent. The actions of the leaders are thoughtful and wise. The complaints of the people are valid and understandable. And yet, there is such terrible trouble. 
Stephen represents a new order. Those who complain about him can’t see the benefit of a new order, even if the old order pushed them down. It’s all so human. 
There is no defense for the lying and hatred, but it is a window into how even the best intentions can’t avoid unintentional and even terrible events. 
In chapter 7 Stephen will preach a sermon filled with history, seeking to show Christ as the centre. He will be killed, stoned to death as his sermon, his words from death row upset people so much that they hurl rocks at him. 
Then we are told that one of those looking on is named Saul. Saul loves this division and hatred. He wants the new community of faith utterly destroyed. Chapter 8 begins with 3 verses that could comprise a long period of time. The new community now faces a time of scattering. It is a place of prayer to imagine what those in the community would feel in a time like that. 
It seems that what started with such promise is already over. 

It’s easy at times to look around and come to the conclusion that there is no way forward. Even the people who are supposed to work together oppose each other. You can be brought down so low by the words or absence or judgment of a friend. 
And then you look and consider the larger powers, the economy, the challenges in our world. Then maybe you face loss yourself, your job, a relationship, your health.  

Dear God; 
Give me eyes to see. Let me feel the confusion and pain that would have been felt by your followers in these chapters. I can’t claim to know its depths, but I can seek to hear it, to sense it as I read and pray. Then let me know that over and over and over again we face times where hopelessness seems more appropriate than hopefulness. In that space, dear heavenly Father, in that space, let me hear your voice. 

Chapter 5 - The Pace Quickens

In chapter 5, Luke, the narrator of the book picks up the pace substantially. The events in the book are notable for their nature.  
First, there is this terrible story of Ananias and Sapphira. The story comes out of the description of the sharing community at the end of chapter 4. Ananias and Sapphira are a couple who want to participate in the communal feeling, but they clearly put themselves first. The story is certainty written in a way that implies that they were judged for lying about what they were giving to the community, what they were giving to God. 
We have to let stories like this bother us. In the story it is God and God alone who holds the power of judgment. We ought never use stories like this to take that power ourselves. We should, however, be discerning. We should see that there is a tendency to put ourselves first, to turn family or couple into an idol above even God. With stories like this you read them, then you pray them. Dear God, give me understanding. What is going on in this story?  

The chapter also contains another description of the community and of the miraculous signs and healings within the community. May we be open to the supernatural power of God in the world and in our lives. 
After this interlude there is a lengthy account of the disciples being jailed, being freed by way of angelic miracle and continuing to preach. Once again we see the working of the disciples being criminalized. The political and religious leaders are “jealous”. The prison and incarceration will become a major theme in the book. 

Dear God; 
Bless us today to know your presence. We pray for one another, for our needs, our sorrows, our concerns and our joys. We pray that we would reflect your love this day.
We thank you for the gift of living today and for every person we get to see today. Forgive us our sins, open our eyes to the sorrow and pain and oppression in the world. Show us our shortcomings so that we may see your goodness and your love. 
In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Chapter 4 – An Early Arrest

After the healing of the man who could not walk in Acts 3, a major theme of the book of Acts comes up in chapter 4. Peter and John are arrested. 
For what? 
Apparently for disturbing the peace, for upsetting the status quo, for making a scene. The rest of the book of Acts will run along these lines of the criminalized disciples against the status quo of leadership. 
These are difficult things to understand for those of us who have more often benefitted from the status quo than been victimized by it. The leaders who take up the case of Peter and John are set as judges. They are people in judgment over other people. What have Peter and John done? They have (in Jesus’ name) healed a man who had never walked. 
The judges are there to make sure that things stay the same. Perhaps it would have been better in their minds if the lame man remained lame. At the very least, they cannot abide by something happening, even something good, if it is outside of the way things are, outside of their control. 
They confer. They tell Peter and John not to preach anymore about Jesus. Peter has given an explanation of the way things are in Christ and now Peter and John say that they cannot agree to not speak about Jesus. The leaders do what those protecting status quo always do, they issue more threats. They have done a calculation. The healing and the preaching have not cost much so far. They have not yet occasioned a danger to the way that things are. This will not be the last encounter. 
There are a couple of other notes here. Firstly, there is the boldness with which Peter and John stand and speak. We are told that they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. I think that we know it at heart. We know that true power and boldness does not come from within. True power and boldness come from without. However, this power is for all. We can, by God’s grace, speak and stand and pray and face challenges in the power of the Holy Spirit. Even today. 
Secondly, there is in this chapter a contrast to the status quo. A new community is forming. It is a community where people do not hoard, where there are none in need, where people share, where money is for the common good not for individual power and status. 
The disciples might truly be a threat to the status quo. 

Chapter 3 - At the Gate Beautiful

Acts 3:1-11  
A New World at the Gate Beautiful  

Peter and John are going to the temple to pray. 
Outside the temple, at a gate named beautiful, there is a beggar, a man lame from birth who was placed each day at the gate to beg from alms, for money. 
This presence of this man may have been noticed by passers-by, but he was barely noticed, not as an actual person at least.  
In the aftermath of crucifixion and resurrection, that was about to change. 
The tendency in reading this passage is to focus on the healing, it is the big news after all. 
A man who had never walked winds up jumping and leaping and praising. 
There is, and there will be, fullness and joy in the world after crucifixion and resurrection.
There is much more to note, though. 
This is a man who had suffered not only by way of his physical limitations, but also by way of the judgment of others. 
To them he was a less than.  
But there are no “less thans” in the kingdom of the risen Lord Jesus. 
We see this before the healing.  
Peter and John look at the man, into his eyes.
The man looks into the eyes of Peter and of John.  
The people are astounded after the healing because they notice the lame man is leaping. Peter and John noticed the lame man before he was leaping. In following the way of Jesus, they see the humanity of all people. They see the humanity and dignity of each person. Such recognition, in the power of the name of Jesus, can make a blind man leap. 

May you be blessed today with eyes that see the beauty and humanity of all people. 
We are so deeply blessed in this life. 

Chapter 2

As a Pastor in a church with a strongly conservative background, it was difficult to preach on Acts Chapter 2.  
The church in which I worked came from the Plymouth Brethren heritage and one of the early marks of that heritage was a concept called “dispensationalism”. History, the Plymouth Brethren interpreters had determined, was divided into distinct eras or dispensations of God’s presence. In terms of the expression of the Holy Spirit, the time of charismatic gifts (speaking in tongues, healing, etc.) had been a previous dispensation. This meant that such displays in the present were suspect at best and fake at worst. 
This made preaching on Acts chapter 2, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost where the people spoke in tongues, rather difficult as I did not believe in dispensationalism. In the same church, there were a few people who were all about the charismatic gifts. As denominations broke down, a church with a Plymouth Brethren heritage may draw people who had grown up in a Pentecostal church. Even among the “brethren” there were people who by way of some conference or experience had come to embrace the power of the Holy Spirit as demonstrated in things like healing and speaking in tongues. Some of these people were most vociferous about the need for Holy Spirit Power. It’s always the converts who are the most convinced. 
While I did believe that God could manifest in whatever way God decided, I did not fully embrace some of the thinking of the charismatic movement. I didn’t think that you were more Christian if you spoke in tongues. I did not think that most people were physically healed. Some people may have experienced supernatural physical healing, but the definition of the word miraculous meant that miracles were the exception. 
So, I knew one thing when I went to preach on Acts 2; whatever I said would be deemed disappointing by some people and deemed dangerous by others.   

Acts 2 has been recovered for me now.  
This is the moment of surveying the landscape. The followers of Jesus have gathered in the shadow of crucifixion and resurrection. They are waiting. This is aftermath. They don’t quite know what to do. You would not know what to do, either. 
And then the Holy Spirit descends in power. They did nothing to bring this about. There was no formula. They were not saying “Come Holy Spirit” over and over again. It was waiting. It was aftermath. 
The Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire in the room. The Holy Spirit came as wind and the room was transformed. The Jewish followers of Jesus began speaking in all kinds of different languages though they had never learned the languages. 

When I was taught about this scene what was emphasized was the power, the supernatural manifestation, the beginning of the church. These are all present and true. The languages where explained as a charismatic manifestation that proved the presence of God. If there was mention at all of Parthians, Medes, Cretans, Arabians and others who heard their languages spoken by Jewish followers of Jesus it was only to mention that the mission of God would reach the ends of the earth. 

For the charismatics who spoke about this passage the important thing seemed to be POWER. They seemed to long for such a Pentecostal receiving and would pray and pray COME HOLY SPIRIT seemingly desiring to have power like the followers of Jesus had power that day.  
Except the followers didn’t really have power at all.  
They were taken over.  

The dispensationalists played down the whole scene. This thing was important and it happened, but it happened once, but we ought not expect it to happen again. 

Here is how I hear Acts 2 now. 
Have you ever seen news stories about how an Indigenous group of people is trying to preserve or recover their language? There must be something beautiful and overwhelming for a First Nations elder to hear a young person speaking the language of the ancestors.  People all over the world as they have immigrated from one place to another have been drawn by the sound of their own language.  
You might remember the sound of your grandmother or grandfather and how they spoke.  

Imagine, as a faithful Jewish follower of Jesus, if you were suddenly (and I suppose mostly fluently) speaking the language of a Cretan. Imagine if you, now, were speaking an Indigenous language or a language spoken mostly in the Middle East.  

Who are you? Where do you come from?  
Maybe you say, “I am Irish background”, or Scottish, or German or Russian. You have at times defined yourself by the place where your family has come and the language which they spoke. Now suddenly, in the aftermath, you are speaking the language of another people, maybe even a people that you have thought are lesser than your people. Maybe you are speaking the language of a people who are not “Christian”. If you are overcome with the Holy Spirit, the lines between people will be erased. If you want to know if someone is filled with the Spirit look for that. The proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit is love, not supernatural spiritual theatre.  

Acts Chapter 2 shows that the lines between people will be superseded and undone. The Holy Spirit is about joining people together.   

This is the main thing that will happen, in the aftermath. 

Chapter 1

Acts has never been my favourite book. I think that the way in which it has been taught to me, and the way that I have read it have made it feel pretty “churchy” to me; and I’m not really into “churchy”.  
The church – sure, but “churchy” not so much. 
I have missed so much in these missionary journeys. They came across as kind of triumphalist to me, as if with the message of the apostles the world will be taken over as akin to some military conquest, “onward christian soldiers”. My reading of the book was rescued by Dr. Willie James Jennings. Dr. Jennings is a Professor at Yale Divinity School and he has written a commentary on Acts.  
Jennings writes beautifully and christologically. That is, his sentences are a treat to read, and his work is focused on the work of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
Dr. Jennings shows us that Acts is about bringing together. He points out that the action in the book takes place in the tension between empire and diaspora. What he means by that is that the action takes place between established political power and revolutionary action. Neither of these can draw lines around the work of God. 
(If you want a contemporary example of empire vs. diaspora consider those who are loudly against protests around the world and those who are loudly for them. Empire protects status quo power, diaspora seeks to dismantle it.) 
God is doing a work, in the book of Acts that is the bringing together of people who never thought that they would be together and who would not have been happy to be told otherwise. 
The Acts of the Apostles – perhaps. 
The Acts of the Holy Spirit – better. 
The Acts of the Spirit of Jesus Christ – better yet.  

Chapter 1 has these two scenes. The first is Jesus speaking to his followers and then ascending to heaven. The followers are in the midst of the aftermath of crucifixion and resurrection. They don’t quite know what to do. Jesus tells them to wait. He blesses them and gives them a commission. He then ascends to heaven and they stand there staring at the sky. They are told by angelic visitation to stop staring at the sky. 
Soon after they gather together and “devote themselves to prayer”. They wait.  

And then they determine that they need to assign a new apostle to take the place of Judas. It’s a curious choosing. They pray; and then they roll dice. They still have no idea that God, by the Holy Spirit will take apart their way of doing things. It’s a curious game that leaders play. “Who should be chosen to lead?” Perhaps those granting themselves the power of choosing will say, “Only men can be leaders of this thing.” Perhaps they will say, “Only people like us can be leaders.” So they set aside two people remarkably like themselves and roll the dice.  
It’s a human way of choosing. 
And I think that God must find the whole thing rather amusing. 
God is not bound by the limitations of our prejudice or opinion. He is about to blow the whole thing open. The church (the “churchy” church) will spend hundreds, actually thousands, of years trying to lay out the bounds for the work of God. God must find that amusing as well. 
Here is what I know.  
As Willie James Jennings says in his commentary; “Newness begins with Jesus.”  

Now, in the aftermath. May we long for what is new in Christ. 

Come Holy Spirit.  
Amen.