Sermon Tone Analysis

Andrew Hodge                                                                                                        6th April 2007

 

 

New Testament Survey NTES 111

 

 

Seminar 7

 

 

The Acts of the Apostles

 

 

/Acts/; Irving L. Jensen /Jensen’s Survey of the New Testament /1981, Moody Press, Chicago Ch 9; /Libronix DLS/; Guthrie, Donald  /New Testament Introduction  /Apollos, Leicester, England 4th Ed  1990 Ch 8

 

 

/Examine the characteristics and the date of writing:/

            Acts historically links the Gospels with the Epistles of the NT.

It must be kept in mind that the link is historical and describes a transitional period between the formalism of Judaism and the idolatry of Rome and Greece to the new spiritual and moral life of Christianity.

Care must be taken with Jensen’s statement (p 201) that “Acts provides the key for the fuller understanding of the epistles…”

            Acts continues the story of the immediate effect that the death, burial and resurrection of Christ had in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the uttermost part of the earth.

Strictly speaking Acts is not a history of men or of the Church, but that of the Holy Spirit as He uses individual men and women to spread the good news of salvation around the world - “the gospel in action” (p 202).

It must be remembered that Luke is not a dispassionate arms-length onlooker faithfully recording everything that came his way.

The Holy Spirit required him to be selective in what was written down, and inevitably Luke himself was a part of the making of this history - and he was probably thrilled to be so.

Acts was likely written continuously after the Gospel of Luke, and as the Gospel was included with the other three at the beginning of the Canon in the order required by God, this separated off Acts into its appropriate place as a historical bridge between the accounts of the Gospels and the doctrines of the Epistles.

Luke is likely to have accompanied Paul in his journey to Rome as a prisoner for trial by Caesar (Nero).

It is suggested by Jensen (p 203) that Luke wrote Acts “toward the end of Paul’s two-year imprisonment there, or about A.D. 61”.

Because the date of that imprisonment is historically fixed between 59 and 61 AD and is mentioned in Acts 28:30, the book could not have been completed until after this; but not long after, for it does not record Paul’s postulated additional journey(s) or death, nor the Jewish Wars culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, nor an account of the great fire in Rome of 64 AD which Nero blamed on the Christians.

It is strange that Luke does not make any reference in Acts to the Epistles that Paul had *already *written on the journeyings over 9 years (47-56 AD) that Luke describes.

The commencement of the “we” passages at 16:10 imply that Paul wrote all of the journey Epistles, with the possible exception of Galatians, while Luke was physically with him (Jensen Chart 1 p 20 cf Summary Table p 219); Paul also wrote the Prison Epistles while Luke was with him in Rome.

Luke therefore should have been exposed to 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon and Philippians.

One would have expected the existence of these letters to have been acknowledged in Acts, even if their theology was not relevant to Luke’s narrative.

It is thought that Paul was executed by Nero shortly before the latter’s suicide on 8th June, 68 AD (Jensen p 204).

 

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/Expound the purpose of the writing of Acts:/

/            /Jensen’s arrangement of this is useful (pp 209-210): /Registration, Vindication, Edification./

/            /Registration By this Jensen means the written establishment of the history of redemption, beginning from Genesis.

Acts’ place in this sequence is to show the Church’s relation to the past in the OT and Gospels, and its place in the future propagation of the Good News.

The opening verses of Luke’s Gospel show the writer’s intention of recording and continuing the history “of the things most surely believed among us” (Luke 1:1) which was “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1); continued in Acts from the Ascension and covering the next 31 years (Jensen Chart 51 p 208).

Rapid major progress is made by the early Church in this time - though not from its own initiative - as the Gospel presumably reaches the uttermost part of the known world and a universal audience.

Vindication By this Jensen means the Church’s (history and message) claim to be of Divine origin.

All Scripture is produced at the time and place foreordained by God.

For Acts, it is assumed that “the church needed to make clear to the Roman government that Christianity was not to be associated with Judaism, though both claimed the same God and same Old Testament Scriptures” (Jensen p 210).

Acts emphasises that “the leaders of Judaism considered Christians as heretical and blasphemous” (ibid) and makes it clear that Christians did not associate with the rebellion of traditional Jewry.

Acts also describes the conversion and divine call of Paul, thereby establishing subsequent acceptance of his ministry and letters.

In a less extensive sense, this also applies to Peter and James.

Edification Any part of the Word of God should be useful “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”.

As Jensen points out (p 210), “a soul may learn how to be saved from Acts, but the book was written primarily for the believer’s instruction in how to live and serve God”.

Because of its nature as describing the transitional history of the early developing Church, and as much is specific for the period 30-61 AD, care must be exercised in making Acts normative for today’s Church.

In addition, Luke has not set out to record everything in chronological order as a diary might read.

Much interesting history is omitted eg what happened to Philip and his family after Acts 8:40?

Barnabas?

Peter?

Cornelius?

Paul?

Silas?

The other Apostles?

In places much detail is left out, and in others much rich detail is present.

The hand of God is obvious in this.

Guthrie posits several reasons why Acts might have been written (p 369): a historical narrative even though Luke was probably aware that this had been done before, a description of the acts of the Holy Spirit in the early Church, an apology to both Jews and Romans that Christianity was a threat to neither, a defence brief for Paul’s first trial in Rome, as a theological document showing the triumph of Christianity over idolatry and philosophy, and to show the error of Gnosticism.

In my view these opinions become increasingly irrational, although there is a grain of truth in each.

The hand of God is not in such suppositions as these.

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/Discuss Acts’ historicity:/

/            /Acts does not need proof of historical accuracy.

History is measured against the yardstick of Acts.

The historical setting of the New Testament including Acts was covered in Seminar 1 (NTES 111 History, Geography and Settings of the New Testament).

In addition to this Jensen adds a little more (p 211):

* /Judaism  /Negative aspects: false sects, hard traditions, rejection of Jesus as Messiah, zealous patriotism

/                /Positive aspects: belief in one God, OT scriptures the revelation of God, an inherent search for salvation, salting influence of a believing remnant, a sense of destiny, faithful religious worship in Temple and synagogues, the /diaspora /a fertile ground for evangelism

* /Hellenism /ultimately negative: spirit of philosophical enquiry the basis of its many religions, a culture that sought the “good” and “beautiful” (not too dissimilar from today).

The only real positive contribution was that /koine /Greek was the world /lingua franca /(the English of today)

* /Roman Empire// /Positive: climate of law and justice, means of travel and communication, religious tolerance for new ideas

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/Scrutinise the sources Luke possibly used to write the book:/

            As stated previously (the Synoptic Problem, Seminar 5) the writers of the whole of scripture were inspired by God and were not copyists of existing material.

In my view it is misleading to imply - as does Guthrie - that Luke used other sources ie was not dependent entirely on God.

Nevertheless Luke was prepared by God as a man with an orderly and inquisitive mind who had access to a large range of literature, important Godly people and personal experience including those listed in Chart 49 (Jensen p 204), bearing in mind that he was not an eyewitness to any of the events in the Gospel which bears his name, and the first mention of “we” in Acts is 16:10.

Chart 49 somewhat arbitrarily breaks Acts into sections whereby Luke is presumed to have been influenced by certain specific characters, both intra- and extrabiblical.

This exercise gives me the impression that from a rationalistic point of view the Scriptural account has to be supported by externals before it can be truly believed.

What nonsense.

Certain facts can be established, from the Scripture itself.

Luke personally observed and participated in some of the action (the “we” sections 16:10-17, 20:5-21:18, 27:1-28:16) and it is not unreasonable to assume that he also witnessed some of the activity not described as “we” (eg some of the large section 20:5-28:31  Jensen p 205).

It can also be reasonably assumed that one of Luke’s main eyewitness informants was his companion Paul himself, who may have supplied early Church history eg Stephen’s defence and stoning.

Luke may have been careful enough to check some events with other eyewitnesses, although our modern-day view of Paul is that he would not lie nor distort an event.

Nevertheless he could only present his own point of view.

Did Paul know that his career was being documented by his companion?

Where Luke acquired the remainder of the historical details of Acts remains even more conjectural than the above.

The Holy Spirit knows.

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/Articulate on the speeches found in Acts:/

/            /In his treatment of this, Guthrie states at the beginning “The assessment of the Acts speeches forms an important factor in determining the historicity of the book, and some indication must therefore be given of the various ways of approaching the author’s method.”[1]

As I have already established, the Holy Spirit is the Author of Acts, Luke is the writer; the Book has the authority of God and does not require ratification by historians.

Guthrie goes on in the same opening paragraph to expose his rationalism: “But the major question regarding them all is whether they reproduce the content of the words spoken or whether they are inventions of Luke in order to represent what he considered would have been said.”[2]

Further on in his arguments as to where Luke got his “speech” material from, Guthrie does not even allow the possibility of Divine inspiration (p 379).

/            /With regard to the theology of the/ /book of Acts, Guthrie states that it “presents us with samples of early Christian mission preaching but gives no samples of didactic address to believers”[3] and “The importance of the book of Acts is in its preservation of the main doctrinal themes presented in apostolic preaching, even if there is no evidence of an attempt to develop a systematized theology.”[4]

In other words, Acts preserves “pre-Pauline” theology, without any attempt to develop its own.

What else would a Christian who knows that God wrote all the Scripture expect?

The clear inference is that in this aspect Guthrie is not thinking like a Christian, or isn’t one.

Nevertheless, as mentioned below, much Pauline theology was written while Luke accompanied Paul, especially Romans and possibly Galatians.

None of this has “rubbed off” into Acts.

Why not?

Were Paul and Luke not communicating?

Guthrie grudgingly admits “It may have been Luke’s intention to give samples of different kinds of mission preaching, and if this were so the samples would lose in weight if they were Luke’s own compositions.

On the other hand, the manner in which they are introduced gives the impression that they are an integral part of the narrative.”[5]

Hooray.

In a sense, there are no ‘speeches’ in Acts unless they are defined - all of the account is the inspired Word of God.

There are times when individuals give their opinion or assessment of a situation and address a gathering of others who are involved eg Peter at the election of Matthias (1:15-26), Peter after Pentecost (2:14-36, 38-40), Peter in Solomon’s Court after the healing of the lame man (3:11-26), Peter to the Sanhedrin after a period of imprisonment (4:8-12), the Church in praise to God (4:24-31), Peter with Ananias and Sapphira in the Jerusalem congregation (5:3-11), Peter before the Sanhedrin after being miraculously released from prison (5:29-32), Stephen before the Sanhedrin (7:1-56), Peter to Simon the sorcerer in Samaria (8:20-23), Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch (8:30-37), Christ to Paul and Ananias in Acts 9 and to Peter in Acts 10, Peter to Cornelius (10:34-43), Peter before the Elders in Jerusalem (11:4-18), Herod in Caesarea at his death (12:20-23), Paul to Elymas the sorcerer in Paphos (12:9-12), Paul to the rulers of the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia (13:16-41), Paul and Barnabas to the idol-worshippers in Lystra (14:15-18),  Peter (15:7-11), Barnabas and Paul (15:12), and James (15:13-21) to the Jerusalem Council, the letter written by the Council to the Churches of Antioch and Syria and Cilicia (15:23-31), Paul to those in the synagogue at Thessalonica (17:2-3), Paul to the Athenian Epicureans and Stoics at Areopagus on Mars Hill (17:22-31), Apollos to the Jews at Ephesus (17:24-28), Demetrius to his fellow silversmiths (19:25-27), the townclerk to the Ephesians (19:35-41), Paul preaching to those at Troas (20:7-12), Paul to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (20:18-35), the charge of the Jerusalem elders to Paul (21:20-25), Paul to the Temple mob at his arrest (22:1-21), Paul to the Sanhedrin (23:1-6), the chief captain Claudius Lysias’ letter to Felix (23:26-30), Tertullus before Felix (24:2-8), Paul to Felix (24:10-21), Porcius Festus to Agrippa (25:14-21), Paul before Agrippa, Bernice and Festus (26:1-23, 25-29), Paul to the stricken mariners (27:21-25), Paul to the elder Jews in Rome (28:17-20, 26-29).

This list is by no means exhaustive because there are other very numerous occasions where speeches are given but the content is either summarised or not detailed.

These occur when the verbs “reasoned”, “discoursed”, “preached”, “testified”, “spoke boldly”, “expounded”, “exhorted”, “disputed”, “persuaded” and other such like words are used.

It could easily be argued that only a small proportion of the above list qualifies as “speeches”.

Tough.

Depends on the definition.

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/Outline Pentecost and Peter’s apologetic speech in chh 1 and 2:/

/            /These speeches are included in 1:15-2:40.