Paul Name
Preaching through the book of Acts was the start of a fascinating sixteen-month voyage of discovery as we journeyed with the early church through those heady first years of explosive growth!
We traced the story of the Gospel advancing in all circumstances: seasons of opposition and persecution, and times of peace and of favour from state officials. We became friends with prominent characters such as Peter, James, Barnabas and Paul, but acknowledged also the unnamed multitude of Pentecost who returned home and passed on the message. We saw the church meeting in houses, villages and cities. Evangelism took place in Temple and synagogue, at home and on the roadside and the riverside. In the lecture hall and the courtroom!
At the end of that momentous journey several characteristics stood out as landmarks to take note of.
Whether at Pentecost in Acts 2, in the Temple in Acts 4, in the home of a Roman Centurion in Acts 10, or in company with Paul in multiple locations, one key message was proclaimed: the resurrection of Jesus.
I have conducted more than 114 funerals, and we know today the same fact that people knew back then: dead people do not come back to life. Resurrection is not normal. That is why it was such a big deal – the turning point of history and the lynchpin of our faith. Everything stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus!
The church in Acts declared that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, and then was raised from death to life, and this fact requires a response. The only response that makes sense is faith that trusts him to save us from sin and its consequences, and then a radical redirection of life to follow this utterly unique man.
For the opponents who wanted Jesus dead, his resurrection was an embarrassment. The message provoked divided reactions. It set Christian faith apart from all the other religions and deities (and there were plenty to choose from in the Roman Empire). It declared that Jesus is unique, unprecedented and unparalleled.
The message of Jesus’ resurrection holds out to us the hope that we can share in it. Salvation is indeed possible because Jesus overcame the biggest boundary: death itself.
This is the heart of Paul’s stirring message in Acts 13:28-41.
In Acts 1:8 Jesus instructs his followers to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. When Peter and John were commanded to be silent about Jesus they retorted that they must obey God and could not help speaking (4:18-19). They knew full well that “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (4:12).
When Paul told his own testimony, he recalled his mandate from Jesus to “open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.” (26:18). His journeys took him to Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Mediterranean islands and Greece.
He went to Jews and called them to recognise Jesus as Messiah. In Ephesus he called the worshippers of Artemis to follow Jesus instead. He challenged the philosophers and polytheistic Athenians to follow Jesus. Today he would go to Hindus and Muslims, humanists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sikhs, Buddhists and Satanists and call them all to follow Jesus.
The mandate was then – and is still – to tell everybody and deprive nobody. It is Jesus’ message, and it is he who sends us!
Before embarking on this series I would have said that the Holy Spirit was the key to Acts. But as I worked through this book I was repeatedly surprised by just how much the Holy Spirit is seen to be at work.
We cannot preach from this book and be accused focussing too much on the Holy Spirit. Acts rips off the blindfolds and declares: the church today has too little focus on the Holy Spirit! When healings, deliverance, dreams, visions, conversions, guidance and prophecies are commonplace in our churches, then we might be on a par with the church in Acts. But we are certainly not too much focussed on the Holy Spirit at present!
Acts is not an organisational blueprint for church structure. Rather, it is a mapping of the spiritual DNA, the genetic makeup of church as Jesus intended her to be.
In the 1970s Rear Admiral Richard Hutcheson was commissioned to conduct appraisal of church life & structures of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (PCUSA). A man well versed in military training, organisation and management, he wrote:
“Management techniques are God-given tools, available for the church’s use. But far more basic are the God-given characteristics of the church itself – its unique nature as the people of God and its unique gift, the Holy Spirit. The fatal error for the church is to employ management techniques as if it were just another human organization in pursuit of human goals. The fatal error is to focus on oiling the organizational wheel, without attention to the wheel within the wheel [the Holy Spirit who] is the basic power source.”
The fatal error for the church is to focus on structure and techniques while neglecting the fundamental role of the Holy Spirit.
This is why Jesus commanded us to wait for the Holy Spirit; why Luke describes the activity of the Holy Spirit; why Peter was repeatedly filled with the Holy Spirit; why Paul laid hands on people to be filled with the Holy Spirit; and why Ananias visited Paul so he could be filled with the Holy Spirit.
The church cannot act without the Holy Spirit. Without him we can do nothing!
This was something that took me by surprise! I simply had not appreciated just how much the early church had needed to work out how to ensure unity among such a diverse group.
We repeatedly stumbled across situations where issues of unity rose to the surface. Acts 4 describes the wonderful koinonia of sharing possessions, food and homes. Then in Acts 6 we hear the grumblings about the pastoral care of widows from Greek backgrounds versus those from Jewish backgrounds, and how the Apostles then resolved the issue.
Acts 9 highlights the thorny issue of whether a former persecutor like Paul can actually be welcomed within the church. Peter’s visit to Cornelius’ home in Acts 10 raised all manner of questions about whether Gentiles can become Christians at all, which was the subject of several important discussions in Acts 11 and 15.
Acts 18 mentions how Emperor Claudius expelled Jews from Rome, including those Jews who believed in Jesus. Paul’s letter to the Romans some years later has to grapple with the relational consequences of this division when Jew and Gentile followers of Jesus find themselves back together in the same city.
And when the church in Jerusalem is impacted by food shortages, Paul arranges for churches in other areas to join them in solidarity by raising financial support. The collection is mentioned in his letters, but the journey itself is described in Acts.
Luke describes the church’s unity in Acts. This unity is something that is required because of the Holy Spirit’s pre-emptive work in bringing people to faith in Jesus from diverse backgrounds. And it is protected by the decisions, teaching and attitudes that he writes about.
