Book: The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is
Basic Information :
Synopsis :
Expectations :
Thoughts :
Evaluation :
Book Group :
New Words :
Book References :
Good Quotes :
Table of Contents :
References
Basic Information: Author: N.T. Wright
Edition: epub on Libby from the Los Angeles Public Library
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 9780310167990 (ISBN10: 031016799X)
Start Date: Jan 9, 2025
Read Date: Jan 24, 2025
176 pages
Genre: Christianity,
Language Warning: None
Rated Overall: 4 out of 5
Religion: Christianity
Religious Quality: 4 out of 5
Christianity-Teaching Quality: 4 out of 5
Synopsis:
The
author takes us through the book of Acts at a pace of mostly four
chapters at a time. This is not a detailed commentary, but one which
he is looking at Acts from a higher level, identifying themes rather
than the minutia The themes he explores include:
-
launching
of God’s new creation in the person of his son.
-
Resurrection
is what hold together the gospel message
-
‘grace’
is not just for God’s free love in the gospel, but God’s generous
outreach to all
-
The
gospel is for God to come and dwell with us.
-
Tying
heaven and earth together. The temple is the place of joining where
the physical structure is replaced by God’s people.
-
When
the gospel is presented, it turns the table on the accuser and shows
how believers are presenting messages from God
-
Acts
is the continuing story of Jesus doing his work in the world.
-
Unity
of believers points to all humans are created in God’s image and
are loved.
Note:
He uses the term Judean instead of Jewish.
Expectations:
Recommendation:
Sherri
When:
Jan 9, 2025
Date
Became Aware of Book: November 2025
Why
do I want to read this book: Sherri recommended the book and we are
studying Acts in our House Church
What
do I think I will get out of it? Background from a good theologian
Thoughts:
In
my small group Bible study, we have been studying Acts. My wife
coming across this book has been timely as it is giving me a bigger
vision of what Luke is trying to convey.
Each
chapter starts with an Introduction and ends with a Conclusion
section. In between, he breaks up his thinking into sections.
Main
points in the book:
Everything
in this book hinges on Jesus’ resurrection
launching
of God’s new creation in the person of his son.
Tying
heaven and earth together. He uses the temple as a place where this
happens. But we are now that temple.
Living
under a culture where there are clashes between organized religion,
pervading government and believers presence
People
who were outside of the boundaries of religious acceptability being
made holy by God.
‘grace’
is a shorthand not just for God’s free love in the gospel, but for
God’s generous outreach to the pagans.
When
the gospel is presented, it turns the table on the accuser and shows
how believers are presenting messages from God
the
point of the biblical story is for God to come and dwell with us.
Acts
is the continuing story of Jesus doing his work in the world.
Unity
of believers, which implicitly points to that all humans are created
in God’s image and are loved.
Preface
This
book offers a kind of bird’s-eye view of the Acts of the Apostles.
Wright explains that for the most part, he will not be going verse by
verse, but taking much of Acts in four chapter chunks, except for the
start of Acts and Paul’s speech in Athens in Acts 17.
This
book started as a series of lectures at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford.
Then developed further in lectures in Houston and at the Lanier
Library.
He
uses the term Judean instead of Jew or Jewish. This can be a bit
offsetting until you get used to it. He says this is more of an
ancient way of referring to the Jewish people.
Chapter
1: Acts 1:1–11: to the ends of the earth!
Introduction
This
book offers a brief, though not shallow, introduction to the Acts of
the Apostles.
Wright views this book as an interface between the gospel message to
the Judeans and the Greco-Roman world. It covers 30 years of the
early church and how it forms. It also is a selective history and not
all encompassing.
The risen Jesus and the kingdom of God
the
crucial thing here, which determines how Luke wants us to read the
whole book, is that he now speaks of all that Jesus began to do and
to teach. In other words, the ‘doing’ and ‘teaching’ didn’t
stop.
We are still in this era where Jesus is doing and teaching us. Am I
alert to what He is teaching me? What He wants to do through me?
I
had not noticed that in vs, before Jesus’ ascension, that the Holy
Spirit spoke to the apostles.
V3
Everything
in this book hinges on Jesus’ resurrection, not simply as an odd
dramatic miracle that God did for Jesus, but as the launching of
God’s new creation in the person of his son.
And this is the main thrust of Wright’s book. This was the start of
something new God was doing-tying heaven and earth together.
proofs-Wright
thinks that the resurrection was being challenged even as Luke writes
this account.
Anyway,
the teaching of the risen lord in the short period before the
ascension was focused on ‘the kingdom of God’. Since that had
been the central theme of Jesus’ public career, it might come as a
surprise that it isn’t referred to very often in Acts. We have two
references here, in verses 3 and 6; two references right at the end
of the book, in 28:23 and 31; and just four other references in the
whole of the rest of the book, each time functioning as a shorthand
for ‘what the apostles were generally talking about.
Wright
says that the KOG was already a shorthand for what the Psalms and
Isaiah 52 had to say. Acts and onward is the implementation of the
KOG. “Inheritance is not as Christians
might suppose, ‘heaven’. The inheritance is God’s promise to
Abraham, amplified in his promises to David, concerning the whole
world.
I wonder if Wright is only partially correct on this. We are living
during this time with a down payment on the full inheritance.
Kingdom and witness
The
disciples were expecting that now that Jesus had shown himself to be
the Messiah, that he would fulfill their desires of a kingdom of
Israel being supreme. Most Christians today think in terms of “no,
but” this will happen. Wright thinks in terms of “Yes, but”.
The “but” is that the KOG has come, but not how you expect it to.
The
mission of the Church is not about preparing for Jesus to become
king. It is implementing the fact that he has become king, even if
that new kingship doesn’t look like the sort of thing people had
been expecting.
Wright looks at Daniel 7 and Psalm 2 as enlightening. This was not to
be a new Maccabee movement.
Is
the national dream of Israel what Jesus had in mind? No. That is also
a question for America today. Rather it is the disciples calling to
proclaim Jesus’ sovereign rule, not a nation’s.
Something
else which Wright will continue to hit on is that salvation in the
New Testament isn’t about our going to be with God, it’s about
God coming to be with us.
The son of man coming in his glory
Explores
where heaven is. Wright says that it is neither a physical place
which a spaceship can reach nor a place which only our souls will go,
such as what Plato hypothesized. Wright says that heaven
and earth are the twin halves of God’s good creation. Not
sure about the halves part, but maybe two parts? He says that heaven
is God’s space while earth is ours. He says that heaven and earth
are intertwined in the person of Jesus. The
ascension isn’t about Jesus going away and leaving us to our own
devices. It’s about Jesus now at the father’s right hand – in
other words, holding the place of authority and power in the whole
cosmos.
See Psalm 8
After
vs 11, Acts 1 gives way to reordering the community. They are a
fellowship in prayer. He notes that we do not hear about Matthias
again. Acts
is very selective. It isn’t providing a complete and rounded ‘early
church history’, with all the varied detail we might want.
Conclusion
There
are the five things Wright wants us to know as we go through Acts:
-
First,
what biblical reference-points would first-century Judeans think of
when faced with Jesus’ ascension?
They might be considering Elijah.
-
… second,
we need to consider – as we shall be doing in later chapters –
what it means to say that Jesus is already ruling the world.
Is this a true fact or one which remains hidden or one which is about
to be? Wright thinks it falls into “this is true”. The
rulers of this world stamp their will on their subjects by bullying
and violence. Jesus wins the victory through the power of self-giving
love.
It is just that The
results are mostly not instantaneous. That’s not how self-giving
love works. But they will quickly be remarkable.
-
Third,
what would people in Luke’s non-Judean world think of when faced
with a story of someone ascending to heaven?
This belief is foundational to Christianity. Without, the whole thing
falls apart.
-
Fourth,
a contemporary sideswipe. Those in my (Anglican) tradition, and in
some others, will know that the Church recently decided to keep a
feast called ‘Christ the King’
on the last Sunday before Advent, in late November.
The placement in the church calendar is awkward and deemphasises that
it is through the ascension do we see that Christ is the King.
-
fifth,
a vital point which resonates forwards into the rest of the book:
Jesus, in his human body, is now equally
at home on earth and in heaven,
so that in him the project of creation itself is fulfilled. Wright
will continually talk about the fact that
there is a physical place where heaven and earth come together –
well, that is the very definition of a temple. …
Acts 1 and 2 constitute Jesus and his people as the true Temple.
Wright then notes that most
of the pressure points and controversies in Acts are precisely about
temples
Chapter
2: Acts 2 – 4: the new Temple
Introduction
Wright
says that Luke is not interested in spiritual development in his
book. More talking about how the church developed. He indicates that
us moderns in trying to twist Acts into our thinking miss what Luke
is trying to tell us.
God fulfilling his promise to dwell with his people
The
great overarching story of Scripture (to repeat a point already made)
is not about how humans get to go upstairs and live with God. It is
about God’s intention to come and live with us and even, as we
shall see, in us.
Reiterating his points above, but maybe in a more comprehensive way.
Wright then goes on to say Pentecost is God’s homecoming. It is
both personal to each human and fulfillment of His covenant with
Israel.
With
this we have to take a deep breath, and learn to think in the way
people in the ancient world regularly thought.
Regular humans, not philosophers, looked at temples as places where
the gods communicated with man. Pentecost now made it so that God
communicates directly with each human. In
Genesis 1 creation itself is a temple: a heaven-and-earth structure
with an image at its heart.
Pentecost
is when the Judeans celebrated the giving of the Law. To the
Christian it should be when we celebrate the coming of the Holy
Spirit to all.
Pentecost as the great turning point
Most
of the controversies which are noted in Acts deal with temple issues
in one way or another-heathen and Judean.
Pentecost
is reversing Babel. Of
course, there is a radical difference between Babel and Pentecost: at
Babel, the many languages made communication impossible, whereas, at
Pentecost, they enabled it. But the similarity – and with it, the
strong hint at a world put right at last – remains striking.
Wright says that Pentecost is not about spiritual maturity, but about
the dominion Jesus has over all things.
Peter’s speech in Acts 2:14–46
Peter’s
speech is aimed at three levels:
-
First,
this is the long-awaited fulfilment of Israel’s hopes: it is what
we can summarise as the ‘new covenant’.
-
Second,
this has happened through the scripture-fulfilling resurrection and
exaltation of the crucified Jesus, Israel’s Messiah.
-
Third,
it is therefore time for Israel to repent.
the
early church hadn’t got that far yet![worrying
about individual disciples spiritual growth-they only started]
They were still being knocked off their feet by the one-off events
that had just taken place.
The
call to repentance is in line with Deut 30-both individual and
community
Vs
42-47 brings into focus the new temple.
Acts 3 and 4: Jesus as the fulfilment of Scripture
The
arc of the Acts story is that Jesus’ disciples now are the ones
carrying out the mission of Jesus. The
Gospel story, remember, was about what Jesus had begun to do and to
teach.
Wright notes that Peter’s talk does not say explicitly all which is
to know about Jesus, rather there are undertones of it.
The
temple is the site of this and a reminder that it is now through
people the place where heaven and earth meet. The resurrection is
preached much to the dismay of the Sadducees, but differently than
how the Pharisees saw the resurrection.
This
may be one reason why Jesus’ own unexpected resurrection caused
Paul at least to conclude that Jesus was representing God’s people
in person.
Herod
plus Pilate plus the Judean leaders together represent the world’s
rulers. It was the greatest empire, and the finest religion, the
world had ever known that together put Jesus on the cross. That is
where they start.
No wonder there is consternation coming from the Temple.
When
a line of Scripture is quoted, look for the larger context.
Wright
recommends that the prayer at the start of Acts 4 be something all
Christians become very familiar with.
in
all genuine kingdom-work there will be moments when you find yourself
confronted with one kind of challenge or another. At that point, I
strongly recommend that you go back to Psalm 2 and Acts 4, and cling
on for dear life to the great conclusion:
Conclusion
Chapter
3: Acts 5 – 8: mission and martyrdom
Introduction
Things
went well for believers in the first four chapters. Now in these
chapters, tougher questions are being faced. What
exactly is the relationship between ‘obeying God’ and living
under human authority?
That may also be the question we are faced with during the next four
years. … With
questions like these, we today are inclined to go for an either/or.
Obeying God, not human beings
Wright
goes through incidents in the Old Testament where people are
identified as doing things which are disagreeable with God and paying
the price. That is the story in Acts 5 where Ananias and Sapphira are
struck down. They
are about treating the things of God as though they are just
ordinary.
This is a key thing. A warning to us, to me, that the things of God
are holy.
He
points out this is the danger of being a temple of God where heaven
and earth collide. We are called to be holy. They
are confrontations with the mystery of holiness.
The
rest of Acts 3 has Peter and John’s shadow healing people and them
being brought before the Sanhedrim. This gives them the opportunity
to bring their message to leaders. Leaders tell them not to spread
this message and Peter says they are to obey God, not men. This
brings the central point to this section.
zeal=some
translations have it as filled
with righteous indignation.
But Luke seems to indicate more of a jealousy.
Talks
about the politics of Shammeri-a conservative interpretation, more
like the Maccabees-than Hillel/Gamaliel who had a more liberal bent.
Wright indicates this is not so much about what the Torah says, but
What
mattered was figuring out what obedience to torah meant in terms of
resisting the rule of the pagans.
I[Wright]
think Luke describes this[Gamaliel’s
point]
in detail because one of his subtexts all through the book is that
this is the sort of conclusion that wise authorities ought to reach.
Punishment
rather than as a deterrent to early Christians indicated they were on
the right track.
All
this is part of learning to live as Temple-people in a conflicted
and confused world, as people of new creation within the present
ambiguous distorted creation, resisting the simplistic
pseudo-holiness of a dualism that dismisses existing structures as
hopeless.
Temple and torah in God’s longer purposes
Note
in passing the huge innovation in social policy that Luke takes for
granted: if you’re going to live as extended family, you’ll have
to make careful arrangements for people who would otherwise be
destitute.
This is the implementation of the Old Testament concern for the
widow, orphan and stranger.
While
we think of the seven as deacons, Luke does not refer to them as
such, but as stewards.
Wright
notes that once you get someone going and charged, they may not stay
within the confines of what you think they should be doing.
Wright
goes through Steven’s speech, pointing out that Stephen is not
against the temple, rather he wants the fulfillment of the temple
purpose. .
Steven’s
vision of Jesus is him standing, providing intercession for His
people. Jesus’ way is intercession,
rather than cursing, was the way of the new, fulfilled, law and
Temple.
Praying for your enemy’s good. (It
is interesting that they both refer to the ‘spirit’; neither here
nor elsewhere in early Christianity do we find people referring to
the ‘soul’ in this connection, however common that Platonic idea
has become today.)
Beware
of the temptation to dualism, to think that the only response to
corruption is to get out and go elsewhere.
The gospel reaches Samaria
Wright
has a similar conclusion as I have had. Peter and John went to
Samaria to figure out what was going on and was this truly God
working there. Wright takes it one step further. There would not be a
Judean Church and a Samaritan Church, rather all would be The Church.
Even
though the Samaritans were impure to the Judean, God had made them
pure through their faith. Holiness still mattered-take a look at
Ananias and Sapphira.
The
story of Simon the Magician is linked to money corrupting. The thrust
is that money can corrupt the church, if it is let to.
The
conversion of the Samaritans is not a people who were tricked into
believing magical things and now believe another magic. Rather, like
the
history of the modern world – even the modern highly educated
Western world – shows that people are still quite easily taken in
by tricksters.
The
end of the chapter has it that an eunuch was converted, a eunuch
which according to Isaiah would never become a Jew. This Gentile man
who as a eunuch could never have been acceptable as a proselyte,
could never have been welcomed right into the Temple
Conclusion
Chapter
4: Acts 9 – 12: breaking through the Gentile barrier
Introduction
When
people speak of
Paul’s
‘conversion’, they often imagine that Saul of Tarsus switched
from a religion called ‘Judaism’ to a religion called
‘Christianity’. But that’s clearly wrong.
Wright’s point here is not that he converted from being a Jew to a
Christian. There was no thing called Christianity at the time. Also
it appears that Paul kept the faith he was brought up in and
understood that it was fulfilled by Jesus. What
happens to your vision of God when he sends his Messiah at last –
and he gets crucified?
Wright thinks more in terms that Saul had a redefinition of his faith
rather than a change.
What really happened to Saul
I
generally hate articles which start with “what really happened …”.
They tend in my estimation to center a lot on speculation, rarely on
facts.
Wright
talks about how this would seem to be fanciful to those who picture a
complete separation between heaven and earth or to those who think
that heaven is a made up place. But to the average person on the
street, this account would confirm an overlap between heaven and
earth.
How
Wright describes Saul’s reaction is that it is both a fulfillment
of everything Saul wanted from his faith, but something totally
different than he was expecting. Saul
had to come to terms with the fact that he had radically
misunderstood what Israel’s God was doing, and hence also what, in
the last analysis, he was really like.
Ananias
offers us a quiet model of dangerous obedience.
Think
again of Simeon in Luke 2: a light for the Gentiles, and glory for
Israel.
This is to be Saul’s mission in life.
There
is trouble with Paul’s message right from the get-go. Interesting
that Wright notes that Paul is almost as much trouble for believers
as a believer as when he persecuted them. With
Israel’s Scriptures richly present to his mind, and the risen Jesus
burningly alive in his heart, he wasn’t going to mess around or
tolerate sloppy thinking or half-baked arguments.
… We
are not told, though, either by Paul or by Luke, what Saul did back
home in Tarsus in the decade between the Jerusalem church sending him
there and the time when Barnabas went to fetch him to help in
Antioch.
Wright thinks he was in anguish over his past, prayed for
enlightenment and meditated.
God stops persecution
The
growth of the church and its persecution is reviewed through King
Agrippa. The result?
God’s word grew and multiplied.
Very similar to Gen 1:28 of “be fruitful and multiply.”
Acts
12 has King Agrippa shown as the fake Messiah.
Wright
wonders why Peter got out of jail and James lost his life? I
suspect the early Christians wouldn’t have asked that question;
they took random persecution for granted. Presumably they had been
praying for James as well, and Herod killed him anyway. Perhaps
that’s why, when Peter comes knocking on the door, they don’t
believe it’s him.
… when
Rhoda says she’s heard Peter knocking on the door they think Peter
has indeed been killed, like James, and that this is one of those
post-mortem visitations.
There
is a difference between visions and reality-the first century people
knew what was real.
Peter and Cornelius: the Messiah as lord of the whole world
Luke
establishes Peter as an important person in spreading God’s word.
Also the one who brings the Gentiles in as believers. This shows that
Paul is not leading a breakaway movement to have Gentiles take over.
This was inspiring rumors and conspiracy thoughts.
modern version of the rumours that went round in Paul’s day might
be the idea, suggested by some influential scholars, of a ‘Petrine’
church representing something called ‘Judean (or ‘Jewish’)
Christianity’ and a ‘Pauline’ one representing something called
‘Gentile Christianity’.
Wright
deviates a bit and shows how when starting with your own pet theory
can lead you astray from what the Bible wants us to know.
Luke
has given us this slow-motion picture of Peter and Cornelius, not
least to emphasise the underlying unity of the different branches of
the early church.
What
you eat and who you eat with are important, not only to early Judeans
but today.
This
allowing Gentiles in as believers is not a loosening of standards
rather a sense that what was unclean is being made clean. It
meant, rather, that the gospel itself had done its cleansing,
transforming work, so that those Gentiles were unclean no longer.
This
is not a story of God recognizing people as admitting the Jews and so
they are let in. Rather it is the story of a Gentile, being shown the
Way and accepting it and living it. We
remind ourselves that ‘forgiveness of sins’, for a Judean of the
time, had the larger overtones of God rescuing his people from the
prolonged exile.
For a Gentile it is being rescued from idolatry.
Now
we see a different point: that we must obey God rather than the
pressure-groups,
not only just authorities.
You
never know what new purposes and possibilities are waiting in the
wings. But
if
you step out of the great river of prayer you may just never see them
Grace and radical newness
Strange
things were happening in Antioch. The believers in Jerusalem sent
Barnabas there to find out what was going on. It was here the
believers first were called little Christs, Messiah-people,
Christians. These people were of all races, genders, classes.
A
famine was prophesied to hit. The Christians helped alleviate the
effects-they did not say this was a plague on all.
Conclusion
Chapter
5: Acts 13 – 16: converts and controversy
Introduction
Acts,
as I said before, is not trying to give us a full ‘early church
history. … Luke is going to unveil the vocation that shaped Paul’s
energetic and dramatic work, the calling through which he in turn
gave decisive shape to the life and thinking of the church as it
spread across the Roman Empire. Luke’s
rendition is not just factual history, but an explanation of what is
happening with the Church. Luke is to justify
the mission of Paul – not just what he did, and how he did it, but
why; and also why, though he was constantly attacked and
misunderstood.
Part
of what Luke will show is that Paul gets in trouble. But the Roman
authorities see that it is not that Paul is doing wrong. Luke
insists again and again that it’s the present world that’s out of
joint and under judgement, and that the reason Paul gets into trouble
is because he’s the one who’s standing straight up, who’s
telling the truth.
While Wright’s friend thinks of Perlandra
by CS Lewis, I think of several GK Chesterton stories about how we
look at things wrong and upside down.
Acts
also is set to prepare believers to understand the world we are in.
He is saying you
may well be surrounded by misunderstanding, anger, mockery and
perhaps violence. But you need to hold on, trust God and speak out
the truth of the gospel.
Wright
talks about a “natural theology”-not the kind in fashion in the
18th century. The
point is that when the gospel message generates new communities,
quite different from the communities in the pagan world and also
transcending the community of Judean people organised around the law
of Moses, the entire effect is to say to the world as a whole: look,
a new way of being human.
Violence against Paul and Barnabas
Wright
thinks we have the wrong idea of what Paul was teaching about grace.
As
in Ephesians 3, ‘grace’ is a shorthand not just for God’s free
love in the gospel, but for God’s generous outreach to the pagans.
Wright says that grace was a new theology, open to the whole world
rather than just a select race. He thinks this is what the Judeans
were opposed to and was concerned with making the belief in God
impure, unholy.
So
is Acts ‘political’? Absolutely. In Paul’s world, the polis,
the city, formed a tight social unit. … And the communities of
Jesus-followers cut right across those distinctions[race,
gender, class].
A new way of being human.
All
of the religions were built to appease their gods, to keep the
populations in good relationship with their deities. This new belief
was going to throw everything off-kilter. This was a serious problem
for a society, one which new believers had to face.
This
was especially a problem with the Judeans. They already were social
misfits, having gained
an exemption from worshiping Caesar. Now you had a Judean
sect which was converting Gentles to their sect, causing upheaval in
their society. This also caused pressure on the Judeans to keep their
sect in-line.
With
that in mind, you start to understand why Paul and the gang were
being driven out of towns in Turkey.
The letter to the Galatians belongs in the middle of all this.
Christians were using the Judean exemption of not worshiping Caesar
even though they were Gentiles.
Judeans and Gentiles
Pretty
much a rehash of the place of the Judeans and Gentile believers.
There are also the elements that many of the Judeans were unhappy
under Roman rule and wanted to rebel.
The controversy in Acts 15
Two
things to cover as background:
-
First,
the controversy in Acts 15, in which Paul and Barnabas make their
case against the suspicious group in Jerusalem, has nothing to do
with the sixteenth-century stand-off between ‘good works’ and
‘faith’.
-
Second,
Acts 15 is not designed to serve, nor is it appropriate to make it
serve, as a paradigm for ongoing church debates where the cautious
conservatives always lose and the innovating radicals always win.
How
should we as moderns look at Acts 15? It’s
all about the creation of the renewed, enlarged people of God, people
of Abraham, people of Israel’s Messiah. The
surprise is that Gentile believers are to believe in one God and to
be holy-literally no porneia.
The followers of Jesus are to be rock solid on creation.
This
is where we should learn as 21st century Christians. Creation is a
central part of the story and we need to understand and live it.
Paul and the authorities
The
problem in Philippi is the opposite of what went on in Turkey. Paul
is accused of inflicting Judean customs on non-Judeans, ie, they cast
out a demon from a woman who made people money by saying what the
future was. Sort of Christianity meets Capitalism.
Once
the jailer is converted, Paul reminds the authorities they need to do
their jobs. The turnabout of obeying authority, but most importantly
obeying God is also turned around that the authorities must do their
job. This,
too, is part of a kind of natural theology. God has ordered the world
in a particular way. If it has been bent out of line, then part of
the challenge of the gospel is to seek to put it straight
Conclusion
Chapter
6: Acts 17 – 20: completing the circle
Introduction
He
deals with Paul’s Mars Hill speech fully in a succeeding chapter.
Luke
is outlining how and why Paul gets in trouble. Also when looked at
legally through local and Roman eyes, there is no foul. He raises
both theological and political questions as he works with the pagans,
Zeal in Thessalonica
Wright
goes into the customs of Rome towards Judean. They allowed them to
practice their religion. But Caesar was to be king. Paul is pretty
explicit here that Jesus is the king over all. Paul’s general
message did not sit well with the Judean. And now they would need to
explain how this Jesus person was talked about in their own writings.
This would revoke the Judeans’ special exemption from Rome. Paul
was saying that at Jesus’ name, even knee, even Caesars would bend.
Corinth: Jesus-followers as the true Shema-keepers
Athens
is halfway between Rome and Jerusalem.
Aquila
and Prisca probably came from Rome after being expelled with all Jews
by Claudia.
Paul’s
general pattern:preach to the Judeans' until being thrown out and
then go to the Gentiles. Silas
and Timothy recognised that Paul was, as we might say, on top form.
No riots here because the synagogue leader has become a believer.
The
trail of faith is a political one. The proconsul Gallio is Seneca’s
brother. The Judeans' are saying that Paul is teaching about God in
ways not approved but Rome. Wright things this has to do with Shema
prayer.
See
Deut 6-Hear O Israel. Paul is probably inserting Jesus into this
prayer. Hear is Shema in Hebrew. References 1 Co 8.
The
Judeans are making four charges according to Wright: 1) kyrios
(Lord) which Paul is using is referencing Jesus. 2) his reworking
Shema is subverting the religion. 3) The way Paul is teaching is not
the sanctioned religion 4) Paul is surplanting Caesar.
In
every letter to churches, Paul talks about persecutions, except to
Corinth. Of course, when
we read Paul’s two letters to Corinth, we see what then happened.
The Corinthian Christians quickly became arrogant, puffed up, divided
by personality cults, tolerating immorality, allowing nominal
membership, taking a casual view of the sacraments, not caring about
the poor, chaotic in worship. Soft on resurrection.
Wright
asks if this sounds familiar?
How,
on the one hand, do you stop non-Christian authorities from
persecuting Christians? But how, on the other hand, do you prevent a
church which isn’t being persecuted from becoming lazy and arrogant
Turnaround in Ephesus
there
were all sorts of things going on in the early church of which we
know very little.
He refers to Paul’s encounter with Apollos.
In
Ephesus genuine conversion was going on. Wright notes when things are
wonderful, the devil will instigate trouble. See
2 Co 1:8-9
Riot:
civic pride mixed with religious fervour.
Similar
to Corinth, Judeans' have a concern that Christians and Judeans' will
become conflagrated. In Ephesus this happens. In this case, the civic
authorities calm things down. Surely,
if all these magistrates do the right thing, then Caesar himself will
follow suit when it comes before him.
Notice
that when economics comes into play, religion gets the short straw.
My words. Not just in Ephesus.
Christ
is Bringing
together in a single equal family slave and free, Judean and Gentile,
female and male
Hurrying to Jerusalem for Pentecost
Why
was Paul hurrying to get back to Jerusalem in time for the
festival? Wright speculates that he wanted a large crowd to preach
to. He also did not want to go back to Ephesus. Acts 20:18-35:
Through
his(Luke)
highlighting of this address, he is explaining Paul’s work to
puzzled or potentially hostile readers.
Many wandering teachers and philosophers were around during this
time, many were charlatans. Luke
here emphasisesPaul’s absolute integrity
Paul is not trying to get rich or make a quick grab.
Paul
looks to the future as in Phil 3. Only one purpose: v24. His message
is one of grace and God’s love in it. The
gospel of grace humbles all human pride; it humbles the Gentiles –
fancy having to abandon their cultural history and worship Israel’s
God! – and it humbles the Judean people too. Paul has preached and
lived this unflattering, humiliating, but life-giving message.
He
knows he will not be back this way again. Gives an Ez 34 style
warning.
Conclusion
Paul's
preaching is personally costly.
Chapter
7: Acts 17:16–34: the unknown God?
Introduction
Wright
will go into Paul’s Athen’s sermon.
Some misconceptions
Not
a complete sermon, rather a summary. Paul seems to try to build
“points of contact” with his listeners. A shared
assumptions on which he could build a gospel presentation.
Some
people have argued that this is more of what Luke wanted us to hear
rather than what Paul wanted to say. Wright disagrees. He thinks
that confines the sermon too much. Also that this was something that
Paul was fitting the gospel into the culture. Seems like Paul does
not deal with parts of gospel in an either/or way. He does not as a
whole deal only with the cross or the resurrection, but both. Also
the Areopagus
was not a debating society. It was a law-court: the highest court in
Athens, composed.
The
point is that Paul is on trial. The charge is that Paul is bringing a
foreign god.
Areopagus
means rock or hill of Mars. It is not the Acropolis which is a mile
to the east.
The
point here, anyway, is that Paul is being put on trial. When, in
verse 19, Luke says they ‘took him’ up to the Areopagus, the word
epilambano means to ‘seize’ or ‘arrest’. It certainly wasn’t
about Paul being invited to give a learned paper at next week’s
seminar.
Are
we able to know what this new teaching really is that you are talking
about?’
The charge of ‘foreign divinities
Quotes
Aratus
who was 300 years previous. Pagan thinking who Paul seems to say
comes close to the truth.
Paul
does not seem to be playing nice with the Athenians. He talks about
the waste of time for their sacrifices.
Point
is that he is not bringing in a foreign god as the God he worships is
the God of all. Also the Athenians recognize this with the
God he was proclaiming could not be foreign, since he already had a
shrine in the city.
He is pointing out their ignorance-close to the same thing Socrates
got in trouble for.
Many
in our world today assume that Christians are committed to believing
dangerous nonsense
The
speech makes four basic points: the unknown God, the critique of
idols,outflanking the philosophers, and putting the world right.
The unknown God
Wright
notes that this is a trial rather than sermon. Paul is not finding a
point where they could relate, rather showing that they did not have
a complete understanding of deities, so he is not bringing in a
foreign god.
Where,
we might ask, are today’s altars to an unknown God.
Wright thinks it is in the big ideas of our time:
justice, love, freedom and beauty, spirituality, power, and yes, our
old friend Truth itself.
We can see this when a Bach piece is played or a great painting is
shown.
The critique of idols
To
suggest that you might live without reference to the gods was simply
weird, not just because everybody did it and it was woven into the
fabric of life, but because everybody assumed that keeping the gods
happy was vital for personal and civic well-being.
People who led others away from the local gods were subject to
suspicion when things went bad.
But
that is the point-the Athenians are honoring the wrong gods. Their
gods were impotent against bad things. Only the true God is, the God
Paul honors.
The
point about idols is that they are parodies of the truth.
Wright says that false gods
are at best pointers to the truth.
One
of the great myths of modern secularism is that it’s a kind of
neutral space, in which we navigate our way by using our unaided
reason. … once secularism pushes traditional Christianity upstairs
out of sight, other gods quickly come in to take its place.
In
our day money and sex and power are false gods. If you do not worship
at their altar, you are considered weird. That’s
the thing about idols: they demand everything, but in the end they
enslave, dehumanise and kill you.
Sin
itself is a symptom, not the root cause. Sin is what happens when you
worship an idol and let it dictate your behaviour. Idolatry is the
real problem.
We moderns tend to look at morality; Wright says it is our worship
that is the root of the problem.
he
made the whole human race from a single ancestor, allotting the
nations their places and times. (We should note that if the Church
had paid attention to verse 26 then the tragedy of Christians
supporting racism would never have happened.
Outflanking the philosophers
Wrights
said Paul addresses three positions: Stoics, Epicureans, and
Academics. The Academics were rooted in Plato and essentially said
that both the Stoics and Epicureans were wrong. They said there were
no clear solutions. We see these in today’s world as well, mostly
in the form of Epicureans. That is that any divinity which there may
have been just is not interested in our world today. Wright notes
that there is a tendency to think as Christians we have to choose
between the left and right and since the left is wrong and
anti-Christian, the right must be correct.
To
summarize what Wright thinks we need to realize today is:
-
First,
despite what many believe, the modernist emphasis on science is to be
welcomed but not in its Epicurean mode
-
Second,
we have to welcome the postmodern critique but work through it and
out the other side
-
The
need to be able to offer an alternative applies especially, third, to
the postmodern critique of all metanarratives.
Christianity instead of a power-play is more of a love story.
Tragically,
Christians have often tried to turn the faith into a power-play, the
triumph of one brand of faith over supposed enemies. … Our
equivalent of Paul’s critique of his philosophical climate must
then be to demonstrate in action the truth of the love story which is
God’s ongoing relationship with his world
Putting the world right
It
isn’t enough to point to the altars to the unknown God, to denounce
the idols and to engage with the philosophers. The Christian story of
the world needs to be heard.
In America, is the Christian story being heard in our politics?
Should there even be a “Christian” emphasis in our politics? If
well-meaning Christians respond to this with the shrill assertion of
a traditional faith, but without seeing how it actually works, that
just makes things worse and more polarised.
The
point of Christianity according to Wright is not fire insurance so
that we go to heaven-seems like this is more of a by product-rather
For
Paul, as in this speech, the point of the biblical story is for God
to come and dwell with us.
in
the Bible ‘to judge’ means ‘to put everything right’, to sort
it all out.
Christianity
was born into a world where its central claim was bound to appear
ridiculous
By
insisting that everything turns on Jesus’ resurrection, he is
flying directly in the face of what the god Apollo had said in the
legendary founding of the Court of the Areopagus itself, as described
in the tragedy of Orestes,
written by the first great fifth-century tragedian,
While
Osrestes says that when the blood leaves the ground, there is no
resurrection, Paul counters that by showing Jesus died and rose from
the dead after three days. This is what the Athenians were mocking.
He
is offering the Judean and biblical vision of God’s ultimate
justice, in order to outflank the Athenian claim that their high
court was the last word in justice and mercy.
Luke
does not say if there was a verdict.
But
what Paul has shown is that the
God we know in Jesus, is already at work, not at all a ‘foreign
god’, not to be angrily dismissed as a blight on a secular culture
or an unwelcome intruder representing an alien culture, but rather
‘not far from each one of us’ (verse 27).
It
is at this stage where Paul turns to being apologetical. He is
showing the Greeks the relevance of the Judean way of looking at the
world.
The
Eumenides
about Orestes by Aeschylus-looks
interesting. I will need to read it. One of the comments Wright makes
is what Apollo
says (about
a particular judgement)
that’s too harsh, because, yes, once the dust has drunk a man’s
blood, that’s it; there is no resurrection.
Conclusion
See
William
Golding’s last novel The Double Tongue.
He talks about the altar of the Unknown god.
Wright
notes that we should not fall into the errors of our age: denying
that anything not of God is wrong and embracing everything which
appears to be good as God.
Also
we need to be true both to the gospel--which is the good news from
God, and to understand our current culture.
Our
faith is to be explored and learned from and lived.
Chapter
8: Acts 21 – 24: trouble in Jerusalem
Introduction
Excitement
and waiting. That is these four chapters. Read fast, then ponder,
then ask the big questions.
Paul goes to Jerusalem
In
chapter 18, Luke skims through this journey. Here he takes his time.
Why?
James
does not seem to be as excited about what Paul is sharing and is more
concerned with the politics of having Paul in Jerusalem.
Riot
happens because people thought Paul brought a Gentile into the
temple. The same
reader will realise that, no matter how carefully Paul in his own
teaching and writing expressed himself, that is how his mission would
be perceived.
Excitement
of Paul being rescued, preaching and put on trial. Then a conspiracy
to kill Paul.
Who is involved?
Wright
sets the reason why this part of the world is important. It has to do
with Israel being a buffer to enemies on the east and keeping trading
routes open to Egypt.
The
Judeans were tired of foreign rule. They wanted to throw off the
rulers. Then you throw Paul in there with preaching a
non-traditional Judaism.
one
of the last things he did in Corinth, just a few weeks earlier, was
to write a theological symphony in four movements. We call it Romans.
Keep this in mind.
What
happened to the money Paul collected?
The meaning behind the narrative
What
does Luke want us to know, feel? Paul at the end spends two years in
prison, doing nothing. It is not what he planned to do. So
what is Luke doing? And how do we move from the narrative, through
the characters, to the meaning.
Wright says that the gospel is imported through Paul;s suffering. It
is something to think about.
Luke
is showing that Paul is still loyal to the Judean traditions. But it
is the tradition, the Law and the Prophets, which bear witness to
Jesus. It is the resurrection which validates who Jesus is. This is
borne out in his address to the Sanhedrin.
Luke
explores, what is the charge against Paul? The point Paul tries to
make is that when a Gentle becomes a believer, that person is no
longer a Gentile “sinner”. That person’s sin has been covered
by blood. That is what Paul was trying to say.
There
seems to be rather vague charges, sort of like some of the ones
against some of the immigrants today, that Paul was a rabble-rouser,
leader of a sect, and violated the Temple. Luke shows that these are
trumped up charges.
Wright
has a good phrase about Paul was not espousing a new religion, rather
a new reality.
If
you’re going to believe in resurrection, you have to have some view
on who or what humans still are between bodily death and bodily
resurrection.
Pharisees believe in this state people are either angels or spirits,
Sadducees do not believe in resurrection and do not believe in this
intermediate time. The Pharisees propose that instead of seeing Jesus
bodily, Paul saw a spirit or angel. The Romans only see trouble as
Paul continues on.
Conclusion
Jesus'
resurrection is not just a special event, it is what makes
everything else about the Christian movement relevant.
Chapter
9: Acts 25 – 28: and so to Rome
Introduction
Look
at Acts as a whole. At the beginning of Acts it talks about what
Jesus
continues to do.
It is not just the story of Paul. It is the story of the spread of
the gospel, not what happens to Paul. Luke does not end it with
Paul’s death, rather when Paul goes to Rome and is able to spread
his influence.
The
lesson, it is not about Paul, it is not about us, but what happens to
the gospel and what happens through the gospel.
We
see that Paul and the gospel has confronted the rulers of this world
and has shown its supremacy.
Also,
there is a continued joining of heaven and earth, which is where we
started-the temple. temples,
anyway, being places where heaven and earth are joined, are thus
places of power
Messianic thinking
The
Herod family tried to look out for the Judeans, as well as their own
interests. Such as they worked on getting the Temple all decorated
and a place of wonder. They looked out for the Judean interests.
While not part of the Davidian line, they set themselves up as
royalty. Those
of Luke’s readers who understood how royal and messianic thinking
worked in the first-century Judean world would realise the massive
irony building up in these chapters. Paul is an emissary of the true
Messiah, who is himself (along with his people) the true ‘Temple’.
The Messiah’s people are already (from Paul’s point of view)
becoming the new community of justice and peace in the world.
Luke
seems to suggest that before going to Rome to confront the world
order, this was the last time he was going to confront Judean
authorities in the face of King Herod. In
both cases, Paul’s witness will be not just to a different king,
but to a different kind of king
Festus
cannot figure out how to tell Caesar what the issue is. So he wants
Heord’s help in framing the charges. As
elsewhere, you can’t fit Jesus’ resurrection into anyone else’s
world view
Paul and the rulers of the world
Beatrice
is a well-known 1st century personality. This is a star-studded
audience. Paul is doing what Jesus said believers would do, testify
before powers. Paul talks about him meeting Jesus. Herod and Festus
agree that Paul has not done anything wrong, but he has appealed to
Caesar so he must go there.
Luke
is telling Paul’s story here not for Paul’s sake, but to show
what happens when the gospel is present.
The
Judeans of Rome had already been kicked out of Rome several years
earlier Due
(according to the historian Suetonius) to someone called Chrestus. A
good many historians think this is a garbled reference to the gospel
of Jesus ‘Christos’ …. They
were nervous about the heated tensions in the Middle East. What
happens to them if there is a civil war there. And then there were
the Christians meeting in small groups in secret. Were they being
subversive to Rome?
Paul,
a good creational monotheist, believes that God has placed human
authorities in power
But
the balancing truth is that it’s the church’s task to hold them
to account when they fail to do their job.
Was Paul, when he appeared before Nero, would he be challenging him?
Would he be exacting retribution for all which he had been through?
This is where Luke leaves us.
Four great themes
Wright
sees four themes in these final four chapters:
-
First,
and always central, there is the world-changing message of Jesus’
resurrection. This
is seen uncomprehending through a pagan’s eyes, Festus. The
point, though, is obvious: through Jesus’ resurrection, a new world
order has been unveiled, declaring him to be both king of the Judeans
and lord of the world.
Paul’s mission is summarized in Acts 26:18. Paul’s
mission to the Gentiles was aimed, not at creating a Gentile church
in parallel to a Judean one, but at incorporating Gentiles into God’s
ancient people.
The issue with pagans from the Judean standpoint was that they were
idolaters in the arms of pagans. Paul’s
answer was not a new regime of ‘tolerance’ in which sin and all
that stuff didn’t matter any more. Paul’s answer was that the
gospel provided the remedy. The
Gentiles were to be part of the true people of God, justified by
their faith as Abraham was. What is required? Repent of idolatry,
turn to the true God and do the works of the people of God. (1 Thes
1:9-10)
- The
second theme, growing out of this, is the way Paul was trying to work
for large-scale reconciliation. Paul, I suggest, was in his way doing
the same thing as King Agrippa was trying to do – but with Jesus in
the middle of it. I suspect that Luke knows this very well and is
using the scene with Agrippa to make the point.
Same objective, different means. Aggripa was political; Paul was to
change the people. Luke
can help us with that task (of
demonstrating actions that Jesus is Lord).
We need to think through from scratch the ways in which Paul’s
teaching elsewhere about the ‘principalities and powers’ grows
out of these challenges in the first century and enables us to
address the equivalent challenges in our own day.
- third
great theme … The power of darkness does its worst. This is what
you can expect if you set off on the gospel journey. Certain
similarities with the Odyssey
in Paul’s journey. If
you’re going to tell the story of the gospel confronting the powers
of the world, Daniel 7 is the passage to evoke, bringing with it all
those other echoes as well.
Luke sees a parallel with Jonah and him going to preach the message.
God is in control whether we resist going or want to fulfill the
message. Resistance from the powers of this world will rise as we
proclaim and act out God’s message. Suffering as Jesus suffered is
the way which Jesus has noted will win the world-see what he says
about the cross. There’s
a sudden rush of ‘salvation’ language in chapter 27 (which
doesn’t always appear in modern translations such as my own). This
is found in how the men react to the boat about to sink. See the
Greek-”take bread for your salvation.” Remember,
then: ‘salvation’ for Luke clearly means, as it did for Paul, the
Creator God calling his whole creation to order, overcoming and
destroying all the powers that corrupt and enslave his beautiful
creation. … ultimate ‘salvation’ which is not from the world
but of and for the world.
- we
have, first, the world-changing message of the resurrection;
- second,
the political navigation between earthly power and the people of God;
- third, the battle with the sea-monster, the dark power that opposes
God’s rescuing purposes and the people who are carrying them out.
- Fourth
and finally, we have the innocence not only of Paul but of the gospel
itself.
As Jesus was found innocent of Roman guilt, so has Paul been found.
But they both suffer death. But Paul reassures the Jewish leaders in
Rome he is not there to stir up trouble, and the Jewish leaders do
not seem inclined to go after Paul.
Wright
comments that he visited Rome and was shown a recently discovered
ruin in Corso. There’s
a room in a basement under the Doria
Pamphilj gallery,
now below street level, where the researchers have found wall
paintings which indicate that it was seen very early on as a
specially holy place. They reckon that’s where Paul was kept in
imprisonment. It is moving beyond words to sit there and ponder
Paul’s imprisonment.
That
is exactly how Paul’s doctrine of justification works. That
is we are pronounced innocent because of Jesus and his sacrifice.
On
the second theme, Wright has something which corresponds to what I am
thinking. He says that As
we today face huge questions about faith and policy-different
questions in different parts of the world, but all going on
together-we need to abandon the sterile eighteenth-century antithesis
of being either ‘for’ or ‘against’ our rulers, and find fresh
ways to demonstrate in action what it means that Jesus is lord of the
whole world.
The question is how to do this, particularly when you have Christians
who are on opposite sides of policy, how do we come together and work
in a common way?
Conclusion
Since
we have freedom to share the gospel, unlike Paul, we should take
advantage of it.
Suggestions
for Further Reading
reading
Acts thoughtfully also requires a working knowledge of the history of
the first-century church in its social and cultural contexts, on
which there is of course a vast range of material, summarised at a
popular level in my The New Testament in Its World (NTW) (with
Michael F. Bird).
Evaluation:
NT
Wright goes through Acts more as a guide than a commentator.
Consequently, this is rather short, but packed with points to ponder.
He looks at the book in chunks of four chapters at time, mostly. The
over all theme is that Jesus continues to do his work through his
people.
Some
of the points he works through include:
-
Resurrection
is what hold together the gospel message
-
‘grace’
is not just for God’s free love in the gospel, but God’s generous
outreach to all
-
The
gospel is for God to come and dwell with us.
-
The
temple is the place of joining where the physical structure is
replaced by God’s people.
This
is a book well worth reading, particularly if you are starting to
look at Acts. It does not lead you through verse by verse, through
the minutiae, rather it takes a 10,000’ view of Acts and shows you
what Luke wanted us to know. Wright’s writing is one which is easy
to read, and non-technical. You will not find too many places where
you need to look up a word or worse yet a concept. Rather, you can
concentrate on understanding what Luke wrote and what God wants you
to understand.
Notes from my book group:
Wright
says that this book offers a
brief, though not shallow, introduction
to Acts. How useful did you find this book in reading through Acts?
The
book title is The
Challenge of Acts.
What challenges did you see applicable to you through this book?
Wright
points out that Luke says that Jesus
began to do and to teach
at the beginning of Acts. He also points out that Jesus continues
this. How does Wright show this mission continues not only through
Acts but to our present day? How alert are you to what Jesus is
currently teaching you? And what Jesus wants to do through us?
Wright
notes that Everything
in this book hinges on Jesus’ resurrection.
How does Luke show this?
What
are the implications of the
New Testament isn’t about our going to be with God, it’s about
God coming to be with us?
What
does Wright say that heaven is? What is the relationship between
heaven and earth?
What
does Luke leave out of his account of the early church? Where can you
find out more about what happened outside of Acts?
There
is a statement that the story of the Bible is God coming to live with
us rather than us going to live with God. Explain this statement.
Give some examples. How does this looking at the Bible in this way
change your thinking?
To
the Jew, Pentecost was a celebration of the Law given to God’s
people. What do you read into the Acts 2 account of Pentecost? Is
this related to the giving of the Law?
How
does Wright define the “temple”? Why do the events of Acts
threaten how the Jews viewed the temple?
All
this is part of learning to live as Temple-people in a conflicted
and confused world, as people of new creation within the present
ambiguous distorted creation, resisting the simplistic
pseudo-holiness of a dualism that dismisses existing structures as
hopeless.
Unpack this statement. Are there differences in what the early
disciples faced and in our world today? Do these differences make a
difference in how we relate to our world?
What
exactly is the relationship between ‘obeying God’ and living
under human authority?
The
story of Ananias and Sapphira is
about treating the things of God as though they are just ordinary.
What are God's things and what are ordinary things? How should you
treat one differently than the other?
Wright
said that the Jewish people in the time of Acts had to figure out
what obedience to torah meant in terms of resisting the rule of the
pagans.
How do you figure out what is important from Scripture and how it is
to be applied to our current times and culture?
Wright
has Luke telling a story of those who are corrupt and could never fit
into the Jewish religion being made holy-Samaritans, eunuchs,
Gentiles. Who in our world today would fit into this? Can God make
them holy?
In
this book, Paul’s change to being a believer is not cast as a
conversion, but as a redefinition of his faith. Why does Wright make
this conclusion? How does it affect how you think about your
Christianity?
Part
of this redefining of Paul’s faith was his misunderstanding of his
Judaism. What do you suspect needs to be re-examined about your
belief system?
Ananias
exhibited dangerous
obedience.
What made his obedience dangerous? Should obedience to God be
dangerous? What do you fear when you feel the leading of God?
Why
does Peter get out of jail and while James loses his life? What does
this say about how God operates?
What
you eat and who you eat with are important from Wright’s study of
Acts. Why? Is it still important today?
Luke
insists again and again that it’s the present world that’s out of
joint and under judgement, and that the reason Paul gets into trouble
is because he’s the one who’s standing straight up, who’s
telling the truth.
How does standing up straight get one in trouble? Where do you see
that standing up straight can get in trouble in today’s world? Do
you think the authorities would see it the same way as what happened
in Paul’s time?
Where
does Paul’s preaching come into conflict with the financial motives
of the people of his time? Is this true in our society as well that
the gospel will conflict with financial well-being?
Wright
observes that in every church Paul writes to, persecution is
mentioned. That is except for Corinth. Why was there no persecution
there? What effect does persecutions or the lack of them have on a
local church? Should the church fear persecutions?
Paul
may be indicating that when there are no persecutions, the church
gets lazy and arrogant. How does a church prevent being either or
arrogant from happening?
Where,
we might ask, are today’s altars to an unknown God?
Do you agree with Wright’s take that it might be
justice, love, freedom and beauty, spirituality, power, and …
Truth?
How
can idols or false gods be pointers to Truth? Paul quotes Aratus. How
can we understand our world and those who are in it through
non-Christian writers? Does God shed light to us through these
writers?
It
was considered weird by people in Paul’s time if you did not pay
homage to the local gods. What is considered weird today if you do
not honor these things?
Wright
points out that today we Americans have a tendency to think in terms
of a dichotomy-left and right. He also points out that there are
times that neither the left nor right have Christian concerns. How
can we get out of thinking in those terms? When our Christian
writings and teachers do not have a clear direction, where can we
turn for guidance?
The
Christian story of the world needs to be heard.
How can the message of Christ be heard in our world without being
mixed in with political messaging?
Paul
spent at least two years in prison without doing anything which would
be considered meaningful. Why does God allow Paul to be inactive?
What do we learn about our lives through Paul not being able to do
his mission?
Paul
… believes that God has placed human authorities in power. … But
the balancing truth is that it’s the church’s task to hold them
to account when they fail to do their job.
Do you also see this? How should this be done? we
need to abandon …. being either ‘for’ or ‘against’ our
rulers, and find fresh ways to demonstrate in action what it means
that Jesus is lord of the whole world..
How
do you want your life to change because you read this book?
Many
of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why
the title of The
Challenge of Acts?
Every
book has a world view. Were you able to identify this book’s world
view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
Why
do you think the author wrote this book?
What
would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What
“takeaways” did you have from this book?
What
central ideas does the author present?
Are
they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual,
medical, or scientific
Are
these idea’s controversial?
To
whom and why?
How
did this book affect your view of the world?
Of
how God is viewed?
What
questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk
about specific passages that struck you as significant—or
interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What
was memorable?
New Words:
