Chapter 6
Acts
The Person:
Luke is a Gentile writer, and we introduced him in at the beginning of his Gospel. Medical terms are common throughout his writings, especially in the healing passages.
Luke changes roles slightly throughout the book of Acts as he leaves his profession as a doctor and joins the mission working alongside Paul. Sometimes the passages use the pronoun ‘we’ sometimes ‘they’. Sometimes it is research sometimes experience.
The Book:
Up until the Second-Century AD, The book of Acts and the Gospel of Luke were one scroll. The book of Acts was never completed. It is still being written today and will be until Jesus returns.
Once again, when you give a book a title it can mislead the concept if its contents. The book of Acts is, ‘The acts of the Holy Spirit’, not ‘The Acts of the Apostles’. The apostles did not do these works, calling on the Holy Spirit for backup. No, they looked with a spiritual eye as to what the Holy-Spirit was doing and co-operated in it. We will explain this in a moment but for now, ‘Jerusalem to Rome’ is the theme of these chapters that have been written, but that is only the beginning.
The gospel moves from Jerusalem to the rest of the world via Rome, a Jewish story spread throughout a Gentile world. Luke probably wrote this second book while he was with Paul. While Paul was under house arrest in Rome for two-years, there was plenty of time to check out what Paul did, using the occasions Luke was with him. Luke was with Paul for a large part of his journey but, it seems, always with him when he journeyed by sea. I wonder why? Perhaps Paul was not so good at sea?
The first part of this book is about the Church and how it spread. The second part narrows in on Paul and his particular mission to the Gentiles. It would be nice if we had another book telling what as going on meantime outside the picture frame of Paul, but the book would be massive. If all the other seventy, sent out by Jesus, were as prolific as Paul, and all the Messianic-Jews chased from Jerusalem in seventy AD were as energetic, we would wonder why the whole earth was not in the Kingdom of Christ by the end of the book. Jesus had completed his work of redemption, it was finished on the Cross. But his work of Mediation, Proclamation and Reclamation is still going on.
And he said to them, It is not yours to know times or seasons, which the Father has placed in his own authority; but ye will receive power, the Holy Spirit having come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And having said these things he was taken up, they, beholding him, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they were gazing into heaven, as he was going, behold, also two men stood by them in white clothing, who also said, Men of Galilee, why do ye stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven.123
The disciples asked, When? They should have asked, ‘What’, ‘What is the Holy Spirit doing Now’? Fifty-times in the book of Acts, the Holy-Spirit is described as moving. It is not the people moving with the Holy-Spirit tagging along. The action of the Holy-Spirit initiates, He is not confined to the moving of the people, He is moving in the world and His people pick it up and respond. The Holy-Spirit moves mainly within a sequence through this account: Opposition, Persecution, Thrust-out and Church growth. The disciples were largely effective in their mission when they worked in tandem with the circumstances engineered by Holy-Spirit. Then, as today, the disciples that saw the circumstances being engineered by the Holy-Spirit, were the same disciples that had the power of the moment to do signs and wonders. The disgruntled disciples who just saw the disruption of their lives and hindering their work, were the ones who have little story to tell. Whenever the early church had a crisis, the circumstances were viewed as part of Holy-Spirit’s movement.
When the Church had a church crisis because the widows not being served in Acts-chapter-six, The leaders did not clechĕ, ‘We hear what you are saying but … ’, they looked beyond to see an opportunity to lift the Church to a higher plane. They called a meeting of the Church, yes but, it was not a democratic meeting as the Greeks were used to124, it was a meeting to discern the Holy-Spirit's solution. Church members might have perceived it to be democracy because the practical answer seemed obvious to the people, but, it had to be pursued at a spiritual level, not a democratic level.
These new Christians needed to be taught the difference. In structure, a meeting is a meeting. It may have opened in prayer but otherwise it might be conducted as any other meeting. The disciples brought the congregation together to teach them the difference. The disciples did not assume the congregation automatically knew how to discern the movement of the Spirit, it had to be learned. After all, these were Greek democrats. They were used to arguing their corner and championing self opinion. May the strongest argument prevail. They might have appointed representatives from among the complainers to suit their particular circle in the food distribution. That would have simply encouraged complainers in the Church to complain more, because by complaining they would have been rewarded for their moans. Thus, the Church would remain at a human level and slowly die. The challenge was not only to seek out spirit filled people who could demonstrate the character and anointing or the job, but also to teach the congregation of believers how recognize them. There is no mention of volunteers.
The objective that the apostles had picked up from Jesus, was to lift the Church to a Spiritual level by teaching the Church about insight, (‘It seemed good to them and the Holy-Spirit’), It was to see the problem as an opportunity to test and prove people at obedience level and to allow the Holy-Spirit to train people for more exacting roles in the Church. Six of the seven chosen to serve, would be cutting their journey to martyrdom here. One failed and took another root to fame- proclaiming heresy.125 Philip, one of the deacons, went on to water the seed Jesus had planted at the well in Samaria. He asked Peter and John to come and pray for the fire of the Holy-Spirit over the Church, which is ironic, as last time Peter and John were there in Samaria with Jesus, they wanted to call for fire to come and consume them.126
The book of Acts also challenges another modern trend. Using the terminology without understanding the principle leads to error. When people in Acts claim to be ‘Led by the Spirit’, it is not accepted as a fact without a challenge. The leading of the Holy-Spirit was not in ‘a nice warm inner feeling’ or ‘a big idea’, it was a sense of direction confirmed by circumstance and opportunity, mostly by persecution.
Peter challenged Ananias and Sophia on their leading of the Holy-Spirit, not on how much they put in the collection. This is a Lesson in being Spirit-led, not on expected Christian behaviour. Because the members were selling all and bringing it to the Church, there would have been group pressure. That is not being ‘Spirit led’, that is group pressure. When it came to the crunch, they did not have an answer.
They wanted to be part of the Church but only in appearance, not united in spirit. Peer pressure can cause compromise. That led this couple to lie. Once again we see in this chapter just how much the Church needed to learn the difference between the Kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God. These may look the same on the outside sometimes, but there is a vast difference inwardly. It may be that the Church itself should bear part of the blame, if it put a pressure of belonging on this couple to find a compromise. I wonder if Peter addressed that in one of his sabbath sermons.
‘But keep the Holy Spirit in your hearts. Always be ready to answer everyone who asks you to explain about the hope you have’127,
Peter, in the house of Cornelis was challenged by a dream in which the Holy-Spirit spoke about eating non-kosher food. At the Council of Jerusalem, he did not use as his defence, ‘The Spirit told me to eat’. Had he done so, the Council would rightly have decided, ‘we only have your says-so, and we do not agree’. The Holy-Spirit does not act without evidence. The evidence was the call of a Gentile Centurion, plus the vision telling Peter what to do, plus the arrival of the request at the precise time and plus the evidence of the Holy-Spirit coming upon the Gentiles. That is what the Jerusalem council could not dispute. It was not just a case of encouraging a worker in what he thought was right. It was a case discerning the Holy Spirit in his direction for the Church.
Beware, it is so easy in the Church of today to justify a personal ambition or a deep self-motivation with the words ‘The Spirit told me’. If evidence of the Spirit is not forthcoming, Check again! Look for evidence of the Spirit in: Regeneration (conversion), Baptism (water and Spirit); Sending people out (mission) and Fruit (Peace, patience etc.). If you don’t see any, question the motivation of the work. The book of Acts, speaks to this more than any other book in the Bible. If you want to stick around in Jerusalem in case revival breaks out, you might miss what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. The new church was born in Jerusalem but the action was carried out in the world. God said, ‘spread out’!128
123Acts 1: 6-11
124 we might say the modern Western Church
125Acts 5: 5: Steven was stoned: Philip, after sowing the seed of a church in Ethiopia by the Enoch, went to Samaria where he was Martyred. Prochorus, nephew of Steven, accompanied John first, then Paul and was martyred in Antioch: Nicanor went to Asia to be Martyred in 76 AD: Parmenas also went to Asia to be Martyred by Trajan in 98 AD: Timon remained in role of serving tables until the exile: Nicolas, disgruntled by his lack of progress in church Hierarchy, started a sect know as the Nicolaitans which is confronted by Paul in his letters
1260Luke also records that in Luke 9: 54.
127 1Pe 3:15
128Genesis 1: 28