Through the Bible -- Acts 2

Last week I shifted my weekly through the Bible to Acts. Here is Acts 1. Today is Pentecost Sunday, so we shift now to Acts 2.
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1. Acts 2 is the birth of the church. It is the birth of the church because it commences the age of the Spirit. Before Pentecost, the Spirit is promised. After Pentecost, the Spirit is in us, empowering us for mission and righteousness, binding us together, and mediating Jesus presence among us.

The Spirit of God is in the Old Testament, but he often is not fully understood nor is his presence in the lives of God's people considered typical. The Spirit comes on Samson for strength, but Samson is far from righteous (Judg. 14:19). The Spirit of God is everywhere present but he is treated as simply the presence of God in the world rather than as a distinct person (Ps. 139:7).

Now, the Spirit will be in every believer. In fact, the Spirit is the indicator that a person has joined the people of God. One can repent and not yet be in Christ. One can confess one's sins, believe, and confess faith and yet not be saved. You can be baptized, as the Samaritans are in Acts 8, but they were not yet "in." 

The Spirit is God's seal of ownership (2 Cor. 1:22). The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our coming inheritance and a foretaste of glory divine (2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:14). If someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to him (Rom. 8:9). You can receive the Spirit before baptism, and you are saved (Acts 10:44-48). You can be baptized but not be saved because you do not yet have the Spirit (Acts 8:14-16).

In Acts 2:28, Peter sums up the process of joining the community of faith. Repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgivness of sins, and receive the Holy Spirit. The crowds realize that they have crucified their Messiah, their anointed one, their king. They must repent. They need forgiveness for their sins.

In this regard, baptism symbolizes the washing away of their sins. God has offered the possibility of forgiveness on the basis of Jesus. Baptism into his name is an acknowledgement of him as king. Baptism in his name is to activate him as the authenticator and authority behind their reconciliation to God. Then they will receive the Holy Spirit and God will be in them, purifiying their hearts of sin (Acts 15:8-9), joining them together in unity, empowering them for witness.

2. What happened that day? They were no doubt praying, as we see at the end of Acts 1. The Day of Pentecost was the Jewish Feast of Weeks, fifty days after Passover. It was the day of the wheat harvest. And so the church will be born on a day of harvest, some 3000 souls will believe (2:41).

Pentecost had also come to be associated with the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai. And so on this day God writes his law on the hearts of his people through the Holy Spirit (cf. Jer. 31:33).

Pentecost is also the reversal of Babel. At the tower of Babel, God scatters the nations by dividing them by language. They are no longer able to understand one another.

But on the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit empowers the apostles to speak in other languages. Those Jews who are in Jerusalem for the feast all hear the good news proclaimed in their own tongues. It is far too early in the day for the disciples to be drunk. Rather, they are filled with the Spirit. 

3. The Spirit is the great equalizer. There are differences between men and women's bodies. But the Spirit comes equally on both of them. Sons and daughters will both prophecy by the same Spirit (2:17). There is no difference in spiritual capacity between them. There never was. But now we should expect the Spirit to speak through women regularly. The curse has been undone, and the Spirit shows no partiality. In Christ there is no longer male and female. 

4. Peter delivers the first sermon of Acts on the Day of Pentecost. The people are perplexed at what is happening. So, Peter will give the model sermon of Acts, the essence of what is called the "kerygma," what is proclaimed.

He begins with the story of Israel. This event has not happened out of the blue. It is the culmination of history. Peter quotes Scripture. This is the fulfillment of Joel 2. It is the beginning of the new covenant. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved (Acts 2:21).

Jesus had come as a man. God had done mighty works through him. The people of Jerusalem had handed him over according to God's foreknowledge and plan (2:23). In their ignorance, the audience itself had participated.

Then we get to the key line in every sermon in Acts: "God raised him" (2:24). [1] The resurrection is the centerpiece of Luke's theology. It represents the vindication of Jesus and his authenticity as God's representative. This is exactly what prophets like David had forseen. Peter reads Psalm 16 spiritually to hear a foreshadowing of Jesus not remaining in death.

Jesus has now been exalted to God's right hand -- enthroned as Messiah and Lord. Acts 2:36 gives us the timing in Luke's theology. These are royal titles, and Jesus "is made" Lord and Christ when he sits down and is enthroned at God's right hand. He was heir apparent before this time, but now he is seated at the right hand of the God as king. 

5. Three thousand are added to the company of believers. They devote themselves to the apostle's teaching. They are in constant fellowship, eating daily with each other, praying together.

The picture we get at the end of Acts 2 is a paradigmatic one, an idyllic one. It is Luke's picture of the ideal church. They worship daily together in the temple. They eat and fellowship with each other. They pray together. They share their possessions in common. If one person has more and another person has a need, they share.

Signs and wonders are normal. After all, they have the Spirit within them. The things that Jesus did by the power of the Spirit, they will now do in the power of the Spirit. Fear came on those watching, and new believers were being added daily. They were "being saved," meaning that they were becoming part of those who would escape the coming judgment of God. 

[1] Except for Stephen's in Acts 7 -- he was stoned before he got to that part of the sermon.

Acts 2 Explanatory Notes

Happy Pentecost! Although I have published extensive notes on Acts, I haven't done so in the format I use to self-publish. I posted Acts 1 a year ago. Here are re-formatted notes on Acts 2:
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Witnesses in Jerusalem (Acts 2-7)

The Day of Pentecost (2:1-47)
2:1 And when the Day of Pentecost was fulfilled, all were together into the same [place], [1] 2. and a sound suddenly came from the sky, as of a forceful wind bringing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.[2]
The Day of Pentecost was one of the three times when a Jewish male was supposed to appear in Jerusalem at the temple before the Lord (cf. Exod 34:23). It was also known as the "Feast of Weeks" because it was seven weeks after Easter and the "Feast of Ingathering" or "Feast of First Fruits" because it celebrated the beginning of the wheat harvest (cf. 34:22).

We can assume from Acts 1:14 that these believers have been praying as important context for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is also significant that they are "together." That is, they are unified.

The word for spirit (pneuma) is related to the word for wind (pnoe). Spirit is something that is blown. The metaphor of "filling" is frequently used with the Holy Spirit, like a cup that is filled.

3. And distributed tongues as of fire appeared to them and sat upon each one of them.
The idea of tongues of fire is attested by Philo at the event of the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, and we can find in other places an association between Pentecost and Sinai. It is thus at least possible that we should hear new covenant overtones to the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost is the birth of the church, the full inauguration of the new covenant, the "feast" of the first fruits of the Spirit and the first ingathering of harvest!

 
4. And all were filled with Holy Spirit and began to speak in different languages as the Spirit was giving to them to make utterance.
Acts uses a number of expressions for the event that takes place here. They are "filled" with the Spirit. They are "baptized" in the Holy Spirit. They "receive" the Holy Spirit. These would all seem to be roughly synonymous expressions.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit is an initiatory experience in the book of Acts. That is to say, a person has not truly become part of the people of God until he or she has received the Spirit. This baptism in the Spirit is the means by which one's past sins are cleansed (cf. Acts 15:9).

Within the narrative world of Luke-Acts, this event is the fulfillment of Luke 3:16. That is to say, we would introduce foreign elements into Luke's story if we insert John 20:22 here where Jesus breathes on them to receive the Holy Spirit. In the story world of Luke-Acts, this is the first time that the disciples receive the Spirit.

For Acts, Paul, and Hebrews, receiving the Holy Spirit is the initiatory experience for a Christian. Faith (Paul), repentance (Luke), and confession (John) are important precursors to inclusion in the people of God, but they are not the borderline per se. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are not his" (Rom. 8:9). The Holy Spirit is a seal indicating God's ownership of us (2 Cor. 1:22). He is the earnest of our inheritance, serving both as a down payment and guarantee of our salvation (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).

From the perspective of much of the New Testament, therefore, one is thus not a "Christian" unless one has received the Holy Spirit, and if someone has received the Holy Spirit, he or she is part of the people of God. Therefore, in the narrative world of Luke-Acts, the Day of Pentecost is the birth of the church.

The primary manifestation of receiving the Holy Spirit is power, as indicated in Acts 1:8. The first manifestation of this power in Acts is speaking in languages, although people do not speak in these "tongues" every time they are baptized in the Spirit in Acts. These would seem to be human languages in Acts 2. The word for utterance here also seems to suggest divinely revealed messages.

5. And Jews were dwelling in Jerusalem, devout men [and women] from every ethnos that is under the sky. 6. And when this sound came to be, [3] the multitude came together and was confused because each one was hearing them speaking in their own dialect.
We should picture this crowd as an overwhelmingly Jewish crowd. The mention of every "ethnos" does not mean that they are Gentiles but that these Jews have come from every "nation." However, the word nation is misleading because the Roman world was an empire, not a collection of nation-states like we have today. They were rather regions dominated by certain ethnic groups, under Roman rule. An ethnos is thus a region dominated by a certain people group, with other people groups like Jews living among them.

Pilgrimage to Jerusalem was a feature of the Judaism of the day, especially to the three pilgrimage festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. We thus see, thus the picture of Diaspora Jews from all over the Roman Empire coming to the temple. The volume of the noise from the rushing wind must be quite spectacular to attract a large crowd from the broader city.

7. And they were amazed and marveled saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? [4] 8. and how are we each hearing in our own dialect in which we were born-- 9. Parthians and Medes and Elamites and ones who dwell in Mesopotamia, both Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10. both Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya by Cyrene, and the residents of Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11. Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking the great things of God in our languages?
In 2:7-11 we get a sense of how many regions were represented in Jerusalem on feast days. This cross-section of Diaspora Judaism will serve as a conduit for the Jesus movement spreading throughout the world. When Paul writes Romans over twenty-five years later, we might be puzzled how the church got there. The Day of Pentecost is often mentioned as a strong possibility.

We get an overtone here that people might not have thought Galileans to be likely to speak in so many different languages. It is not the only place where we pick up on a certain negative stereotype of these Jews from the northern part of Israel.

2:8 indicates that the languages spoken were human languages and that the use of tongues here served the purpose of evangelism. Some have emphasized the word hear, suggesting either that the gift was in the ability of the audience to hear in their own language and, perhaps, that the apostles were speaking the same ecstatic tongues as in 1 Corinthians 14.

However, this interpretation goes well beyond what the verse says and is based rather on the drive to harmonize this chapter with 1 Corinthians. It says that they were speaking in our language. Accordingly, they heard them speaking in their languages, just as we might hear someone speaking another language today. Although the other instances of tongues-speaking in Acts do not indicate the nature of the tongues, Acts 2 may tip the scales toward them being human languages in the other instances too.

Acts does not indicate that tongues always accompanied receiving the Holy Spirit. The believers at Samaria are not said to speak in tongues in Acts 8, nor is Paul said to in Acts 9. Acts thus does not lead us to believe that tongues is in some way the sign of the Holy Spirit.

The content of what they were saying was understood. These thus do not seem to be the same tongues as 1 Corinthians 14, which were not understood without a distinct interpretation. The content of the speaking was witness to "great works of God," likely with the resurrection of Jesus at the core.

12. And all were amazed and were perplexed, one saying to another, "What does this want to be? 13. But different [ones], mocking, were saying, "They have become drunk with wine."
There seem to be two basic reactions to the event. Some are perplexed and want to know more. Others immediately reject the spiritual nature of the event and propose that the men are drunk. In other words, some have ears to hear and others do not.

Peter's Sermon (14-36)
14. But Peter, having stood with the eleven, lifted up his voice and uttered to them, "Men, Jews and all the residents of Jerusalem, let this be known to you and hear my words, 15. for these are not drunk as you yourselves suggest, for it is the third hour of the day.
This is the first and most important sermon in Acts, giving Peter's response to the crowd. We call the basic gospel message of this sermon the "kerygma," that which is proclaimed. The sermon of Acts 2 gives us a basic sense of the preaching of the early church as Luke reports it.

For more than one reason, we probably shouldn't think of this sermon as verbatim. It would be in keeping with the practices of ancient history writing for Luke to summarize, paraphrase, even at times create material for such speeches. [4] The main parts of the sermon each begin with a word that addresses the crowd. The first is "Men, Jews, and all those dwelling in Jerusalem."

First, Peter rejects the claim that they are drunk. It is only 9 in the morning. There may be some implied parallel between being filled with the Spirit and being drunk with wine (Eph. 5:18). We might note that Peter fully assumes that they do consume the kind of wine that can make a person drunk. It is just not the time of day that they would normally be doing so.

16. "But this is that which has been spoken through the prophet Joel,
By contrast, Peter indicates that the event is the fulfillment of the words of Joel 2. The New Testament authors read the Old Testament with spiritual eyes. The Holy Spirit inspired them to hear God's voice in the words, often in a "fuller sense" or sensus plenior that gave the words extended meanings beyond what their original authors understood. Joel himself probably did not know the fullness of how God would use his words at that time, which were directed to the Israel of his own day centuries before.

17. "'And it will be in the last days,' says the Lord,

'I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh,
     And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
And your young men will see visions,
     And your old men will dream dreams.
18. And, indeed, upon my male servants and female servants in those days,
     I will pour out from my Spirit
     and they will prophesy.
These are key verses indicating that the age of the Spirit is one in which both men and women will preach. Preaching is often a form of prophesying, that is, speaking forth the word that the Lord has given to a particular group of people, a divine utterance. Prophecy is much more "forth-telling" than it is "fore-telling." It is not usually about the very distant future but about the people right in front of you.

The Spirit is the great equalizer, and since men and women possess the Spirit in full measure, there is no spiritual activity that is limited to a certain gender or type of person. "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free. There is not male and female" (Gal. 3:28). Acts knows no limits on what a woman might do in the church.

19. "And I will give wonders in the sky above
     and signs on the earth below,
     blood and fire and vapor of smoke,
20. The sun will be transformed into darkness,
     and the moon into blood
Before the Day of the Lord comes,
     the great and glorious,

In the prophets, the Day of the Lord was a day of the Lord's judgment, one that could occur as often as needed. Acts presumably relates this to the great Day of the Lord, the final judgment. In that sense, the entire age of the church is syncopated into this moment.

Language of the moon darkening and the sun turning to blood is eclipse language. It is not clear that Luke foresees a literal eclipse at some time but this is apocalyptic language. He may actually be saying that the Day of Pentecost fulfilled the thrust of those signs.

21. And it will be [that] everyone who calls 
     on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
One of the main themes of Acts is that anyone can now call on the Lord, and anyone who does will be saved. Luke also uses deterministic language but these two types of language should not be connected philosophically as in Calvinism. In keeping with the fatalism of the day, Luke assumes that those who are called have been chosen by God and yet also believes that the gospel is for everyone and anyone merely need call upon God to be saved.

 
22. "Men, Israelites, hear these words. Jesus the Nazarene [was] a man attested by God to you by powers and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.
The next section of the sermon, beginning with “Men, Israelites,” goes from 2:22-35. These verses focus on Psalm 16:8-11, which Luke uses in conjunction with Psalm 110:1 to indicate that Jesus' resurrection is also the fulfillment of prophecy, just like the day of Pentecost. One of the first points of each sermon in Acts is that the events taking place fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures and were all part of God’s plan.

In 2:22 specifically, Luke's Christology focuses on the empowered humanity of Jesus. Jesus is specifically described as a man whom God endorsed by empowering him to do signs and wonders through the Holy Spirit. In this sense Jesus the man gives us an example of what is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit.

23. "This [man], given up by the appointed plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed through the hand of lawless people, having crucified [him]...
One feature of the sermons of Acts, of which this one is the most important and central one, is that the enemies of Christ did not prevail. Jesus' death was in accordance with the foreknowledge and plan of God. No one has ever gotten the best of God, not even for a moment.

24. "... whom God raised, having loosed the birth-pains of death, since it was not possible for him to be held by it.
The climax of every sermon in Acts except one (Stephen's sermon--he is stoned to death before he can get to this part of the sermon) is the statement that "God raised him from the dead." Notice again that the agency is that of God the Father rather than Jesus himself.

25. "For David says to him, 
'I saw the Lord before me constantly, 
    because he is on my right [hand]
    so that I might not be shaken.
The Greek version of Psalm 16:8 differs a little from the Hebrew, a hint that Luke is at least paraphrasing. The Hebrew reads, "I put the LORD" but the Greek reads, "I foresaw." While Peter might have known some Greek, it seems more likely that he would have spoken Aramaic on the Day of Pentecost, suggesting that Luke is at the very least making Peter's sermon conform to the text in which his audience would have read the psalm. More importantly, this different wording leads Luke's Peter to see these words as a prophecy by the psalmist, understood to be David, rather than a statement about the psalmist himself, as it likely was in its original meaning.

26. "'Because of this, my heart rejoiced,
    and my tongue exulted,
    and still my flesh will dwell in hope.
The version Luke's Peter quotes in 2:26 also follows the Septuagint with the expression "in hope" rather than the likely Hebrew, "securely." These variations should not bother us. Under God’s inspiration, The New Testament use of Scripture focused on the message the audience needed to hear, not on historical or inductive study of what the Old Testament texts originally meant. This use of Scripture was fully in keeping with the way most Jews read the biblical texts at the time. [5] Because God wants to be understood, he meets us where we are in our understanding, largely in our categories, and takes us from there.

27. Because you will not abandon my life in Hades,
    nor will you give your holy [one] to see corruption.
28. You have made known to me ways of life;
    you have filled me with gladness with your face.'

29. "Men, brothers [and sisters], being permissible for me to say with boldness to you concerning our patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is among us until this day.
Now Peter gives a spiritual interpretation of the psalm. The original psalmist was likely expressing his confidence that God was going to save him from dying. Hades was the Greek word for the place of the dead in general rather than hell as a place of torment for the wicked. “Hades” thus could be a metaphor for death. God was not going to let the psalmist die in his current situation. It was yet time for the psalmist’s body to decay. God was going to rescue him from his current danger.

Here in Acts 2, Luke’s Peter takes the psalm spiritually to mean that God would not leave the Messiah dead. Again, we should not be troubled that Peter reads the psalm differently than its original meaning. God is speaking through the words as Peter understands them and bringing a true message to the crowd.

30. "Therefore, being a prophet and having known that God swore to him with an oath [that] from the fruit of his loins to sit upon his throne, 31. "... having foreseen, he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ that neither was he abandoned in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption, 32. this Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
The core event to which the apostles gave witness was the resurrection. An apostle is someone who is sent with a commission. In Acts, the apostles were sent with a very clear task to give witness to the resurrection. In most cases in the New Testament, an apostle is someone to whom the risen Christ has appeared, who has been sent to witness to his resurrection, which means to witness to his Lordship.

As we mentioned, Peter is reading Psalm 16 through spiritual eyes. He is hearing a word that relates directly to Jesus, a fuller meaning to the biblical text when it is read in relation to Jesus and his resurrection. Christians still today often have the words of the Bible jump out at them in this way. The Spirit blows where he wants (John 3:8).

33. "Therefore, having been exalted to the right [hand] of God and the promise of the Holy Spirit having received from the Father, he has poured out this that you yourselves both are seeing and hearing.
The New Testament indicates that the age of the Spirit can only commence once Jesus has completed his mission to die and rise from the dead. This is at least one sense in which the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. The Son runs his part of salvation’s race then tags the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ returns to earth.

In a number of places, the Gospel of John almost echoes themes in Luke and Acts, making us wonder if John had read them. Here is a theme that John will develop in the later part of his Gospel. Jesus ascends to heaven and then sends the Holy Spirit.

34. "For David did not ascend to the skies, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit on my right [hand] 35. until I should place your enemies under your feet."'
Here we have a foundational interpretation of Psalm 110:1 for the early church, one that may have been central to early Christian understanding of the resurrection. Jesus' resurrection is understood to be a cosmic enthronement whereby Jesus is exalted to God's right hand in the highest heaven.

The key to this interpretation is to see “my Lord” as David referring to the Messiah. In the original meaning, the psalmist was probably referring to an earthly king. In the original meaning, the psalmist says that Yahweh, the LORD, anointed the psalmist’s Lord, the king, and placed him as king at God’s right hand. In the spiritual interpretation, David writes of how YHWH would install the Messiah as king.

36. "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that both Lord and Christ God has made this Jesus, whom you yourselves crucified."
Here is the climax and finale of the sermon. Jesus has been enthroned as Lord and Messiah. God “has made him.” They crucified him. God enthroned him. The timing of the enthronement in context is post-resurrection. Thus we might say that Jesus was heir apparent up to this point, but then is seated on the throne after his resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. This is the “session,” the seating of Christ on the throne.

The vast majority of the New Testament puts the focus of Jesus’ identity as Messiah at his resurrection. Only the Gospel of John emphasizes the pre-existence of Jesus. In Acts, as in Paul and Hebrews, the resurrection and exaltation is Jesus’ commencement in office as Son of God. His anointing as king most focally takes place at this moment, even if sonship language might apply to him previous to that point as well.

The Response (2:37-41)
37. And having heard, they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "What should we do, men, brothers [and sisters]?"
Here we have the response to Peter’s sermon. We should note that the boldness of Peter to preach is one of the manifestations of the power that has come on him because of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Immediately after the crucifixion, he and the disciples hid from those who might come after them. Now they are speaking boldly in public.

The crowd realizes what they have done. The crowd has a moment of conviction. Upon realizing that they have participated in the crucifixion of their own Messiah, they want to turn and see restoration.

38. And Peter says to them, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39. "For the promise is to you and to your children and to all [those] from afar as many as the Lord our God should call."

This verse unfolds how to call on the name of the Lord. First, one repents or turns from one's self-destructive path. Repentance is a major feature of Luke's theology (in contrast to Paul, who hardly mentions it). Then one believes or exercises faith. The crucial moment, however, is when one receives the Holy Spirit. This is the moment when one actually becomes part of the people of God, is cleansed of one's past sins, and is going to be saved on the Day of the Lord.

The timing of receiving the Spirit seems clear. While I deeply respect the tradition of my own church that receiving the Spirit is a subsequent experience to “conversion,” nothing in this verse suggests such a thing. The clear impression of the text is that when a person repents and is baptized in water, filling with the Spirit should follow. It is a problem in Samaria when they have been baptized but have not immediately received the Holy Spirit (8:14-17).

Sins are a problem and obstacle to reconciliation with God. In some way that Acts does not make explicit, baptism in the name of Jesus relates to the forgiveness of sins. It likely relates to a cleansing inside that corresponds to the cleansing of the body on the outside. This is not simply a matter of ritual. The right attitude must accompany the baptism—repentance.

Similarly, we might infer from the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43 that water baptism is a normal and important part of the process but not essential. The thief does not have an opportunity for baptism before his death. (True, this is before the age of the Spirit commences) Similarly, the Gentiles in Acts 10 receive the Holy Spirit before they are baptized in water. They are already “in” the people of God before the ritual act that signifies their cleansing and usually catalyzes the Holy Spirit coming in Acts.

The promise was first for the Jews. It was for all Israel. The good news was not something different from God’s promises to Israel but good news for true Israel and the true Israel of the future. In Acts 10 we will learn that the good news is for the Gentiles as well. It is as Joel said for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

40. And with many different words he was witnessing and exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from his crooked generation." 41. Therefore, those who received his word were baptized and about three thousand souls were added on that day.
Those who repent, are forgiven, and receive the Holy Spirit are part of the people of God. Within Israel, they are the true Israel, the righteous remnant. By contrast, those in Israel who have not belied were a “crooked” and destined for judgment. Perhaps Peter especially had the leadership of Israel at that time in mind.

About 3000 people respond positively to the message and join the Jesus movement. The pattern in Acts is repeated several times. Some group is praying and the Holy Spirit suddenly comes on them. The group receives power, along with the cleansing of the Spirit and forgiveness of sins.

That power shows itself in various ways. It typically involves boldness to witness to the good news. Sometimes they speak in other languages as part of this proclamation. Sometimes they have the power to heal, as in Acts 3 immediately following Pentecost. Two consequences usually follow also on these demonstrations. We will see persecution soon enough, and it seems to grow with each demonstration. 2:41 shows us the other typical consequence—people turning to the Lord. The number of “converts” to the Jesus movement also grows as time goes on.

Early Church Fellowship (2:42-47)
42. And they were holding fast to the teaching of the apostles and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.
One principle of biblical application is that “description is not prescription.” Just because Judas went out and hanged himself, we are not to do the same when we betray the Lord. In that instance, the text describes what happened without prescribing it. However, biblical narratives often do have what is called an “evaluative point of view.” Whenever God’s perspective is given, it is clearly the evaluative point of view of the text. [6] At other times, we must try to infer whether the story is implying that what happens is positive or negative.

These verses give us an idyllic picture of the earliest church, and Luke seems to consider this picture a very positive one indeed. That is, Luke wants us to see this picture as the ideal. He is not merely describing the early church. The evaluative point of view of Acts is entirely positive toward this picture.

The earliest Christian community involved teaching and teaching by the apostles. The source of their teaching is presumably the Holy Spirit, although they have also been apprentices of Jesus and have learned much from him. Community life involves fellowship (koinonia) and prayer. The importance of fellowship should not be underestimated. The breaking of bread suggests a level of mutual approval and intimacy. The early church became family.

Prayer is something that Luke positively emphasizes in both Luke and Acts. Luke has more parables and teaching on prayer than any other Gospel. The disciples were presumably praying on the Day of Pentecost before the Holy Spirit came.

43. And fear was coming on every soul, and many wonders and signs through the apostles were coming to be.
The apostles performed miracles, which brought a fear at the seriousness of the power of the Spirit. It is interesting that it is not suggested that all the believers there performed miracles. However, 1 Corinthians 12:10 suggests that ordinary people in the church could also have the gift to do so. Nothing in the biblical texts suggests that such gifts ended with the first apostles. Rather, in the age of the Spirit, we would expect these powers to be present in an ongoing way among Christian communities that have the Spirit.

44. And all the [ones] who believed were in the same [mind] and were holding all [things] common, 45. and the goods and the possessions they were selling and distributing them to all as ever they were having need.
There was a communal aspect to the early church. Those who had more possessions than they needed sold them and gave them to others who had need. The sense probably is not that they sold everything, although it is possible that some did. Those who think the Lord will return immediately or soon sometimes rashly do such things.

Again, the evaluative point of view of Acts is positive toward this sharing of possessions. It does not mandate it, however. Ananias and Sapphira were not mandated to sell all their property (5:4). Nevertheless, clearly Acts smiles on these believers sharing their excess with those in need. In other words, the early church behaved as a family, and they helped each other out accordingly.

46. And daily holding fast together in the temple and breaking bread at home, they were partaking of food with rejoicing and a generous heart, 47.praising God and having grace with all the people, and the Lord added to those being saved daily into the same [group].
They continued to pray at the temple. We get no sense at this point that they were anticipating that the temple would soon be destroyed. Indeed, Acts 21:24 suggests they continued to participate in the sacrificial system, perhaps implying that they did not yet understand the full scope of Christ’s atoning death. We have to remember that many things are clear to us in hindsight that were not yet clear to them.

The centrality of fellowship and eating in each other’s homes continues. The church is a new family. The “Lord’s supper” was such a meal that they probably shared weekly on Sundays. It was not at that time a small, distinct ceremony as we practice it today. It was probably more like what we call a pitch in dinner or potluck. Jude seems to call it an agape or “love feast” (Jude 12). Paul addresses abuses of the Lord’s supper at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:17-34).

New people were “being saved” daily. This is shorthand for individuals repenting, being baptized, receiving the Holy Spirit, joining the people of God, and thus beginning a journey toward the salvation that would take place when the Lord returned and they did not face the wrath of God.

Nor is the sense one of “progressive salvation,” as if we are gradually being saved. Rather, people were being saved daily, one by one, salvation event by event. One person was saved and then another, not “I’m a little bit saved. Now I’m more saved.”

They also held favor with the people. Under peaceful circumstances, non-believers should respect and admire believers for their wholesome and peace-loving nature. One of Luke’s special emphases is the unified and peaceful nature of the church. Christianity sometimes had a bad reputation in the Roman empire. Luke wants Theophilus and all his readers to know that these rumors are false. Christians are not troublemakers by nature, although trouble sometimes comes to them from their opponents.

[1] temporal infinitive construction

[2] periphrastic

[3] genitive absolute

[4] question expecting a yes answer

[5] Cf. the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who says he composed some of the speeches in his history of the Peloponnesian War.

[6] Here we should remember that God meets us where we are in revelation. The books of the Bible are instances of God meeting his people largely within their own categories and taking them from there. For example, the perspective of God at the end of Job is God as revealed to the author of Job at that point in the flow of biblical revelation. It is a contextualized presentation of God’s perspective.

"Conversion" in Acts? 2

.. continued from Monday
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There are good reasons to believe that not all Christians will speak in tongues when they first believe. For one thing, the book of Acts does not actually show Christians speaking in tongues every time they receive the Spirit. Each of the three instances has a certain symbolic significance or has the character of breaking a barrier. If speaking in tongues were the evidence par excellence of receiving the Holy Spirit, wouldn't the New Testament be a whole lot clearer about it--like actually saying so explicitly?

When we have to read through the lines of the Bible to infer the key idea a group sees in the Bible, we should be somewhat suspicious about that idea. There are actually only a minority of Pentecostals who believe that you are not legitimately a Christian if you did not speak in tongues when you became a Christian. These are chiefly groups that arose in the decade from 1910-1920.  We might also be suspicious of a popular level interpretation that has only been around for about 100 years.

Are the Spirit-fillings in Acts conversions?  I suppose that before we answer that question, we should define what we mean by "conversion" in the first place. In the early chapters of Acts, we are talking about Jews, the people of Israel. According to the Old Testament, they were already in the people of God, heirs of God's promises. What do we mean when we say they are "converted," especially since "converted" isn't a word that Acts actually uses?

For certain, we don't mean that they changed religions.  They didn't switch from the religion of Judaism to the religion of Israel.  This is an anachronistic way of reading the New Testament that comes from the time later in the church when Judaism was a different religion from Christianity.  As we'll see in the sermons of Acts, the earliest Christians saw faith in Jesus as true Judaism, as what anyone in true continuity with Israel would believe.

A common myth you hear sometimes is that "Saul" was Paul's Jewish name and that he took on the name "Paul" when he switched religions. This is so obviously wrong it's fascinating.  Paul continues to go by the name "Saul" in Acts for some 10 years after he believes in Jesus. He only switches to the Roman name (or nickname) "Paul"--a name he may have had since he was a child--when his ministry really begins to focus on witnessing to non-Jews.

No, the only conversions from one religion to another in Acts are when Gentiles, non-Jews, accept Jesus as king. And they saw themselves as converting to Judaism, or at least a form of Judaism. In fact, as we will see, many of these Gentile converts were already worshiping God at synagogues. They just had not fully converted.

So when the Jews of Acts believe on Jesus, they were, in a sense, converting from one sect of Judaism to another, but they would not have seen themselves as changing religions. So perhaps we should use a slightly different word than "conversion" when we ask what the Spirit-fillings of Acts are about? Were the Spirit-fillings of Acts primarily an initial event when becoming a follower of Jesus?  Or was getting filled with the Spirit something that happened to a Christian after he or she had believed for some time? ...

Tongues 1--the Spirit Comes

... continued from Wednesday.
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"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place" (Acts 2:1). There were about 120 in an upstairs room (1:15), quite possibly the room where they ate the Last Supper (Luke 22:12). [1] The number included the original eleven disciples, others who had followed Jesus from the beginning (like Matthias and Joseph), and women who had followed Jesus (cf. Luke 23:55-56). It also included Jesus' mother, Mary, and Jesus' brothers like James and Jude. They have been praying and waiting on the Holy Spirit to come, as Jesus promised.

They hear a violent wind. The word for spirit in both Greek and Hebrew is related to the word for wind. The Spirit is, in a sense, the breath of God, breathing on his people, giving them life as in Genesis 2:7. The tongues of fire are like traditions about what happened when God gave the Law on Mt. Sinai, except now God is enacting the new covenant, in which he writes his laws on the hearts of his people through the Holy Spirit. [2]

They begin to speak in other languages or "tongues" as they are often called. They apparently come out of the upper room to the outside and are telling of the wonders of God in all sorts of different languages. It is the Feast of Pentecost.  Jews are in Jerusalem from all over the known world.  Fifteen different areas are mentioned. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and people from Mesopotamia hear, people from the far east of that time. Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia are places in modern day Turkey. Egypt and Libya are in Africa, Crete and Rome from the broader Mediterranean. Arabs lived in Palestine and Judea was of course where Jerusalem itself was.

These are Jews and converts to Judaism. We remember that there were more Jews scattered outside of Jerusalem at the time than lived in the home country. The Egyptian city of Alexandria alone probably had more Jews in it than in all of Jerusalem. These individuals hear the witness of the 120 in their own languages.

Probably the most natural way to take the tongues of Acts 2 is that these individuals are given the ability to speak in these other languages. The only hint of something different would be the fact that some think that they are drunk. The situation in Acts 2 points to something a little different from 1 Corinthians 14:23, when outsiders do not understand what is being said. The tongues-speakers in 1 Corinthians 14:13 also do not seem to know what they are saying, while those in Acts 2 presumably do.  The experience in Acts 2 is a tool for witness and mission. In 1 Corinthians 14 it is a very personal experience that Paul criticizes for not being edifying to the congregation as a whole.

Tongues come in two other places in Acts.  In Acts 10:46, Gentiles speak in tongues when the Spirit first comes on them.  This is the first time in Acts that the Spirit comes on the Gentiles, proving that they can be in the people of God without having to convert to Judaism and get circumcised. Speaking in tongues shows that their experience of the Spirit is every bit as authentic as the Spirit-filling experience the Jews experienced on the Day of Pentecost.

But tongues are not mentioned every time someone is filled with the Spirit. For example, tongues are not mentioned in another filling the followers of Jesus experience in Acts 4:31. Tongues are not mentioned at Samaria when the Spirit comes (8:17) or when Paul receives the Spirit in 9:17-18. The only other place tongues are mentioned is in Acts 19:6 at Ephesus.

The situation here is that some individuals have only been baptized in the way of John the Baptist. They have not been baptized in the manner of Jesus, which involves receiving the Holy Spirit. So Paul baptizes them and the Holy Spirit comes on them.  They speak in tongues just as the disciples had on the Day of Pentecost.

Tongues in these instances seem to be particularly significant as a sign of the new age of the Spirit. In each instance, some important boundary is crossed or is remembered being crossed. There are some groups that insist that anyone who is truly a Christian will speak in tongues. Such groups often put Acts 2 at the center of their understanding of Christian life today. There are at least two key features of their understanding.

The first is that receiving or being filled with the Holy Spirit is part of a person's conversion experience. We will look at this issue in a moment. Are the Spirit-fillings of Acts an initial experience that believers have when they first come to believe on Jesus as their Lord? Or is receiving the Holy Spirit a second or later experience a person has some time after he or she has believed? For that matter, do all Christians receive the Holy Spirit at all or is it a special experience just for some?

The second assumption is that all those who receive the Holy Spirit in Acts spoke in tongues, even though Acts does not always mention them. Certain Pentecostal groups distinguish between tongues in Acts as the key evidence that a person has received the Holy Spirit and tongues as a special gift from God that only some Christians receive. Such groups would say that 1 Corinthians 14 is about the gift of tongues, while Acts 2 tells us about tongues as evidence that a person has in fact truly become a Christian.

There are good reasons to believe that not all Christians will speak in tongues when they first believe...

[1] Was it the home of John Mark in Acts 12:12?

[2] Cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12; Rom. 2:15.

The Promise of the Spirit 1

Now beginning chapter 2 of life reflections on Acts...
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To understand Acts 2 and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we have to go back to the very beginning of Luke-Acts in Luke 3. John the Baptist is baptizing people at the Jordan River. The people are wondering if he might be the Messiah. He assures them that he is not.

"I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Luke 3:17).

This verse is the background for the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.  It may take us a little doing, but we have to remember that the Gospel of John was not sitting between Luke and Acts when Luke's audience first heard Luke-Acts.  These two books were one work, one continuous story. What that means is that if you stick material from John into the flow of Luke-Acts, you're changing the story from how it was originally meant to be read.

Why am I telling you this?  Because it is very common in some circles to insert a moment in John 20:22 into Acts' story line. In John 20:22, Jesus breathes on his disciples and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. Some Christians thus like to see Acts 2 as an additional event involving the Holy Spirit.

But not for Acts.  The moment in John 20 is not part of the story of Luke-Acts.  For Luke-Acts, the coming of the Spirit in Acts 2 is the fulfillment of John's prediction in Luke 3. For Acts 2, the Spirit has not come yet in the way that John anticipated before the Day of Pentecost. [1]

The event on the Day of Pentecost thus represents a kind of full instatement of Jesus as Messiah.  John the Baptist says that the Messiah will bring a new baptism, a baptism in Spirit. That prediction is enacted in Acts 2.  It goes in force. Jesus is now fully operating as the king--at least as he plans to operate in this age until his return. The Day of Pentecost is, in a sense, the birth of the church and the church age. The benefit of Christ's death and resurrection for the world are now fully in play.

The Day of Pentecost was one of three feasts in the Old Testament when, in theory, every Jewish male was to go to Jerusalem and present himself before the Lord (cf. Deut. 16:10, 16). It was also called the "Feast of Weeks" because it was 7 weeks or 50 days after Passover. It was also called the "Feast of First Fruits" because it celebrated the beginning of the wheat harvest.

The symbolism is clear.  The Day of Pentecost represents the first harvest of Jesus followers now that the age of the Spirit has come. It is hard to know if Jews at the time associated the Feast of Pentecost with the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, but later Jewish tradition did, and some Jewish writers of the time saw fire as part of the giving of the Jewish Law. [2] Is it possible that Luke wanted us to see Pentecost as the enactment of the new covenant (Luke 22:20)?

John the Baptist had predicted that Jesus' baptism would involve fire.  The function of fire in this context is to cleanse and purify (Luke 3:17). Yes, this cleansing probably does involve a sifting of people.  But Acts 15:9 also tells us that the coming of the Spirit purifies the disciples' own hearts, as well as the hearts of all those who receive the Spirit.

What is happening in the time before this inaugural event of the church? First they are waiting.  Jesus has told them to wait for this promise of the Father, the promise that John the Baptist also foretold (1:4).  Will we have to wait for the Spirit ourselves today?

Quite possibly. We live in such an instantaneous world.  We can text message someone from the other side of the world. We have our phones in our pockets and purses continually. We are not used to waiting.

The disciples only had to wait 10 days, but the coming of the Holy Spirit when we are waiting may not come that quickly for us.  While it is hard for us, part of Christian maturity is the patience to wait on God.  Sometimes he may come quickly. At other times we may wait years. With God a day is like a thousand years (Ps. 90:4), and we should be prepared for the possibility that some answers may not even come within our lifetime.

The disciples also prayed while they were waiting (1:14). The ten days of waiting were spent in prayer. There are probably times when you should move from praying to acting in faith, but this time was not one of them. Jesus had given them clear instructions.  The next event was the unique event of Pentecost, the unrepeatable first time inauguration of the age of the Spirit. It came next.

So prayer was the clear order of business while they waited. Pentecost is not the only time in Acts when the Holy Spirit comes in the middle of praying. The Spirit will come in the middle of preaching too.  In both instances, those who were filled with the Spirit were open and longing for God. They had an earnestness about their waiting. So should we always be...

[1] As an aside, this instance is a good example of how the difference between the original shape of the biblical books and the current shape of the Bible can create new meanings that were not part of the original meaning. John does not have a second volume that gives the history of the early church. But John 20:22 may very well be John's version of Acts 2.

[2] Philo in his essay, "On the Decalogue," paints a scene in which the breath of God would bring words which took the form of flames and the people heard the flames in their native language (Dec. 9-13).

Pentecost Observed

I don't have time to write much, but I did want to express how fun it would have been to walk through Acts 2 here today.  I've paid special attention to Acts 2 as a Wesleyan, since the holiness revivalist tradition always saw this passage as the disciples becoming entirely sanctified.  That wasn't, of course, how John Wesley himself formulated the idea, and I couldn't name one Wesleyan, Free Methodist, or Nazarene New Testament scholar who thinks that's what Acts 2 is about, but it is an important part of Wesleyan history.

[for the article that was the tipping point away from this interpretation, see http://www.lcoggt.org/Articles/baptism_and_spirit_baptism.htm]

Although it's hard to say what the future will bring, after I've finished the two Jesus books I'm working on, it would be nice to do two final books covering Acts and the other non-Pauline parts of the New Testament.  If so, Acts 2 will almost certainly get its own chapter!

Acts and Entire Sanctification

I had a good conversation with one of my uncles on the phone today. He had read my paper for the church symposium and (being a smart cookie) had noticed footnote 6:

"An informal polling at the Salvation Conference of The Wesleyan Church two years ago yielded the striking result that not a single Bible scholar at Wesley Biblical, Nazarene Theological, Asbury Seminary, Indiana Wesleyan, Houghton, Southern Wesleyan, Bartlesville, or Bethany was found who understood the Spirit-fillings of Acts to be experiences of a second work of grace. In this conclusion Wesleyan Bible scholars have apparently come to agree with the virtually unanimous sense of biblical scholarship in general that receiving/being baptized with the Holy Spirit in Acts is an entry experience rather than a secondary experience subsequent to conversion. The turning point in Wesleyan scholarship might be marked from Robert W. Lyon’s 1979 article in the Wesleyan Theological Journal, “Baptism and Spirit-Baptism in the New Testament,” WTJ 14 (1979): 14-26. The best known scholarly monograph on the topic is James D. G. Dunn’s, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970)."

As I read the paper at the conference, I did not stop to discuss this comment. It was not of course the point of the paper or even in the main text. But I did pause after the sentence that inspired the footnote:

"So in Acts 8 when a group in Samaria have been baptized in water but have not received the Holy Spirit, Peter and John travel there and lay hands on them (8:10). Almost all Wesleyan Bible scholars today would see the problem here as the fact that these people were still lacking the most important ingredient in conversion—namely, they lacked the Holy Spirit."

I nervously paused as I read this comment, noting with my usual understatement that this comment was somewhat controversial, and then suggested I move on.

Why are these things controversial? Let me give a bit of the Wesleyan story.

1. The Wesleyan Church, despite its name, was not founded by John Wesley. Its identity, probably more than anything else, derives from the holiness revivals of the late 1800's. This is certainly true of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, formed around 1900.

And I would argue it is true of the Wesleyan Methodist Church that emerged from the late 1800's. As much as I like to boast over the social consciousness of the WM church's founding, these things were not the central identity of the church as it entered the twentieth century. After many of its founders returned to the mainstream Methodist church after the civil war, its surviving identity turned to other identity markers.

These identity forming traditions of the Wesleyan Church preached entire sanctification from the book of Acts, using the Day of Pentecost as the model for how to get sanctified. The thinking goes like this. The disciples were "saved" before the Day of Pentecost. Then on the Day of Pentecost they become "entirely sanctified."

So you see that when I suggest that I have not found any Bible scholars in The Wesleyan Church currently who equate the Spirit fillings of Acts with entire sanctification, I am making a startling claim. I am suggesting that somehow, perhaps unbenownst to anyone, one of the core features of Wesleyan identity has mysteriously vanished in the last thirty years without anyone hardly noticing!

Clarifications: It is very important to point out what is not being said here. I am not suggesting that the Bible scholars at our Wesleyan schools do not teach entire sanctification. At the Saving Grace conference of two years ago, I think some of our church leaders were surprised to find a good deal of enthusiasm among Wesleyan scholars for the doctrine of entire sanctification. That is not what is at issue here, although there are implications I will mention below. Wesleyan Bible teachers strongly affirm complete victory over sin!

The issue is whether we formulate our understanding of the process of becoming entire sanctified by way of the book of Acts and Pentecost or not.

A second clarification here is that I am speaking of Bible scholars, not theology scholars. We might find a number of theology scholars who associate the Spirit fillings of Acts with entire sanctification (e.g., Larry Wood at Asbury).

Third I have specified Bible scholars, not Bible teachers (although we didn't find anyone teaching Bible at the Wesleyan schools at the conference who understood Acts this way). We might find any number of non-Bible specialists teaching here and there in Wesleyan circles who still preach Acts this way.

I'm not being elitist here. I'm speaking of graduate level training in inductive Bible study method. And I am not suggesting that a person with a PhD in Bible can hear God's Word through Scripture better than anyone else. I'm suggesting they are more likely to know what the original meaning of the Bible was.

Of course that doesn't mean they're right on the original meaning either, of course. It just means they are more likely to be right on the original meaning, especially when they have a consensus on an issue.

So how did the association of entire sanctification with Acts disappear in The Wesleyan Church?

Scene 1: The generation of current Wesleyan grandparents.

I'm going to call this phase of holiness preaching the legalistic phase. Now let me be clear, I am not suggesting that all our grandparents were legalists. And I would also make a significant distinction between being strict and being a true legalist. To me this is a very important distinction!

But the doctrine of entire sanctification was strongly connected with standards for this generation--at least that's the way their children, the generation of current Wesleyan Boomer parents, perceived it.

Holiness was perceived to mean no jewelry, no movies, no smoking, long hair for women, no slacks or pants on women, no buying on Sunday, etc... Again, I am not commenting on hearts. For my purposes, I am describing how I think the Boomer generation, the parents of the current generation, experienced their parents.

At the merger, there was a "split" of sorts in this generation, the generation of grandparents. The more "standard oriented" holiness people didn't go with the merger. To remove oneself from the church required an identifying act. And since the "liberalization of the church" was the protest, those who withdrew from our fellowship effectively defined themselves around standards as the dominant lens for understanding holiness.

Those who didn't merge thus tended to be less committed to a standards understanding of holiness. Those who withdrew might say these didn't want to be different from the world. Those who stayed might say the differences from the world of this group were arbitrary rather than substantial. Those who withdrew might say they weren't fully committed to God or were rebellious. Those who stayed might say those who withdrew did not understand what true holiness was.

This was the conflict of the grandparents' generation over holiness.

Scene 2: Boomer generation, the parents of the current generation

This group wanted to have nothing to do with what they saw as the "legalistic holiness" of their parents' generation. In fact, they cared little about the message of entire sanctification at all because they associated it with standards, what they saw as bitter people squabbling over what so and so was wearing. They saw these debates as trivial and quite distracting from the gospel.

Here also there were two ways:

a. There were those who followed John Maxwell into battle. I would say these were largely the leaders of the church for the last decades of the twentieth century. "We need to save souls and stop arguing over petty things," was their sentiment. The previous generation was seen as dying small churches of old people with no message but a lot of bitterness and backstabbing. Where are the fruit of the Spirit in these so called entirely sanctified individuals?

This was the church growth phase of our church, a phase in which almost no attention was paid to doctrine whatsoever. It was all about numbers and evangelism. This generation group couldn't care less about the doctrine of entire sanctification.

In a now famous paper, Keith Drury with regret pronounced the holiness movement dead in the 90's.

b. There was another group among the Boomers and Gen xers like me. Following the lead of the J. D. Abbott trajectory, we reached out for respectability, for decency and order. We went to seminary, where we reached out to John Wesley to be thought intelligent and respectable.

They discovered that entire sanctification was supposed to be about "perfect love," not about earrings. And here's the surprise. Wesley, the originator of the doctrine of entire sanctification, never formulated it in terms of the book of Acts! In fact, although Larry Wood has argued that John Fletcher did with Wesley's approval, consider this quote from Vic Reasoner of Northwest Nazarene University:

"Wesleyan scholars such as Herbert McGonigle, Rob Staples, Kenneth Grider, Donald Dayton, George Allen Turner, Mildred Wynkoop, Kenneth Collins, Leo Cox, and William Greathouse have all concluded that early Methodism did not connect the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost with entire sanctification, as did the later American holiness movement."

("John Fletcher Revisited" http://wesley.nnu.edu/arminianism/arminian_mag/16_2_98.htm )

The seminary Boomers found John Wesley's version of entire sanctification much more attractive than that of their parents, who for the most part didn't even realize the historical forces at work on their thinking (e.g., Phoebe Palmer). They thought they were just reading the Bible and doing what it said and were almost completely unaware of the historical factors behind how they preached these texts.

At the same time, this seminary crowd absorbed the evangelical method of reading the Bible in context, inculcated not least among Wesleyan leaders by the "English Bible" method of Asbury Theological Seminary, where the overwhelming majority of seminary trained leaders in The Wesleyan Church went for graduate studies.

At the same time that Larry Wood at Asbury was a lonely voice for the early Methodists associating Acts with entire sanctification, Bob Lyon at Asbury, following James Dunn, was using evangelical methods of exegesis to show that this was not the original meaning of Acts.

Melvin Dieter, at the Saving Grace conference of two years ago, made a plea for Wesleyans to return to preaching entire sanctification from Acts. He decried Lyon (and Dunn) for the damage they had done to the Wesleyan tradition. I understand and deeply appreciate what he was saying. Wesley and Fletcher may not have formulated entire sanctification by way of Acts. But it is so much easier to promote the doctrine from Acts!

Acts gives us a narrative to preach entire sanctification in the following way. The disciples were "saved" before Pentecost. But they were cowards and weren't fully committed. Look at how Peter denied Jesus. Look at how they all ran away.

Then they get entirely sanctified at Pentecost. Now look at the boldness! Now look how they are ready to die for their faith! How much easier it is to preach entire sanctification from a concrete, experiential narrative in Acts rather than from the heady theological arguments of Wesley!

3. The current Wesleyan generation.
The current generation of Wesleyans by and large know little of the "legalism" of their grandparents' generation. It is funny to them, if anything. Yeah, "Sister so and so"doesn't wear make-up. Look at that facial hair! Can I just pluck a few of those for you?

But they don't have the bitterness of their parents' generation. Some of them are actually excited about Wesley's ideas of full salvation. They don't associate holiness with earrings or Wesleyan wads.

What about Acts? Ironically, the postmodern age re-opens the door a little to preaching sanctification from Acts.

The evangelical/Asbury/boomer scholar asks this question:
"Did Luke have entire sanctification in mind when he wrote Acts?"

I think the answer to that question is clearly "no." I mean, does he mention it? Look up "entire sanctification" in your concordance for how many times that phrase appears in the book! Does Luke say anything about removal of the carnal nature? For that matter look for the phrase "sinful nature" in Greek even in Paul's writings--you won't find it! Does Luke say anything about victory over inbred sin? Put it this way, "Would the book of Acts be worded the way it is if a holiness preacher had written it?" I think the answer is pretty clearly no.

But the holiness preacher was not asking the question I have above. They were asking this question:
"Were the disciples entirely sanctified on the Day of Pentecost?"

Now that's a very interesting question! I think I'm inclined to say they were, even though this is not a question Luke was meaning to ask or answer!

The holiness preacher, like the biblical authors themselves, placed the biblical text within an overarching story of salvation they to some extent brought with them to the text. They were not, like the evangelical scholar, trying to find it in the original meaning of the text. True, the holiness preacher intuitively drew many of the elements for that story from the biblical text. But they did not look at John for the contextual meaning of John or Luke-Acts for the contextual meaning of Luke-Acts. Rather, they drew elements from these books to tell the single, overarching story of the disciples, not the particular stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

So they were not asking what Luke's theology of Pentecost was, like the evangelical scholar of today does. They were constructing (without knowing it) a theological story of the disciples. They were hearing the Word of God in dialog with the words. In this sense they were preaching a theological parable by way of the biblical texts. This parable was not exactly the story of the "historical" disciples. Nor was it exactly the original meaning of the biblical text.

But this does not mean that the story was untrue, any more than the Parable of the Prodigal Son is untrue even though it is not a story that actually happened!

So were the disciples "saved" before Pentecost? I believe they would have gone to heaven if they had died then, just as Abraham.

And were the disciples "entirely sanctified" on the Day of Pentecost? I bet they were, even though I don't think Luke would know what you were talking about. And I'm not sure I would say the same thing of the Christians in Samaria, or Cornelius, or Paul in Acts 9, or the people at Ephesus in Acts 19, although it's possible.

The doctrine of victory over sin is not dead. The fallow ground of the Boomer field is ripe for planting. Actually, I have a twisted sense of relief about some of this story. I remember thinking as a teenager, "Wow, how unlikely is it that I would just happen to be born in the Christian group whose theology was all right!" I mean the statistics against that are staggering!

Now I think we were mostly right! And I'm releaved that since I think I can identify some blind spots to our tradition's history, the statistics are much better in my favor! ;-)

Pentecost!

Today is Pentecost, the end of Eastertide. We've seen the risen Lord and learned of him for 40 days before he ascended to heaven. Now we've been waiting in Jerusalem for 10 more days, waiting the promise, "I [John the Baptist] baptized with water, but one coming after me... will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire."

With the coming of the Spirit, we experience the full commencement of the new covenant made possible through Christ's blood and resurrection. When the Spirit comes, God writes His laws on our hearts.

It starts with prayer. Acts 2 doesn't specifically say that they were praying when the Spirit came, but Acts 1 tells us that's what they were doing those 10 days in the upper room. They will be praying again in Acts 4 when they are filled with the Holy Spirit again.

The Day of Pentecost was associated with harvest and with the giving of the Ten Commandments. We can find meaning in both in Acts 2. God writes His commandments on our hearts by way of the Holy Spirit. No one will have to teach his brother saying, "Know the Lord," for each one from small to great will know me (Jer. 31). Also on the Day of Pentecost we have the first ingathering of the harvest of Christ.

The baptism is associated with the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). A person's heart is purified on the basis of faith as a person receives the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:9). But the Spirit can fill and fill again (Acts 4:31).

My church, The Wesleyan Church, has traditionally associated the Day of Pentecost with the fullness of the Spirit. While the idea of the fullness of the Spirit is not the language of Acts, we can imagine what that would look like. If the Spirit cleanses us from sin, then the fullness of the Spirit would involve "entire sanctification," so that our whole body, soul, and spirit might be blameless (1 Thess. 5:23).

The primary consequence of the coming of the Spirit in Acts is power (you will receive power when the HS comes on you). This power is, for one thing, power to witness to the resurrection. The apostles acquire a boldness after Pentecost that, if not new, is at least finally headed in the right direction.

This power to witness is particularly seen in Acts 2 by their speaking in tongues, as the confusion of Babel is reversed and all the nations hear the good news in their own tongues. There is also power to perform miracles, such as to heal the lame man of Acts 3 or raise individuals from the dead.

What then flows from these consequences of the Spirit is two-fold. On the one hand, the church grows and grows--first 3000, then 5000, then the number is not even given. Yet there is also increasing persecution--first "no," then "NO," then someone dies.

Acts gives us no reason to believe that these sorts of consequences of the Spirit are only for their day. Paul certainly tells us nothing of this sort. From Jesus to Peter to Paul we have a ray pointing to us. The one with the Spirit can do even greater things than these.

For a nice three point sermon outline by John Drury for next year, see http://drulogion.blogspot.com/2007/05/pentecost.html.

It's also Memorial Day. Those who have fought and fallen in wars are worthy of such a day, even a Sunday.

It's unfortunate that it's this Sunday. Consider: what Christian outside America is celebrating this in church today? Also consider: Pentecost is the birth of the church, the arrival of the new covenant in the Spirit in force. Christians have marked their calendar everywhere by it for 2000 years. Yet how many American churches of my genre will even mention it? (and this one can't be chalked up to prejudice against high church... this one's clearly in the Bible, indeed, it's Bible central for my denomination's history!)

Another example of the widespread American confusion of patriotism with Christianity. True patriotism is noble and to be honored. Christ is greater... at least if you're truly a Christian.