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So, welcome Steve.

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It's good to have you joining us. S: Thank you, it’s good to be with you.

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And you're joining us from Loughborough, which is where you're based.

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Yes. I'm sitting in my armchair at home.

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Very good.

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Most of the interviews we do are with people here on site, and

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and you're in so often.

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and yet we couldn't,

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you're not going to be in quite soon enough to, to be able to do it in person.

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But we didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk to you

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now, with the publication of your new commentary on Acts, Acts 1— 9,

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which is volume one of two

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or of three in the Word Biblical . . . S: One of three, I'm afraid.

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Yeah.

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And that's in the Word Biblical Commentary series,

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T: Yeah? S: Yes. T: Yeah. So

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where will the break be

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in the other two volumes?

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At the end of 19.

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Okay. Right.

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So just after the riots in Ephesus.

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And Before Paul travels on

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and meets the Ephesian elders in chapter 20.

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Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah.

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That's such a great passage.

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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to to break it there.

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And of course, the end of nine is a very natural

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T: break in in the narrative, isn't it? S: Yes.

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Although I've split it at 9:42 and 9:43 is going into volume two.

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Now, 9:43 is the verse that says that Peter was staying with Simon

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the Tanner by the sea, and I've taken that with the Cornelius story that followed.

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Okay. Yeah.

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Because it's it's a transitional verse.

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Yeah.

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And you could make a case for belonging with chapter nine,

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but I think it's really there to prepare for

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the angel saying to Cornelius,

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send your guys to go and find Simon Peter

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who's staying with some Simon the tanner in a house by the sea.

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Sure.

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So I think, I think it's there to prepare.

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So I split it at 9:42.

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Yep. Yep.

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I can see that, that makes that makes perfect sense.

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Yeah.

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How long have you been working on this?

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A long time.

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I, I did my doctoral work on the speech to the Ephesian elders.

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Oh, right.

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Acts 20. And that was published with Cambridge University

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Press under the title Leadership and Lifestyle.

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And shortly afterwards,

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I got asked if I'd write this commentary.

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And I, I initially

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said, well, yes, I can do it, but no, I can't do it immediately

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because I was committed to writing two other books first.

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Right.

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So, I have been working on it a long time,

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although not as long as it sounds.

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Ha ha. Okay. Right.

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So tell us about the process of of writing it.

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How how has that been for you?

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Were there surprises along the way?

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What were the the the joys and the frustrations of it?

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The process has been really interesting.

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The Word Biblical Commentary is divided

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into very clear sections that the editors have set.

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So you get for each paragraph of Acts,

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you get, you get a bibliography.

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You get translation and notes.

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You get a form structure setting

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then comment, which is the detailed verse by verse stuff,

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and then at the end ,explanation, which is here's what this passage is saying

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overall. At least that's how I've taken it.

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Now it took me a while to realise

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that I was writing those sections for different audiences.

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I was writing the bibliographies for scholars,

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for doctoral students and people like that.

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I was writing the translation and notes

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with my second year Greek class in mind, and I was saying to myself,

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what would they need to know to make sense of the grammar and the syntax here.

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The comment, the explanation

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I was writing with my wife in mind as a preacher.

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Right.

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So and I've actually tried out those explanation sections

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on, on a number of folks who preach regularly.

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Because my advice to preachers with the Word Biblical

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Commentary is always start with the explanation.

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T: Right. S: And then go back to the detail.

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Okay.

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So get the big picture first,

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and then go back and and look at the detail if you need to,

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because otherwise you will drown in the detail.

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I’ve got 80 pages on Acts 2: 1–41.

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Okay. Yep. You could drown in that detail.

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And that’s why I say, start there.

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And and again with the with with the comment

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I've got second, third year students and pastors in mind.

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Trying to guide them through the nitty gritty of the discussion

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to explain why I've taken things the way I have

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filling in cultural, social

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background, theological background,

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narrative connections with other parts of, of,

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of Acts and Luke, of course.

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So, so that's where the nitty gritty of the work has gone.

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And, and that was really fun to do.

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Now I did the translation and notes first.

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So I worked through the whole of 1 to 14

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because I, at that stage I was planning two volumes.

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Right.

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Did the translation right through

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because I wanted to try and translate as consistently as possible.

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Whereas if you translate something and then six months later you get around

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to a bit later on that actually uses some of the same vocabulary.

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You might fall into the trap of translating words

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very differently in different contexts.

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T: Sure, yeah. S: Now sometimes you do need to translate them differently

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because words have a semantic range.

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But I wanted to try and be as consistent as possible.

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And I did the same sort of thing with 15 to 28.

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Right.

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A good friend of mine, Jeffrey

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Williams, who, alas, is no longer with us,

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but was a very experienced classicist, read through my

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my translation and notes and gave me such helpful feedback.

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He'd been he'd been reading Greek and Latin since he was about ten.

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So he he just had a feel for the language.

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T: Yeah. S: Which was marvelous and wonderfully helpful.

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And as I

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went through doing the translation notes, I jotted down

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anything in the other sections that I thought was going to be important.

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And so just jotted

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my initial personal thoughts.

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And then I work through passage by passage.

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Now in the first volume,

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I didn't start at the very beginning

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which as we know from Julie Andrews, is a very good place to start.

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I, I actually dived into Acts 3 because there's a complex of stories

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of the healing of the man at the beautiful gate.

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The sermon Peter preaches

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to the crowd gathered in the temple, the arrest,

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the hearing before the Sanhedrin, and then the believer's prayer.

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Which takes you through to 4:31.

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So I tackled that complex because I thought this would be a good way

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to get myself under the skin of how, how Luke's thinking and writing.

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Right.

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It’s that you started with your favorite things?

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Well, kind of, yeah. Yeah, that's very Julie

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Andrews too, isn't it?

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So so that was that was really interesting to do.

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And I found that the, the explanation section,

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S: which comes last, I actually do write last T: Right

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although I'm, I'm by nature a big picture person.

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I find I have to really grovel through all the detail.

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Before I can step back and say, ‘okay, what's the big picture here?’

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‘What's this section saying?’

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‘How does it contribute to the message

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of the whole book?’

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And that that's been, that's been really helpful to, to work through it that way.

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So it took me two years

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to figure out how to write a Word Biblical Commentary.

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And now I’ve done the first volume

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I'm really confident about how to write a Word Biblical Commentary,

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which is good news because I've got two more volumes to go.

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But it took me a it was a big learning process.

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I'd never written a commentary before, let alone a big commentary.

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Right

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I’ve written daily Bible reading notes for people like the Bible Reading Fellowship,

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through all of Acts, where you've got 380 words

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T: for every passage, which is really challenging. S: Yes.

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But I'd never done a sort of medium size commentary

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or any commentary before.

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So this is, it's been a really challenging process.

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It's been the hardest piece of writing I've ever done.

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I've written a Gospels and Acts textbook with David Wenham, and that was child's

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play by comparison, because it was stuff I taught and I knew reasonably well.

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So that, that's been really interesting.

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Now for a couple of examples of things I've discovered.

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One is working on Acts 2:33.

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Let me let me read that.

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Oh, that'd be great.

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Peter speaking.

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This is part of the Pentecost speech.

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And this is this is the updated NRSV

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‘Being exalted, therefore, at the right hand of God,

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and having received from the father the promise of the Holy Spirit,

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he [that’s Jesus] has poured out what you see and hear.

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Now that's a

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really interesting three stage process going on there.

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One is Jesus is exalted to the right side of the father.

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That's the ascension we’ve about in chapter 1.

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Two is that he receives from the father the promised Holy Spirit.

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So the father donates the Spirit to Jesus.

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And then three, Jesus pours out what you see and hear,

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which of course, all the phenomena that are going on at Pentecost,

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the wind, the flames, the strange languages.

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And that's really interesting because if you ask the question,

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who pours out the Holy Spirit in second temple

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Judaism, there is one and only one answer

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and that is Yahweh.

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Right.

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So this verse is hugely Christologically significant.

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Wow.

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There's no example of Yahweh delegating the Holy Spirit to anybody else.

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There's no example of the, of Yahweh

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giving the spirit to somebody who can then give it to others.

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There's absolutely no example of that.

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Now, I owe that to my colleague, my colleague at LST, Max Turner,

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who is, is one of the top

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five in the world pneumatology scholars, I would say.

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Right.

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And and that verse,

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I think, was just incredibly significant in realising

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that you don't have a sort of gradual Christological evolution.

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You get a Christological big bang.

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Yeah. Right. The day of Pentecost.

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Yeah.

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That's why Stephen prays to Jesus

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and says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit now again in second temple

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Judaism, you pray to one and one alone and that's Yahweh.

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So, so the Christology is sky high.

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Quite literally.

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Yeah.

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Such things are easy for, for the average reader to, to miss.

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Aren’t they? I mean I'm including myself in that.

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Because I've, I've just not stopped to reflect on what's going on there.

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And we're used to praying to Jesus.

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So even Stephen praying to Jesus is

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is not something we necessarily remark on.

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But as you say, those two things, particularly put together,

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that that's huge.

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It's very, very remarkable.

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A second example also in chapter 2,

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the there's this really interesting phrasing

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in verse 46.

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Now this is the NRSV and I'll tell you why I think it's

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wrong, ‘Day by day as they spent much time together in the temple.

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They broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.’

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Now the structure of the Greek is not as the NRSV translates it.

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The structure of the Greek is ‘Day by day

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Sharing together as one in the temple,

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breaking bread in homes.

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They ate food together.’

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The sharing and the breaking

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are both qualifying the eating food together.

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Right.

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Now this implies that they're eating

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in the temple,

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in Greek, there are two participles.

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And the main verb is they ate.

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They ate food.

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with glad and grateful hearts.

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So the the structure of the sentence

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make, builds the clause about meeting together

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in the temple, and the clause about breaking bread in homes.

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As qualifiers of the

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they ate food together.

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Now that implies

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that they're having evangelistic meals in the temple.

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T: Wow. S: Which explains I think

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why you get at the end of verse

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47, the Lord adding to their number

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daily, those who are being saved

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because people were overhearing

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the teaching the apostles were giving, because they met, as we know

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from chapter five in Solomon's Portico, which is part of the temple area.

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Yeah.

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And, and

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quite possibly joining in the meals that they had.

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That's very interesting.

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So that's, this

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eating meals in public is really interesting.

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And and hooks into a couple of other things in the New Testament.

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Do you remember in 1 Corinthians 14 there's this

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what are people what's going to happen if people wander into your gathering

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and people are speaking in tongues, won't they

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think you’re bonkers

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now in our minds,

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when we think of a Christian gathering, we think of it meeting in a building.

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Sure. Yeah.

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T: In a formal church service. S: Yeah.

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But in Corinth, you know

00:15:49:01 - 00:15:52:01
which has a lovely, nice temperate climate.

00:15:52:05 - 00:15:56:07
They might well be meeting outdoors, or they might well

00:15:56:07 - 00:16:00:16
be meeting in the square in the middle of someone's home.

00:16:00:16 - 00:16:03:13
S: One of the wealthier members of the church. T: Yep.

00:16:03:13 - 00:16:08:18
And people could and did wander into each other's houses just at random in Corinth.

00:16:09:22 - 00:16:10:14
Right.

00:16:10:14 - 00:16:15:18
So this idea of an attractional form of evangelism

00:16:16:02 - 00:16:21:01
through the shared eating and the shared teaching, I think is just

00:16:21:10 - 00:16:24:10
it changed the picture I had

00:16:24:16 - 00:16:27:16
of how the early church functioned

00:16:28:07 - 00:16:31:06
because I, I tend to think as

00:16:31:06 - 00:16:35:00
a lot of modern Westerners do, of church in the form

00:16:35:00 - 00:16:36:19
S: we have it. T: Yes.

00:16:36:19 - 00:16:40:03
But church wasn't in that form in those days.

00:16:40:09 - 00:16:42:00
T: Yeah, right. S: It was

00:16:42:00 - 00:16:45:00
It was a collection of Messianic Jews

00:16:45:07 - 00:16:48:07
meeting in their temple.

00:16:49:03 - 00:16:53:02
Gathered around the teaching and the meal that they were having together

00:16:53:08 - 00:16:57:23
and sharing their possessions and distributing to, to those in need.

00:16:58:15 - 00:17:01:15
So those were just two examples of things.

00:17:01:17 - 00:17:06:00
Now again I, I owe that to to a German scholar

00:17:06:08 - 00:17:09:16
who, who writes in actually very clear German,

00:17:09:20 - 00:17:12:19
which isn't always true in the way German scholars write.

00:17:13:18 - 00:17:14:09
But but

00:17:14:09 - 00:17:17:23
that that, again, was just a really interesting discovery.

00:17:18:09 - 00:17:22:12
And that's what's happened to me, because as I've written, the

00:17:23:01 - 00:17:26:01
form, structure, setting and the comment sections,

00:17:26:01 - 00:17:29:11
that's where I've been interacting with the scholarly literature.

00:17:29:23 - 00:17:34:18
T: Sure S: And that's frankly, that's the thing that takes most time. T: Yes.

00:17:35:14 - 00:17:39:12
Because it's, it's sifting through the literature and saying

00:17:39:19 - 00:17:42:19
what's most important here.

00:17:43:17 - 00:17:46:11
And what do I need to say something about,

00:17:46:11 - 00:17:49:11
even if it's because I disagree.

00:17:49:15 - 00:17:54:05
Because this is a significant view and I need to say why

00:17:54:05 - 00:17:56:14
S: I don't think it. T: Yeah.

00:17:56:14 - 00:18:00:21
So one of the changes the Word Biblical Commentary made in moving

00:18:01:04 - 00:18:05:17
from Thomas Nelson to Zondervan as a publisher is to have increased footnotes.

00:18:05:23 - 00:18:08:18
And I think that is wonderful

00:18:08:18 - 00:18:13:04
because it means you get a main text that is far less cluttered.

00:18:13:18 - 00:18:14:07
Right.

00:18:14:07 - 00:18:17:03
Because in the old style World Biblical Commentary,

00:18:17:03 - 00:18:20:07
the references were all in brackets in the main text.

00:18:20:21 - 00:18:21:04
Yeah.

00:18:21:04 - 00:18:26:08
And and that could make the the text very dense and quite difficult to read.

00:18:27:06 - 00:18:30:13
So it's been great to be able to use footnotes. Now

00:18:31:00 - 00:18:33:17
actually I had written about eight chapters

00:18:33:17 - 00:18:35:16
before the footnotes were introduced.

00:18:35:16 - 00:18:38:02
So it did involve a bit of rewriting.

00:18:39:12 - 00:18:41:05
But it's, it's brilliant.

00:18:41:05 - 00:18:42:19
And I think they've done,

00:18:42:19 - 00:18:46:11
I think they've done a really fine job in deciding to do that.

00:18:47:16 - 00:18:53:13
So that's and, and that's allowed me then to put all the detailed

00:18:53:14 - 00:18:58:14
S: scholarly stuff in the footnotes for those who want to know about it. T: Yes.

00:18:58:20 - 00:19:01:20
Pastor who's working on the text for a sermon

00:19:03:00 - 00:19:05:20
probably doesn't need to know that stuff

00:19:05:20 - 00:19:09:07
and can just read the main text and and deal with the main text.

00:19:09:07 - 00:19:12:05
So I'm pleased with that change.

00:19:12:05 - 00:19:15:06
That’s a very good primer on how to use a Word Biblical Commentary.

00:19:15:21 - 00:19:17:07
Yes. Yes.

00:19:17:07 - 00:19:18:08
Yes it is.

00:19:18:08 - 00:19:20:17
I wish I’d known that 20 years ago.

00:19:20:17 - 00:19:21:03
Yeah.

00:19:21:03 - 00:19:24:03
I mean, it's true, it's true of the newer ones.

00:19:24:08 - 00:19:24:22
Right. Okay.

00:19:24:22 - 00:19:30:12
So Seyoon Kim, for instance, has updated F. F. Bruce’s Thessalonians,

00:19:30:16 - 00:19:33:13
which was one of the very, very first ones.

00:19:33:13 - 00:19:37:05
And Bruce was just such an economical writer.

00:19:37:11 - 00:19:41:13
So, so, Bruce’s volume was kind of this thick

00:19:42:07 - 00:19:45:07
S: and Kim's volume is this thick T: right

00:19:45:11 - 00:19:48:21
It's really changed dramatically in size. Now

00:19:48:21 - 00:19:52:05
that's partly the sheer volume of literature

00:19:52:14 - 00:19:53:01
Right.

00:19:53:01 - 00:19:57:18
that’s appeared since the late 70s when Bruce did his,

00:19:59:14 - 00:20:01:05
it's it's also that

00:20:01:05 - 00:20:04:05
Seyoon is a bit more of a boast than F. F. B

00:20:05:10 - 00:20:06:21
but that's okay.

00:20:06:21 - 00:20:08:02
Yes, absolutely.

00:20:08:02 - 00:20:11:02
T: Yeah. S: But it's, it's, it's really interesting.

00:20:11:02 - 00:20:16:08
And, similarly, if you look at dear old F. F. Bruce's

00:20:16:08 - 00:20:20:05
commentary on the Greek text of Acts, which is one volume,

00:20:20:20 - 00:20:23:20
the 1990 edition, which was the third

00:20:23:20 - 00:20:26:20
edition is is kind of so thick.

00:20:26:23 - 00:20:30:21
S: And each of my volumes is going to be that thick T: right

00:20:31:02 - 00:20:36:12
Because because I'm dealing much more with the secondary literature than he was.

00:20:36:14 - 00:20:37:02
Yes. Right.

00:20:37:02 - 00:20:40:02
And I'm trying to write theology.

00:20:41:01 - 00:20:45:16
One of the things I'm bringing to it is a commitment to,

00:20:45:17 - 00:20:48:17
to reading Acts as a book about God.

00:20:49:11 - 00:20:51:24
T: Excellent S: And so I'm trying to draw that out

00:20:51:24 - 00:20:55:08
particularly in the comment and the explanation sections,

00:20:56:07 - 00:20:58:00
because we, we tend

00:20:58:00 - 00:21:01:19
to read Acts with the human characters in mind.

00:21:01:23 - 00:21:02:18
Right.

00:21:02:18 - 00:21:05:18
At one level that's, that's thoroughly appropriate to

00:21:05:18 - 00:21:08:18
because Acts is full of really interesting human characters.

00:21:09:06 - 00:21:16:02
But the, the movement of the book of Acts from Jerusalem

00:21:16:02 - 00:21:20:08
to the end of the earth is driven by God and God's action.

00:21:21:03 - 00:21:26:11
And that, discovering that in the process of working on the commentary

00:21:26:19 - 00:21:30:12
was one of the thing, one of the great, great discoveries I've made.

00:21:30:24 - 00:21:34:02
So, so I'm trying consciously to do that.

00:21:34:10 - 00:21:38:00
And the nice thing about writing a commentary

00:21:38:07 - 00:21:42:12
is that from time to time, people who are editing books on something say to me,

00:21:42:24 - 00:21:46:16
do you think you'd like to write something on Acts or on Luke Acts for this volume?

00:21:46:20 - 00:21:50:13
So I've written essays, for instance, on the cosmology of Luke

00:21:50:13 - 00:21:51:23
S: Acts. T: Right.

00:21:51:23 - 00:21:54:15
I've written an essay on the anthropology of Luke

00:21:54:15 - 00:21:55:12
Acts.

00:21:55:12 - 00:21:59:12
I've written an essay on the place of the Ascension in Luke Acts.

00:21:59:22 - 00:22:04:20
And on the Christology of Luke Acts, particularly of Acts.

00:22:05:04 - 00:22:05:14
Right.

00:22:05:14 - 00:22:09:06
Because there's a question of Is Jesus present or absent?

00:22:09:15 - 00:22:11:21
T: Right, right. S: After his ascension.

00:22:11:21 - 00:22:13:20
And and that's been really helpful.

00:22:13:20 - 00:22:17:02
So I published a bunch of those,

00:22:17:02 - 00:22:20:18
couple of years ago in a book called Reading Acts Theologically.

00:22:21:05 - 00:22:24:06
T: Oh yes. S: Which came out in hardback couple of years ago

00:22:24:07 - 00:22:27:07
and then in paperback in January of this year.

00:22:27:11 - 00:22:32:16
So it’s now, ordinary human beings can get close to affording it this year.

00:22:33:00 - 00:22:33:10
Yeah.

00:22:33:10 - 00:22:34:13
Right.

00:22:34:13 - 00:22:37:11
Writing those essays has

00:22:37:11 - 00:22:40:20
has focused my mind on particular issues.

00:22:41:09 - 00:22:45:08
T: Yes. S: That have then fed into the detail of the commentary. So

00:22:45:10 - 00:22:48:17
So it's not that I've been writing, trying to write the commentary

00:22:48:17 - 00:22:50:06
and do nothing else whatsoever.

00:22:50:06 - 00:22:53:20
I've been thinking hard about Acts for a long time.

00:22:54:08 - 00:22:59:01
And there have been occasions where writing an essay is

00:22:59:16 - 00:23:02:16
is really helpful because there's nothing like

00:23:02:16 - 00:23:05:16
writing something down to explain it to others.

00:23:05:21 - 00:23:08:17
To force you to be clear about it yourself.

00:23:08:17 - 00:23:10:22
Oh, absolutely. Yes.

00:23:10:22 - 00:23:13:16
And has writing those theological essays,

00:23:13:16 - 00:23:17:11
I mean, as you say, it's fed

00:23:17:11 - 00:23:21:14
into what you're doing in writing the the verse by verse commentary.

00:23:21:20 - 00:23:27:05
But does it also free you in writing the commentary from having to, to get

00:23:28:04 - 00:23:30:24
to deal with those issues in great depth?

00:23:30:24 - 00:23:34:14
It can, does it mean you can you can touch on them

00:23:34:23 - 00:23:38:19
in passing and recognise their importance, but without having to get

00:23:38:22 - 00:23:40:21
T: bogged down into the detail? S: Yeah.

00:23:40:21 - 00:23:45:06
Because I can footnote and say for further discussion see this essay.

00:23:45:14 - 00:23:48:18
Which has been incredibly helpful.

00:23:49:01 - 00:23:51:02
T: Yeah. S: Because a commentary,

00:23:51:02 - 00:23:54:02
you need to say something about everything.

00:23:54:15 - 00:23:55:01
Yeah.

00:23:55:01 - 00:23:57:15
But you don't need to say everything about everything.

00:23:57:15 - 00:23:58:15
Yeah. Right.

00:23:58:15 - 00:24:02:01
And, and, because if you do, you'll you'll

00:24:02:01 - 00:24:06:03
it'll be A. way too long and B. you'll never finish.

00:24:07:07 - 00:24:07:20
Yeah.

00:24:07:20 - 00:24:09:18
And it gets in the way of

00:24:09:18 - 00:24:12:21
of somebody who's trying to figure out what does the text actually say.

00:24:13:09 - 00:24:15:08
Because it's not necessarily

00:24:15:08 - 00:24:17:17
S: Yeah. T: the issue that they, they need at that point.

00:24:17:17 - 00:24:18:22
Yeah I think that's very helpful.

00:24:18:22 - 00:24:20:13
I see my job as being

00:24:20:13 - 00:24:24:03
kind of like a guide walking a group of people round a cathedral.

00:24:24:14 - 00:24:28:17
T: It's a good image S: where, where we walk around and I stop every once

00:24:28:17 - 00:24:31:22
in a while and say, now look at this bit of the cathedral.

00:24:31:22 - 00:24:34:13
Look at this window, look at this tomb.

00:24:34:13 - 00:24:35:13
Look at this aisle.

00:24:35:13 - 00:24:37:14
look at this communion table.

00:24:37:14 - 00:24:39:08
Look at this choir stall.

00:24:39:08 - 00:24:42:15
And, and I can tease out what's in there in detail.

00:24:42:21 - 00:24:45:18
But then there'll come a point where I have to go back

00:24:45:18 - 00:24:48:18
to the foot of the nave and say, now

00:24:48:18 - 00:24:52:06
S: look at these huge scene. T: Yes.

00:24:52:17 - 00:24:55:17
I've stood in York minster, for instance,

00:24:56:01 - 00:25:00:24
in between the end of the Christmas

00:25:00:24 - 00:25:04:20
season at epiphany and the and the beginning of lent

00:25:05:09 - 00:25:07:08
They take all the chairs out.

00:25:07:08 - 00:25:11:13
If you've never been to York at that time of year, it's absolutely

00:25:11:13 - 00:25:16:03
worth going, because you get a sense of the hugeness of the place.

00:25:16:04 - 00:25:17:03
Right.

00:25:17:03 - 00:25:20:04
At that time of year, because there are no chairs there.

00:25:20:22 - 00:25:21:14
Yeah.

00:25:21:14 - 00:25:25:02
And I see myself as kind of bouncing

00:25:25:02 - 00:25:28:13
between the nitty gritty.

00:25:28:21 - 00:25:31:02
Here's a particular thing to look at.

00:25:31:02 - 00:25:34:20
And then the wow just look at this big picture.

00:25:34:20 - 00:25:38:20
See how this detail contributes to the big picture

00:25:38:20 - 00:25:42:21
and how the big picture helps you see this detail in a different light.

00:25:42:24 - 00:25:44:08
Yeah.

00:25:44:08 - 00:25:47:00
I sometimes hear people say to use your analogy

00:25:47:00 - 00:25:49:01
why do we need so many guides to the cathedral?

00:25:49:01 - 00:25:51:23
Why can't we just have one? Or you know, with the commentaries

00:25:51:23 - 00:25:54:23
Do we really need more commentaries?

00:25:55:02 - 00:25:56:13
Haven't we got enough?

00:25:56:13 - 00:26:00:13
But of course, every commentator does something distinctive with the text.

00:26:00:13 - 00:26:02:00
They see things in different ways

00:26:02:00 - 00:26:05:22
and so in what ways is your commentary distinctive?

00:26:05:22 - 00:26:10:21
What's the particular contribution that you think, that you're making?

00:26:12:01 - 00:26:15:15
I think I think the focus on God is one

00:26:15:15 - 00:26:18:15
key that’s coming through.

00:26:18:21 - 00:26:21:21
I think the other is the,

00:26:24:09 - 00:26:27:09
the the coverage of the secondary literature.

00:26:29:01 - 00:26:31:22
My, my friend Dick France, who's written

00:26:31:22 - 00:26:35:15
wonderful commentaries and, of course, was warden at Tyndale House at one time.

00:26:35:15 - 00:26:36:06
Yeah.

00:26:36:06 - 00:26:40:20
wrote in his commentary on Mark, which is wonderful,

00:26:41:07 - 00:26:46:11
has a sentence in the introduction where he says, this is by intention,

00:26:46:18 - 00:26:51:15
a commentary on Mark, not a commentary on the commentaries on Mark.

00:26:52:14 - 00:26:57:15
And that's my intention too, I’m trying to guide people through Acts.

00:26:57:17 - 00:26:58:05
Yeah.

00:26:58:05 - 00:27:01:05
So the picture I've got in my head

00:27:01:17 - 00:27:06:15
is of me sitting around a table with C.K. Barrett, Howard Marshall

00:27:06:23 - 00:27:10:14
Hans Conzelmann, Ernst Haenchen and so on.

00:27:10:23 - 00:27:13:20
And in the middle of the table, we've got the Greek New Testament,

00:27:13:20 - 00:27:16:15
and that's what we're talking about.

00:27:16:15 - 00:27:19:07
S: Not about them. T: Yeah.

00:27:19:07 - 00:27:22:07
So I'm having a conversation with the text

00:27:22:21 - 00:27:26:09
S: which they are helping me with T: right S: now.

00:27:26:10 - 00:27:30:00
In fact I, I don't read the commentaries

00:27:32:20 - 00:27:34:18
exhaustively at all.

00:27:34:18 - 00:27:37:06
I dip into them.

00:27:37:06 - 00:27:40:13
But I'm much more interested in what the journal articles,

00:27:40:20 - 00:27:44:19
the monographs and the essays in edited volumes are doing

00:27:45:00 - 00:27:47:24
because anybody can pick up the commentaries.

00:27:47:24 - 00:27:48:22
Sure.

00:27:48:22 - 00:27:53:05
But I'm trying to show people what scholarship has done

00:27:53:13 - 00:27:56:15
and and to harvest, as it were,

00:27:57:05 - 00:28:00:00
the work that others have done.

00:28:00:00 - 00:28:05:09
And and I find myself sometimes changing my mind about things

00:28:05:09 - 00:28:10:03
because of what I read or thinking differently or thinking

00:28:10:04 - 00:28:12:15
no, I actually think I was right in the first place.

00:28:12:15 - 00:28:16:02
But I do need to take this key piece of evidence into account.

00:28:16:05 - 00:28:18:17
T: Yeah, right S: that this article's raised.

00:28:18:17 - 00:28:21:18
So, so what you'll find in my sectional

00:28:21:18 - 00:28:26:02
bibliographies and my footnotes is not a ton of references

00:28:26:02 - 00:28:30:02
to the commentaries with particular exceptions of C.K.

00:28:30:02 - 00:28:35:17
Barrett and F. F. Bruce, which are the two best commentaries on the Greek 

00:28:36:22 - 00:28:40:02
They they really do wrestle with the Greek very well.

00:28:40:06 - 00:28:45:23
So do Marty Culy and Mike Parsons in their Baylor handbook.

00:28:46:14 - 00:28:50:22
And that's sat at my elbow as I've been working through the text.

00:28:51:06 - 00:28:53:02
And it's been very, very helpful.

00:28:53:02 - 00:28:57:00
Again, sometimes I disagree with those three authorities.

00:28:57:12 - 00:29:01:10
Because I take the grammar or the syntax differently to them.

00:29:01:15 - 00:29:04:08
T: Sure S: but

00:29:04:08 - 00:29:06:24
I'm, I'm trying to,

00:29:06:24 - 00:29:09:02
to draw out what, what

00:29:09:02 - 00:29:12:11
scholarships contributed to our understanding of Acts

00:29:12:24 - 00:29:15:24
with a view to informing people

00:29:16:11 - 00:29:19:20
and, I’m trying to inform fellow scholars.

00:29:20:10 - 00:29:23:10
I'm trying to inform students,

00:29:23:10 - 00:29:27:04
and I'm trying to inform pastors who want to preach from this stuff.

00:29:28:00 - 00:29:30:04
So I, I, I've got this

00:29:30:04 - 00:29:33:04
quite broad audience in mind,

00:29:33:04 - 00:29:36:13
and there’ll be points where I'm saying something and I'm conscious that

00:29:37:04 - 00:29:40:12
another scholar will look at it and think, oh, that's really interesting.

00:29:40:17 - 00:29:44:10
And a pastor will think, why on earth is he telling me this stuff?

00:29:45:22 - 00:29:49:04
Yeah, it's great to to keep those audiences in mind,

00:29:49:04 - 00:29:52:12
but it's very it's very challenging to to write for multiple audiences.

00:29:52:18 - 00:29:53:16
But I guess what you were saying

00:29:53:16 - 00:29:56:16
at the beginning about the structure enables you to do that in a

00:29:56:19 - 00:29:59:09
in, in a very real way.

00:29:59:09 - 00:29:59:17
Yeah.

00:29:59:17 - 00:30:01:07
You can very consciously

00:30:01:07 - 00:30:04:07
think about those different audiences and provide what they need.

00:30:04:16 - 00:30:06:15
S: Yes, indeed. T: Yeah. Excellent.

00:30:06:15 - 00:30:08:07
Well, this is wonderful.

00:30:08:07 - 00:30:10:18
And I'm delighted that this is now published.

00:30:10:18 - 00:30:15:24
So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited that it's going to appear and,

00:30:15:24 - 00:30:18:16
and I'm, I'm in chapter

00:30:18:16 - 00:30:20:05
16 in volume two.

00:30:20:05 - 00:30:20:23
Okay.

00:30:20:23 - 00:30:25:15
in Philippi and and making substantial progress.

00:30:26:09 - 00:30:27:09
Great.

00:30:27:09 - 00:30:32:06
Well, I won't take any more of your time, because you need to get that finished.

00:30:32:08 - 00:30:33:22
So. Great.

00:30:33:22 - 00:30:37:10
Steve, thank you so much for chatting to us today.

00:30:37:10 - 00:30:37:24
That’s okay

00:30:37:24 - 00:30:40:08
Yeah, looking forward to seeing this out.

00:30:40:08 - 00:30:43:20
And, further conversations when you're back at Tyndale House.

00:30:43:20 - 00:30:44:08
Thank you.