Speaker 1: In a moment I'm going to read from Acts, chapter 1, but today we're starting a new series.
Speaker 1: I had thought that we might spend some time talking about our values.
Speaker 1: We have a new value statement, as I highlighted before, but then I realized how much of our values arise out of the book of Acts, and a few weeks ago I spent a couple of weeks looking at Acts as part of our series on missions and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Personally.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you felt, I don't even know if you remember it, but I thought why don't we just cut out the middleman and go straight to the book of Acts?
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is explore it, look at the story of the early church, its mission, the challenges it faced and how that relates to us today, and as with our journey through Mark, if you remember, we finished that earlier in the year and that took us 18 months.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know how long Acts will take us, because it's a much longer book, but the stories are sort of longer as well.
Speaker 1: So we'll discover that as we go, but there will be detours and sidetracks along the way.
Speaker 1: But this morning what I want to do is introduce the book and its major themes.
Speaker 1: So why don't we just start by reading what really serves as an introduction to Acts Acts, chapter 1, verse 1.
Speaker 1: I wrote the first narrative, theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen After he had suffered.
Speaker 1: He also presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the father's promise, which he said you have heard me speak about for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
Speaker 1: So when they had come together, they asked him Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?
Speaker 1: And he said to them it's not for you to know times or periods that the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: So, like so much of the Bible, the book of Acts doesn't tell us who the author is, so technically it's called an anonymous writing and scholars actually argue over who wrote it.
Speaker 1: Now, most scholars agree that Luke and Acts were written by the same author and traditionally this has been ascribed to Luke, the companion of Paul.
Speaker 1: Scribe to Luke, the companion of Paul.
Speaker 1: And now we don't need to go and bother about other alternative theories today.
Speaker 1: We'll just go with Luke.
Speaker 1: But all the same, acts gives us some intriguing insights into the author.
Speaker 1: Now, who was Luke?
Speaker 1: Well, he's mentioned three times in the New Testament in Colossians, where Paul tells us that he's a doctor, in 2 Timothy and in Philemon, and Paul mentions him as one of his companions in those books.
Speaker 1: And in 2 Timothy it's particularly poignant because Paul is writing at the end of his life, he is facing execution in Rome, and he says everyone's abandoned him except Luke who is with him, and he says everyone's abandoned him except Luke who is with him.
Speaker 1: So why did Luke write this book?
Speaker 1: Well, right in the opening paragraph, we meet the person Luke is writing for, someone called Theophilus, and he also addressed his gospel to Theophilus.
Speaker 1: We have no idea who this person was, but Luke calls him most excellent in the beginning of the gospel, and so he may have been that's sort of an honorific a title.
Speaker 1: He may have been a wealthy Roman benefactor, perhaps he was the person who commissioned the gospel or Luke, to write it.
Speaker 1: We don't know, that's just a guess, but we can assume that Luke wrote the book of Acts with the same goal he had in mind as the gospel of Luke, because in Luke he says, in verses 1, 3 to 4, I have carefully investigated everything, from the very first to write to you in an orderly sequence most honorable Theophilus, or most excellent, or however you want to translate that, or the experts want to translate that.
Speaker 1: And here's a key, so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.
Speaker 1: Certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.
Speaker 1: Now, while much of Acts is written in the third person or a third person narrative, luke is talking about what other people did and what's been reported to him.
Speaker 1: From chapter 16, he frequently slips into the second person plural, we.
Speaker 1: He is part of the action, and so in Acts we have at least some personal eyewitness testimony, pardon me.
Speaker 1: And in Acts 21, verse 17, he says we, paul and his companions, including Luke, reached Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: So that means Luke was in Jerusalem where the apostles were, and so Luke had access to the other apostles not just Paul while he was there.
Speaker 1: Which means Luke had access to reliable eyewitness accounts of both Jesus and the events of the early chapters of Acts, even though Luke was himself not an eyewitness to everything.
Speaker 1: So what we have in the book of Acts and the Gospels is written by Luke, who has some firsthand experience of what's going on, and he has eyewitness testimony about what he writes.
Speaker 1: And so Acts is quite remarkable in this regard and it stands up very well under historical scrutiny, even by modern day standards.
Speaker 1: Now there are issues here and there you may be familiar with.
Speaker 1: Luke talks about Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus and then Paul writes about that himself in Galatians, and they actually don't quite match up.
Speaker 1: There's some differences there.
Speaker 1: So we have to acknowledge there and people have all sorts of theories about what's going on.
Speaker 1: We don't need to worry about that right now.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it when we get to it.
Speaker 1: But apart from that, a few little things like that, wherever Luke writes about dates and leaders and events happening and where we can historically verify that through archaeology or other records, he does really well.
Speaker 1: He's on the money.
Speaker 1: But, like much ancient history and, let's face it, modern history, if authors are honest with us, luke doesn't just set out to present the facts.
Speaker 1: He says he writes an orderly account, and we can see that in his gospel and in Acts.
Speaker 1: But he does have an agenda.
Speaker 1: Well, what is it?
Speaker 1: Well, he says it straight up His goal is to give us confidence in the truth of the Christian faith, to give us confidence in its teachings, in its stories, in the early traditions.
Speaker 1: And Luke says he aims to do this by presenting careful research.
Speaker 1: I think that if Luke was writing today he'd probably have citations and cross-references and everything that we could double-check in his manuscript.
Speaker 1: But parchment was expensive and it was a laborious process back then and it wasn't part of the conventions.
Speaker 1: But it's also important to remember that he arranges his material carefully and uses a number of literary devices, conventions that were.
Speaker 1: We might not think, oh, what's going on there?
Speaker 1: But back in the day, because historians usually wrote to make a point about the person if it was a biography, or the events they were writing about, they use literary devices to do that.
Speaker 1: You know one of the interesting things about Luke.
Speaker 1: He says here at the beginning of Acts that Jesus stayed for 40 days after his resurrection.
Speaker 1: But if you read the ending of Luke Luke, chapter 24, if that was the only gospel and account of Jesus that you had, you would think Jesus ascended to the Father on the same day.
Speaker 1: In fact you may.
Speaker 1: You would think Jesus ascended to the Father on the same day.
Speaker 1: In fact you may not even think he ascended to the Father, that Jesus sort of was around for one day after his resurrection and that was everything.
Speaker 1: Because that's how Luke frames his gospel and people sometimes, well, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: There's an inaccuracy, there's a discrepancy, and I think no, I think this is just Luke using literary devices to make certain points as he goes along.
Speaker 1: Luke was obviously a very intelligent person and knew what he was doing.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was recently struck by how important it is to structure a story, even if you're conveying historical events to make a point, if that's what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1: So I went to this information session on.
Speaker 1: There's a new Jesus film coming out.
Speaker 1: Has anyone seen the Jesus film 1979 version?
Speaker 1: That has had a phenomenal impact around the world.
Speaker 1: Millions of people, perhaps billions of people, have seen it and millions have made a response to Jesus because of that film, and it just lifts dialogue straight out of the Bible and was filmed with actors.
Speaker 1: Well, 1979 was quite a while ago and, as much of an impact as it has had, it badly needs an update, and so what they're doing is producing a new animated version of that, still using the Bible.
Speaker 1: So in this information session they said one of the things they're having to do they're shortening it and they're rearranging the material same material, but rearranging it to speak to a modern audience and tell the story the same story, but in a slightly different way so that it will be more relevant to a younger generation.
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting that they're arranging their material to speak, because that's what we have to do in every generation and that's what the Bible writers do when they were writing to their generation as well.
Speaker 1: And so Luke is selective in the stories he tells and acts and in the way he presents them to communicate to his audience Theophilus, and no doubt others as well, and right up to today.
Speaker 1: Now I wonder if you picked up a small detail about Luke's account of Jesus' ministry, and this is now moving into how do we approach Acts?
Speaker 1: Luke says I wrote the first narrative, theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up.
Speaker 1: Okay, so all that Jesus?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not reading too much into this, but I like the thought anyway.
Speaker 1: All that Jesus began to do and say, luke seems to be saying that what he wrote about in his gospel was only the beginning of Jesus' ministry, which raises the question well, where's the rest of it?
Speaker 1: Jesus' ministry, which raises the question well, where's the rest of it?
Speaker 1: Did Luke leave stuff out?
Speaker 1: Did the Gospels not tell us everything?
Speaker 1: Is there more?
Speaker 1: Well, yes, there is more.
Speaker 1: And for Luke, jesus' ministry continues in the church, in Acts.
Speaker 1: So the traditional long name of the book of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles, but really it could be titled the Acts of the Holy Spirit in the early church.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of made clear in the next paragraph, in verses 4 to 8.
Speaker 1: I preached on this a couple of weeks ago so we're not going to go over this passage again.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear our sermons, go into Church Connect and follow the link to our audio.
Speaker 1: But Luke's main theme for Acts is found in verse 8.
Speaker 1: He sort of presents.
Speaker 1: This is what it's going to be about.
Speaker 1: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you.
Speaker 1: This is Jesus talking to the apostles and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of a framing device for the book of Acts and as you go through Acts you see him unfolding this.
Speaker 1: That's what Acts is about.
Speaker 1: It is shot through with the work of the Holy Spirit on every page, whether it's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem in chapter two, the Holy Spirit on every page.
Speaker 1: Whether it's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem in chapter 2, the Holy Spirit calling for Paul and Barnabas to be set aside and extend the mission of God to the Gentiles in chapter 11, the final miracles recorded in chapter 28.
Speaker 1: The work of the Holy Spirit is intrinsic to the mission and the life of the church throughout the book of Acts and his work is essential for our own mission here in Perth as well.
Speaker 1: A spirit-filled church is a missionary church and a missionary and effective missionary church will be a Spirit-filled church and I dare say we'll be inspired as we go along and read of the Holy Spirit's work in the church, and probably a little challenged as well, as we explore this.
Speaker 1: So, as Luke intimates in verse 8, acts begins in Jerusalem and it follows the gospel's journey into Judea, samaria and the Gentile areas.
Speaker 1: And we see as the church goes along it grappling with whether Gentiles should be included in the people of God, because at the very start the church, the Christians, still considered themselves Jews, they were doing everything Jewish, they were still going to temple because there was a temple there, and suddenly these Gentiles start getting on.
Speaker 1: What do we do with this?
Speaker 1: What's the relationship of the Gentile churches to the church in Jerusalem?
Speaker 1: Eventually, the gospel makes its way all the way to Rome, the heart of the empire which in Luke's day represented the whole world, of the empire which in Luke's day represented the whole world.
Speaker 1: And in fact one of the sort of intense scholarly discussions about Acts revolves around the ending, because a couple of chapters before chapter 28, luke goes into detail about Paul's in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem leaders plot his assassination.
Speaker 1: So there's all this intrigue and moving parts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just fascinating all the politics and everything in there.
Speaker 1: And so Paul, to try and circumvent this assassination plot, makes an appeal to Caesar.
Speaker 1: He's a Roman citizen.
Speaker 1: So he has the legal right to appeal to Caesar and go and appear before Caesar, and so then he's sent there.
Speaker 1: So we have his journey to Rome and he gets to Rome awaiting his trial.
Speaker 1: But this story arc for Paul is never resolved.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things.
Speaker 1: We don't actually know what happened to Paul.
Speaker 1: Well, let's read it first.
Speaker 1: It says in chapter 28, verses 30 to 31, paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house and he welcomed all who visited him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, with all boldness and without hindrance.
Speaker 1: The end, that's where the book of Acts ends.
Speaker 1: So what happened next?
Speaker 1: What happened to Paul?
Speaker 1: Did his court case?
Speaker 1: How did his court case go?
Speaker 1: Some scholars think Paul was executed here in Rome, others that he was released and later arrested again and then executed.
Speaker 1: In his letter to the Romans, which was written before he went to Rome, he said he wanted to go to Spain, the westernmost point in the empire.
Speaker 1: Did he get there?
Speaker 1: Luke seems to be writing after all these events, so surely he must know.
Speaker 1: Why doesn't he tell us?
Speaker 1: This leads to all sorts of speculation, pardon me, about when Luke wrote the book and it's quite a detailed discussion we don't have time to and don't need to go in today and in the end it really doesn't matter when it was written.
Speaker 1: But I think the most likely reason Luke doesn't tell us what happens to Paul is because as much as Paul figures, particularly in the second half of the book, it's not actually about Paul.
Speaker 1: It's not the point.
Speaker 1: Luke's not writing a biography about Paul or any of the other apostles or really even the early church.
Speaker 1: He's writing about God's mission to reach the world and once Paul gets to Rome, in one sense, at one level, it's mission accomplished, at least for Luke's purposes.
Speaker 1: The gospel is now going all over the world.
Speaker 1: I suspect Luke has another sort of subtle agenda as well.
Speaker 1: At the start of the book he says his gospel is about what Jesus began to do and the implication, as I said, that Jesus continues to do this work through the church.
Speaker 1: And so in that same vein he ends Acts as if the story is continuing.
Speaker 1: He ends Acts as if the story is continuing.
Speaker 1: We read about another two years of unhindered gospel proclamation, even though Paul's in prison or house arrest.
Speaker 1: And so we sort of get to the end of this book and we expect a part three.
Speaker 1: Part one, the gospel of Luke.
Speaker 1: Part two, acts.
Speaker 1: Part three okay, what happens next?
Speaker 1: But it never appears.
Speaker 1: Well, except that in one way we do get a part three.
Speaker 1: It's still being written.
Speaker 1: It's being written by you and me.
Speaker 1: It's the mission of the church up to today and into the future.
Speaker 1: It includes Bentley Baptist Church.
Speaker 1: Isn't that cool?
Speaker 1: We're part of this ongoing story, so all of this kind of leads.
Speaker 1: There's another question we have when we come to Acts and we have to deal with this as we go through it, and that is how authoritative is Acts for us?
Speaker 1: And what I mean is when Acts talks about things, are they normative?
Speaker 1: Are they sort of prescriptive?
Speaker 1: Are we expected to follow the patterns that Luke and that Acts writes down?
Speaker 1: Does it provide a model or is it just sort of describing the experience of the early church and as Christians we still have?
Speaker 1: I don't think we've settled the question.
Speaker 1: We can be quite inconsistent about it.
Speaker 1: For example, pentecostals point to the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with tongues, point to the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with tongues.
Speaker 1: So we see about four points in Acts where the Holy Spirit comes and it's manifested with the gift of tongues, and so in Pentecostal doctrine, then, tongues has become the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and there's a whole theology around that, and so in that theology, acts is prescriptive.
Speaker 1: This is describing what should happen, what should be done.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, there's a point where the church is grappling with what to do with these Gentile believers, and one of the things the Jerusalem council that meets to discuss this says look, one of the things Gentile believers should do is to refrain from eating meat with blood in it, because Jews weren't allowed to do that.
Speaker 1: There's other things.
Speaker 1: They don't have to get circumcised, they don't have to do this or that, but they can't eat meat with blood in it.
Speaker 1: They don't have to get circumcised.
Speaker 1: They don't have to do this or that, but they can't eat meat with blood in it.
Speaker 1: Well, no one follows that prescription anymore.
Speaker 1: No one says you can't eat meat with blood in it today.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be considered, wouldn't even be thought about, unless you happen to be a Jewish Christian.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're not consistent about what do we do with this.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, personally, I think we need to take each story on its merits.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll come across something, and it pretty clearly is still applicable today.
Speaker 1: But in general, I don't think we treat Acts as prescriptive, as telling us what we have to do, but describing what the early church do.
Speaker 1: But it does nevertheless give us a sort of an anchor.
Speaker 1: It's an important model and inspiration we should draw on, but the fact is it was a different world back then.
Speaker 1: We grapple with different questions, we have a different culture, everything has changed, and so I think we need to be very careful about saying it happened in the book of Acts, so it has to happen this way in the church today.
Speaker 1: But again, we should take it seriously and learn from it.
Speaker 1: It is the word of God.
Speaker 1: Okay, so why read Acts?
Speaker 1: Well, just to recap, luke writes so that we can have confidence in what we believe, and I think one of the reasons Acts is important is because it does give us an anchor for church practice and ministry through the centuries.
Speaker 1: It gives us examples of how the apostles and these people were authoritative and still are authoritative in the church for today, how they resolve questions of faith and practice.
Speaker 1: Luke writes an exciting missionary story and leaves us with a clear challenge to continue the mission of God in the world, and Luke writes about the work of the Holy Spirit in his church and in the world.
Speaker 1: And Luke writes about the work of the Holy Spirit in his church and in the world, and there's a lot we can learn from that as well.
Speaker 1: And so, as we start our journey through Acts, you might want to check some tools to help orient you.
Speaker 1: Again, I know I keep pointing back to Church Connect, but you can scroll down to resources and if you click on that you'll see some links under Journey Through Acts.
Speaker 1: I've put in there three videos they're only five to ten minutes each from the Bible Project on an introduction to Acts.
Speaker 1: The Bible Project is such a good resource.
Speaker 1: If you haven't discovered it yet, I really encourage you to look at those videos and go and explore what else is on there.
Speaker 1: And then there's a YouVersion Bible reading plan that I've linked to as well that you can follow along.
Speaker 1: That's only 28 days, so just to get you started.
Speaker 1: But let's just pray that the Lord blesses us as we go through this journey in Acts and, ultimately, that we can be more effective in our mission as a church as we continue and participate in God's mission in the world.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, father.
Speaker 1: We thank you for the testimony that you've given us in your word.
Speaker 1: Father, we thank you for the testimony that you've given us in your word for the stories that, when we grapple with issues, we know we're not alone and, father, that we are just part of a bigger, continuing story, and that's so encouraging.
Speaker 1: Father, you have been active and at work in your world well beyond the last 2,000, but through your church in the last 2,000 years and, father, we pray that you will teach us and shape us as we continue to explore your word In Jesus' name, amen.