Acts Explained: Was the Early Church a Migrant Church? | Paul Wilson

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen sits down with Paul Wilson—PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh and associate lecturer at the Scottish Baptist College—to explore how the Book of Acts comes alive when viewed through the lens of migration. As both a migrant himself and a scholar of ancient texts, Paul brings a unique perspective to the question: Was the early church a migrant church?

Together, Daniel and Paul unpack how forced movement, resettlement, and mobility shaped the growth of the early Christian movement. Through detailed examples from the Greek text—like the meaning of “strict” in Paul’s self-description as a Pharisee, or Luke’s unusual vocabulary for belts and aprons—they reveal how biblical languages expose nuances that challenge modern assumptions. From scattered believers to multicultural churches, they explore how Acts presents a church on the move, shaped by migration and mission.

Whether you’re passionate about biblical Greek, interested in the early church, or simply want to see the Book of Acts through fresh eyes, this conversation offers rich insight into the theological and missional power of movement in Scripture.

Don’t Miss the Next Episode: 
Next time Seth Postell is back with a second and more in-depth episode on the Goal of the Torah. 

Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction and Opening Remarks
01:34 – Meeting Paul Wilson
03:58 – Struggling into Greek: How Refugee Ministry Sparked Language Study
06:34 – Seeing Scripture Anew Through The Biblical Languages
09:29 – Translation Choices, Authorial Style & Why It Matters
12:22 – Was Paul "Strict" or "Accurate"? Rethinking a Key Greek Word
18:46 – Apron or Belt? Latin Loanwords and Luke’s Deliberate Vocabulary
24:36 – Why Migration is Central to Human—and Biblical—Story
29:10 – Why Acts is the Perfect Text for Migration Studies
32:09 – Scattered but Sent: Migration Patterns in Early Christianity
40:06 – Migrant Missionaries: Barnabas, Aquila, Paul & More
46:52 – What Acts Teaches Us About God’s Work Through Migration
53:43 – Reading Acts from a Migrant’s Perspective
57:24 – How Biblical Languages & Migration Can Shape Your Walk with Christ

Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

0:00

Philip is our kind of example of what happens. Steve Walton's new commentary talks about Philip being the kind of representative migrant who then goes to Samaria. So it's a forced migration that takes Philip to Samaria. He doesn't really plan to go there, but he has to get out of Jerusalem because it's too dangerous. And then if you move on, think it's Acts 11, 19, we have another summary statement about the scattered ones and how they went about sharing the word. We almost already covered it, but it's like why decide to study migration in relation to biblical studies? Maybe another question, why migration and acts and not an Old Testament? Yeah, that's a really good question. it was when... so it's maybe something that Paul's left behind, but he does talk about that experience in quite a positive way. And he uses that experience as being a Pharisee as something that actually gives him credibility. Sometimes in our accurate translation, with some of that kind of negativity kind of slips in and Paul's actually making a positive case. And that kind of comes through in the Greek. We have this big cast of kind of scattered migrant characters who are really important to the development of the church. I think one of my favorite ones is... Welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, brought to you by NT Greek Tutoring, the place for personalised Greek studies in your spare time. My name is Daniel Mikkelsen I'm your host, I'm a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, in New Testament and Christian origins, and the founder of NT Greek Tutoring. And this podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show you how the biblical languages opens up scripture so that you will be increased in your love for God and his word and his mission. And today I'm joined by Paul Wilson, a fellow PhD candidate in New Testament and Christian origins here at the University of Edinburgh. Paul is also working on human migration in the Book of Acts. which we'll be talking more about later on in this episode and I'm sure this will be very interesting because I don't know many people who are linking migration with biblical studies so I'm very interested about what he has to say about that so stick around for that. Apart from his studies, Paul is also an associate lecturer at the Scottish Baptist College. He is also coordinates the refugees and asylum seekers outreach in Parkhead Nazarene Church in the east end of Glasgow. Before this, Paul studied in Belfast in Northern Ireland. He also worked at a Greek NGO in Athens, and he completed a master's in biblical studies here at the University of Edinburgh as well. And I had the privilege to get to know Paul while we studying here. We are recording here today in New College. That's why we have these interesting chairs. And had a privilege to get to know him and we have had many interesting conversations and things done together while we study here the university together. So it's a great honor to have you on our podcast here today. Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks. Anything else you want to add before we jump into the questions? I mean, not really. I think that pretty much covered everything. I'm also, Sometimes my accent throws a few people off, because I'm not actually from Scotland. I grew up in the States. My wife is from Belfast, so I have... I speak English sometimes with a of hybrid accent. And so, yeah, I grew up in the States, but I've now moved out here in 2001, or moved to Belfast in 2001. And so I've now spent... more than half my life outside the states so it's a funny place to be in so I'm a migrant who studies migration. Interesting perspective, interesting place to be. I'm also married and I've got two kids as well who are, next year I'll have two high schoolers so that will be fun. New stage of life. Yeah, so let's jump into it. Yeah. Yeah. So how did you get into studying of the biblical languages? It's a good question and it's not something I'd really planned. So my undergraduate studies were mostly in theology and missiology and that side of things. And I actually really struggled with the biblical languages. So it's not something that I particularly enjoyed or really got into. It was definitely my sort of weaker hand in studies. The desire to get back in the biblical studies really came after I started working with refugees and asylum seekers. it tends to be in the context that I've worked in. I've had a lot of people coming who follow other religions, and primarily Muslims mostly, and they have a lot of great theological questions, especially questions about the Bible and text. And... I don't think this is the route that everyone needs to take if they're engaging with those questions, but I just felt for myself I really need to learn more about the biblical languages and have just a greater understanding of the texts that I'm talking about. So that led me into doing a masters, taught masters here at New College in biblical studies and that had both Greek and Hebrew. And again, it wasn't something that came very naturally or very easily to me, but it was... it was good and it was a good challenge really to work on the things that I probably found more difficult. So that was really where it started was just wanting to engage in those questions in a deeper way and just for my own integrity and dealing with those questions and having a better understanding on my own terms. I think that's great. I think emphasizing the fact that you also struggled is that I think some kind of people, think that people who do PhDs, always found the language is easy, or they found the study is easy, but it's not necessarily the case. Yeah, no, most definitely not. mean, it's still, I mean, it's still a, you're still always learning new things and you'll sometimes read a text and you'll think, I'm really struggling with this one or there's some grammar that you don't know. I mean, I've been looking at a lot of inscriptions lately in papyri and, you know, I was looking at one the other day and I was really struggling just to decipher the hand. So there's always something to learn and it's just the start to a journey, but I don't think I've ever, I mean, maybe. maybe my supervisor or Paul Foster or someone like that, gets to a stage where they can just pick it up without much effort. But I think you're always learning, you're always finding something new, which is really exciting and keeps it interesting. Yeah, exactly. we all always learning obviously things become, well, excuse me, some things might become easier over time. But I'm definitely so you might not know, but I mentioned on the podcast before I'm dyslexic. So for me, like school was not fun at all. it's, so it is all about like effort and also looking at it as a skill you're learning, like you're riding your bike or you're doing like skiing or football or whatever. More think of it, like if you think about languages that way, then I think you're not necessarily as easily thrown off because it's about the consistency and staying at it. And then if you want to read like inscriptions, then you can go ahead. Yeah, which is obviously a different level because it also includes different handwritings or if you're reading papyri, it's completely different thing. start moving into a whole other discipline. Yeah, maybe not. how have you experienced that the biblical languages have opened up scripture for you? Yeah, it's a really good question because I think you'd have a really fruitful enjoyment of reading the Bible and engaging with the text, but sometimes you see things and you see it with a certain kind of color or clarity maybe that you don't see before, or even you just see things that are interesting that you didn't notice before. One thing that's always been interesting to me is when you come across all the decisions that need to be made with translation as well. that you have a greater appreciation for what a difficult job translation is, but sometimes you'll see things, you'll think, I'll have to make a decision about how I translate or how I conceive of this, and that's not always the most straightforward thing to do. So I think that can be, it can give you greater appreciation for what scholars do on a day-to-day basis. So I think that it helps enrich your understanding because you get really drawn into the text and why is this word used here? Why is, you know, So I work in Luke and Acts and he loves using unusual words and he thinks why did he pick that specific word for say a belt when another perfectly much more common word for a belt exists, why is he using this particular word? So that's always an interesting one. can bring out a lot of color and I think the other thing that I didn't appreciate before I had taken the biblical languages here at Edinburgh was appreciating the different styles and types of writing that we have in the New Testament canon, which is really exciting because, know, Mark, you have a really great fast paced storyteller. It's all pretty easy to read and it just rolls across really quickly and then you get to someone like Luke and... It's a very different way of telling the story. It's much slower. It's got much more complicated vocabulary. it's just a different way to draw you into the story and bring us different things out of the story, which is really exciting. But I think sometimes in our English translations, or any translation really, you're trying to make it readable, you're trying to make it accessible, but it's very hard to replicate what is kind of quite simple language to what is quite complicated language. And so there's a balance to be found in translation. It's not always easy, but you see that the different, just the sheer variety that we have in our New Testament text, which is pretty cool. Quite interesting, I know. I think like Luke is much more comparable to like other ancient historians. Like Herodotus and it's like in not that they're writing using the exact same language but his style is more like so to speak similar to these writings than well where Mark is more sort of this we would just want to tell people the story as it is like efficiently and clearly as possible. Doesn't have to be like too many difficult words There might be some words used specifically at times, yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that nuance in it. You don't necessarily see that Peter is much better Greek than, like one Peter is much better Greek than second Peter, for example. Because in a translation you're sometimes smoothing things out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we kind of flatten the text a little bit in translation. And of course we want to translate, so you want the stuff to be understandable. But yeah, you just get a greater appreciation for, or just for even the kind of, almost the personal flavor of the text that you're reading, how the personalities of the authors come through, which is really exciting. Yeah, exactly. You might get that in John in comparison to some of the other gospels. A little bit of the personality, the style, that's because he is so much different to the other ones. So in that sense, you might get it in translation, where it's like, how can we distinguish between Paul and one Peter, for example, in terms of style? Yeah, true. when we read in translation. Paul, he uses lots of insets, but it's the same in Peter, but the word use and the way they structure their sentences are very different. Yeah, it's very different type of rhetoric. And you see that when you're doing translation work and you're reading through in the original languages. that's, it keeps it really interesting and makes it really, really fun. And I think that was, I think the first thing that I noticed when I started getting into languages and thought this is great. get more of the. more of the flavor of the kind of personality that's behind the text, which is exciting. It makes it seem a bit more real at times. Yeah, thank you for that. Do you have any more specific examples for how you've seen something in the original that you didn't see in the translation or didn't notice in the translation? Yeah, I mean full disclosure, he sent me some of these questions beforehand and I really struggled to narrow this one down because there's so many things, but one that I came across relatively recently that I thought was really interesting was the translation of the word ἀκριβῶς (akrivos). or ἀκριβής (akrivis), sorry. The other thing that is difficult for me with Greek at times is that I lived in Greece, so I spoke modern Greek, and there's a lot of, it's kind of a false friend at times because there's a lot of similar vocabulary, but different pronunciations. Yeah, especially, so, sorry, so I used a modern Greek word there when I said Akrivos, but ἀκριβής (akrivis), and the whole kind of word family around that. I was, so when Paul was talking about his credibility as a Pharisee, we're moving Paul's, finished the missionary journeys, and he's gone to Jerusalem, and he's gonna be sent to Rome, and he's defending himself. So the first thing, he defends himself in front of the temple, in front of the group. of a group of Jews in front of the temple, and then later on in front of Agrippa. And he talks about his training as a Pharisee. So we have ἀκρίβεια (acriveia) and we have ἀκριβής (acrevis). most of our English translations, I looked through maybe about 10 or so, and they all describe when Paul talks about being a Pharisee. He always talks about it being strict. I was strictly, I was from the most strictest. sect. was a strict Pharisee. We use this word strict. We rewind a bit, right? We go to Acts 18.2 where we meet Priscilla and Aquila and we meet Apollos. We have the same word family. have ἀκριβῶς (akrivos) again, but it says they explain the gospel accurately, right? And when Priscilla and Aquila, take that, because Apollos is already an accurate teacher of the gospel. And then Priscilla and Aquila take him aside, and then they explain to him the way even more accurately. So you have these words used again, but it's used in quite a positive way. And it's the same word. And it's interesting because I think because we have Pharisee in the language, we think, we mostly use strict there. But in the context, and that was something that came through in the original language, it's actually the same word. And when I think about Priscilla Aquila Paulus, I think, well, it's accurate. it's accurate clarity around that, but when I apply it to Pharisees, I think, oh, strict, and that kind of has a negative connotation in English. But when you think about Paul giving his own defense, I was from a very clear and accurate sect. I knew the law really well, because he's defending himself. He's not saying I'm from a group that I didn't like. Or maybe, I mean, When he does describe being with the Pharisees, especially when he's speaking in front of Agrippa, he uses the aroist and he says, ἔζησα (ezisa). So it was a group that he used to live in. And so you could say if that's a completed action if you're talking about the aspect of the verb. But. So it's maybe something that Paul's left behind, but he does talk about that experience in quite a positive way, and he uses that experience as being a Pharisee, as something that actually gives him credibility. So he's using it in quite a positive way. And I think sometimes in our accurate translations, some of that kind of negativity kind of slips in, and Paul's actually, he's making a positive case, and that kind of comes through in the Greek. And it's a funny translation choice, because why would we not use then, you know. Apollos was a strict teacher of the law and then Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and explained the way to him more strictly. It wouldn't really make sense. it's interesting that Luke uses the same word in kind of similar context about persuasion when we look at one as being positive, one as being negative. I think it's, I mean that kind of gets into some of the within Judaism debates as well, which I don't want to get into now really, but I think with that one, I think what's interesting though is it's more about, I'm trying to think about from the perspective of Paul's rhetoric and he's really trying to make a positive case. They're like, look, I knew this stuff really well. We knew the law very, I knew the law very accurately. This is how I was at the feet of Gamaliel. We had this stuff very, so he's using that to back up his own credibility in front of a Jewish audience. it's quite, so you can kind of get the positive tones to that word, whereas maybe we lead to something a bit more negative. Yeah, at least it's been translated to reflect a more negative meaning where the context, because words are flexible today. But you will make the case that it's actually a bit more positive the way it's used in the context. Yeah, think in that case he's trying to show that he's credible to a Jewish audience. which makes sense. Which makes sense, if you're making a positive case you would kind of, so yeah, so it's not, I think, it's not really a binary of positive or negative, but when we translate English we kind of have to pick a gloss that reflects something like that. that's an interesting one. And just the. And there probably is a good case for making it strict or using strict instead or making it a more negative one. But you then realize what goes into looking in the context. How do I translate this? Is it a positive case? Is it a negative case? How does that actually change my reading of the context here? Yeah, exactly. It's interesting and also, in a previous episodes we talked about James where like he uses the word for πειράζω (peirazo), like I think it's πειράζω (peirazo) if I pronounce it correctly, which means like to tempt, but it can also means to like, to test, which is in Greek there is no difference between the two words, but the context is what makes the difference. So that's kind of an interesting sort of like perspective on that. So So in James 1 that's what happened but you can go back and look at that. Exactly, yeah. So. I mean, I could give another example. mean, especially, I mean, the other, I think one of my favorite things when I read Greek is actually encountering words that I don't know. Cause then it brings into this world of word of this stuff. Why is Luke using that word? And I mentioned the belts earlier, cause there's a bit where Paul's in Ephesus and the people are touching his clothing to get healing. Healing comes from God. but the people seek out Paul's garments and then they receive healing. It's God who does the healing, but people are trying to touch Paul's clothes. And you get these two really odd words. We have σουδάριον and σιμικίνθιον. probably the only place that occurs all of the New Testament. Yeah, for, and I've just pronounced that, it's so rare that I've pronounced it incorrectly, σουδάριον (soudarion), which is a Latin loan word, and then we have σιμικίνθιον (simikinthion), okay? Simikintheon, which is another Latin loan word. And it doesn't appear in any literary text. It's, and it. So you have to go to the Latin to figure out what it means, and it comes from semisynctum, which just means narrow belt. But most translators take that word for belt and call it an apron. They say it's a workman's apron. And it's in, it was in an F.F. Bruce commentary written maybe 40 years ago, I think. And he says it's a workman's apron. And this is repeated in a lot of the dictionaries as well. But when you look at some of the texts, this Latin word is never used in the context of labor. It's just a general belt. It doesn't have a specific labor context. It could be used in labor, but it doesn't necessarily need to. And so they're really, because we have ζώνη (zoni), we have very, we have really common words for belt. So why does Luke use these really unusual words? So I think in some ways you have these words that are so uncommon that you have to kind of look at them and think. why is he using these uncommon Latin loanwords? It maybe shows that he knew Latin as well, and he was kind of working in both linguistic worlds. But why does he, because he uses a more typical word for belt elsewhere. So why does Luke use this very specific language? But both the words used, sudarium and semisynctum, both of these words are, they're oddly specific words but also unusually broad in their application and we can use for all sorts of things in sort of Jewish and Greco-Roman context. And I kind of get the idea that Luke is really making the point. It's kind of like a narrative description of Paul as being all things to all people. So it makes you stop like, this is, you think this is the kind of clothes that Paul's wearing. These are very specific words used, but I can see lots of different contexts that this belt and the handkerchief can be used. It's in both contexts in which Paul is working in Ephesus. So the sedarium is used in, you can look up in the rabbinic text and see how this kind of handkerchief is used in all different ways. You can use it for your head, you can wrap it around your feet, you can put phylacteries in it, you can do all sorts of things with this handkerchief. Or, Dr. Roman orators would use it to dramatically dab the sweat off their brow or even use it to cover. cover a mouth or to do all sorts of things. So it's very specific words, but very broad in application. And that seems like a deliberate choice that Luke has made there. And I think the workman's apron isn't necessarily a bad translation. makes sense given Paul's role as a laborer. If you just read that, if you just think, oh, they were touching Paul's handkerchiefs and belts, we just pass over it and we just move on with the story. Think, wow, there's a healing that's amazing. But I think even with these kind of deliberate, this very deliberate vocabulary that Luke chooses, when you read it in the Greek and you have to think, why is he using these unusual words? That brings you deeper into this whole world of classics and rabbinics. it's really exciting to kind of. Think about where these sayings come from and why he's using these words. Yeah, it's very interesting that he's using these Latin loan words when there are like applicable. Yeah, which is used as opposed to when the prophet is binding his feet. It's normal word for that. It is, yeah. So when Agabus takes off Paul's belt, that would be our standard Greek word for belt. But he uses a different word for belt in this case. It's curious, Yeah, so that's... It seems deliberate. Yeah, it definitely does seem deliberate. mean, it's so uncommonly attested that it's got to be deliberate. but it can be difficult to then tell what's specific reason why. Yeah, and that the specific reason then we have to look into the context and try to use our own. And there's a lot of good theories for why he used it. I've offered one, but there's lots of other ways to interpret, but then we have to use, we have the rudimental aspects of the language, but then we still have to kind of engage our theological imagination to think about why is communicating to us in this way? Which is... Yeah, which is a great way to get deeper into the text because you have to ask questions of the text and ask questions of yourself. Why am I using this word? Why am I saying apron rather than belt? Yeah, yeah, very good, very good. That's interesting. Yeah, shows why there's interesting nuggets to find. there's always something like that. I love a harpax legomenon. Yeah, if you don't know what that means, means one's used. So within the biblical literature, the New Testament usually. So it is actually Greek meaning one said, one time said. So, but why study migration? What do you actually mean by that? Yeah, it's a good question and I think migration is very much a constant in human history. Sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you're enjoying the content, please consider subscribing and leaving a like. It really helps the algorithm and helps the podcast grow. Thank you for your support and now back to the episode. why study migration? What do you actually mean by that? Yeah, it's a good question and I think migration is very much a constant in human history. it's just part of human experience, it's part of life and even this... we kind of approach the text sometimes from a sedentary perspective. I mean, it's interesting because neither of us are from Edinburgh or both sitting here talking about migration. But it's a very normal part of human experience. people move because of climate changes or... there's a flood or also people are constantly moving about and it's kind of intrinsic to human experience. And I think now because the way we conceive the world with lines on a map and that we don't, we tend to look at. nation state is a much more solid thing. But that's very much part of our context in the world in which we live, having these kind of very firm boundaries and kind of lines on the map. And there were boundaries and borders, of course, in the ancient world, but they were organized in slightly different ways. And so I think... Because human migration is such a big part of human history and such a big part of our experience now, it occurred to me that... it's likely to have been part of Luke's context. It would have, well Luke describes a lot of, I think that's actually where the starting point was for me was I started reading Acts and sort of thinking about people are moving all the time and there's a lot of people who, when Luke introduces people, it's always interesting to see, he'll introduce people and say where they're from and if you look at where the action is happening in the text, more often times than not, these people aren't from the place where they're introduced. And then there's characters like Timothy, because we meet him in Lystra, but then he never goes back there. So you get this kind of very migratory, mobile picture of early Christianity that emerges in And so... That was one reason why I wanted to look if migration might be an interesting angle to look at the Book of Acts. Because there hadn't been a whole lot written on it up to that stage. But it's a big deal in Roman history at the moment. There's been a lot of scholars of Rome who are talking about migration, levels of migration in the Roman Empire. different, we now have more ways to measure migration movements. So we used to kind of base it all on epigraphy and inscriptions. on gravestones, people would quite often say, you find a grave in Rome. That says it's, or I'm trying to think of stereotypical that, you know, this is Gaius and he's from. and he's from Macedonia, but he's buried in Rome. He must have traveled at some stage, because he's from this place, but now he's here. But generally, people who are able to afford inscriptions are of... quite often they have money to afford a funerary inscription or they have family that could afford that sort of thing. But there's been kind of advances in bioarchaeology where they can look at the strontium isotopes that are left in teeth. They can see lots of patterns of migration and return migrations. I think it's a scholar named Rens Tacoma, I believe he suggests that the probably migrant population of Rome, as in people who were residing in Rome who weren't from Italy, that kind of geographic area, about 30%, maybe 25 to 30 % of the population were not from the area, or had traveled in. So it's pretty high levels of migration, and it would be on a par with modern day Glasgow or Manchester or something like that. So pretty significant levels of migration. even Edinburgh in some way. Yeah, Edinburgh definitely as well. Yeah, I mean any major city. that would probably be, even though the bioarchaeological studies were really expensive, so they can't do this in every, it's very difficult to do in every grave that you might find around, but they think that it was probably, this is at any kind of major port or any major city in the Roman Empire, this probably would have been common and that people would have moved for all sorts of reasons. Yeah, so you almost already covered it, but it's like why decide to study migration in relation to biblical studies? Yeah. And maybe another question in the same, like you might answer both of them at the same time, is also why migration and Acts are not an Old Testament text? Yeah, that's a really good question. And it was when, I had my one year review. here at Edinburgh and we had my supervisor and a secondary supervisor and then we had another staff member who was from outside the discipline and when I'd sent the materials through beforehand, it was an Old Testament lecture, was Susanna Miller and she looked at it and she said, I was kind of surprised that you were proposing this as something new because we've been doing this in Old Testament studies for years and we've been doing this for a long time. But I suppose with Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, studies it's a lot more straightforward in some ways because you have a defined group of people who a big part of that story is exile and return so you have a forced migration you have a return migration and it's it's it's quite clear and then when you get to the New Testament the gospel is mostly action takes place within one geographic area. takes place in ancient Palestine, right? There's not a whole lot of travel outside of that. But then once we get into Axe, you have this kind of outward movement that ends up, the book ends up kind of covering almost all parts of the... of the known world at the time. it's a huge, there's so much traveling in the book. And there's a lot of discussion about Paul as a traveler, but that has kind of an intentional aspect to it. But Paul's not just a traveler. He's a prisoner at one stage. He gets driven, he's a forced migrant at times, because he gets driven out of cities. He's not allowed to stay because of the social disruption that he causes. And I think there's sociologically, The field of migration studies is really interesting because it builds on the experiences of migration, how communities react and respond. And it's a big area of study, and it's not one that has really been applied to New Testament studies. It has been done with Old Testament, but not New Testament studies. So I look at a book where there's lots of migration. There's a, it's been done quite fruitfully with the Old Testament, but not so much with the New. So that's where hopefully my work, I would like to fill a gap. And it's not so much to say, there's been a lot of things written on what does the New Testament say about how we respond to migration now in terms of policy, ministry, mission, these kind of things. But more what I'm looking at is kind of the other way around. So what does migration now, how do the social dynamics of migration now, what does that tell us about migration in the ancient world? How does that help us better understand some of the things that are happening in the Book of Acts? Interesting, yes. that, yeah, so where do we actually find migration in Acts? Yes, it's, I mean it's, once you see it, you'll start finding it everywhere. So one of the kind of key statements in Acts is when Jesus makes his, ascends at the beginning of Acts, of course, and he gives instructions to the disciples. And one of the major kind of, statements that sets the program for the rest of the book is Acts 1.8. It says, you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So the first thing is this Jesus gives us prophecy. This is going to happen and you have this geographic expansion of the Christian movement. And so, and the plot kind of follows that Acts 1.8 pattern for the rest of the book. the action starts in Jerusalem and then there's a key moment when Stephen gets his speech. we're kind of, there's a few migrants who come in, we meet Barnabas who comes from Cyprus. And so we have the Hellenists in Jerusalem. So we have the presence of migrants, but not a whole lot of migration at that stage. But then when Stephen gives a speech, if you actually go back to the speech, and it starts with Abraham outside the promised land. And it talks all about his journey to the promised land, and then he has to leave because of famine. And then it talks about Joseph being forced to go to Egypt, but then his brother's joining him because of famine. And then. they go and then there's the Exodus and it follows this kind of story. It's actually like a migration history of the people of God and it kind of culminates with this discussion about the temple and its role and the major charge against Stephen is that he was gonna, that he was speaking against this holy place. Stephen, it almost takes the criticism that was about Jesus destroying the temple and they. take it and apply it, goes, that kind of falls on Stephen. And Stephen never criticizes the temple per se in that way. He never says this thing is useless and you shouldn't care about it. It's definitely not what he says. But he seems to suggest that God is not geographically located. And if you think that God is located in the temple, then you've misunderstood what it's for. And his whole story kind of culminates through, look how active God has been with our people outside of the land. God has always been active with us even when we haven't been geographically located and he tells a story of diaspora He finishes telling the story of diaspora and then he sees the ascended Jesus and that's when of course everyone gets really angry angry and he gets stoned and he dies then immediately after Stephen dies and everyone It says the whole church was scattered But we have, to go back to Greek, we have this really interesting substantival participle. We have οἱ (hoi) διασπαρέντες (diasporentes), which is really uncommon because you have a great word for diaspora that exists. so that's a prefix noun? Yep, it is, And so that's one of the first collective words that's used of Christians. So you have the οἱ (hoi) διασπαρέντες (diasporentes), and they go out and they, Philip is our kind of example of what happens. Steve Walton's new commentary talks about Philip being the kind of a representative migrant who then goes to Samaria. So it's a forced migration that takes Philip to Samaria. He doesn't really plan to go there, but he has to get out of Jerusalem because it's too dangerous. And then if you move on, I think it's Acts 11.19, also we have another summary statement about the scattered ones and how they went about sharing the word. And so that's kind one of the first collective words used for Christians. And then the other one that we probably know a bit better is the way, which of course isn't a, say the way with capital T and a capital W in a lot of our translations, but it's just the road or the street. It's a very common, it's the most common. Greek word that you could probably find, know, they're just called the road and that's a place on which people travel, on which people move and so you have these very kind of active migratory words that are used to describe the church collectively right from the very beginning. I mean you could also look at key characters. Barnabas, he's a migrant from Cyprus. Priscilla and Aquila, they're explicitly described as refugees. As Jewish refugees from Rome when Claudius expels them. Apollos, he's from Alexandria. Then we meet him in Ephesus. And then he goes to Corinth. you know, even Paul himself, he's from Tarsus, but we first meet him in Jerusalem. So we have this big cast of kind of scattered migrant characters who are really important to the development of the church. I think one of my favorite ones is then commentators do this all the time where they call, they talk about the Antiochian community and their involvement in Paul's mission. the Antiochian community, we look at the list and I have it here, it says, the church in Antioch, there were prophets and teachers, so a broad range of gifts, and we have Barnabas, who's from, we know from early in the text, he's from Cyprus, Simeon, who is called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manian, a member of the court of Herod the ruler, or was raised with Herod, that's another possible translation of that, and Saul, and we know Saul, Paul, is from Tarsus, which is a little bit closer to Antioch, but still it's still a good day's journey away. So these are all people from different places and none of them interest... commentators quite often mention the diversity of the group in Antioch, but one thing that really strikes me about that group is that none of them are from Antioch. So we describe it as an Antiochian community. None of them are from Antioch. It's a migrant church and they're the first church that's intentional. about being involved in mission and sending Paul to Cyprus, Paul and Barnabas to Cyprus. Yeah, the only one that's not mentioned, I just picked up on your reading of this, Simeon is not, there's no denominators who like disambiguate where he's from, but his name is clearly not a Syrian name. Yeah, that's true. yeah, it's... So we're not told where he's from, but we're told about his complexion. Yeah, so he could have been born there but was like his parents had migrated but obviously we don't know. Yeah, so we don't know, but if he's not a migrant, then he's probably the child, in kind of a generation of people who have traveled there from elsewhere. And that would be fairly common, and not unusual in the ancient world either. So it's not something that would really... shock anyone or be really different. it is, it does kind of change, think, our perspective of the church. Like, this is a church of a bunch of people who aren't native to Antioch. You can maybe put it that way. They're not native to this. yeah, yeah, it's like your children, are born here. Yeah. But they have American passports and Irish passports. They're Scottish in one way but they're not in another way. Yeah, they're Scottish and they sound Scottish but their accents are sort of somewhere between my own and my wife's. when they're watching the rugby at the weekend, they cheer for Ireland. Which is absolutely not her by the way. Yeah, I know. And it's a funny thing because that's not something we've imposed on them but they've just kind of picked up, when it comes to sport, we support Ireland, not Scotland. It's not something intentional. say if you guys want to support Scotland, it's absolutely fine. Yeah, and that tells a bit of the story which we're actually talking about from the biblical text. Yeah, so... And then it sort of reminds us, like, how does migration actually help us understand acts better, or what perspective does it bring to us? Like, you've already sort of, like, been around it, but how can we sort of... How does it help us understand acts? Yeah, I mean there's, well this is a work in progress because it is my thesis as well, I think... A really interesting one is Barnabas. Well, he's Joseph Barnabas, right? So he comes to Jerusalem from Cyprus. He sells a field that belongs to him. He lays at the Apostles' Seat. And he's definitely set, even though we have a chapter break there, he's set in contrast to Ananias and Sapphira. We have this guy from Cyprus. He's a Levite. So he's an insider but also an outsider. What did Levites do in Cyprus? We don't have a whole lot of information about that. But he's a really interesting character because he seems to be very much a kind of hybrid. There's a lot of hybrid identities going on with Joseph Barnabas. But actually, I was looking into names that are used and we have, Barnabas is a really uncommon name and we only have one Jewish Barnabas that's attested and we only know that this Barnabas was a Jew because it's a tax receipt that's showing receipt for payment to the Fiscus Judaicus. Outside the New Testament. Outside the New Testament. So that's the only other Jew that we know of. I mean, there might have been more, obviously. We don't have everything written down. But we only know of, so we have... Barnabas in the New Testament, we have this guy, this other Barnabas from Egypt who was paying attacks. So these are the only Jewish Barnabas we know of. Very uncommon name. The most common name, and this is, I was relying on the work of Margaret Williams, who's also based here at Edinburgh, looking at names, onomastics, in the ancient world. And she's got this really fascinating study of the name Joseph, which is common. You have different kind of naming practices in the diaspora, different naming practices in Palestine. But one name that's popular across both is Joseph. There's so many Josephs. So you have this guy arriving who's from Cyprus and he has a very common name and it says the disciples give him the name Barnabas which means son of encouragement but Hyrio Parkelesos doesn't actually, etymologically Barnabas doesn't mean doesn't directly mean son of encouragement. And there's been a lot of ink spilled about trying to make this fit. But I think if you look in at kind of, so I looked into kind of migrant nicknaming trends and study of how migrants take nicknames and give each other nicknames and it can show that. more so than just the etymology of the name, what really matters is that the nickname is like a mnemonic of community. So the nickname shows someone's belonging to a community. And quite often nicknames have meanings that don't directly match the etymology, and they take on new and different meanings. So we have a guy with a very common name. He gets given a very uncommon name. And they give the meaning to this name as son of encouragement, which really kind of explains how Barnabas acts and the rest when we have him and tell he parts ways with Paul. It very much describes his character as an encourager or as one who is involved in. He's the one who brings Paul to the church. He's the one that advocates on behalf of Paul. So he's very much an advocate and encourager. And this kind of name describes, it's kind of a... So we hint to what Barnabas is going to do later in the narrative. And I think how migration studies helps in this particular instance is that it takes us away just from using text to try to figure out how does the etymology match Luke's translation. And if you look at the context of migration, this is actually a very normal thing where you can have an etymology that takes on a new and fresh meaning, especially if someone is integrated into the community and is part of that community and that would be quite a common thing. So he's no longer Joseph Barnabas is no longer just an anonymous Joseph who's living in Jerusalem. He's Barnabas son of encouragement and sometimes nicknames can take these kind of unusual and community defined meanings. So it kind of takes us outside of just looking in the dictionary try to solve what it means but also it takes us into what's really significant is that this guy is given a nickname, not just what the nickname means. So I think sometimes migration, looking out through that lens, tell us a little bit about some of the social dynamics that were going on. And Luke is reflecting those in his text. He's obviously observed these things happening. He's written about it. And so he's describing these dynamics. And he's just explaining it happened. doesn't need, I think it. might have been obvious to his audience what was going on there. But when we look at it from the perspective of migration, can maybe give some more insight to what's happening in some of these stories. So that's one example. There's others as well, but I think that's an interesting one because it's a real conundrum linking the name Barnabas etymologically to Huios Parkeleos. It doesn't need to be a call for a We know that from outside that's normal way of applying. It's well documented and well studied. Yeah, that's very interesting. But suppose you could also say, know, we, Priscilla and Aquila, you know, they, and if, you know, you see later through Paul's epistles, we see them back in Rome, which is really interesting. So they have, but. I know there's been some kind of questions cast over Priscilla Aquila and could they have traveled that much and actually there's good historical precedent for it and they're described as migrant laborers and that kind of frames why Paul goes where he goes. All the places that go are big urban centers where you would need people working on textiles or let say tent maker but that's another. isn't. That's another tricky one, there's a whole, it's still some kind of form of migrant labor. And that's probably how Paul funds himself and how he ends up working in places like Ephesus and Corinth and Athens as well. Because the Athens story starts in the marketplace. It doesn't really always consider the Areopagus Hill, but actually starts in the marketplace. Yeah, that's interesting. I was thinking about leather work maybe 1 Thessalonians are leather workers like Paul that talked to Sack about that a different episode. Quite an interesting . What was his other profession? But maybe that's a discussion for an other time. It probably is. It could take a whole other hour. I'm sure that it could. we've already established that migration was very relevant in the early church, but then what are the theological and missional application for migration in Acts? Yeah, I think there's a lot of them. to be clear, I don't think that the Book of Acts is like a handbook on how to treat migrants today. I don't think that's Luke's aim. So his narrative aim is to provide an accurate history, as he puts it, of how the church grew. spread and how they were faithful to Jesus throughout that whole process. But migration is a big part of that story and that's how the church actually moves. That's the initial movement from Jerusalem to Samaria is not an intentional thing. It's something that happens because there's persecution. It looks, I mean, when it says all the church was scattered but the apostles remained, that's another tricky one that makes more sense in the context of migration studies as well, because quite often leaders can go to ground when other people have, people who are probably less well known in the movement are sometimes at greater risk. But you have this, but it's not an intentional thing. They don't send people to Samaria originally, but that's how it happens is through, I mean, a horrible killing and then everyone else being scared and having to leave. But I think. Philip ends up in Caesarea. Yeah, yeah, well, I didn't even talk about the Ethiopian yet. That's another... Yeah, because he meets him and he meets him on the wilderness road and there's no reason for Philip to go that way, but that's where God sends him. quite often Ethiopian Herodotus, anyway, is explicitly associated with the ends of the earth. So it's interesting that even by that stage, Acts 1.8 has almost been fulfilled before the church even knows about it. Yeah. That's actually quite common. just want to put that in the ancient world if you read Greek literature, like the Ethiopians are like an exotic, like better people. Yeah, yeah. Because they live so far away from what they know. so they're almost like so, so even though they look different and other things, that's for the ancient person. was like, that's kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. And there was like these people, they live in a different place. are better people than us. Yeah. Kind of like idea that and you'll probably find that in Herodotus but also in other like, even in the, you have this idea almost in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the world where it talks about these people living on the edge of the world, which are sort of like, better people, almost like gods. Yeah, it's exotic, it's exciting, you know, and he's obviously, you know, he, he's obviously a person of means as well, because he has a whole scroll in his chariot, you know, so these, these are not cheap things just to be reading Isaiah scroll as you're traveling. So if anybody has read our Isaiah a long, long. It's a very long book, yeah. So you get this kind of sense of God being active and acts through migration, through the whole book, and the church just kind of accepts it. responds faithfully in situations of migration. And I also think, if you look at Acts, it's very much, I think, from the perspective of migration. So even when we get the We-sections, when we get to chapter 16, and we get this first person plural, it's that we did this, we went there, you kind of get this sense. But even then, Luke, who's narrating it, we get this sense of movement. And it's a very... something's always happened in acts, they're always moving, they're always going somewhere. It's definitely from the kind of, the book is written not from a settled perspective, and I'm gonna write the book from, you know. say Luke's in Rome. I'm going to write it from Rome and I'm going to talk about these places, but he talks about these places as if he's there and if he's moving to other places. Well, he's not kind of a detached narrator who's telling it from afar. So he's very much involved in the migratory process as this thing is going on. I mean, you could call that travel as well, but we see so many people like Peter, he ends up leaving Jerusalem and goes to Joppa and then we find him in Caesarea. know, Philip goes to Caesarea and stays there. these, so we do have migration and resettlement in there. And the book is very much written from this perspective. And I think it's, and not everybody finds it convincing, but I really like Gregory Sterling's argument that places Luke within the diaspora tradition. So he doesn't, he doesn't kind of. I'm not, he doesn't say whether or not Luke's a Jew or a Gentile or anything like that. He says, I think he's at least just very well versed in the diaspora tradition. He uses the Septuagint all the time. You know, he cites it all the time and it's very much, it's very much a, there's a diaspora kind of, the book, his perspective is very much informed by the diaspora tradition. And, when you look at what Paul does, so there's a great passage when Paul goes to Philippi, okay, and he... cast a demon, the python spirit, out of the slave girl. And everybody gets really mad at Paul. Why? Because, well, their chance of making money is now done. So Paul goes in to this place and he starts messing around with things. He ends up upsetting the economic structure. ends up... creating social disruption as well. And then there's this great line when the people in Philippi get mad at Paul and they say, these men are disturbing our city, they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe. So they don't even talk about Paul as a Christian, they say, he's a Jew, he's a Judean, he's from another place and he's given us a whole bunch of laws that aren't for us as Romans. It's a very kind of xenophobic. Critique of Paul. That's what it's based on. It's based on, they don't really talk about his message. They talk about his ethnicity. They don't even talk about the deliverance or the healing or anything like that. like they're advocating customs that aren't for us. It's contrary to the laid land. it's an interesting perspective, think, for, I mean, I'm very well settled in Scotland. This is a place that I live. don't... I'm not from here, but I consider myself settled. But it's quite often the characters in acts are the ones who are causing social disruption. They're the ones who are bringing difference and people who are living there are thinking, whoa, we don't want any part of this. And it's a different, sometimes... When you read it from that perspective, you're almost like for someone like me who's settled, it's then you're approaching the text from a different perspective. Like, I'm looking at this all from the perspective of the migrants, from the people who are moving, from the people who are being sent different places. So it's a total shift of perspective. So it's not a set of dentures text. It's a mobile text. And I think when we maybe ethically end. and kind of missionally respond to the, and some very real challenges of migration. changes our perspective about this and it takes us away from like a parochial vision of. the church to something that's more global and something that is almost characterized by its movement in a way. And so I think for Luke, migration is normal and it's just part of his story. He doesn't go out to say, do this or do that when migrants come. But he tells us the story about migration. He tells us kind of very current, kind of contemporary stories about migrants causing disruption. But for us, the people that we identify with as Christians reading the text are the people causing the disruption. So that can be an uncomfortable place to read the text from, but I think an important one in it, and maybe helps us maybe approach, I mean we can all have different policy, we can argue and debate policy decisions around migration, and Christians can have valid opinions on different sides of immigration debates, but I think if it doesn't start from a place of, of, of, empathy and even a kind of or from a perspective of Christianity that is not global. Because it's definitely not a book that portrays Christianity something that is geographically bounded. It's something that is unbounded. the churches, there's a book... came out a few years back called Scattered but Gathered as describing kind of migration. It's a contemporary missiology, but talking about world Christianity, but it kind of centers on... The church in Acts is definitely scattered, but gathered around the person of the ascended Christ who is not geographically bound. And the ascended Christ makes cameos all over the place in Acts. He directly intervenes in the narrative in a couple of different ways. He even speaks to Paul when he's on the road to Damascus. He sees Stephen in Jerusalem. He forbids Paul from going into Asia. you have this, the ascended Christ is not geographically bound and the church is gathered around this person and is no geographically bound to a particular location, but the church is everywhere, all the way to the ends of earth. So it's a perspective shift, and think that's a helpful way to engage. It's a good starting point for engaging with kind of bigger questions of what do do now. Yeah, both mythologically, maybe migration and other things like that. Yeah, even, I think, even with how we receive. migrants, Christian migrants from other places into our churches, what can they, how can their experience teach us about how we read the Bible, how can they contribute to our communities, and it can be a thing, you know, by welcoming people, it can be a real way to revitalize the church as well. It's a good childhood, but it's not always easy, you know, because it changes how things are done. You have to cross cultural boundaries, you have to maybe deal with other languages, different cultures, and that can be challenging, but it's, God doesn't always want us to do easy things. Yeah, exactly. We have come to the part of the podcast where we're talking about application. So how can each of the listeners or viewers of the podcasts apply this conversation to their everyday life and walk with Christ? Well, yeah, I mean... think just to get back, because this is a podcast about Greek and biblical languages, and I think part of it is I'm not particularly gifted again at language acquisition, but I think there's so much to gain, and there's so much, my enjoyment of scripture and what I've learned from scripture has been really enriched by studying the ancient languages. So I think that's definitely, I don't want people to be, I want to encourage people practically that it's worth it. And it's like you said, you don't expect fluency on day one, but there's lots of podcasts like this. There's lots of other tools, things that are freely available. There's books. There's lots of, and it's definitely just worth having to go. And if you're interested, then yeah, don't, it's not for super smart or for an elite crew. It's something that anybody can do. And we... at Park and Nazarene, we were doing a beginner's Greek class without tests or examinations, but we were just, for people who had never learned another language before, we were learning Greek step by step. we just, instead of trying to take the fear out of it and just try to enjoy the language and actually enjoying the kind of different perspective you get by learning another language, a language that has a very different kind of verbal system to our kind of temporal way of looking at things in English and other European languages. it's a real, it just gets you to think in another way and that's really exciting. So I think practically it's worth. It's worth the time and effort. It's not easy, but it can be fun and it can be enjoyable. it's definitely worth going. not for an elite group of people that are particularly smart or gifted at language. It can be for those of us who have dyslexia. There's a lot. And I think. So that would be one practical thing. It's just, yeah, enjoy Greek, get into it and have a go. You know, it's like riding a bike. don't try until you, you don't learn until you try. And just as for migration, I think I would just encourage people to, you know, take a biblical perspective on that. And I don't mean just proof texting, know, when looking at one verse that will solve all our problems, but trying to take, trying to have a biblical perspective on migration, let the Bible actually shape how we look at it rather than just answering the questions, but kind of getting into the narrative. And how does scripture look at migration? How does it look at refugee movements? How does scripture talk about these events? And how does that change how we look at these things? Yeah, it's something that I think has been part of the church's identity since the Book of Acts and even before that as well with the story of God's people up to the time of the church as well. yeah, let that story and that perspective inform your thinking about migration. Then hopefully we can approach the issues with, we can approach migration with. challenges associated with it, with a bit more empathy and a bit more humanity. Because I think that's definitely the perspective the Bible has on it. Yeah, they're like looking to your neighbor. Seeing people as your neighbor, no matter where they come from, before. That's the first thing, especially as a Christian, is that what we called to do. Policy is a different thing, it's more complicated. And it's a completely different discussion. Yeah, it starts with, yeah, well, the call to love God and to love neighbor and Jesus links these two things. also everyone's made in the image of God as well. And I think that's another very biblical perspective that all people are image bearers. That's an important starting point and that's not our ethical base for engaging in these conversations and I think we will struggle later on to make good decisions. Yeah, I'm actually thinking about a different application. So as we were talking and thinking about Acts 1.8, for example, is that the migration is spreading of the gospel. that's when we as Christians, when we move somewhere else, what we bring with us is Christ. Yep. and we can bring it into that community and we can bring salvation to that community. Not because we are anything specific, but because we serve a Lord that can save. Yeah, it's, you know, the gospel goes global in Acts, but it's people who take that message. And I think now I might have to, and I might get this wrong because I don't have it in front of me, but when it talks about the scattered ones and it says some translations say they went from place to place sharing the word. And I think it's a διῆλθον (diethlon). They went around. They moved around. So it's a non-directive movement. It's not. you know, do it. It's not, they went there and spread the word, but it's kind like they moved about and they spread the word as they moved about. So it's not always destination based, but it's just something that they do as they're moving with events that are outside of their control. The gospel is always on their lips and it's something that they're bearing witness to no matter where they're at. And that's really exciting and a good, a huge challenge us as well, because it's not always easy to do that. Yeah, thank you for this. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. Great, thanks for having me Daniel. I it was interesting to you and hopefully you're okay. loved it. I think it would be very interesting for people to listen to. God bless you and your studies. Thank you. Thank you very much and you too. Thank you. And to you guys. We'll see you next time. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one