Good morning! Today, I am excited to begin a new series of
messages on the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts is actually a “part two” of a
longer work, of which the first part is the Book of Luke. Both are written by Luke,
and it is very clear that the books are related by their openings. Here is the
opening of Luke:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of
the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to
us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With
this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the
beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent
Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been
taught. – Luke 1:1-4
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about
all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to
heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He
had chosen. – Acts 1:1-2
Due to practical limitations on the length of a scroll, it
makes sense that Luke split his account into two separate documents. We also
see that Luke is aware of other accounts of Jesus – so his account is
definitely not the first that was written. Interestingly, this tells us that if
we can date Luke’s account, then we can know that other gospels accounts were
written even earlier.
Now who was Theophilus? We don’t really know. There are
multiple theories, but none of them of have convincing evidence. The Ethiopian
church (that is, the Coptic church) has a long-held tradition that Theophilus
was a Jewish person who at one time lived in Alexandria, Egypt. Some point out that the “most excellent”
prefix to Theophilus in Luke implies that Theophilus was a Roman official. But
Luke does not use that prefix again in Acts. Others believe that Theophilus was
not a specific person at all, but a rhetorical tool that Luke used to invite
people to read the letter. They say this because the name Theophilus means
“friend of God,” or “loved by God” – Theo means God and phileo is one of
the forms of love, the “friendly” form of love – so anyone who chooses to read
Luke’s account is in fact a Theophilus, both a friend of God and loved by God.
In addition to the question of who Theophilus was is the –
I think – more important question of who Luke was. Probably the earliest
mention of Luke by someone else is Paul in the book of Philemon, the short letter
Paul wrote that concerned the fate of Onesimus, a slave who had fled from his
master in Colossae, the location of the Colossian church. At the time this
letter was written, Paul was imprisoned in Rome, and in a great God-directed
twist of irony, the master that Onesimus fled from was Philemon. The book makes
it pretty clear that Onesimus became a believer as a result of interacting with
Paul, who writes,
Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold
and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I prefer to appeal to you on the
basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner
of Christ Jesus—that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son
while I was in chains. – Philemon 1:8-10
The phrase “became my son” clearly implies a conversion
experience while with Paul. But back to Luke – Philemon ends with the
following:
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus,
sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow
workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. – Philemon
1:23-25
This verse is interesting because it mentions both Luke and
Mark. So we see that Luke has direct access to both Paul, so that he can obtain
firsthand accounts of what Paul experienced, and also Mark, who is also known
as John Mark.
Mark is mentioned in Acts 12:12 as the son of a woman named
Mary, whose house was used as a place for early believers to gather and pray,
very likely in Jerusalem. Mark is also described as the cousin of Barnabas in
Colossians 4:10.
Now, the book of Colossians is an important connection. I
think it quite likely that the books of Philemon and Colossians were written at
the same time and delivered together, along with Philemon’s slave Onesimus. Colossians
is addressed to the entire church in Colossae, whereas Philemon is addressed
specifically to Philemon. And so it makes sense that near the end of Colossians
we have the following:
Tychicus will tell you all the news about me.
He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am
sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our
circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with
Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you
everything that is happening here. – Colossians 4:7-9
Colossians goes on:
My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his
greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received
instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.) Jesus, who is called
Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for
the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one
of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling
in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and
fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at
Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send
greetings. – Colossians 4:10-14
And so – maybe you thought this was a “rabbit trail” – but
see? It all comes back to Luke. Paul’s wording here tells us some important
things about Luke. He is “our” dear friend, which means he was well known and
loved among the Colossians, and we also learn his occupation: Luke was Dr. Luke,
a medical doctor. What did medical doctors do at the time of Paul, the time of
the Romans? They, like the Greek doctors before them, relied heavily on herbal
remedies, with some animal remedies. They did not yet understand the association
of germs with disease. But at least some of the herbal remedies were reasonably
effective at treating certain conditions. It is easy for us to forget that many
remedies we use today may be made in the lab but were originally derived from
plants.
Roman-era doctors did surgery when there were no other
options. They carried tool kits that included arrow extractors, scalpels, catheters,
and forceps. They used boiling water to sterilize their tools before using
them. They could certainly do things like re-setting and splinting broken bones
or immobilizing sprains. Although they had some herbal and other antibiotic
treatments, because they didn’t really understand the germ nature of infection,
and because stronger antibiotics were unknown, bacterial infections were often
fatal.
Doctors were usually Greek in background, and ironically,
looked down on somewhat by typical Romans, simply because they didn’t like the
Greeks. But they definitely depended on Greeks for engineering, medical
practices, and other technical needs. Yet doctors and other technical
professionals were extremely highly educated, and based on the literary quality
of Luke’s writing, we know that Luke was highly educated as well.
Like today, if not even more so, before doctors took any
action, they would do a detailed examination of the patient, asking questions
of symptoms and palpitating and looking at affected and non-affected areas of
the body. Attention to detail was critical. And because Luke was trained in
this way, he was indeed an ideal person to “carefully investigate everything
from the beginning” and write “an orderly account” of both the events of Jesus (the
Book of Luke) and the development of the early church (the Book of Acts).
Here is what the famous secular archaeologist Sir William M.
Ramsay had to say about the Book of Acts after a lifetime of exploring
locations described carefully by Luke:
The present writer takes the
view that Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness...You
may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian's, and they
will stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that
the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and
of justice...Acts may be quoted as a trustworthy historical authority....Luke
is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact
trustworthy; he is possessed of the true historic sense; he fixes his mind on
the idea and plan that rules in the evolution of history; and proportions the
scale of his treatment to the importance of each incident. He seizes the
important and critical events and shows their true nature at great length,
while he touches lightly or omits entirely much that was valueless for his
purposes. In short, this author should be placed along with the very greatest
of historians.
In addition to the evidence in Philemon and Colossians of
Luke’s association with Paul, we also have Luke’s use of the first person “we”
in later parts of the Book of Acts.
During the night Paul had a vision of a man of
Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After
Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia,
concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. – Acts 16:9-10
Luke was there in Acts 16 in Philippi when Lydia, “a dealer
in purple cloth” became a believer, and he was also there when a demon was cast
out of a slave who relied on the spirit to tell the future. The whole city went
up in arms, and Paul and Silas (but not Luke) was arrested, beaten, and put
into prison. An earthquake broke the jail open, and the jailor and his family
came to faith.
It appears that Luke did not join Paul beyond Philippi in
this journey, but when the third missionary journey came to Philippi and went
from there, Luke was with them once again.
When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the
disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia.
He traveled through that area, speaking many words of encouragement to the
people, and finally arrived in Greece, where he stayed three months. Because
some Jews had plotted against him just as he was about to sail for Syria, he
decided to go back through Macedonia. He was accompanied by Sopater son of
Pyrrhus from Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius from
Derbe, Timothy also, and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.
These men went on ahead and waited for us at Troas. But we sailed from Philippi
after the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others
at Troas, where we stayed seven days. – Acts 20:1-6
And so Dr. Luke was there when Eutychus, falling asleep
during a long sermon of Paul, fell from the window and died, but Luke’s
services were not needed because Paul, through the power of God, basically
hugged him back to life and to health. He was there when Paul met briefly with
the elders of Ephesus on the way to Jerusalem. Luke was with Paul as he made it
to Jerusalem, and after Paul’s arrest, he was with him as he made his way as a
prisoner to Rome.
And Paul, writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy, says this near
the end of the letter:
Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas,
because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.
Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get
Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent
Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at
Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments. – 2 Timothy 4:9-13
And so we see that Luke was with Paul extensively, and was
therefore the perfect person to write the Book of Acts.
When was Acts written? I agree with many conservative
scholars that it was likely written in the 60s AD, before the fall of Jerusalem
in 70 AD, because neither Luke nor Acts records this extremely momentous event.
Also, Acts does not record the death of James (likely 62 AD) or of Paul (likely
the late 60s AD). The book also devotes much ground to the question of whether
there can be Gentile believers in Christ, and what practices they must follow,
a topic that was seen as settled and not really important anymore by the time
that the number of Gentile believers explodes, which occurred by the 80s AD. This
is important from a reliability point of view, because it means that there was
absolutely no time for historical “revision”, mythmaking, and so on. We have
every reason to trust Acts, even apart from reasons of faith, as accurate.
And so what is Acts about? We have already hinted a lot at
this, and I know that most, if not all of you, are quite familiar with Acts. But
the overall structure is interesting, and it is easy to miss the forest for the
trees as we go deeply into the book line by line in later weeks. So let us look
at the overall structure. Looking again at the opening of Acts:
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about
all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day He was taken up to
heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He
had chosen. – Acts 1:1-2
Notice the word “began”. The book of Luke is about what
Jesus “began to do” so the book of Acts is about what Jesus continued to
do, after His death and resurrection. People often call the book the Book of
the Acts of the Apostles, but an equally valid name would be the Book of the
Continued Acts of the Triune God. I have frequently joked that my one line
summary of the Book of Acts is “Pray and show up” because God orchestrates the
rest. I think it is a pretty good rule for life: Pray and show up.
After an introduction in Acts 1, which summarizes the risen
Jesus telling the disciples that the Holy Spirit will come and empower them to
be His witnesses. Jesus then rises up in a cloud, with the angelic messenger
telling the disciples to move on, but also that Jesus will one day return the
same way.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His disciples that:
“You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in
all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:8b
And this verse is pretty good summary of the Book of Acts. Chapters
2-7 take place in Jerusalem, Chapters 8-12 take place in Judea and Samaria, and
the remaining chapters begin the process of going to the ends of the earth, a
process that is continuing to this day.
There is an interesting comparison/contrast study you can
make between Luke and Acts. The following observations are due to Prof. John
Stevenson. In terms of commonalities: Both begin, following their openings to
Theophilus, with angelic announcements. Both begin in Jerusalem. Luke then
deals with the birth of Jesus as the Spirit comes on Mary. Acts then deals with
the birth of the church as the Holy Spirit comes on Christian believers.
In terms of contrasts: Luke emphasizes a movement toward
Jerusalem, whereas Acts emphasizes a movement away from Jerusalem – note that
Luke ends with the disciples in Jerusalem; Acts ends with Paul far away, in
Rome. Both emphasize Christ with His people, but in Luke the presence is
physical, whereas in Acts it is spiritual; in Luke it is external, but in Acts,
it is internal.
In the process of this development, we see the disciples,
empowered by the Holy Spirit, performing miracles like the miracles Jesus
performed. We see believers not only among the Jews, but now also among the
nations. We see the fulfillment of countless prophecies in the Old Testament
that show God redeeming not only members of the people of Israel, but people
from every nation and every tongue and every tribe and every nation. A few
examples:
“..and through your [Abraham’s] offspring all
nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed Me.” – Genesis 22:18
“Your [Jacob’s] descendants will be like the
dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the
north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and
your offspring.” – Genesis 28:14
“All the ends of the earth will remember and
turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him,..”
– Psalm 22:27
“May His name endure forever; may it continue
as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through Him, and they will call
Him blessed.” – Psalm 72:17
“Turn to Me and be saved, all you ends of the
earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” – Isaiah 45:22
“[The Lord] says: ‘It is too small a thing for You
to be My servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel
I have kept. I will also make You a light for the Gentiles, that You may bring My
salvation to the ends of the earth.'” – Isaiah 49:6
“The Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the
sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation
of our God.” – Is. 52:10
“He was given authority, glory and sovereign
power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is
one that will never be destroyed.” – Daniel 7:14
“The Lord will be awesome to them when He
destroys all the gods of the land. The nations on every shore will worship Him,
every one in its own land.” – Zephaniah 2:11
And so the Book of Acts shows us how the salvation of God
spread from believing Jews to believing non-Jews. It’s a beautiful account –
with actions led by God, and frankly the response of the Jewish believers, including
Peter, was something like, “Oh. Well, that’s definitely happening. It would be
unthinkable for us to stand in the way of that, not that we could.”
But one more thing we see in Acts is persecution. The
persecution of God’s people is also something we see repeatedly prophesied, especially
and specifically by Jesus. A few examples:
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it
hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As
it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.
If they obeyed My teaching, they [would] obey yours also. They will treat you
this way because of My name, for they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had
not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have
no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates My Father as well. If I had not
done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As
it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both Me and My Father. But this
is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated Me without reason.’” –
John 15:18-25
“They will put you out of the synagogue; in
fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering
a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the
Father or Me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will
remember that I warned you about them.” – John 16:2-4a
“I have told you these things, so that in Me
you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have
overcome the world.” – John 16:33
Acts shows us this persecution, but we see how God uses the
persecution to scatter God’s followers and even more rapidly multiply the
gospel. God also uses persecution to refine the faith of those who profess to
follow Him.
Regarding persecution, I want to read a pair of ancient
letters from the “other side.” The first letter is by Pliny the Younger, written
about 110 AD, about 40 years after Acts was written, basically one generation
after the final events in Acts. At this point, it is no longer the Jews who are
the source of persecution – it is the Romans, who are acting in more and more
aggressive ways because the Christians have multiplied so greatly that it is
beginning to affect the very culture – people are leaving the old gods, no
longer attending the temples, and no longer considering the emperor to be God. This
fear of a people who are multiplying like crazy should remind you of something
from the Old Testament – it should remind you of Egypt in the time between
Joseph and Moses.
A relatively inexperienced Pliny the Younger was made
governor of Bithynia, a small, mostly backwater region in what is now Turkey. (It
does contain one important city, though.) As questions arose about governing,
he would write to Emperor Trajan. The letter is important because it clearly
establishes the growing Christian church in a source outside the Book of Acts.
Bithynia is mentioned twice in Scripture: once in Acts
16:7, as a place Paul desired to visit on one of his missionary journeys, but a
place that it says the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go to. And once in
the opening of I Peter, as one of the locations of believers that this letter
was addressed to. So we know that there were believers multiplying in this
location even in New Testament times.
I will say that reading these letters reminds me of reading
the Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. In many ways, it is like a real-life
Screwtape, who if you have not read the book, is written from the perspective
of a young demon seeking advice from an older demon on how to best keep those
under his charge away from Christianity, or failing this, making them
unproductive. If you have never read it, you should definitely do so, as its
“backwards” presentation is used to powerfully remind us to do the opposite of
what the demons in the story try to get the people to do. In any case, here is
Pliny’s letter:
It is my practice, my lord, to
refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better
give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never
participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it
is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been
not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account
of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether
pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian,
it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even
without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be
punished.
Meanwhile, in the case of
those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following
procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who
confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with
punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that,
whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy
surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly;
but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be
transferred to Rome.
(Note here the consistency of what we find in the Book of
Acts in how Paul, a Roman citizen, is transferred to Rome after he is
arrested.)
Soon accusations spread, as
usually happens, because of the proceedings going on, and several incidents
occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many
persons. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they
invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine
to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with
statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ—none of which those who are
really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do—these I thought should be
discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians,
but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some
three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They
all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.
(To be clear here – what the arrested had to do was simply
light a candle, splatter some wax and some wine in the direction of a statue of
the emperor and of one of their gods, and curse Christ out loud. To do this
would only take a few seconds. Do this, and you would be released. Fail to do
so, and you faced death, and probably an extremely painful and public death.)
They asserted, however, that
the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were
accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to
Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to
commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to
return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their
custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and
innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict
by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political
associations.
(These are the ones who would not deny their faith. They
asked Pliny if what they were doing, simply gathering together, singing a hymn
to Christ, and prior to the ban, remembering the Lord with the bread and the
cup – whether that was really so terrible. They pointed out that they committed
no crime but indeed committed to be absolutely upright.)
Accordingly, I judged it all
the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female
slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved,
excessive superstition.
(Notice here the external validation of the fact that the
early believers elevated both slaves and women to positions of responsibility,
a radically progressive step for that time.)
I therefore postponed the
investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to
warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many
persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered.
For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but
also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it. It
is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have
begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected,
are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for
which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine
what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is
afforded. (Epistulae X.96)
It is a fascinating and also a terrible account. The gospel
has spread so far and wide that Pliny is maybe wondering if the entire region
has “fallen for this superstition.” Let’s look at the second letter, Trajan’s
response. If you recall, we spoke multiple times in recent weeks about Trajan
and his propensity for putting up idols at the locations of destroyed Jewish
and Christian worship sites. Ironically, his doing so helped preserve these
locations for posterity. Here is what Trajan wrote:
You observed proper procedure,
my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as
Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a
kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced
and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever
denies that he is a Christian and really proves it—that is, by worshiping our
gods—even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon
through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place
in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of
keeping with the spirit of our age. (Epistulae X.97)
As time went on, to the time of Diocletian, the persecution
became even worse. But despite all this, Christians continued to multiply. It
is humbling to understand what those before us had to go through so that we
could have faith today. And throughout the world, there are still those who
face severe persecution, and the Bible tells us that a time is coming when it
will become worse again.
Did Bithynia survive this persecution? Well, Bithynia
contains Nicaea, the birthplace of the Nicaean Creed, composed in 325 AD. My
prayer for us, as we go through the Book of Acts this year, is that doing so
would deepen our faith and commitment to God, and that it would deepen our
commitment to seeking out people who would be receptive to the gospel and
helping to continue to grow the kingdom of God.
