An Informed Faith

There is a story in the lectionary, this coming Sunday, which is set in Joppa, the Greek name for the town named Jaffa in Arabic. We know this place, today, as the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv, a large and growing port city in modern Israel, a city with a vibrant multi-cultural and multi-religious life. Tel Aviv-Jaffa is also the place where most nations base their embassies to the country of Israel.

This story in Acts, set in the port town of Joppa, sits within the season of Easter and recounts a resurrection, told along the lines of the way that the resurrection of Jesus is told. Tabitha, the woman in the story, becomes ill and dies. There is no doubt about this; she is dead.

As the story proceeds, the apostle Peter commands Tabitha to rise; and then, “she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.” (Acts 9:40-41) There is also no doubt, that the one who was dead, is now alive.

As a result, Luke informs us, “this became known throughout Joppa, and

many believed in the Lord” (Acts 9:43). What happened was striking, noteworthy, remarkable—miraculous!

The flow of the narrative is the same as what we read in the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, moving from death, to life. We have this story in our readings during the season of Easter, to help us maintain our focus on the resurrection, and to invite us to consider how the story of new life shapes our life of discipleship.

As Jesus died and was raised, as Tabitha died and was raised, so we are called to move from death to life within our own discipleship. The paradigm which is provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus provides a model for the way that we are to be, as disciples of Jesus in our own time. And this might very well be how “many believe in the Lord” in our own time.

In addition to this dynamic, there are other features of the story which are worth noting. Tabitha, or Dorcas, is noted as a woman “full of good works and acts of charity” (9:36). The array clothing that she produced is noted (9:39).

Alongside Tabitha, significant women in Acts are presented as positive models of faithfulness and who were leaders in the early Jesus movement. These include Lydia in Philippi, who provides hospitality to Paul and his companions (16:15); Priscilla, who with her husband, Aquila, teaches Apollos in Ephesus (18:26); and the four female prophets in Caesarea (21:9). Each of these women demonstrate faithful discipleship and exercise a leadership role in the early church.

Tabitha, or Dorcas, was a well-to-do woman, with her own business. She is one of a number of people who are located towards the apex of the social pyramid, who appear as believers in Acts. Converts to the movement included “devout women of high standing” in Antioch (Acts 13:50), “not a few leading women” in Thessalonica (17:4), “not a few Greek women of high standing” in Beroea (17:12) and Damaris in Athens (17:34). Luke attests to the equality and mutuality of gender roles in leadership within the early Jesus movement.

Communities of believers met in the houses of people of means, both unnamed individuals (2:46; 5:42; 8:3; 20:20; 21:4,7) and some identified individuals: Simon the tanner in Joppa (10:5–6, 32), Cornelius in Caesarea (10:24, 48; 11:12), Mary in Jerusalem (12:12), Lydia in Philippi (16:14–15), the gaoler in Philippi (16:29–34), Titius Justus in Corinth (18:7), Philip in Caesarea (21:8, 10), and Mnason in a village near Jerusalem (21:16). Tyrannus provides Paul with the use of his lecture room in Ephesus (19:9).

These high-status believers demonstrated the centrality of economic justice in the message preached by Jesus, and lived by the early faith communities. Jesus taught his followers to sell all their possessions (Luke 12:33, repeated at 18:22). The Jerusalem community put this command of Jesus into practice (Acts 4:32–35). Members of the community “had everything in common” (4:32)—they sold their lands and houses and pooled the money thus gained (2:44–45; 4:34).

Joseph Barnabas provides a positive example of this practice (4:36–37); Ananias and Sapphira provide the negative example, warning of what happens when this practice was ignored (5:1–11). The means of the wealthy are to be put at the disposal of the poor. Economic justice is to be enacted through such table fellowship.

As Luke narrates his Gospel, it is at the table that he earths the reality of inclusive Christian community; this provides the groundwork for establishing inclusive communities of faithful people across the Mediterranean basin … and beyond, as the good news spreads.

The Lukan story indicates that people of all levels in the social hierarchy, from rich to poor, were welcome at the tables of generous Christian hosts. And that picture of economic responsibility and of inclusive hospitality is a fine model for us to remember, and emulate, in our time!

See also https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/the-cross-cultural-nature-of-the-early-jesus-movement/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/the-calling-of-saul-and-the-turn-to-the-gentiles-modelling-the-missional-imperative-acts-8-12/

Today I am reflecting on the story of “the conversion of Paul” (as it is often called) in Acts 9. This story appears in the lectionary readings for this coming Sunday. I see it as providing a model for the missional calling of the church in our times.

I prefer to call this story “the calling of Saul”, since Saul is how he is named in the narrative, and the text actually recounts a calling to a particular role, rather than a conversion from one faith to another. (The way the story is told follows the conventions of call narratives as we find them in Hebrew Scriptures and Hellenistic Jewish texts.)

I think it is worth viewing this story within the broader narrative framework of Acts, the second volume which follows on from Luke’s “orderly account” of the story of Jesus. This first volume ends with a brief narrating of the ascension of Jesus into heaven (Luke 24:50–53). This pivotal event is repeated at the start of the second volume (Acts 1:6–11).

A crucial role is played by Luke’s version of the commission which the risen Jesus gives as a parting word to his disciples: repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, “beginning from Jerusalem” (24:47).

Another version of this commission introduces the second volume (Acts 1:8): “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This verse sets out the programme for the rest of this volume, as the good news is carried out from Jerusalem into all manner of other places.

Immediately, Luke turns his attention to the community of Jesus’ followers who remain in Jerusalem (1:12–26). Here, in Jerusalem, the spirit is manifested both to these followers and to a crowd of pilgrims who witness what takes place (2:1– 13). Peter seizes the opportunity to proclaim the good news of Jesus, with greatly encouraging results (2:14–42).

The early faith community in Jerusalem maintained its strong link with Judaism, participating in the Temple rituals on a regular basis (2:46; 3:1; 5:12). Interestingly, Luke reports that a number of priests became believers (6:7). Subsequent chapters (3:1–8:3) report key developments in this community of Jesus’ followers. Peter and John are twice arrested by the Jerusalem authorities and twice released from imprisonment (4:1–22; 5:17–42), whilst Stephen, after his public denunciation of the Temple, is stoned to death (6:8–8:1).

Stephen’s martyrdom is the next pivotal moment in Luke’s narrative; it provokes persecution and a scattering of community members away from Jerusalem (8:1). The followers of Jesus now form a dispersed movement, known simply as “The Way” (9:2; see also 18:25); they preach and heal in a variety of places.

One figure, Philip, travels to Samaria, where he replicates the preaching, miraculous activity, and successes of the leaders of the Jerusalem community (8:4–40).

In subsequent chapters, Luke recounts further strategic events relating to the leadership of the movement. The first strategic moment is when one of the persecutors of the movement, Saul of Tarsus, is commissioned as a messenger for the movement, which he joins in Damascus before moving to the community remaining in Jerusalem (9:1–31).

We read some of this story in the Acts reading set in the lectionary for this coming Sunday. Interestingly, this story was so important for the author of Acts, that it is retold (with some interesting expansions and variations) twice more–in Acts 22, when Paul is attested in Jerusalem; and in Acts 26, when he stands before the Roman authorities in Caesarea.

The calling that Saul receives is signalled at 9:6 (“get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do”), and then specified in the words of the Lord given to Ananias: “he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (9:15-16). This calling signals the turn to the Gentiles in a clear way. The book of Acts narrates a selection of key moments as the mission to the Gentiles grows and beats fruit.

A second strategic moment in the narrative occurs when the leader of the Jerusalem community, Simon Peter, experiences a dramatic vision which overturns his understanding of how holiness is to be lived out in daily life, at table. He meets with a Roman godfearer, Cornelius, and together they institute a ground–breaking table fellowship of Jew and Gentile, and the spirit inducts Gentiles into the hitherto Jewish community of Jesus’ followers (9:32–11:19).

Luke thus offers this important pairing of leaders within the early movement: both Saul (later Paul) and Peter are in the vanguard of taking the good news to the Gentiles. So, all is prepared for the crucial “turn to the Gentiles” which will take place under the leadership of Saul, with the agreement of Peter. The section ends with an account of community life in Antioch (11:19–30), where members of “The Way” are first named “Christians” (11:26), and then in Jerusalem (12:1–25).

From this point in the narrative, attention is focused almost exclusively on Paul (the new name adopted by Saul of Tarsus). With Barnabas, Saul is commissioned in Antioch as a representative of the movement; the pair travel north and west to proclaim the good news to the nations. They start to enact the “turn to the Gentiles” already foreshadowed, beginning in Pisidian Antioch, where Paul preaches, with mixed success (13:14–52). This will be Paul’s experience in every place he visits.

This week’s Acts reading underlines the missional imperative that was at the heart of this movement. Each in their own way, Saul and Peter, provide us with a clear model of what following Jesus means. We are charged with this missional task in our own time.

See also https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/the-cross-cultural-nature-of-the-early-jesus-movement/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/costly-discipleship-according-to-luke/

Now we are in the season of Easter, we have weekly sections of the book of Acts in our readings. The passage in this Sunday’s lectionary contains a portion of the scene when Peter and John were brought to trial before the Jewish Council in Jerusalem (Acts 5:27-32). In that trial, Peter and John offer their defence of the Gospel they are preaching.

Peter sets out the good news at the heart of the movement: “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour, that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 5:30-31) He asserts that, despite the warnings given by the Jewish authorities, they will not cease from proclaiming this message. They are driven by a compelling necessity, Peter argues, stating that “we must obey God rather than humans”, 5:29).

That’s an interesting comment. It inspires me to reflect on the nature of the movement in which Peter and John were exercising a leadership role. “We must obey God rather than humans” was actually well known, already, in the Hellenistic society of the time. This was a popular proverb which can be found in various Greek writings over the centuries.

How intriguing that this allegedly “uneducated and ordinary” Jewish man (Acts 4:13) was able to quote a common Greek proverb! (Of course, we have only the report that Luke provides of this speech—and Luke himself is certainly no “uneducated and ordinary man”, so the role of the reporter-author is certainly one that has influenced this report.)

Other well–known ancient Greek proverbs appear at a number of points in Acts. One proverb is utilized by the narrator himself, when he describes the community of believers in Jerusalem as being “of one heart and soul” (4:32). This saying can be found as a proverb in works from the time of Plato onwards.

The educated orator, Paul, also quotes a well-known Greek proverb when he is on trial before the aromas authorities. Referring to the deeds of Jesus and his followers, he asserts that “this was not done in a corner” (26:26). This was a known saying that related to the way that a philosopher operated in the public arena; it is used in Acts as an explanatory defence for his own way of operating.

Indeed, Paul even claims that the deity himself, at the Damascus Road epiphany, spoke yet another Greek proverb (“it hurts to kick against the goads”, 26:14). This proverb can be found in the Bacchae, a play by Euripides, which had first been produced over 4 centuries before the time of Paul.

The clearest example of how the early followers of Jesus engaged with the Hellenistic culture is in Acts 17, where Luke reports how Paul interacted with philosophers as he preached the Gospel. In his speech, when Paul declares of God, “in him we live and move and exist” he is quoting from Cretica by Epimenides (whom he refers to simply as “one of your own poets”).

That is followed immediately by a line found in the Phaenomena by Aratus (“we are also his offspring”). Paul also alludes to Stoic views about the world and its relationship to the divinity. The whole scene depicts the interplay between followers of Jesus and Hellenistic philosophy.

These Greek sayings and proverbs found in the midst of this story of the early movement initiated by Jesus, reflect the way that this movement spread across cultures: it began as a Jewish story but came to be increasingly significant in the hellenised society of the Roman Empire.

(There’s a body of technical work behind this post … some of it in the research I undertook in my PhD studies, where I explored the resonances with Hellenistic history and philosophy in the two-volume work by Luke, which was published in “The plan of God in Luke-Acts”, Cambridge University Press, 1993.)

It is my view that two volumes of Luke–Acts can be considered as an account of the cross–cultural transitions that are inherent in moving from the earlier, predominantly Jewish context, into the wider hellenised world of the Roman Empire. Luke splices in many indications of this Hellenistic world, embedded into his story of the Jewish man Jesus and his Jewish followers.

Indeed, the distinctive structure of Luke’s narrative—beginning in Jerusalem, ending in Rome—points firmly to the nature of the enterprise undertaken by the earliest members of “The Way”.

As they bear witness to what God has done in Jesus—in the northern Jewish region of Galilee, and then in the southern capital, Jerusalem—the followers of Jesus engage people from many towns and cities scattered around the eastern Mediterranean region. These towns and cities were strongly hellenised—that is, they were dominated by the Greek language, culture, and political organization imposed centuries earlier in the military occupation of the Greek–speaking troops of Alexander the Great.

Luke’s account of the teachings of Jesus and the later travels of the Jewish leaders of “The Way” indicates the extent of the cultural transition that this entailed.

In Luke’s Gospel, the ethical teachings of Jesus are shaped in such a way that they resonate with the primary ethos of this dominant culture. Jesus was renowned for reclining at table (5:30; 15:2) where, in the style of a Greek philosophical teacher, he discusses ethical issues with his pupils at length over a meal (Luke 5:29–39; 7:36–50; 11:37–52; 14:1–24; 22:14–38; cf. 24:30, 41–43).

In Luke’s eyes, Paul exemplifies this cross–cultural transition most vigorously. Early in his travels, he betters the priests of Zeus (14:8–18). Later, he wins an intense debate with philosophical teachers at the pinnacle of learning, in Athens (17:16–34). Paul is able to engage with religious leaders (and best them) across the Empire.

In the final chapters of Acts, the prisoner Paul engages in ethical and philosophical debates with his Gentile captors. First in Caesarea, and then as he travels west towards Rome, Paul is brought before the authorities of the Roman world. He speaks with the typical rhetorical flourishes with which they would have been familiar (24:10–16; 24:24–25; 25:8–11; 26:2–8, 24–29; 27:21–26, 33– 38). Luke shows that Paul is familiar with this world; he is ‘at ease’ as he speaks in Greek to Roman officials, even though he is a prisoner of the Roman Empire.

The Lukan Paul demonstrates that, despite his chains, “The Way” is able to hold its head high in the face of sophisticated Greco–Roman ideologies. The Jewish sect from far–away Galilee is ready to take its place in the marketplace of ideas in Athens and at the heart of empire in Rome. The story which began in Jerusalem has ended in Rome.

All of this provides a solid foundation, within the biblical witness, for the way in which believers today ought to go about commending and advocating for their faith. Missional engagement require contextual immersion. Preaching the good news and living the Christian faith involves cross-cultural interaction and reshaping the message so that it is immediately relevant to, and comprehensible within, the culture of the day.

Our biblical texts offer us encouragement to engage across cultures, in our own time, in the places where we encounter people.

See also

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/an-orderly-account-a-quick-guide-to-luke-and-acts/

https://johntsquires.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/costly-discipleship-according-to-luke/