Wed 27 Feb 2008 09:47:29 AM EST
Notes for the Book of Acts
We may best consider this book as a sequel to
the gospel of Acts. Both books begin with a
greeting to
Theophilus
, and they appear to be
letters written to an "attender" of a Christian
community to whom Luke writes.
Of all four evangelists
Luke is
the one who constantly refers to the Spirit. A Greek as
well as
a Jew, he used language and thought forms more in tune
with the general
intellectual and spiritual currents of the Roman world than did
the
(perhaps more provincial) other writers.
1:5:
Recall that Jesus was baptized by John and note what
Jesus said about
John.
Note also what
John said
about the baptism of Jesus.
Acts 1:8:
This phrase expresses Luke's understanding that the gospel
of Jesus was universal, not simply aimed at the Jews. In fact
the controversy over this point is one of the primary themes
of the book. Most of the original Christians were Jews,
and many if not most of them chose not to accept community with
non-Jews.
1:12:
Luke reports the ascension of Jesus as near Jeruslam,
whereas
other writers had it happen in Galilee.
Acts 1:14:
A famous phrase! Recall the prayer of Jesus in
John 17
. We will read
the phrase again here, later in
Acts.
1:14a:
In Luke's accounts women have a more proment place than in the
others.
He
mentioned them
often in his gospel.
Acts 2:1-2:
Two figures here, the wind and the fire, both appear frequently
in the
O.T. as metaphors for the Holy Spirit. Note the
wind that delivered the
Hebrews from Egypt; and the
wind that took the sons
of Job.
The psalmist shows God flying upon the
wings of the
wind.
Note the
burning bush (Moses
calls
the Spirit the angel of the Lord; the
fiery altar where
Elijah
confounded the 4500 propets of Baal; and many others you can find
with the universal search.
And finally note this compelling image of the wind and the
fire in
preparation for the
"still small
voice", a great moment in the Old Testament, when God
speaks to one of his chosen servants. Elijah stands
next to Moses as together they meet and counsel Jesus on the
Mount of
Transfiguration.
2:3 In the ordinary religious consciousness fire evokes the
image of hell, but in the Bible it was much more commonly
used as an image of the presence of God, as happens here.
Acts 2:4 Holy Ghost is a special term for what the Bible more
commonly
calls the Spirit. I found it 90 times in the N.T. and
not at
all in the O.T.:
Matthew used it to describe the condition in which Joseph
found
his wife prior to their marriage:
Matt 1:18.
Matthew quotes John the Baptist at the baptism of Jesus:
Matt 3:11 .
Jesus used it in a (difficult) verse about sin:
Matt 12:31
and once again in his final instructions to the disciples
Matt 28:19.
In Mark Jesus tells us that David was speaking "by the Holy
Ghost" in regard to Christ:
Mark 12:36.
In Luke the angel tells Zacharias that his son shall be
filled with the Holy Ghost
(Luke 1:15
(but recall that Jesus later said that John the Baptist was
less than the least
in the Kingdom of God.
Luke refers to the Holy Ghost many times in his gospel.
John did also, and in
John 7:39 it
appears
that the early church thought of the Holy Ghost as a
sort of second
blessing which those who "believe" might receive some
time later.
In
John 14:26 it has
become synonymous with the Comforter.
In Acts 4:8
Luke shows an awareness that the spirit "comes upon" a
person periodically. This accords with the contemporary
understanding
that a person's level of spiritual power varies from time to
time.
One may be "full of the spirit" at one moment and noticeably
lacking
the next.
(For another example of a formal presentation look at the
note for Mark 1:11.)
Acts 2:5:
In those days Jews lived all over the world, much as they do
today.
And many of them (the devout) came to Jerusalem, much as Moslems
today go to Mecca.
Acts 2:3-8:
Pentecostals put great emphasis on the gift of tongues and
go
through a ritual which emulates this "baptism of the Holy
Spirit",
after which the believer generally "speaks in tongues".
Luke may have had in mind the story of the
Tower of Babel, when,
after some excessive misconduct, God "confound[ed] their
language that they may not understand one another's speech".
The Tower of Babel may be seen as a figure representing
mankind's
fall into alientation from God and from one another; the events
of
Pentecost thus represent mankind's return to a spiritual state
making possible the brotherhood of man.
2:13:
I wonder if Luke was using a play on words here; the term new
wine
came to have very significant metaphorical meaning to Christians.
John in his second
chapter used it to
describe the first miracle, and it appears that both evangelists
may
have been using humor in the two incidents they describe re new
wine,
one at the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the other at the
beginning
of his post-Resurrection ministry.
2:30:
Note that Luke and Matthew both trace Jesus' ancestry back to
David.
2:38:
Here is the classical formula that has been used throughout
history
to describe the orthodox salvation experience. This is
poetry,
the highest form of truth. Too often used in a mechanical and
purely
materialistic sense, it may innoculate people against a spiritual
experience, but in all generations unlettered people have gained
solace and been inspired to heroic actions by attempting to live
in
accordance with these words, however they may understand them..
2:39:
Another expression of Luke's universalism!
2:44:
Another expression of the primitive
communism of the early church! The apostle Paul
excoriated the church at Corinth when he discoverd an egregious
violation of all things common.
2:46 The Jerusalem Bible: "...they shared their food gladly
and generously."
3:21 The New English Bible says, until the time of universal
restoration comes. This is a prime text for
universalists.
(See
Jon Zook's Website.
4:2:
The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection.
4:12:
Verses like this one bother many liberal Christians. I take it
as
poetic rather than legal.
4:31:
This sounds much like
Pentecost
. Putting this here Luke indicates that similar
manifestations can be expected in the relationship between
the beloved community and the Spirit. This sounds bizarre,
but how can one indicate this rationally (the Spirit is not
rational).
4:32ff:
Here is another vivid description of primitive
communism.
5:19:
Here's the first of three strange stories about
prisons. See also
12:4
and 16:23
6:3:
Here is the source of the term steward, which
became a special ecclesiastical title for servant leaders,
especially in the Methodist Church. They were designated
for the "less spiritual" work. We will hear later of
Stephen and Philip, but none of the others are seen again
in the New Testament.
6:7:
This is the first we have heard of defections to
Christianity by leaders of the religious establishment.
7:2:
Here begins Stephen's sermon, which had significant results
(
the conversion of Paul) and led to Stephen himself
immediately becoming the first martyr. The sermon is a
type that Jesus' followers used in addressing a Jewish
audience. It includes a long exposition evoking the sacred
history of the Hebrew nation.
Following Genesis exactly Stephen describes Abraham's
migration as two fold: from
Mesopotamia
to Sharran and thence to
Canaan.
He concluded with a short and
pointed provocation. For the most notable of these types,
(Stephen may likely have patterned his approach after
that of Jesus)
look at
the first sermon
of Jesus in Nazaareth.
7:2b:
Stephen begins with the earliest history of the Hebrew nation.
7:3:
The beginning of Abraham's calling and of the
calling of God's Chosen People.
7:51:
The next three verses are a complete change of tone
from the proceeding. Up to here everyone no doubt affirmed
and approved of what Stephen had said, but here they understand
his intention and turn to bitter hostility. He has accused them
of terrible things, which they are not (at least not yet) ready
to face.
8:1:
This verse points to the next chapter with the famous
story of Paul on the Damascus road. Note here that
Saul concurred with the stoning of Stephen. It seems
likely that the event had a traumatic effect on the man,
who became Paul, the preeminent of all the early Christian
missionaries, at least as well as our scriptures suggest.
The import of this verse also becomes known as the
Diaspora--the scattering of the church. There had
been an earlier Diaspora centuries before when the Jews
were scattered over the face of the earth with their
homeland conquered. Now the church is scattered with the
first great persecution.
8:9:
Yet another Simon; remember Simon Peter and Simon the
Pharisee. And then in Acts 9:43 we meet a fourth Simon
8:18:
This story expresses the low regard the Luke (and
other
Christians had for those who wanted to mix religion with
commercialism.
Paul stated that he had never taken money for his services,
and
Jesus also had
something significant
to say on the subject.
8:27ff:
Legend marks this story with the founding of the Coptic
Church.
9:1ff:
This famous story has become the archetype of the
Christian conversion experience: the Spirit breaks upon the
consciousness of a morally upright man and it's transformed
from the moral to the spiritual level. This happens in a
thousand different ways, but the result is always essentially
the same: the birth of spiritual consciousness. This is
what Jesus meant by being
born of the spirit.
Conservatives perceive this experience of Paul's as an epiphany,
since Christ is divine. Actually the account in Luke's history
probably had a direct bearing on the
deification of Jesus.
9:8ff:
Blind! This often follows a traumatic rebirth.
Disoriented, Saul, now Paul, had a mind turned upside down;
his values reversed,
black became
white.
9:10:
A second Ananias! The first one, you recall,
dropped dead after lying about his contribution.
9:11:
Not the notorious Judas. He died some time back.
9:15:
On our first acquaintance with Paul Luke makes us
aware that he was to be the "apostle to the Gentiles". By
and large we assume that the others focused primarily on
the Jews.
9:23:
In this and many other ways the life and career of
Paul closely resembles that of Jesus.
9:27: We've already heard of
Barnabas; one
translation
gives his name as son of encouragement. He was
aptly named; may his race increase.
9:29 According to Luke Paul must have disputed with
someone in every synagogue he entered: (this phrase will be
repeated like a refrain in the reports of his subsequent
career). In every synagogue a large contingent (usually
exercising leadership roles and wedded to the law)
disagreed heatedly with what Paul had to say about Jesus.
We'll hear of the Grecians again. Being to some
degree outsiders in Jerusalem, they were anxious to
demonstrate their orthodoxy.
9:34:
Here we see Peter doing the very same things he
had seen Jesus do in former days--and in Jesus'
name.
10:1:
This chapter represents another movement in Luke's
history toward the Universalism of Christianity and
Peter's discovery that the gospel is not just for the Jews.
He describes Cornelius as a "devout man who feared God..."
and obviously not a Jew. Peter's lifelong habit of
avoiding Gentiles is directly set aside by the Holy
Spirit.
10:3:
the term represents a manifestation of the Holy
Spirit.
10:10:
Peter's dream in a very dramatic way broke him
loose from his legalistic inhibitions about maintaining his
purity.
10:28:
A magnificent statement that we should all take
to heart. William Blake took it to its ultimate conclusion
at the end of his
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
10:42
Here's an idea that I don't recall Luke mentioning
before, but he must have been cognizant of the
story Matthew told in his 25th chapter.
11:2:
Luke uses this term for what we would refer to as
the
legalist party.
11:19:
Another reference to the
diaspora at Acts 8:1.
11:22:
A third reference to
Barnabas. Though
much less prominent in Acts than was Paul, Barnabas was
instrumental in recruiting Paul for the very significant
work that he did to establish Christianity throughout the
Roman Empire.
11:29:
The first collection for the brethren in
Judaea!
12:4:
The second prison story. The first one was at
5.19 and the
third one was at
16:23. This is perhaps the most spectacular of the
three. Luke credites the angel of the Lord with
making the arrangements, as he also did in 5:19. The angel
conducted Peter into the street and then "departed from
him", and Peter "came to himself" (interesting language).
A few verses later Luke tells us that the
angel of the Lord
dealt rather harshly with Herod.
12:12:
This is the 3rd or 4th Mary in Luke's story.
Peter apparently knew the community would be there praying
for him, but when he knocked, Rhoda, the young woman who came to
the door would not open it ("for gladness"), but ran to
tell the others and had a hard time convincing them that
she was not crazy. (So it is so often with us: we pray for
something great, and when it happens we can't believe it!)
13:1:
There are many things to say about Antioch of Syria:
It was the third city of Rome, the capital of Syria
and seat of the Roman governor.
When the seven stewards were chosen the only one
associated with a place was
Nicolas of Antioch.
When the
persecution of Stephen led to the scattering, Luke
tells us they went as far as Antioch, and there "a great
number believed and turned to the Lord."
The first church to be mentioned in connection
with a locality other than Jerusalem was at Antioch, and
they were first called Christians there.
Finally it was the home base for Paul, and all three of
his missionary journeys began there.
To summarize what Luke has described for us:
When the church at Jerusalem heard about the great
revival in Antioch, they sent Barnabas there (to carry on
the work). He went to Tarsus to get Paul, who immediately
became one of the primary leaders there. Finally the
church at Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas on the first
missionary journey.
From this point on the book of Acts is devoted almost
exclusively to describing the missionary activities of Paul,
the apostle to the Gentiles.
13:4:
This marks the beginning of Paul's first
missionary journey (Note that at this point the name
Saul is still being used).
13:5b:
This John was presumably John Mark, mentioned a
few verses before.
13:9:
This is the first time the name Paul is
used, and the last time for Saul as Paul, except
for the time when Paul is describing his
experience of rebirth. Paul here imposed a temporary
blindness on the sorcerer to negate his obstructionism.
(I suppose if we acted on our faith the way Paul did, we
might achieve the same kind of objectives.
St. Augustine in
Book VIII of his Confessions tells us that Saul began to
call himself Paul in honor of the conversion of Sergius
Paulus. (This might conceivably be true, see
Acts 13:12.
13:14:
This is another Antioch, said to be the
administrative center of southern Galatia.
13:16ff:
Luke has considerable detail in this, presumably
Paul's first
sermon on his new work. We may assume that it
represents fairly well the words he used wherever he went.
He always went first to the synagogue and made converts and
incurred the enmity of the religious establishment--as
happens here.
13:23:
Paul goes back to
Isaiah 11
identifying Jesus with the promised Messiah.
This connection of Jesus with the son of David agrees with the two
genealogies of Jesus by
Matthew and
Luke. Luke in
fact frequently refers to Jesus as the Son of David.
13:29:
Paul was probably referring to
Isaiah 53 and
many other similar passages in the Old Testatment.
13:38:
Here Paul uses a term that runs all through the
gospels, one that has become enigmatic to the present
generation. Sin is a bad word in our culture; the
best people are quick to ridicule it. This stems from the
unfortunate misguidance of religious leaders of the past,
and a fair number of today. Sin is NOT (simply) sexual
misbehaviour or stealing or any overt bad conduct; rather
it is missing the mark, failing to be all that we
might have been. Only a delusional person could exempt himself
from that.
The gospel sets us free from the guilt (often
unconscious) or sadness that we may feel through our
failure to be the true sons of God, which is our calling.
It replaces those negative feelings with the joy of an
intimate and positive relationship with God, ourselves and
the universe.
That's the meaning of this ubiquitous term, the
forgiveness of sins.
13:43:
It's easy to assume that the Jews uniformly
rejected Paul's teaching about Jesus, but that was by no
means true. Many Jews flocked to the Jesus communities,
but many others, generally the religious establishment,
rejected Paul and all he stood for. No doubt they felt
their authority threatened.
14:12:
It's interesting that these ignorant men decided
that Paul and Barnabas were gods. Luke gives us a lesson
here: men tend to do that; they're all too ready to deify the
latest craze. Jesus was officially deified by the
established church about 312 A.D.
14:19:
How quickly the people's emotions turned! Notice
how similar this was to the story of Jesus in Jerusalem, adored
by the crowds on Sunday, and on Thursday they shouted "crucify
him".
14:26:
Antioch, the city from which they set out on the
first missionary journey. Look at the cities they visited on
this
journey:
Salamis : a city
at
the east end of the island of Cyprus, the first place Paul
preached on
his first missionary journey.
Paphos is on
the
west end of Cyprus.
Perga
Antioch in
Pisidia
Iconium
Lystra
Derby
Perga: This was
the
second visit to Perga (going back to where they started), but the
first visit did not include a description of any preaching.
Except for the towns in Cyprus all of these cities were in
what
used to be called Asia Minor, but now Turkey. (If you're
geographically minded like me, turn to the
map and see where all those towns
are.)
14:24:
Pamphylia and Pisidia were the two adjoining
provinces
in Asia Minor where Paul and Barnabas established the churches on
this
mission. (It also included some work in the island of Cyprus as
you
recall.)
14:27:
Once again Luke emphasizes the spread of the
gospel
to the Gentiles.
15:1:
Here we see the continuing controversy between the
Jewish legalists (sometimes called judaizers and the
Christian universalists, represented by Luke and
especially the
missionary activities of Paul, the apostle to the
Gentiles.
Circumcision was a code word which meant in essence that Gentiles
desiring to becoming members of the church must conform to all
the
laws prescribed by the pharisaical religious establishment. Luke
used
the phrase after the manner of Moses, and this meant to
Luke
and to his readers strict obedience to the mosaic laws.
Christian universalists! A term that has meant various things
at
various times and places. In Luke's day I've applied it to those
who,
like Luke and Paul, believed that one could readily become a
Christian by accepting the gospel. In our day I apply it
to
those who understand that adherents of many faiths may be
Christians: if they love God and their neighbor, they have met the
requirements placed upon them by Jesus. (Since that day a multitude of other
requirements have been placed on aspirants by religious authorities
guided by a legalistic perspective.)
15:7:
Peter, recalling his experience with Cornelius (described in
Acts 10) turned the tide in this dispute.
15:13:
James, the primary ecclesiatical authority at that point,
agreed with Peter and set forth some minimal moasaic laws to urge upon
the Gentile converts.
I (and probably others) have called this The First Council
because here we see perhaps the genesis of the organizational
structure of the church as an institution: James and Peter became the
primates and began to speak with authority. Through the years
(and centuries) the nature of this
authority (spiritual or worldly?) became increasingly questionable.
But those who ran the church from Rome in later
centuries called themselves the successors and inheritors of Peter's
authority. They often used it for worldly purposes, sometimes in
direct contradiction to the obvious leading of the Spirit.
15:22a:
Another Judas! About the 4th or 5th one we've encountered in the
works of Luke. Must have been a pretty common name around there.
15:22b:
You will hear more
of Silas as you read on. Judas and Silas were prestigious
men in Jerusalem, and at this point the council sent them to
oversee the church at Antioch. The letter they carried
announced the understanding by the Jerusalem fathers
of the circumstances of the Gentiles and sent them the
ruling of the church at Jerusalem, still considered the
fountain of spiritual power.
Here Silas is referred to as a "chief man of the
brethren". Paul chose him as his companion on his 2nd Missionary Journey
. They soon met Timothy, and thereafter Silas
(Silvanus) and Timothy (Timotheus) may be considered as
Paul's chief missionary assistants.
15:25:
That famous phrase again. Quakers call it consensus; it means as well
as I can gather that the people in
control supposedly believe that everyone is
with them. Sometimes they may be right. In this case I believe they
were right spiritually, although there were very likely people
who didn't believe, but went along.
When people are truly of one accord, great things happen;
look at Pentecost.
15:33:
By brethren Luke meant the new converts (most of
them Gentiles) and by apostles he meant the church at
Jerusalem.
The 1st trip took him only as far as Antioch of Pisidia,
which would now be central Turkey; the second one took him
as far as Greece.
15:39:
Goodness! war in heaven! You may recall that on their
first journey Mark (John) had left them at Pamphylia. Paul could not
forgive him for that and didn't want to be burdened with such a
faintheart. Barnabas (the Son of Enlightenment) was tolerant
enough to continue to accept Mark. Their paths diverged, so there
were two missionary projects instead of one. (We read mainly about
the one that Paul led, although I believe Mark will reappear later, in
Paul's letters if not in Acts.
15:41:
Cilicia was the
province between Syria and Pamphylia right in the northeast
corner of the Mediterranean. Paul had lived in Tarsus, the
capital (more or less) of Cilicia, and likely he wanted to
visit home. At any rate Barnabas and Mark took the sea
route, back to Cyprus, while Paul and Silas took the
overland route around the coast.
We hear no more of Barnabas or Mark in Acts, but in the
epistle of Second Timothy Paul is reported to have asked for
Mark to be brought to Rome "for he is profitable to me in
the ministry". Apparently the two men had become friends
again.
16:1:
This is Timothy, who appears to have become Paul's
primary protege and successor. We'll hear of him again frequently,
and two books of the Bible, First Timothy and Second Timothy, bear his
name.
16:3:
Paul apparently wanted to make Timothy (of mixed ethnicity)
acceptable to the Jews they expected to encounter on this trip. One
of Paul's letters reports that he received serious criticism for doing
this, a further element in the contention between judaizers and
universalists, so pervasive in the early days of the church.
16:6:
According to some scholars these two names, unlike
Pamphylia and Pisidia, were not political units: Phyrgia denotes a
region that includes much of that part of (what is now) Turkey.
Likewise Galatia includes the two provinces above and others parts of
what was once known as Asia Minor (now Turkey).
16:6b:
By Asia Luke meant the Roman province which included
the western part of what is now Turkey. The capital was Ephesus.
(Paul will get to Ephesus later, but the Holy Spirit has
something else in mind for now.
16:7:
Mysia was a region in NW Asia Minor, bounded by the
provinces of Bithynia, Phrygia, and Lidia. Bithynia gets little
mention in the Bible, but the Nicaean Creed come forth in 325 from the
Council of Nicaea, the capital of Bithynia.
16:8:
Overland travelers from Asia to Europe most commonly
used the obvious gateway, Troas, built at or near the legendary city
of Troy. Paul most have had inklings that God meant him to invade Europe
with the gospel, because he came here for the vision that led him to
Macedonia.
16:10:
Here we find the first we , which traditionally
indicates that Luke joined the party at this point. Paul, Silas,
Luke, and other members of the party took ship at Troas, passed the
mountainous island of Samothrace and came to the port city of
Neapolis on the coast of Thrace. They went up to Philippi, 12 miles
northeast and now in Macedonia.
16:12 From this we we may surmise that Luke was
present in this part of Acts. Professor J.A.Robertson also
believed (cf Abingdon Bible Commentary, page 1238) that Luke
came from Philippi; he shows considerable knowledge of the
place in this chapter.
16:14:
Lydia not doubt got her name
from the province in Asia Minor from whence she came. Thyatira is a
town in Lydia, very near Mysia, that was noted for purple dyeing and
had an interesting amalgam of Greek and Jewish religion. The first
Christian convert in Europe was this Asian woman with a somewhat
Jewish background, although no Jew.
16:23:
This is the third of Luke's prison stories, and surely
the most dramatic. Think of it: beaten, jailed, feet in stocks, and
at midnight they were singing hymns. As we have already noticed, when
real faith is expressed, big things happen.
16:27:
In those days a jailor would expect to pay with his life
if he allowed a prisoner to escape. The jailor thought they were all
gone, and he had no hope. Paul changed his mind about that.
16:31:
These words are a very common formula used by
fundamentalistic Christians; they embody much more than is generally
understood. True belief leads to basic action that changes one's
agenda and life style in a drastic way. Many good people have
believed practically since birth. Many others profess to
believe, but their life bears little sign of a true belief.
What Paul talks about here goes far beyond a mere verbal expression.
16:37:
Paul made an implicit threat here; he was a Roman
citizen. To treat a Roman like they had been treated was a very
serious offense. The magistrates, very intimidated by Paul's words,
did what they could to appease him.
Through the years the church at Philippi was among Paul's
strongest supporters. He wrote them a beautiful letter shortly
beford he died.
17:1-15:
The usual thing happened to Paul and his friends
at Thessalonia and Berea: the people heard him gladly, but the rulers
of the synagogue stirred up the rabble and ran them away.
17:19:
The Areopagus (sometimes called Mars Hill) was the seat
of government in Athens in very early days. Long before Christianity
the Athenian Senate replaced the Aeropagites as the primary
legislative body, but the they continued to exercise judicial
and religious authority. It was probably an Areopagite who invited
Paul to speak at the Areopagus.
Paul apparently had little success in Athens; Luke does mention
two converts, one of them an Areopagite.
17:28:
Attributed to Epimenides, a 6th Century (B.C.) prophet of Crete.
17:31 We are told that this raising from the dead was the
element of the gospel that attracted most of the Greeks to
Christianity. In their culture the heroes of old rose and
went to heaven, but nothing like that had ever happened in
the present age (cf Gregory Riley, Many Christs (page 92).
17:34:
Some authorities concluded that Dionysisus (said to be
the first bishop of Athens) and Damaris were a married couple.
18:2:According to Michael Walsh, in his The Triumph of
the Meek (page 174), some 40,000 Jews lived in Rome about
the year 49 A.D. when the edict of Claudius expelled the
Jews. In all likelihood some of them were Christian Jews
like
Aquila and Prisca, although this antedates the arrival
in Rome of Peter, who was thought by some to have
established the church there.
Aquila and Priscilla became Paul's close
associates and went with him to Ephesus, where they took a
leading role in the church. We're told that Aquila and Paul
did not make tents, they made tent. Peloubet's Bible
Dictionary refers to it as "Cilician tent or haircloth"; of
course tents may well have been made with that material.
The fact that Paul worked as a tentmaker leads to
the supposition that he did not believe one should make a
profession of religious leadership. In one of his letters
he claimed that he had not taken money for his religious
work. Some ministers who have forsaken the professional
dimension of their ministry are referred to as
tentmakers (including yours truly).
18:6:
This encounter with the Jews at Corinth differed a bit
from previous ones: here Paul took the initiative in separating hmself
from the Jews. The "chief ruler" went with him out of the synagogue.
Paul spent 18 months in Corinth building a substantial church.
Paul's supporters in this endeavour included Justus, a Gentile, and
Crispus, a Jew: a good solid foundation: if Jew and Gentile worked
together as Christians, they could overcome the world.
18:14:
In this case Paul got fair treatment from the
government: Gallio, the deputy of Achaia (Greece) , actually
the proconsul; (he was said to be the brother of Seneca, the Roman
philosopher and statesman) did what Pilate might have done if he had
been more of a man.
18:18:
Corinth had two harbors, the western one headed toward
Rome and the eastern one, Cenchrea, toward Asia.
The commentary intimates that it was Aquila who took the vow, and
that Luke included that detail to show that Paul still adhered to
Jewish customs.
18:19:
This is the first mention of Ephesus, which became so
important in this story. Ephesus, the capital of Asia, became the
location of one of the most important churches of early Christendom.
Paul visited it more than once, and someone wrote the N.T. book,
Ephesians, attributed to Paul by some scholars.
18:23:
Luke means he went up to Jerusalem.
18:23:
This would be Paul's third trip to those places, i.e.
the first missionary journey, the beginning of the second and now this
one.
18:24:
From the text we may infer that Apollos had a partial
understanding of the gospel and was a skilled and learned preacher.
Aquila and Priscilla elucidated his understanding, and thereafter he
became a very successful evangelist in Ephesus and later in Corinth.
We hear mention of Apollos in 1st Corinthians and in Titus.
19:3:
These 12 men were presumably converts of the disciples of
John the Baptist, as was Apollos. As such they were receptive to the
fuller gospel given them by Paul; this led to a
mini Pentecost.
19:9:
We may infer that Tyrannus was a Greek philosopher who
had a school or meeting place. He invited Paul to speak there, and
a revival took place, centered in the school of Tyrannus, for the next
two years.
19:19:
A great and famous temple to Diana stood in Ephesus,
a center of magic of every sort.
19:34:
The losses incurred by the black magicians
caused them to create a great uproar, but the civil authorities would
not play the magicians' game, and Paul and his friends were not
harmed.
20:3:
This is seen as a plot by the Jews to kill Paul,
leading to his being accompanied by the seven men mentioned in his
travels.
20:9:
There's not much to be said about Eutychus except to
paraphrase Mark Twain:, "notice of his death was greatly exaggerated".
20:13:
A seaport sw of Troas
20:14:
Mitylene was on the island of Lesbos, off the coast of
Asia.
20:15:
Miletus was on the coast, 36 miles south of Ephesus,
although according to the Bible Dictionary it was an overland trip of
70 miles in those days.
20:22:
Luke implies here that Paul didn't want to go to
Jerusalem, but he believed strongly that God wanted him to go, and
that settled the matter for him. As you read on, you get the
impression that he anticipated what would in fact happen to him in the
days ahead.
20:26:
Paul means by that that he has witnessed to everyone
that he came in contact with. Otherwise if he failed to, and someone
went to hell, he would be guility of their blood.
This speech represents more or less Paul's last will and testament
to the church at Ephesus (and Asia), which had become more or less his
headquarters on this 3rd Missionary Journey.
20:27 John Wesley quoted this verse in his sermon on
Christian Perfection.
20:33-34:
These verses serve as prooftexts for the
idea that ministers should not take money. As George Fox put it, "no
hireling priests".
21:39 Paul was born in
Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, and a
city of great learning. Strabo, the geographer, said of it
"The people at Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly,
not only to philosophy, but also to the whole round of
education in general, that they have surpassed Athens,
Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where there
have been schools and lectures of philosophers."
22:6-8 In this passage Paul describes the experience that Luke had
recorded earlier in this book, at
Acts 9.
Shorto (page 218) informs
us that "Paul's experience predates the gospel accounts, and so is our
earliest evidence for an experience of the Risen Christ".
Some of the later accounts wrote of a bodily resurrection, which
Shorto, Pagels, and others feel served the emerging orthodoxy to
legitimate the authority of Peter. But in
1st Corinthians 15:43ff,
referring to the resurrection, Paul spoke of a spiritual body.
(This is one of the great divides in modern theology.)
23:1 David McKay pointed out that the word 'conscience'
appears only here and at
24:16 in Acts and not at all in the
gospels. It appears often in Romans and in Corinthians, as well as in
several other epistles. It is a Greek word, and it seems likely that
Paul was more conversant in Greek than the gospel writers.
Commenters may agree that the conscience denotes what Quakers call
"that of God in everyone"; the appropriate approach of a witnessing
Christians might best be in the language and terms of the conscience
of the one witnessed to.
24:25 The New English Bible has "morals, self-control, and the coming
judgment". According to
Mack (page 238) Luke remarkably introjected self-control (or
temperance), a thoroughly Greek term, found nowhere in the O.T. Mack
would have expected from the mouth of Paul a more plausible hebraic
religious term.
"Self-control was the bottom line for Luke, the most prized virtue
and most discussed issue among philosophers of the Greco-Roman age."
According to Mack Luke was presumably most interested in cultivating
the good will of the Romans, and this slant issued a couple of
centuries later in a concordance between Rome and the Church.
26:14 Saul hears Jesus using on him an old Greek
proverb from Euripides: to fight God is like kicking against the goad,
as the Jerusalem Bible has it (cf Gregory Riley, Many Christs, page
154).
Sources:
In reviewing Acts and preparing
these notes I leaned heavily on Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.
This has been a very rewarding study, to add this hypertext dimension
to the Book of Acts. It was done to demonstrate the value and power of
the computer as a tool for Bible study. Many people have published Bible
Study programs, some commercial and some (just as good ones) in the public
domain, But anyone will gain a much greater understanding, value and joy
in learning the simple procedures which I've used here to make your own
version.
Then you may pass it on to your children, or even your great grandchildren.