Setting Prcedence in the first century.

Being seasick is terrible. I experienced it earlier this year while fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee. Fishermen and travelers in the first century were often nauseated while bobbing up and down on the seas of the Roman Empire.

No doubt St. Paul’s most faithful of friends, St. Luke, had ample experience with seasickness while writing the life of Christ and the first history of the Church. We can imagine his keeping notes and recording memories as he sat on the bow of the ship while it cut through the water with St. Paul on his later journeys. Writing quills and parchment are primitive means of writing by our modern standards, yet St. Luke wrote one of the most important and well-written documents known to the modern world. His writings have certainly proven seaworthy.

St. Luke’s history, written mostly from acquired tradition and only briefly from firsthand experience with the Apostle Paul (see the “we” sections in Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18, and 27:1-28:16), has come down to us as the Acts of the Apostles. This is a somewhat unusual title considering it tells us nothing of the apostolates of Ss. Thomas, Andrew, Philip, Matthew or several of the others. In fact, it only relays bits and pieces from the lives of Ss. Peter, John, and Paul. Alternate titles have been proposed such as “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” but the accepted title is from the earliest centuries, quoted in the Fathers and recognized early as an inspired text.

The Acts is not a complete history of the early Church, but rather just the bare facts, an outline of crucial events and turning points in the early Christian community. This is theology, history, and eternal truth woven by a master into a beautiful tapestry.

As we begin reading Acts, full of anticipation to see what happened after Christ ascended into the clouds of heaven, we find that this is not St. Luke’s first document. The opening words begin, “The first account I composed, Theophilus.” Luke had written an earlier history, again told like a master weaver full of eternal truths and a deep understanding of the life and gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This of course is the Gospel of Saint Luke written about A.D. 62 or thereabouts, just before Acts. The recipient of both, Theophilus, was probably a Roman dignitary interested in the full story of this new “religion.”

St. Luke alone provides the account of Jesus’ ascension into heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:2, 9-11). He also gives us the outline not only for the Acts of the Apostles but for the expansion of the whole Church from the first century until today. Before disappearing into the clouds, Jesus said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8, emphasis mine). This is exactly what happened, as we shall see.

One hundred and twenty disciples were huddled in Jerusalem, waiting for the power of God to descend — or for armed soldiers to break down the doors (see Acts 1:12ff.). The Pentecost fire fell: Tongues of fire leaped from each one’s head, and the gift of tongues was given. The first full-fledged gospel sermon was preached with power by St. Peter, concluding with the words: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

Notice St. Peter does not reduce the gospel to “faith alone,” but to a full obedience to Christ, holiness, and the sacraments of the Church. The new king, Jesus, has given his Steward the keys of the kingdom (see Isa. 22). St. Peter has taken his stand, exercising the authority of the keys delegated by Jesus (Matt. 16:18-19).

Only Jews believed on that first Christian Pentecost. For about the first decade of the Church, no Gentiles were included. What an amazing fact: The first years of the Church were exclusively Jewish! The first step in the outline of expansion — “Jerusalem” — was being accomplished.
But it took a bitter persecution, involving the vicious actions of Saul-soon-to-be-Paul, to move the first Christians beyond the confines of Jerusalem and Judea. Samaria was evangelized soon after the martyrdom of St. Stephen, whose lengthy sermon set the stage for the broader inclusiveness of the gospel. Philip the deacon reached further with the gospel to Samaria (the second step in expansion) and gathered a great harvest. The apostles were then called down to confirm the new believers (see Acts 8:14-17).

Next, the great persecutor Saul is converted and joins the others in spreading the good news of Christ. The plan is in full bloom at last: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and now the ends of the earth. Ss. Peter and Paul and the other apostles fanned out to preach and establish the Church.
In Acts 13 the exciting expansion of the Church begins beyond the lands of Israel. Acts gives very little information about the other Apostles, but zooms in on the life and apostolate of St. Paul. We know something of the others from snippets in the New Testament and from historical records and tradition.

Actually, the book of Acts can also be divided into two broad sections: the ministry of St. Peter (Acts 1-12) and the ministry of St. Paul (Acts 13-28), with a very important reappearance of St. Peter and other Apostles in Acts 15. This marvelous chapter is the pinnacle of the whole historical account and should be held precious by all Gentile Christians. For here it was that St. Peter stood and again exercised the authority of the keys over the Church to proclaim that the Gentiles could be included in the full life of Christ and the Church without first being circumcised and obeying the Mosaic laws and ceremonies.

The Gentiles — the “dogs,” as they were called, the unclean goyim — could now partake of the fullness of God and the blessings of Abraham. Without such we Gentiles had “no hope” and were “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12; for the bigger picture, read all of Ephesians 2 and 3). Even though the first Gentile converts, Cornelius and his household, had been filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized at the hands of St. Peter (see Acts 10), this new development needed to be explained and defined by the Church. And it was! This first council of the Church, presided over by St. Peter, the Apostles, and the elders, resulted in an authoritative decree of the Church, which was binding upon all believers. Precedent was set for future councils.

The depth of St. Luke’s thought and the profound interrelationship of the New Testament with the Old can be graphically demonstrated in Acts. Though St. Luke is the only Gentile writer in the whole Bible, yet he demonstrates a penetrating understanding of the Old Testament and the covenants of God.

The first Pentecost took place at Mount Sinai fifty days after the Passover in Egypt. The lambs’ blood had been shed and the people were free from bondage. Fifty days later (from which we get the word Pentecost, the Greek word for “fiftieth”), God came down in fire upon the mountain of stone with the Law. The Jews rejected God by building an idol, the golden calf, and calling it their god. As a result, three thousand fell that day at the hand of their own countrymen (see Exod. 32:28), and after forty years that perverse generation was destroyed for refusing to believe and obey (see Acts 7:38ff; Num. 32:13).

What does St. Luke show us? With the brilliance and perception of a prophet he shows us a direct parallel between the Old Covenant and the New — the new Passover and Pentecost. Again, the Lamb’s blood has been shed, this time Jesus’ blood on the cross, and a way has been made through water (baptism) to leave the bondage of sin and Satan — the way to eternal life. Again God comes down in fire, this time not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of their hearts (see 2 Cor. 3:3), and while the first flame was fearsome, impersonal and far off on the mountaintop, this new fire coming down from God is personal, hovering over each individual head. And because many believed, God added three thousand that day; at the new Pentecost, fifty days after the cross, He gives back what had been taken at the first Pentecost.

But the nation of Israel as a whole rejected Jesus, and like the Israelites of old, this generation was destroyed forty years later when Jerusalem was leveled by the Roman troops of Titus in A.D. 70. Forty years after each of these Pentecosts, each rebellious generation was destroyed. No wonder St. Peter stood up and warned the Jews in Jerusalem to be saved from that perverse generation! (see Acts 2:40). This was the same accusation Moses had made against his generation, which was destroyed in the wilderness due to unbelief (see Deut. 32:20).

This charge by St. Peter was not referring to salvation of their souls primarily, but was a warning that destruction was coming on this generation of Jews for its unbelief as it had come on their fathers. The New Testament is a mirror image of the Old, and St. Luke paints the portrait with great precision and epic proportions.

Surprisingly, the book has an unsatisfactory ending — in the sense that there is no ending. It just stops in midstream. What happens to St. Paul? Where has St. Peter ended up? What about their final journeys and ministries? Come on, what happens next?

I think St. Luke concluded without an ending because the story is by its nature a never-ending story. The Holy Spirit is still at work in and through His Church and the apostolic succession. Who would presume to say that the soul of the Church, the Holy Spirit, and His work stopped at the end of Acts?

Has the story of the Holy Spirit in the Church ended? No, of course not. St. Luke is letting us know that the first chapter of Jesus’ “Great Commission,” as it’s been called (that is, Matt. 28:18-20), had been written, but the lives of the saints, bishops, martyrs, evangelists, and laymen had not.
The whole Church is on an epic journey. And the story will not end until Christ returns in the clouds just as He left — as the story began. Then we will have the whole story from beginning to ending.

Steve Ray has tapes on the Acts of the Apostles available through St. Joseph Communications at www.saintjoe.com or by calling 626-331-3549.

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