Acts 4:23-37

²³ When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ²⁴ And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, ²⁵ who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶ The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’— ²⁷ for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹ And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰ while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” ³¹ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. ³² Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold ³⁵ and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. ³⁶ Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, ³⁷ sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

In William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, a character identified only as “the stranger” is speaking to a young woman and says this:

“You see,” he said, “I lack courage:  that was left out of me.  The machinery is all here, but it won’t run.”[1]

That is an interesting confession.  It would be hard to admit that you do not have courage, but, in truth, how many of us would have to admit precisely that?  Many of us do not know if we have courage or not because we have never truly been in situations where courage was required.  But time and again human beings show that “the machinery is all there, but it won’t run.”

I am thinking here of pedestrians who stand idly by while a man beats a woman to death on the street in broad daylight.  I am thinking here of church officials who stand idly by while predator priests pray on children.  I am thinking here of young people in schools who let bullied kids continue to get bullied instead of getting involved.  The examples go on and on.

Yes, perhaps there is at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that we human beings are not as courageous as we like to think.  There are acts of amazing heroism, to be sure, but does it not sometimes seem as if these acts pale in comparison to acts of cowardice.

Courage.

Among the Christian virtues we tend to stress, courage is usually absent.  Why?  Because we have not grown up in a persecuted context.  We have not had to exercise courage.  Even so, as the culture is increasingly secularized, it will take more and more courage to follow Jesus.  We will increasingly have to decide (a) whether we are willing to suffer for our King and (b) what we will do when we do suffer for our King.

The second half of Acts 4 is interesting in that it shows us what the early band of Christians decided to do in the face of persecution.  Their response is illuminating.  It reveals amazing faith and amazing resolve and amazing courage.

In our text, Peter and John are released and return to the gathered believers to report what has happened.  The Sanhedrin, after warning them to stop preaching about Jesus, let them go.  F.F. Bruce has relayed some fascinating words from a modern Jewish historian about the misstep that the Jewish Sanhedrin took in their handling of Peter’s preaching.

This was the first mistake which the Jewish leaders made with regard to the new sect. And this mistake was fatal. There was probably no need to arrest the Nazarenes, thus calling attention to them and making them ‘martyrs.’ But once arrested, they should not have been freed so quickly. The arrest and release increased the number of believers; for these events showed on the one hand that the new sect was a power which the authorities feared enough to persecute, and on the other hand they proved that there was no danger in being a disciple of Jesus (he, of course, being the one who had saved them from the hand of their persecutors!).[2]

This is an interesting assessment of the Sanhedrin’s handling of the case.  Regardless, they did let Peter and John go.  We are then able to see what they and the gathered Church did in response to this persecution.

The Persecuted Church Demonstrated Radical Dependence on God Through Impassioned Prayer

Most notably in our text is the immediate response of prayer.

²³ When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. ^24a And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said,

At the risk of causing offense, allow me to say that what these early believers most decidedly did not do was call their senator and complain!  I, of course, realize that there were no Christian senators to call, but I believe the principle stands.  There is nothing in the disposition of the gathered church upon hearing of this persecution that evidences a desire on their part to trust in the strength of man.  On the contrary, they fled to God!

Prayer was anything but theoretical or merely spiritual to the Church.  It was life!  They cried out to the only One who could save them:  the Lord God.  The Reformation era commentator, Rudolph Gwalther, has commented poignantly on this reality.

[Luke] tells of how the church sought the support and help of God only by prayer.  They were not careless, nor did they make light of the dangers approaching.  They did not flee to human wisdom, help or counsel but sought all manner of aid and support by prayers.  This is the sure sanctuary of the church, because God promises everywhere to be the defender of those who seek help from him.[3]

Yes, prayer is “the sure sanctuary of the church.”  People flee to the Church for protection, but where does the Church flee?  To God.  They depended upon the strength and faithfulness of God, as the beginning words of their prayer made clear.

^24b “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them,

They refer to God as “Sovereign Lord,” using the Greek word despotas, from which we get the word despot.  Interestingly, this title is used around twenty-five times in the Old Testament.  It is used only three times to refer to God the Father in the New Testament and three times to refer to Jesus.  Some suggest that the infrequent usage of this title in the New Testament might be evidence that, by the time of the first century, the word was taking on more of a negative connotation, much like the word despot carries today.  Even so, the fact that this title is used here is significant.  In a time of trouble they speak of God in terms of power and might and rule.  A people being persecuted by the authorities are proclaiming aloud that there is yet a higher authority than earthly rulers.

²⁵ who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
and the peoples plot in vain? ²⁶ The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers were gathered together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

The early church, in their prayer, saw the persecution of the believers as a fulfillment of Psalm 2, which they here reference.  It is worth our while to consider this Psalm in its entirety.

¹ Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?

² The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,

³ “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”

⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.

⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,

⁶ “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

⁷ I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.

⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.

¹¹ Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.

¹² Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Originally, “his Anointed” was understood to refer to David.  The early Church saw David as a type and interpreted to be also a reference to the Messiah, Jesus.  What is telling is that in this particular prayer, the gathered Church appeals to the Psalm in the context of earthly kings and rulers persecuting them.  That is most fascinating!  The same body who saw this as a reference to nations raging against Christ also saw this as a reference to the nations raging against the Church.  This was only natural, for they understood themselves to be the body of Christ.  To rage against the Church is to rage against Christ!  They did not, of course, view the Church to be Christ, but they did see the union of Christ and His bride to be of such a quality that you could not strike against one without striking out against the other.

²⁷ for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. ²⁹ And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, ³⁰ while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

Do you see?  They raged against Christ and now they rage against His Church.  But do they ask to be removed from this tribulation?  No!  They ask instead, that God would grant them “to continue to speak your word with all boldness”!  Unbelievable!  They pray for courage and strength and boldness!

Would that we were possessed of such wondrous resolve and determination!  Would that we ceased our complaining and prayed for greater boldness instead!  Would that the Church today had the same sense of mission as the Church then!

Heaven’s response to this prayer is telling.

³¹ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Ah!  Divine power shakes the place where they are and they filled with the Spirit of the living God.  And, once again, this filling resulted in impassioned emboldened proclamation of the gospel!

Do not forget the power of prayer.  Do not forget that our ultimate victory lies not in earthly conquest but in divine empowerment to speak the truth boldly and in love.

The Persecuted Church Clung to Christ and to One Another and Grew

In addition to greater boldness, the Church’s impassioned plea for divine help enables them to continue in their life together.  The verses that follow are very similar to those of Acts 2:42-47.

³² Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold ³⁵ and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. ³⁶ Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, ³⁷ sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

It is right that these verses should be so similar to those of Acts 2, for the Church is continuing in the same power of the same Spirit that moved in and among them at Pentecost.  Their lives together are marked by radical unity and radical love and radical generosity.

We see, for instance, another reference to the fact that the early Church gave of their possessions in order to care for those in need.  Ben Witherington writes of the phrase “sold them” (v.34), “the use of the iterative imperfect verbs (“they used to sell…,” etc.) suggests historical distance from a practice that was repeated or ongoing for a period of time.”   Interestingly, he also suggests that this description of life in the early church may have had an apologetic purpose for Theophilus, the one for whom this account was written.

…but he also uses language that a Theophilus would recognize as reflecting the Greek ideals about how true friends should act.  Aristotle said that true friends held everything I common…and were of one mind…much the same as is said here.  What is interesting about the Christian use of such conventions is that while friendship in the Greco-Roman mold often involved reciprocity between those who were basically social equals, what Luke seems to be inculcating here is conventions whereby Christians with goods will provide funds to the community for those who are needy without thought of return, and thus he is suggesting something more akin to family duties.[4]

There can be no doubt that there is an apologetic reality to this description.  Only a risen and living Savior could take a people and make them into this kind of family.  Only a risen and living Savior could bind a people together in such unity, in such singularity of purpose, in such stalwart resolve, in such unabated courage, and in such a radical demonstration of agape love.

The way the Church does life together speaks powerfully to the watching world of who God is.  Will Willimon observed astutely when he wrote:

            When you think about it, the quality of the church’s life together is evidence for the truthfulness of the resurrection.  The most eloquent testimony to the reality of the resurrection is not an empty tomb or a well-orchestrated pageant on Easter Sunday but rather a group of people whose life together is so radically different, so completely changed form the way the world builds a community, that there can be no explanation other than that something decisive has happened in history.  The tough task of interpreting the reality of a truth like the resurrection is not so much the scientific or historical, “How could a thing like that happen?” but the ecclesiastical.  “Why don’t you people look more resurrected?”[5]

Behold the praying, loving, trusting, proclaiming people of God!

May we become such a people!

Acts 4:1-22

¹ And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, ² greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. ³ And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. ⁴ But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. ⁵ On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, ⁶ with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. ⁷ And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” ⁸ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, ⁹ if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, ¹⁰ let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. ¹¹ This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. ¹² And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” ¹³ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. ¹⁴ But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. ¹⁵ But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, ¹⁶ saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. ¹⁷ But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” ¹⁸ So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. ¹⁹ But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, ²⁰ for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” ²¹ And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. ²² For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

Something heartbreaking has been happening to Christians in Iraq.  The militant Islamic group Isis has launched a deliberate campaign to eradicate Christianity in Iraq.  Christian communities that have been in this region for seventeen hundred years are being wiped out before our very eyes.  It is a scandal and a terrible tragedy.

In the last couple of weeks, something interesting has been happening in the city of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.  Christians have been waking up to find the Arabic letter nun painted on their homes.  The letter stands for “Nazarene” which is a pejorative term for “Christian” in that region.  Isis is marking the homes of Christians as they persecute them.

This is chilling, but this is also telling.  It strikes me that even today, two thousand years after the birth of the Church, followers of Jesus are still being saved by and persecuted for the name,  Jesus of Nazareth.  The early Christians were similarly marked by the name, as is evident when we see the reaction of the Jewish authorities to Peter’s sermon after the miraculous healing of the lame man.

¹ And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, ² greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

A.T. Robertson defined the Greek words for “came upon them” as “burst upon them suddenly or stood by them in a hostile attitude.”[1]  This is a sudden seizure of Peter and John by men who are extremely displeased with what has happened.

³ And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. ⁴ But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand. ⁵ On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, ⁶ with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.

The attention Peter and John attracted with the healing and Peter’s sermon was not welcome attention in the eyes of the Jewish authorities.  Disturbances were not welcome for they tended to attract the attention of the Romans…and that was most certainly not welcome.  William Barclay wrote, “The Roman government was very tolerant; but on public disorder it was merciless.”[2]

When verse 5 mentions “rulers and elders and scribes” it is referring, Robertson tells us, to “the three classes composing the Sanhedrin (rulers=chief priests who were Sadducees, the scribes usually Pharisees, the elders not in either class:  24 priests, 24 elders, 22 scribes).”[3]  Interestingly, it has also been noted that two men we know who were involved in the trial of Jesus were involved in this situation:  Annas and Caiaphas.

⁷ And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

And there it is:  “By what power or by what name did you do this?”  Then as now, the name we are under is the critical issue.  What name do we carry?  Whose name do we claim?

Peter’s response is phenomenal.  It is one of the most Jesus-focused sermons ever recorded.  They want to know what name they claim, so Peter unpacks it for them.  Here is what Peter says about this name.

Jesus: The Victory-Giving Victor

⁸ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, ⁹ if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, ¹⁰ let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.

Here is the name:  Jesus Christ of Nazareth!  Peter follows this revelation with a rebuke then with hope:  “whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead – by him this man is standing before you well.”

Christ is victor:  “God raised [him] from the dead.”  Christ is victory-giving:  “by him this man is standing before you well.”

Jesus is the victory-giving victor!

He rose and we rise with Him if we have trusted in Him.  Paul put it like this in 2 Timothy 2:

⁸ Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel,

¹¹ The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

John Chrysostom said, “So powerful was his resurrection that he is the cause of resurrection for others as well.”[4]  Yes!  Jesus, the victory-giving victor!

In 1963, speaking of the economy, John F. Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”  That phrase has since come to be often used in a general sense to mean that some phenomena are so powerful that they affect everything within their sphere.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

A rising Savior lifts all believers.

Jesus is the victory-giving victor who lifts up all who come to Him!  Are you broken, lost, trapped in sin and rebellion?  Come to Christ and He will lift you up.  Come to Christ and He will save you.

Jesus: The Rejected Most Important Part

Peter continues.

¹¹ This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

In saying this, Peter is quoting Psalm 118.  Listen to the wider context of the verse he quotes, and keep in mind that Peter has just healed a lame man outside one of the gates of the temple.

¹⁹ Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.

²⁰ This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

²¹ I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.

²² The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

²³ This is the Lord’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.

²⁴ This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Unbelievable!  The Psalm that Peter quotes speaks of a man entering the gate of the Lord joyfully to give thanks, just like the lame man who was healed.  Then the psalmist writes, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

You will notice that Peter makes a very small change in the way he quotes the Psalm.  Here is how David puts it:

²² The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

Here is how Peter quotes it:

¹¹ This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

Did you catch that?  “The stone that the builders rejected,” David says.  “The stone that was rejected by you, the builders,” Peter says.

He says this because, speaking with the authority of the Spirit, he correctly identifies the builders who reject the cornerstone as the religious authorities who killed Jesus and who were now persecuting His Church.

Imagine a builder who was so foolish that he would reject the cornerstone!  What tragic irony!  Those who should have known better than anybody were so foolish that they rejected the most important part.

Jesus is the most important but rejected part.

He is the cornerstone, the only part that matters, and those who should have seen this more clearly than anybody else missed it and rejected Him.

Later, in his first letter, in 1 Peter 2, Peter further developed this idea by adding that we who follow Jesus are smaller stones who are being built up in the rejected cornerstone, Christ.

⁴ As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, ⁵ you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” ⁷ So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,” ⁸ and “A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”

Some will embrace Jesus the cornerstone.  Others will reject Him.  The Jewish authorities who arrested Peter and John rejected Him.  Why?

The Venerable Bede argued that the Jews rejected Christ because He was a stone “which was not one-sided but two-sided,” Who brought not only the Old Testament but the message of the New Testament.  He was, Bede said, “Christ, who would bring together in himself two peoples.”  The Jews, however, “preferred to remain in one wall, that is, to be saved alone.”  Thus, Bede said, they rejected Christ the cornerstone who God “placed…at the chief position in the corner, so that from two Testaments and two peoples there might rise up a building of one and the same faith.”[5]

I think that is a great way of unpacking Peter’s metaphor!

Dear friends, there are many reasons why people might reject Christ:  fear, hatred, distraction, rebellion.  Regardless, rejecting Christ puts you squarely in the camp of these blind religious authorities.  To reject Christ is to reject the most important part of life.

Jesus: The Only Way

Peter, ever more and more courageous, next goes even further.

¹² And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

He says that Jesus is the only way.  The only way.  Remove the cornerstone and the entire building collapses.

They want to know what name carries such authority to heal and to raise.  Peter tells them that it is the name above all other names.  Jesus said the exact same thing.  In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

This startling statement of exclusivity did not sit well with the authorities of that time and it certainly does not sit well with our modern pluralistic society.

For instance, the following exchange happened in a 2002 Reader’s Digest interview with actress Susan Sarandon:

Reader’s Digest:  Do you and your family go to church?

Sarandon:  No.  I think we have a spiritual family and would have no objection if we could find a church that was connected to the real world and not exclusive.[6]

Whatever she might mean by that, it must be understood that there is an element of exclusivity at the very heart of the Christian faith.  Salvation is exclusively in Christ.  Life is exclusively in Christ.  Peace, hope, and joy is exclusively in Christ.  True love, the love that lays down its life for another, is exclusively in Christ.

Jesus, Peter says, is the only way.

Jesus: The Exalter of the Ordinary

And He is the exalter of the ordinary.  Jesus takes the ordinary and lifts it to staggering heights.  We see this in the amazement of the religious authorities at Peter’s sermon.

¹³ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Here is what made the very ordinary man Peter and the very ordinary man John so unbelievably extraordinary:  “they had been with Jesus.”

The 7^th/8^th century Bede wrote that “lettered men were not sent to preach, so that the faith of those who believed would not be thought to have come about by eloquence and teaching instead of by God’s power.”[7]  Paul said much the same in 1 Corinthians 1.

²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. ²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Our God has a sense of humor.  He uses the despised, the lowly, the ignored, and the mundane to accomplish His great feats.  Do you remember how Mary began her beautiful song, the Magnificat, in Luke 1?

⁴⁶ And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,

⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

⁴⁸ for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

⁴⁹ for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.

Jesus, the exalter of the ordinary!

Jesus: The Unstoppable-Message Giver

Finally, Peter reveals that Jesus is the unstoppable-message giver.  He puts a message in the hearts of His followers that is simply unstoppable.  Watch:

¹⁴ But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. ¹⁵ But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, ¹⁶ saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. ¹⁷ But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” ¹⁸ So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. ¹⁹ But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, ²⁰ for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” ²¹ And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened. ²² For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

What courage!  What conviction!  What amazing boldness!  “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

It was once said of John Knox, “He feared God so much that he never feared the face of any man.”[8]  The same could be said of Peter, John, and the early believers.  Can it be said of us, of you?

We began this morning with the fact that the Christians of Iraq are being persecuted almost out of existence.  Would you like to know what Anglican Canon Andrew White, “the Bishop of Baghdad,” said this week.  Listen:

Things are so desperate, our people are disappearing.  We have had people massacred, their heads chopped off.  Are we seeing the end of Christianity? We are committed come what may, we will keep going to the end, but it looks as though the end could be very near.[9]

“We are committed come what may, we will keep going to the end.”

We will keep going to the end.

We will keep going to the end.

Why?

Because of the name.

Because of Jesus.

Jesus, the victory-giving victor.

Jesus, the rejected most important part.

Jesus, the only way.

Jesus, the exalter of the ordinary.

Jesus, the unstoppable-message giver.

Acts 3:12-26

¹² And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. ¹⁴ But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. ¹⁶ And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. ¹⁷ “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸ But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. ¹⁹ Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, ²⁰ that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. ²³ And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ ²⁴ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ ²⁶ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

You will notice a significant parallel between Acts 2 and Acts 3.  In both chapters there is a miraculous display of God’s power, the attraction of a large crowd as a result of that display, then an apostolic sermon from the foundation of the miracle.  In both chapters, that is, miracles opened the door for proclamation.  This is significant, for, as William J. Larkin, Jr. has written, miracles, in and of themselves, rarely lead to faith and conversion.

Only two times do Luke’s summary statements imply that witnessing a miracle leads directly to faith (Acts 9:35,42).  Witnessing miracles may contribute to a person’s embrace of faith, but it cannot produce faith (see Lk. 16:31).

            That is why God’s Word must now be preached.  It will interpret the extraordinary and call for a decision.  By the Spirit’s power this proclamation will work repentance and saving faith in its hearers.[1]

Thus, Peter stands to proclaim the truth, as he had done earlier.

Faith in Christ is saving faith.

Peter is becoming a bold and brilliant preacher before our very eyes!  Listen to his words.

¹² And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.

In any good sermon, context is key.  Peter, a Jew, stands here in the shadow of the temple, with a healed Jewish man clinging to him, and preaches to a Jewish audience.  For this reason, he highlights the fact that Jesus both stands in line with the great patriarchs of Israel as well as surpasses the great patriarchs of Israel.  It is a provocative move, and one that undoubtedly raised the eyebrows of his listeners:  Abraham – Isaac – Jacob – Jesus.  This sequence would have been lost on the fascinated crowd!  The Jesus in whose name Peter healed the lame man is the very hope of Israel!

This is what makes the crime of the Jews in killing Jesus that more unbelievable.  To this Peter now turns.

¹⁴ But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

What a stinging, biting denunciation this is!  Here at the ninth hour, as the Jews have entered the temple for prayer and sacrifice, Jesus tells them that they, who think they are so very close to God, are in fact so very far from God that they killed the Holy and Righteous one sent from God!  And to make matters worse, they asked for a murderer to be set free instead of the innocent One who had come to save them.

Perhaps at this point we should consider the frequent accusations that are made against the alleged anti-Semitic nature of the New Testament.  It is true that Peter indicts his Jewish audience with the death of Christ.  But let me offer a few observations on this fact:

• This is a historically accurate indictment.  Jesus was handed over to the Romans by the Jewish mob to be executed.

• While it is true that there have been Christians over the last two thousand years who have committed atrocities against the Jews on the basis of some Jews having turned Jesus over to be killed in the first century, nowhere in the New Testament is there a call for any violence to be committed against anyone on that account.

• Peter never follows his indictment with a call for violence.

• Peter, a Jew, never uses the facts of the events surrounding the crucifixion to label the Jews as inherently inferior as a race or a people.

• The fact that some people do horrible deeds as a result of naked historical facts does not mean that the recitation of those facts is causally related to these horrible deeds.  People have committed acts of violence against Jews because people do wicked things, but the facts of history, even if appealed to by people doing wicked things, should not be conflated with the wickedness of these people.

• Taken as a whole, the New Testament holds all of us culpable for the death of Christ, noting that all of our sins contributed to His death on the cross.

No, Peter’s intent is not to call for violence against the Jews.  Rather, Peter’s intent is to lead them to see their great guiltiness before God, a guilt the Bible places on us all, so that they will repent.

Will Willimon was right to say of Peter’s sermons in the beginning of Acts that “there is little theology of the cross…of the kind we find in the writings of Paul” here and that in these sermons the cross “is a scandalous sign of the rejection of God’s anointed one by those he came to save, a tragic human ‘no’ that God has overcome in the powerful ‘yes’ of the resurrection.”[2]  Indeed.  This is Peter’s great emphasis:  you are guilty before a holy God of killing His Son.  But this is not all Peter says.

¹⁶ And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

Ah!  Here is a crucial link between conviction of sin and the coming call for repentance:  faith!  Willimon is correct that Peter is not fully fleshing out Pauline theology, but that does not mean Peter is speaking words that conflict with Paul’s theology.  In fact, here in Peter’s sermon we find the key elements:  guilt before God, the need for faith in the resurrected Christ, and the call to repent.

In truth, there is nothing in Peter’s sermon that in any way conflicts with Paul’s beautiful statement about faith in Ephesians 2.

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

It is not of our own doing!  Of our own doing we have rebelled against God and killed His Son.  But, amazingly, the name that announces our guilt is also the name that announces our salvation:  Jesus!

Repentance is the pathway to blessings and joy.

Once again, just as he did in Acts 2, Peter speaks boldly of repentance.

¹⁷ “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸ But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

This is fascinating for two reasons.  First, we see Peter saying that the Jews “acted in ignorance.”  What he appears to mean is that they did not fully understand exactly who this was that they were delivering over to be crucified.  Even so, he will call upon them to repent, showing that sins in ignorance are still violations of a holy God’s holy law.

Furthermore, we once again see the fascinating and mysterious dynamic between the actions of man and the sovereignty of God.  Evil men worked evil deeds but a holy God “fulfilled” all that He said would happen.  This dynamic, which many refer to as antinomy, is indeed a profound and perplexing mystery, but our ability to dissect this mystery is not nearly as important as the truth of what is being said here:  these men had acted but God was also at work to fulfill His plan of redemption.

^19a Repent therefore, and turn back

Scripture is its own best commentary.  We should always allow scripture to define scripture.  Here is a prime example:  “Repent therefore, and turn back.”  This is what repentance means:  turning back.  Turn from what you are doing because it is leading you to destruction.  Turn back to the Lord God.

The results of genuine repentance are profound.

^19b that your sins may be blotted out, ²⁰ that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

Here is a beautiful picture indeed!

• That your sins may be blotted out
• That times of refreshing may come
• That God may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus

Truly a repentant heart becomes a doorway in and through which God pours forth copious blessings!  Forgiveness, peace, and the very presence of Christ:  all of these are received through faith that leads to repentance.

I ask you:  are your sins as sweet as this?  Are your idols as sweet as this?  Of course not!  They cannot be!  They cannot bring the joy that Christ brings.  They cannot give peace as Christ gives peace.  They cannot assuage your grieved, suffering heart as Christ can.

Only Christ can grant such a peace.  Only Christ can grant such healing.  Peter concludes by telling the gathered Jews that this Christ is the fulfillment of all that was spoken of by the prophets in times past.

²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. ²³ And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ ²⁴ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ ²⁶ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Faith.

Faith in Christ.

Faith in the Christ who was foretold by the prophets, promised to the patriarchs, and born in their very midst of the Virgin Mary.  He calls upon them to believe!

And this Christ was sent “to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Repentance.

Repentance in the name of Christ.

The name of Christ that lifts a lame man to his formerly broken feet is the same name that lifts rebellious men to heights of peace and hope and joy!

Faith and repentance.

Believe and turn!

Come to Christ now.

Acts 3:1-11

¹ Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. ² And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. ³ Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. ⁴ And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” ⁵ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. ⁶ But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” ⁷ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. ⁸ And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹ And all the people saw him walking and praising God, ¹⁰ and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. ¹¹ While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.

Three years ago, a former atheist, now a New Testament scholar, named Craig Keener published a massive two-volume work of over 1,200 pages entitled Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.  In this work, Keener argues against the modern naturalistic dismissal of miracles and points instead to the philosophical bias of those who simply wave claims of the miraculous off as impossible.  Furthermore, he pulls together numerous modern claims for the miraculous and points to the staggering number of people today who claim to have seen or witnessed the miraculous.  In an article he wrote for Huffington Post, Dr. Keener offered the following statistics concerning modern belief in miracles.

Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous.

Even more striking than the number of people who believe in miracles is the number who claims to have witnessed or experienced them. For example, a 2006 Pew Forum survey studied charismatic and Pentecostal Christians in 10 countries. From these 10 countries alone, the number of charismatic Christians who claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing comes out to roughly 200 million people. This estimate was not, however, the most surprising finding of the survey. The same survey showed that more than one-third of Christians in these same countries who do not claim to be charismatic or Pentecostal report witnessing or experiencing divine healing.

And the reports in these countries appear to be merely the tip of the iceberg. The survey did not include China, where one report from the China Christian Council over a decade ago attributed roughly half of all new Christian conversions to “faith healing experiences.” Another report from a different source in China suggested an even higher figure. Clearly many people around the world experience what they consider miracles, sometimes in life-changing ways.[1]

Keener points to this massive belief in the miraculous as an argument for the truthfulness of the New Testament accounts.  It is a fascinating approach!

Regardless of what one thinks of this approach, it is abundantly clear that miracles and divine works of power went hand-in-hand with the bold proclamation of the gospel – oftentimes opening doors for the proclamation of the gospel – in the New Testament accounts.  We see this clearly in Acts.  We have already seen it in chapter two:  the miracle of Pentecost gives way to Peter’s great Pentecost sermon that, in turn, results in mass conversions.  We see the same in Acts 3, though here the miracle is focused on one man in particular.

What is clear was that God touched and touches human lives through miracles.  He touches human hearts through other means as well, but oftentimes through divine manifestations of his power.  This means that we can study the aftermath of miracles as presented in scripture to see the effects of Christ taking hold of a human being.  The example before us this morning provides us with just such an opportunity.

When Christ takes hold of a person, His blessings always exceed the person’s expectations.

Our text is a case study in exceeded expectations.  It begins with Peter and John, two friends, two men whose lives were forever changed by Jesus, going to the temple to pray.

¹ Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. ² And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple.

It would not be unusual to find beggars at the various gates to the temple.  Nobody is exactly sure which gate is the Beautiful Gate since we have no record outside of this of a gate going by that name.  F.F. Bruce offers some helpful comments on a possible solution.

This may be identical with the Nicanor Gate, as it is called in the Mishnah, leading into the Court of the Women; the name here given to it may be more readily understood if it is further identified with the gate of Corinthian bronze described by Josephus, of such exquisite workmanship that it “far exceeded in value those gates that were plated with silver and set in gold.”[2]

Furthermore, John Stott says of the beautiful gate, “It was about seventy-five feet high and had huge double doors.”[3]  This gate, then, was massive and its doors were stunning.  If this is the gate, it was the only gate with doors that were not gilded, covered with, say, gold leaf.  The doors were actually copper doors.

Imagine, then, the contrast between these stunning doors in this massive gate and the little, broken beggar who sat before them.  He was daily put there so that he could beg.  And this makes sense.  He would beg the observant Jews as they came to the temple three times a day for prayers and sacrifices.  John Polhill notes that “the rabbis taught that there were three pillars for the Jewish faith – the Torah, worship, and the showing of kindness, or charity.”[4]  Obviously the Jews who would go up for temple worship might be inclined to practice their charity upon the lame beggar.

He is there, begging before the gate, and he sees Peter and John approaching.

³ Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. ⁴ And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” ⁵ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. ⁶ But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” ⁷ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

This is a stunning turn of events, and it galvanized the attention of the unsuspecting crowd.  The poor man had hopes and aspirations but they did not rise above his expectations.  Hopes and aspirations never do rise above expectations.  Being held is nowhere on his radar, but getting a few coins in.  It is all he has ever known.  His has been a life of coins and measured pity.

So he calls out to the two men asking for the only thing for which he dares hope:  alms.  “Alms!  Alms!” he cries.  And Peter and John stop before him.  What they say to him had to have hit his ears like words from some other realm of reality.

“Look at us.”

What is this?  Nobody in the passing throng ever had asked such a thing before.  In general, people do not want to look at beggars and they certainly do not want beggars looking at them.  Think of the ways we are tempted to avert our eyes at busy intersections hoping that we will not make eye contact with the man with the sign.

“Look at us.”

There is intimacy in such an exchange.  To look into a person’s eyes is to see him as a human being, as a real man or real woman.  So we look away.  “Do NOT look at us!” our body language says.  “Look anywhere but at us.”

Not Peter.  Not John.  Something had happened to them.  They had walked with Jesus.  There were no more mere beggars to them.  There were only men and women, men and women with bodies and souls, men and women who bore the image of God, men and women who mattered.

“Look at us!”

And he looked.  It took something for Peter and John to see the man, to really see him.  And it took something for the man to look at them, to lift his eyes to their faces.  It took courage.  This man was accustomed to the casual tossing of coins from people rushing to get in the temple.  But these two stopped.

“Look at us!”

And he looks.  “And he fixed his attention on them,” Luke writes, “expecting to receive something from them.”  Something.  But not everything.  But they have everything to give!

⁶ But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” ⁷ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

The first words had to disappoint the beggar.  Was this a joke?  “Silver and gold have I none,” as the King James puts it.  But that is what he wanted!  And that is what he wanted because that is the most he thought he could receive!  Our hopes never rise above our expectations.  We have to learn to hope audaciously, and we can only do that when somebody smashes our expectations and shows us that we have hoped for too little and contented ourselves with too little.

When Christ takes hold of a person, His blessings always exceed the person’s expectations.

⁶ But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” ⁷ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

In the name of Jesus Christ.

Rise up and walk!

And he took him by the right hand and raised him up.

Thomas Walker, speaking of Peter helping the man up, said, “the power was Christ’s, but the hand was Peter’s.”[5]

Indeed!  The power of Christ heals.  The power of Christ spills the banks.  The power of Christ washes over us like a flood when we dare to trust in Him.

He hoped for alms.  He got the storehouse of Heaven poured out upon him instead.

This is how God works, Church!  This is how our God works!

There is something else here.

Luke tells us that Peter and John went up to the Temple at the ninth hour.  The Jewish day began at 6 am and ended at 6 pm.  There were three times of prayer:  9 am, 12, and 3 pm.  The ninth hour was therefore 3 pm.  Twice a day, at 9 am and 3 pm, the priests would offer sacrifices.  They would sacrifice a lamb, then offer an offering of “an unleavened loaf of wheat flour and oil,” then they would offer a drink offering.  The Mishnah tells us that, after the drink offering, the priest “clashed the cymbal” and the Levites would begin to sing. At certain intervals, however, the singing would stop, a trumpet would blow, and the people would prostrate themselves in prayer.[6]

I wonder:  did this man stand up when the lamb was slain there just inside the temple?  That would be fitting, for it was only because the Lamb of God has been slain that any of us can stand up.  Did the lamb give up his life on the altar as the healing power of God surged through his broken body?  That would be fitting.  For it is only because the Lam of God gave up His life that the healing power of God surges through any of us.

Or it could it be that Peter lifted this man to his feet just as the worshipers inside fell on their faces?  That, too, would be fitting, for we break under the law of a Holy God but we rise under the gift of grace.

When Christ takes hold of a person, He brings exuberant joy!

What, then, does this man, our brother, do?

⁸ And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹ And all the people saw him walking and praising God, ¹⁰ and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

He stands.

He walks.

He leaps.

Do you see the progression?

I cannot help but see in this a contrast to the regression of Psalm 1:1.  “Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”

Ha!  Do you see?  Do not walk, stand, or sit in wickedness…but do stand, walk, and leap in righteousness!

John Polhill has pointed out that there may a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy here as well.

Luke perhaps gave a veiled reference to the man’s healing being a sign of the messianic times that had come in Jesus.  He used a rare word (hallomai) for the man’s jumping, a word found in the Septuagint text of Isa 35:6 with reference to the messianic age:  “Then will the lame leap like a deer.”[7]

How amazing!  How beautiful!

He was broken, but now he is whole!

He was lowly, but now he is exalted!

He was poor, but now he is rich!

He was hopeless, but now he rejoices!

And there it is:  exuberant joy!  He is not merely that he rises, walks, then leaps, it is that he does so with exuberant joy!

⁸ And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹ And all the people saw him walking and praising God, ¹⁰ and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

He was “walking and leaping and praising God!”  He is bursting with infectious, uncontainable joy!  His heart is glad!  He laughs, and in his laughter one could hear the laughter of Adam when he first realized that God had made him from the dust and breathed life into him!  He rejoices!  He worships!  He praises!  He is glad, Church!

Do you know the joy that forgiveness brings, the sheer, wonderful gladness of a heart that has been unburdened?

I once spoke to a man who told me of being caught up in secret sin, of living a double life, of hiding his wickedness.  Then he was found out.  Then he cried out to God to forgive him and to save him.  And God did!  And he spoke of the amazing joy he felt at being free, at being healed, at being put back on his feet again.

Friends, there is great joy in Jesus!  Show me a person who has been lifted out of the gutter, and I’ll show you a person who knows how to praise his great God.

When Christ takes hold of a person, He binds him or her together with others who are in His grasp.

But may I point out one more thing that Christ does when He takes hold of a person?  Listen closely to verse 11.

¹¹ While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.

Some commentators hypothesize that the reason he clings to Peter and John is because he is unsure and afraid.  But I ask you:  does this running, leaping, praising man seem unsure or afraid?  I think not.

No, he clings to them because he sees in them men who have likewise been touched by the healing hand of Christ and he knows in ways deep and mysterious that he needs them to live out the full implications of what has happened to them.

He needs Peter and John.  He knows that God did not save him to leave him alone.  He knows that he is now part of a movement of other Jesus followers, other people who have likewise been saved by the name.

That is how this works.  When Christ takes hold of a person, He binds him or her together with others who are in His grasp.

The New Testament knows nothing of solitary Christianity, of what C.S. Lewis once called “the heresy of Jesus-and-me.”  It is Jesus-and-us.

Yes, He has saved me…but He also saved us, and the us must matter to me.

So he clings to Peter and John.  He clings to them as if to say, “This has happened to me…but it has also happened to you.  I am not part of you and you are not part of me.  And we are part of all those who have been raised to their feet by Jesus.  And we have a story to tell.  We have a life to live!  We have a Jesus about whom we bear witness!”

This is what Jesus does, Church.

This is Church:  broken beggars who have been lifted to their feet by the nail-pierced hand of the Lamb of God!

Acts 2:42-47

⁴² And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The text we are about to consider has been a problematic text throughout Christian history.  On the one hand, many simply deny that the words we are about to read are true, that this description of the early church is accurate at all, or that the early church ever lived the kind of life described here.  I am thinking here of somebody like Harold Bloom, who wrote in his book, The American Religion, that this romantic vision of the early church is just that:  a romantic vision.  He says that this church never really existed as it is presented in Acts.

Among Christians, the almost utopian vision we find in Acts 2:42-47 can create a kind of despair.  After all, when one reads this description then looks at the reality of what the Church in many quarters has become, it can lead to real frustration.  In the book The Permanent Revolution, which he co-wrote with Alan Hirsch, Tim Catchim writes:

Now I had not grown up in the church. At sixteen I picked up the Bible, read it cover to cover, and became a Christian. I was under the impression that what I had read in the Gospels and in the book of Acts was how the church actually functioned. It was a bit jarring to walk into the local church for the first time and see that it was only a shadow of what I’d read in scripture.[1]

This is perhaps an understandable reaction, but let us be sure of this:  Luke does not provide this description of the early church in order to cause us to despair or cause us to think less of our current congregational lives.  On the contrary, he is trying to get us to understand what the Church can be when it yields itself to gospel purity and conviction.  The New Testament in fact presents us with plenty of less-than-glowing pictures of the Church.  It is encouraging, then, to find what we find in our text this morning.

What do we find?  Simply this:

The early church was a learning, fellowshipping, praying, awe-filled, power-demonstrating, radically generous, consistent, glad, praise-filled, well-thought-of, growing body of Jesus followers.

That’s a long, full sentence, but no word in it is filler.  All of those descriptors are rooted in our text.  Let us take a cursory glimpse at each element.

a. Learning

^42a And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching

We may think primarily of  Church today in terms of relationships and family.  These are undoubtedly true components of what it means to be the Church.  But it must be recognized that at the heart of the Church is the truth of the gospel, and the heart of the gospel is Jesus.

They “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.”  They would accept no substitute for apostolic teaching, for the apostles were those who had seen the resurrected Lord and who had passed on the truths of the gospel, “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints,” as Jude put it in Jude 3.

This teaching was authoritative and not to be abandoned, as Paul put it so powerfully in Galatians 1.

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

We dare not abandon apostolic truth!  That is why we gather each week around an open Bible.  We too are devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teachings.

There is one other element to be found in these words, and it is an important one.  William Willimon astutely wrote about this passage, “Far from any modern mushy ‘inclusiveness,’ Luke is quite careful to separate those on the inside, who know, from those on the outside, who do not know.”[2]  The Church is defined as a group of people who know the gospel and are devoted to growing in it, who are, in fact, born again Christ-followers.  Earlier Baptists referred to this as “regenerate church membership.”  We ascribe to this truth today:  embracing the gospel of Christ is essential for membership in the Church.

b. Fellowshipping

^42b and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread

But there learning was not mere learning.  It was, in fact, community-forming learning.  As they gathered around the word, they gathered together and they fellowshipped, living life together.  They “devoted themselves” to “fellowship, to the breaking of bread.”

Many suggest that this reference to bread is a reference to the observance of the Lord’s Supper.  Luke’s usage of the word “breaking” may be intended to remind us of the Lord’s Supper.  Others suggest that it simply means that they were doing life together, eating together and fellowshipping around a common table.  Still others suggest that both meals may be being alluded to here.  I actually suspect this is the case, as Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:17-33, seems to suggest that the Lord’s Supper was observed in the context of ordinary meal time.

Regardless, the image of fellowship and of gathering around meals speaks of a Church that understood their lives together could not be occasional or careless.  It was deliberate, intentional, and real.  In the middle of the third century, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, wrote that a “common mind…prevailed once” in the Church.  He then wrote, “God is one, and Christ is one, and His Church is one; one is the faith, and one the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body.”[3]

c. Praying

^42c and the prayers.

They also devoted themselves to prayer.  James Montgomery Boice pointed to the presence of the article “the” in this verse (“and the prayers”) to argue that, “obviously, that is a reference to something formal – to worship in which the people got together and praised God.”[4]  That could be, though it could still be a reference simply to them coming together and prayer.  Either way, prayer was a tremendous priority to the early church.

Prayer opened the floodgates of divine power in the early Church.  It does so in the life of the Church today as well.  In 1858, something astounding happened in the United States.  A Christian layman began a midday prayer meeting for business folks.  That prayer meeting soon spread across the country and is now known as “the Awakening of 1858.”  To get at the power of prayer in the Church, let me offer some quotes from Roy J. Fish’s When Heaven Touched Earth: The Awakening of 1858 and Its Effects on Baptists.

The editor of The New York Times wrote in March (20^th, 1858):

In this City, we have beheld a sight which not the most enthusiastic fanatic for church observances could ever have hoped to look upon.  We have seen in a business quarter of the City, in the busiest hours, assemblies of merchants, clerks and working men, to the number of 5,000, gathered day after day for simple and solemn worship.  Similar assemblies we find in other portions of the City; a theatre is turned into a chapel; churches of all sects are opened and crowded by day and night.

Revival began in Newark.  An unusual burden for souls led a few members of the First Baptist Church to begin weekly prayer meetings late in 1857.  The spiritual tempo of these meetings increased, and soon as many as 300 conversions had been experienced in the church.  This precipitated a revival of unusual proportion in the city.  Morning prayer meetings were begun.  A short while later, noon-day prayer meetings were started and were quickly crowded to overflowing.  Various business establishments in Newark closed their doors at noon, leaving a notice on the door:  “Will re-open at the close of prayer meeting.”  Early in the year, around 2,800 conversions were reported, and among these were persons of the strongest and maturest minds in the community.  There was an average of almost 100 conversions for each reporting congregation.

The occasion of the great prayer revival is in almost every city, town, and neighborhood…daily prayer meetings held at noon in all the cities and large places, not only in the churches, but in halls, stores, and other places of business.  The voice of prayer was everywhere one accordant melody. (Centennial Celebration of the Baptist Church, New London, N.H., 1889)

 Prayer is the power of the church; could I speak as loud as the trumpet which is to wake the dead, I would thus call upon the church in all its branches and in all lands – “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.  Arise, shine, for thy light is come…”  The churches which are most prayerful are the most useful.  The heathen are to be given to Christ for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession, in answer to prayer. (Samuel I. Prime)[5]

Church, can we not pray together as the Church once did?  Can we not cry out to God together as they did?  We will see mighty things happen if we will pray!

d. Awe-Filled

^43a And awe came upon every soul,

The word “awful” was originally a good word.  It meant “full of awe.”  In this sense, then, the early Church was an awful Church…meaning a great church!  Awe fell upon the believers and many of the watching unbelievers as well.  Their fellowship was marked by power, by the Spirit of God, and by the awe that comes with these things.  They were not bored.  They were not watching the clock.  They were filled with awe!

e. Power-Demonstrating

^43b and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

And powerful things were happening through the apostles.  People were being healed both physically and spiritually.  Relationships were being mended.  Marriages were being restored.  Friendships were being reclaimed.  Bad habits were being abandoned.  The chains of sin were being loosed.  The gospel was being proclaimed.  All of these are signs and wonders.

It is a shame that we do not expect to see divine power today.  Paul Powell once described the modern Church as an entity that builds million dollar launching pads to send up bottle rockets.  But God wants so much more for us!  We have indeed seen healings in this Church.  We have indeed seen miracles here.  But we could see so much more if we came to Christ with reckless abandon and expectant hearts.

f. Radically Generous

⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

They were also marked by radical generosity.  What an amazing picture!  They “had all things in common,” sold what they had, and gave it to those in need.  This is a challenging passage, but a critical passage.

Many commentators have pointed out that verb for “selling” in Greek is used here in the imperfect tense, suggesting that “there was not one big sale of goods upon a person’s conversion, but that individuals sold portions of their personal and real property as needs in the community surfaced.”[6]  Literally, they “kept on selling” what they had and distributing it.

A.T. Robertson likewise pointed to the imperfect active tense of the verb “had” in “and had all things in common,” translating it as “kept on having.”  He saw in the grammar and context of these verses evidence of “a habit in the present emergency.”  In other words, he saw this sharing of property as exceptional as need required, not as the creation of a new law.

It was not actual communism, but they held all there property ready for use for the common good as it was needed (4:32).  This situation appears nowhere else except in Jerusalem and was evidently due to special conditions there which did not survive permanently.  Later Paul will take a special collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem.[7]

Furthermore, the 16^th century Swiss Protestant preacher Rudolph Gwalther argued that he could “easily prove it was not in the apostle’s mind or intention that all things should be common without any property belonging to anyone.”  He then pointed to the following examples elsewhere in Acts of believers holding personal property in the New Testament without censure:  “Tabitha, Lydia, Mary the mother of Mark, Simon the tanner, Cornelius the centurion, Philip and many others.”  In addition he pointed to Caius and Philemon.[8]

We must be careful here.  It seems clear that these are valid cautions and need to be heeded.  Even so, we should not seek to take the radical edge off of what the early Church did, and none of these cautions, properly understood, should do so.  But we must make sure we do not lessen the challenge of this text:  we should be a sharing body in which nobody goes without while others have more than enough.

g. Consistent

^46a And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,

It needs to be understood as well that this kind of fellowship does not just happen.  It happens when life is consistently lived together.  “Day by day,” Luke tells us, they were “attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes.”

This is important to understand:  if your connection to the Church is occasional, happenstance, and inconsistent, you are shortchanging yourself of those truly deep and meaningful relationships that only arise from a life lived together.

Do you see?  This is not really about “good church attendance.”  This is about building life rhythms together.  This is about being a family.  Those things do not happen when you either not present or are rarely present.

h. Glad

^46b they received their food with glad and generous hearts,

Luke also gives us a glimpse into the disposition of the early Church.  They had “glad and generous hearts.”  This, too, does not happen in a vacuum.  All of these elements are connected.  Gladness is almost inevitable when you live life together in this way.

Here is what I have observed:  those who are invested in the life of the Church, who are devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to prayer, to radical generosity, and to living life together tend to be glad and generous and joyful.  Those who see the Church as a product they consume, or as a dispenser of religious services, who are lax in their devotion and have no real commitment to investing in a shared life tend to be unhappy.

Connect to the body of Christ and you will be glad.  Invest your life in the great cause of the advance of the gospel in and through a local Christian congregation and you will find something to rejoice about.  But keep your commitments weak and your connections shallow, and you will be amazed at how unhappy you become.

i. Praise-Filled

^47a praising God

Hand in hand with joy is praise.  Out of “glad and generous hearts,” praise comes.  Here is a Welsh poem about praise.

God shall not

refuse or reject

whoever strives to praise Him

at the beginning and end

of the day[9]

We should indeed praise our great God at the beginning and end of each day, as the early Church did!  The early Church praised Him because of what He had done and was doing through Christ, but they also undoubtedly praised Him because of the miracle of their emerging life together.  In other words, the life of the Church itself is an occasion for praise, for only a miracle-working God could bring a people together in such a way and make this kind of family of them.

Behind it all and the in the midst of it all, however, is Jesus, who makes all things new.  In truth, if your relationship with the Church is primarily one of discontent and complaint, may I ask why?  Is Jesus not so glorious that you cannot find motivation to praise Him alongside others who have likewise bent their knees and hearts before them?

A Church that has Christ at the center will be a Church of passionate praise.  It cannot help but be.

j. Well-thought-of

^47b and having favor with all the people.

Perhaps most miraculously, those outside the Church thought well of them because of what they were doing and becoming.  Surely not all felt this way, for the early Christians met with persecution too, as Luke will record very soon in Acts.  But it is still the case that many who saw what was happening were amazed at it, respected it, and marveled, even though, for whatever reason, they did not join.  This is the case in the world.  Some want to destroy the Church, but some (secretly, perhaps) are envious of the strengths they see in the Church when the Church is being the Church.

Should this not challenge us?  Should there not be a love here that the world envies?  Should there not be a generosity here at which the world marvels?  Should there not be a sweetness of fellowship here that the world can barely even understand?

When Christ is given rule in His Church, He still draws all men to Himself.

k. Growing

^47c And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Finally, we see the Church growing.  They do not grow because of their own wisdom or skills.  They grow, Luke tells us, because “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”  It was God-driven growth.  This does not mean the Church was inactive.  No, this was a gospel-proclaiming Church.  But God was at work, drawing men and women into the family of faith!

He will do the same with us.  If we too seek to become this kind of family, united in the gospel, bold in witness, sincere in our love, faithful in our life together, God will grant the increase!  This account in Acts need not be mere history.  It remains a living possibility for the Church, and the only way forward.

I began this sermon by telling of how this text is a problematic text for many people.  I mentioned Tim Catchim’s frustration at comparing what he saw in Acts with what he saw in the local church.  Francis Chan went through the same thing.  I would like to conclude with his words because I think they are hopeful and true.

For years I did not have peace when I read the book of Acts.  The level of unity, commitment, and power that the early church displayed was so different from my Christian experience.  People tried to explain why this could not take place today.  Yet the more I studied the Scriptures, the more I became convinced that it must take place today.  I’m grateful that I did not back down because I am finally experiencing it.  I’m sharing the gospel alongside some radical followers of Christ, and it reminds me of what I read about in Scripture.  The unity we share looks like what I read about in Acts.  And we have experienced God’s power, leaving us with a feeling of awe similar to that which accompanied the believers in Acts (2:42-47).[10]

Amen.

Acts 2:37-41

³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” ⁴⁰ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” ⁴¹ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

I mention Flannery O’Connor every so often.  That is because I find in her short stories some of the most creative, provocative, disturbing, and unique depictions of Christian truth that I have found anywhere.  She was a short story writer from Georgia who died in 1964 after penning, again, some truly amazing stories that understandably won her fame and a following of people, like myself, who appreciate deeply what she did.

One of the most fascinating stories she ever wrote, and, I believe, one of the first I ever read, was her short story “Greenleaf.”  It is the story about a lady named Mrs. May.  Mrs. May thinks of herself as a Christian, but Flannery O’Connor hints throughout the story that she does not understand the truth of Christianity or of grace, that her Christianity really consists of trying to behave rightly, that it is really morality that she has confused for Christianity.  In the story, the tree line on Mrs. May’s property appears to be a symbol for her lostness as it blocks the light from ever getting through.

The other characters are the Greenleafs.  Mr. Greenleaf works for Mrs. May, running her farm for her.  Mrs. Greenleaf, Mr. Greenleaf’s wife, is a devout Christian who knows she is a sinner and prays for God’s grace.  Interestingly, Mrs. Greenleaf prays aloud that God would “stab her heart” with His own presence and show her His grace.

The story ends in a shocking and very unexpected way.  One of Mr. Greenleaf’s bulls gets out and begins running loose on Mrs. May’s property.  Mrs. May, angered by this, demands that Mr. Greenleaf come and shoot the bull, who had rooted up some of her bushes and appears to be wearing a wreath on its head.  They drive out in the field and, while Mr. Greenleaf is looking for the bull in one area, it emerges, tellingly, from Mrs. May’s tree line, charges her, and gores her to death.  O’Connor tells us that the bull’s horn stabs Mrs. May in the heart.

This is typical Flannery O’Connor.  A Christian lady prays that God would stab her in the heart with His grace and presence.  Then a bull, wearing a wreath crown on its head, emergences from the light-blocking tree line and stabs a lady in the heart who desperately needs to understand grace.

It is a violent scene and a powerful scene, made even more powerful once you get at what Flannery O’Connor is doing.  I believe she is saying that the grace of God is like this:  it stabs us in the heart.  His grace violently pierces the darkness of our own lives, wounding us and healing us in the same moment.  It is a violent grace because it is love, and our cold hearts wince in pain at the love of God that searches us to our depths revealing our distance from Him.  It is also a depiction of the gospel fact that we must die to self in order to live, that grace only breaks through the dark tree line of our own doubts when we are willing to lose our lives.

What an image!  It is a memorable image, being stabbed in the heart with grace.  It is also a biblical image.  In fact, it is the precise image evoked by those who heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon.  We see this in Acts 2:37-41.

Devastating remorse and conviction over sin.

When Peter had finished boldly preaching Christ, the people reacted with great consternation.  Their response is telling.

³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

The Greek word translated here as “cut to the heart” was once used by Homer to “depict horses stamping the earth with their hooves.”  A.T. Robertson said that it is “a rare verb” meaning “to pierce, to sting sharply, to stun, to smite.”  It literally means, “to be stabbed (with a knife).”[1]

In other words, Luke says that when the crowd first heard the gospel presented, they were stabbed in the heart by the truth of it and fell under amazing conviction.  Their hearts were pierced with conviction.  Conviction of what?  Conviction of their own guiltiness and their own need of grace and mercy.  Their hearts were convicted with devastating remorse.

John Calvin wrote, “The mind that is overwhelmed with horror runs to God.”[2]  How true!  How true!

Peter had told them that God sent His Son to the world and that they had killed His Son!  How could this not break their hearts?  In truth, how can it not break ours?  After all, we are no less guilty than they.  The reality is that Christ hung on the cross just as much for my crimes as for the crimes of first century men.  He hung there for me as much as for them, and I am as guilty of putting Him there as they.  The same guilt that led to remorse and broken hearts in their case is the same guilt we are confronted with today.  Should our reaction not be the same as theirs?

The gospel is good news that begins with bad news:  namely, our guilt before Almighty God!

Their can be not genuine conversion without genuine conviction and remorse.  In “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” Oscar Wilde wrote:

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

Yes, there must be remorse, a broken heart.  I do not use “remorse” to mean “intense display of emotion.”  Not at all.  We must not make the mistake of thinking that all displays of emotion mean genuine remorse or that all apparent lack of emotion means indifference.  Conviction is a matter of the heart that, yes, often demonstrates itself through outward signs of grief, but not always.

My question to you this morning is not, then, “Have you cried loudly in front of the church?”  No, my question is, “Has your heart broken before God?”

Has it?  Has your heart broken before God?

³⁷ Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

They were “cut to the heart.”  They were “stabbed in the heart.”  In Andrew Peterson’s song, “Just As I Am,” he sings:

What’s that on the ground?

It’s what’s left of my heart

Somebody named Jesus broke it to pieces

And planted the shards

And they’re coming up green

And they’re coming in bloom

I can hardly believe

This is all coming true

Just as I am, just as I was

Just as I will be He loves me, He does

He showed me the day

that
He shed His own blood

(Just as I am)

He loves me, oh,

He loves me, He does

That is a beautiful way of putting it:  Jesus breaks our hearts, plants the pieces in the ground, and they grow up bearing fruit!

Have you felt the heart piercing, shattering love of God, that love that wounds deeply, stinging you with awareness of your sinfulness, then heals completely, soothing your burdened heart with promises of forgiveness?  It is the truth of the gospel in high definition.  It confronts us with staggering clarity, showing us who we are and who God is!

Their hearts were pierced and they cried out, “What shall we do?!”

Repentance and obedience.

Peter answers their question:

^38a-b And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins

“Repent and be baptized,” he tells them, “for the forgiveness of sins.”  Let us deal with the second aspect first:  baptism.

The fact that Peter adds the words “and be baptized” has caused no small amount of controversy over the years.  It is an important issue, and one that we could spend a great deal of time talking about if we so chose.  Instead of doing that, let me simply offer a few reasons why I believe it is a mistake to take this one sentence to mean that salvation somehow mechanically affects or actuates baptism or to mean that one cannot be saved without being baptism.

First, let me be clear:  you cannot be an obedient Christian if you have simply decided not to be baptized.  This seems clear enough by virtue of the fact that Jesus Himself commanded that His followers be baptized (Matthew 28:19).  But to say that one cannot even be saved unless he or she is baptized goes beyond what scripture actually says.  Consider the following points about Peter’s statement, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.”

• The preposition “for” in the phrase “repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness of sins” is the Greek word eis.  In the New Testament, that word is used in two different ways.  Sometimes it is used as “for,” “which could indicate purpose,” but sometimes in the New Testament that word is used to mean “on the ground of, on the basis of, which would indicate the opposite relationship – that the forgiveness of sins is the basis, the grounds for being baptized.”  The great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson points to Matthew 10:41 as an example of the preposition eis being used as the “basis or ground” of something and wrote that there are “numerous” illustrations of both usages in the New Testament.  Taking all of this into consideration, Robertson stated that his “view is decidedly against” the notion that baptism is necessary for “the remission of sins or the means of securing such remission,” arguing instead that that Peter was here “urging baptism on each of them who had already turned (repented)…on the basis of the forgiveness of sins which they had already received.”  New Testament scholar Ben Witherington agrees with this, and says, “it is thus quite correct to stress that in Acts 2 we see repentance (and faith) leading to baptism, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit.  This was apparently normally the case.”

• John Polhill has pointed out that “the usual connection of the forgiveness of sins in Luke-Acts is with repentance and not with baptism at all (cf. Luke 24:47; Acts 3:19; 5:31).”  “In fact,” Polhill writes, “in no other passage of Acts is baptism presented as bringing about the forgiveness of sins.”  Acts 10:43, 13:38, and 26:18 link forgiveness with faith, not baptism. The former Methodist bishop William Willimon says about these words that “this pattern of conversion appears nowhere else in Acts” and notes that “elsewhere when Luke recounts conversion of a crowd he merely says that many believed (4:4; 5:14) or that they turned to the Lord (9:35).”

• Clinton E. Arnold rightly points out that the whole teaching of the New Testament needs to be brought to bear on any single verse, pointing to Romans 6:3-4 (^“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”) as evidence of the fact that “Paul…characterizes [baptism] as vividly symbolizing a participation in Christ’s burial and resurrection.”  He concludes that “identification with Christ – and not the water itself – the basis for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). Likewise, F.F. Bruce, that famed commentator of yesteryear, wrote, “It is against the whole genius of biblical religion to suppose that the outward rite could have any value except insofar as it was accompanied by the work of grace within.”[3]

Clearly a surface, wooden interpretation of Peter’s words violate the rest of Scripture.  He obviously does not mean that the waters of baptism mechanically save.  No, he is talking about something much bigger:  repentance leading to obedience.  They are to repent and obey and follow their King!  Baptism and obedience are results of their having been saved.  Our hearts are broken, we repent, we fall at the feet of our King.  We are redeemed, we are resurrected, and we are freed now to follow Jesus through obedience, an obedience that includes baptism.

The first word Peter uses is “Repent!”  It is Peter’s first word because it was Jesus’ first word.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2).  To repent is to do an about-face.  It means to make a U-turn in life.  It means to have a change of heart and mind, to determine to be something radically different than what you are.

Notice the order:  conviction then repentance.  Only those under conviction can repent because only those under conviction will think they need to repent.  This is why calculated or pre-planned repentance is not true repentance.  Repentance is the natural response of one whose heart is truly broken under the convicting hand of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you recognize that you need to repent but are telling yourself that you will do so later, that you will wait to the end and repent just before you do.  In that way, you tell yourself, you can “live life to the fullest,” doing whatever you’d like, then repenting before it’s too late.  This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what true repentance is.  It is also a dangerous notion.

Thomas Brooks, the 17^th century English Puritan, wrote this about repentance:

…though true repentance is never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true. Ah, how many millions are now in hell, who have thought, and resolved, and said that they would repent hereafter, but that hereafter never came! Thou sayest to-morrow, to-morrow thou wilt repent, when thou knowest not what a to-morrow will bring forth. Alas! how many thousand ways may death surprise thee before to-morrow comes! Though there be but one way to come into the world, yet there is a thousand thousand ways to be sent out of the world. “Oh, the diseases, the hazards, the dangers, the accidents, the deaths, that daily, that hourly attend the life of man!…Ah, friends, you are never safe till you repent; it is repentance that puts you out of all danger of miscarrying forever. Shall the husbandman take his present seasons for sowing and reaping? shall the good tenant repair his house while the weather is fair? shall the careful pilot take his advantage of wind and tide, and so put out to sea? shall the traveller mend his pace when he sees the night comes on ? and shall the smith strike when the iron is hot? — and shall not we take the present opportunity of repenting and turning to the Lord, remembering that there will be a time when time shall be no more; and when there shall be no place found for repentance, though it should be sought carefully with tears…[4]

How true the warnings of Thomas Brooks are!  Are you delaying repentance?  Why?  Is sin that sweet to you that you cannot break with it?  Is the salvation and peace of Christ not of more value to you than your sins?  Is peace of mind not more valuable to you than the thrill of your rebellions?  Is Christ and is His way not more compelling to you than your own way?  Is the certainty of heaven not more precious to you than the certainty of hell, if you do not repent?

“What shall we do?!” they cry.  “What shall we do?!”

Repent!

Repent!

The promised reception of the Holy Spirit.

And what happens when you repent, when you come to Christ in recognition of your inability and of His ability?

^38b-c  and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

He gives you a gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit.  You cannot earn this gift.  You cannot achieve it by your own efforts.  It is given, and it can only be given to open hands and broken hearts.

In John 14, Jesus offered his disciples some astounding comments about what the coming of the Holy Spirit would mean for them.  While lengthy, each word is crucial.  Listen carefully.

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” ²³ Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ²⁴ Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. ²⁵ “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

What an amazing gift!  You have received none other that can compare to this!  The Spirit is promised to all, and this “all” included all in the first century who would come to Christ, from wherever they would come, as well as “all” in all the generations to come.  Peter makes this clear in the remainder of the sermon, which Luke tells us went on well beyond the words he, Luke, passed on to us.

³⁹ For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” ⁴⁰ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” ⁴¹ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

“The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  Are you “far off”?  Is there a great distance between you and the Lord?  You are no so far that you cannot return and you are not so far that the love of God cannot reach you.

Does this “far off” language sound familiar to you?  It should.  In one of Jesus’ most famous parables, the parable of the prodigal son, we hear the story of a son who left his father’s house, rebelled, hit rock bottom, came under conviction, then determined to return in repentance to his father’s house.  In Luke 15:20, we read, “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”

“the promise is for…all who are far off.”

“while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion”

You are not too far off to come home.

You are not too far off to come home.

Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent, and you will receive the tender, healing, life-giving mercies of Jesus.

Earlier this week I reviewed Barnabas Piper’s book The Pastor’s Kid.  He graciously consented to answering a few questions about it, for which I am grateful.

Barnabas, I’d like to thank you for your book.  I think you did a great job in it of highlighting the unique challenges that PK’s face.  As a pastor, it led me to do some real soul-searching.  So, again, thank you.  I’ve read books before by the sons of prominent Christians that I did not think were respectful, that I thought might have violated the fifth commandment even.  When you set out to write this, how did you seek to avoid committing the sin of Ham, of uncovering your father’s nakedness as it were?

I went into aware that there would be numerous opportunities to disparage my dad and mom. I’ve seen some of those expose type works. The only way I knew to avoid slipping into that was by reminding myself regularly of “honor your father and mother” – it echoed in my mind as I wrote. The other way was to remember that I was writing of grace, of reconciliation to God. If I want to represent those well to other people I have to show that they are real in my relationship with my own parents. Last, I love my parents and don’t want to do them any harm (emotionally or otherwise). Love seeks to build up, not tear down.

Have you received any kickback from the book, perhaps from big fans of your father and his work who might feel threatened by this?

Not yet. I suspect it will come at some point from somewhere or other. So far the feedback has been primarily from fellow PKs who have connected with the book deeply and express they’re gratitude for it. They don’t know how encouraging that is.

As I read your words distinguishing between “the faith” and your parents’ “version of the faith,” I could not help but think of Calvinism in particular.  Some expressions of the Reformed community get close to conflating these ideas.  I am thinking here of Spurgeon’s statement that “Calvinism is the gospel.”  (For the record, despite that unfortunate statement, I am a fan of Spurgeon!)  Are you a Calvinist? Do you think one must be to be a Christian? How much does growing up in the Reformed subculture of Christianity come to play in this?

In general I refuse to answer the question of whether I am a Calvinist or not. From my perspective, that of one who grew up in the reformed movement, almost no good comes from boldly labeling one’s self a Calvinist. Soteriology, an understanding of God’s actions in the salvation of sinners, is important for all Christians. But forceful labels cloud the issue more than they help. In the current theological and ecclesiological milieu I would like to avoid the labels of Calvinist and Arminian and all their baggage. If someone is interested in a genuine exploration of how salvation comes about, that is a different story and something that matters.

I will answer the second question. No, you do not have to be a Calvinist to be a Christian. You have to have a saving faith in Jesus and recognize your need for him to take away your sins and give you his righteousness. And you have to submit to Him as the perfect Lord of your life. That’s what you need to be a Christian. 

How many of the struggles you have faced are a result of being a pastor’s son and how many are a result of being the son of Christian celebrity John Piper in particular?  Is it a heightened phenomenon for you because of who your dad is?

I wondered the same thing before writing The Pastor’s Kid, so I reached out to several dozen PKs from around the country. Most of them were from “normal” churches, those without celebrity pastors, and their experiences mirrored mine to an uncanny degree. What I wrote in the book was not just my story but an amalgamation of numerous PKs’ stories into one. The life examples I gave are mine, but the larger principles are ours as PKs.

Being the child of a celebrity pastor has added a level of pressure, certainly. It is a challenge living one’s spiritual life, for good or ill, in a public way. It leaves little room for mistakes or doubt. That said, I’ve made enough mistakes and doubted enough to learn how to navigate them!

I appreciated your seven suggestions to folks concerning approaching PK’s that you provide at the end of the book.  As a result of them, I’m going to try desperately to avoid asking you the one question about your father that I want to know:  did he grow up a South Carolina or Clemson fan?  Since I know that’s rude, I will not ask, even though I’m from South Carolina and want to know.  (See what I’m doing here?)

Well then I won’t tell you that he grew up the son of a Clemson fan. I never once heard the name “Gamecocks” uttered from my grandfather’s or father’s lips. And I won’t tell you that my dad has little or no rooting interest at this point.

First of all, this is probably less of a review than simply my initial reactions to this book.  There’s a lot here that I’m still thinking about and a lot on which I still need to do some work.  That is a compliment to the book.  The book has challenged certain assumptions of mine, assumptions that I do not hold lightly or cheaply, assumptions that I actually think are, in fact, more than mere assumptions and that I do not intend to abandon without further thought.  Even so, the case that Hirsch and Catchim make in The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century is so serious, so well-argued, and so potentially persuasive that I do not think it should be simply dismissed, even if, in the final analysis, it must be partially or completely dismissed.

Second, I’m going to have to interact with this book more, along and along as I’m able.  If the mark of a great book is that it cannot be read, shrugged at, then dismissed, then this is a great book.  It is potentially paradigm shifting, and those who have seen the maddening proliferation of ecclesial proposals streaming in from all quarters on an almost weekly basis do not shift paradigms lightly.  I certainly don’t.  But unless we want to dry rot in the calcification of our own paradigmatic comforts, we must be willing to “disturb the universe,” as T.S. Eliot put it.

The Hirsch/Catchim Argument

Hirsch and Catchim are troubled…by which I mean “concerned” not “mentally disturbed.”  They want to know why it is that the five-fold ministry Paul refers to in Ephesians 4 is not being fully acknowledged and honored and embraced today.  Ephesians 4 is the locus classicus of the Hirsch/Catchim proposal.  They refer to it forty-three times in the book (as Kindle counts it anyway).  The specific text is verse 11, though the surrounding context, as they ably point out, is very important as well.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers

Hirsch/Catchim speak of this five-fold ministry in terms of the acrostic APEST:

A – apostles

P – prophets

E – evangelists

S – shepherds

T – teachers

Their basic contention is that the modern Church has denigrated, ignored, or explained away the APE aspects and have ceded control of the Church primarily to shepherds and teachers.  In particular, the book is an apologetic for the reclamation and recognition of the apostolic office.  The argument is, in a sense, simple:  if God has linked the full-flowering of the Church to the Spirit’s operation through these five ministries, then the abandonment of any or all of them is necessarily injurious to the cause of Christ in the world to the extent that they are abandoned.  And, of course, since the modern apostle-denying Church in the West is floundering as it is, is this floundering not likely the result of this denial?  Think of it in terms of a basic syllogism:

Major Premise:  Only the Church in which the five-fold ministry of Ephesians 4 is allowed full bloom is a healthy church.

Minor Premise:  The modern Church, on the main, is not allowing the five-fold ministry of Ephesians 4 to bloom in full.

Conclusion:  The modern Church, on the main, is not a healthy Church.

Or something like that.

The apostolic office in particular is critical, Hirsch/Catchim argue, because of what it does.  Here is how they define it:

Once again, the clue to this answer is found in the distinctive role of the apostolic person as custodian of the DNA of God’s people. This is manifested through the apostolic focus on extending the impact of the Christian movement through mission, maintaining the integrity of the movement in relation to its core DNA, and providing the overall context for the other ministries to emerge in a healthy manner. We mention these here because the apostolic person has absolutely no mandate to tamper with the DNA itself—apostles are mere custodians, not generators, of that DNA—but they do have to be thoroughly innovative in two major ways. The two basic forms of, and contexts for, apostolic innovation are in the mission field as the gospel is extended into new contexts and cultures (what we call missionary innovation) and in search of new forms of ecclesia and methods for existing churches (what we call missional innovation). (Kindle Locations 5462-5464)

So outwardly, apostles “extend” the gospel into the frontier (which Hirsh/Catchim more than once metaphorically contrast with settlements ((read: institutional, traditional Christianity))) and internally they creatively and imaginatively propose “new forms of ecclesia” as well as new methods.  Obviously, this is very important and, the authors argue, it is encapsulated in the particular calling of the apostles.

Why, then, does the Church today not recognize the apostolic office whereas it does recognize the offices of shepherd and teacher?  After all, Hirsch/Catchim argue there is no  clear biblical reason for rejecting it.

Contrary to what some would suggest, there are absolutely no textual grounds for the elimination of apostolic ministry from the church. There is nothing in the New Testament itself to suggest that the APE ministries would, or should, be abrogated once the canon of scripture and the institution of the church were fully formed. Whatever exegesis was used to justify this idea had to have imposed an extrinsic meaning on one or two selected texts (for example, Ephesians 2:20) and is a theologically anachronistic, politically motivated, procrustean reading to make the text suit the sensibilities of the later institution. We are saying that no case can be made from scripture itself; it came from elsewhere. (Kindle Locations 6981-6986)

This is a strong claim.  The apostolic office was “edited out of the codes” (to use another of their images) and the only exegetical or hermeneutical reasons for doing so  are “theologically anachronistic, politically motivated” and “procrustean.”

Nietzsche once wrote, “All truths are bloody truths to me.”  One gets the feeling this is a “bloody truth” to Hirsch/Catchim.  I respect that, though I do wonder whether or not such naked allegations of exegetical incompetence on the parts of their detractors will engender good conversation.  But I digress.

Why, then, was the apostolic ministry edited out of the codes?  Presumably because it is a threat to the stewards of controlling institutionalization and to the entire programme of Christendom.

But as Berger indicates, when organizations become increasingly security oriented and more bureaucratic, they tend to suppress the more disturbing original message and mission that generated the organization in the first place…The apostolic functions (along with the prophetic and evangelistic ones) were edited out of the codes. The resultant Christendom system seldom demonstrated the motivation or the will (political, theological, or otherwise) to adjust it back to fit the biblical categories. (Kindle Locations 7113-7115)

If Hirsch/Catchim’s premises are true, then the results have been understandably catastrophic.

The fact that we have all but eliminated the possibility of an active, ongoing apostolic function from our consciousness and vocabulary, let alone from our practices, indicates that we have somehow messed with the foundations of leadership and ministry, at least in the way the New Testament church itself experienced these. As we have seen, New Testament ministry clearly included the ministry of apostles and, beyond that, of APEST. The words apostle and its derivatives are used over ninety-five times in the New Testament, whereas now apostle has been all but edited out of our vocabulary. Whereas it is used only once to describe a function in the church, we use the word pastor as a catch-all title for just about every aspect of ministry. And while the biblical understanding of teacher is circumscribed in the Bible itself (James 2), we refer to theologians as the sole dependable source of authority. How can we account for such a massive discrepancy? While accepting the ongoing role of the shepherds and teachers, we have to ask how it is we can claim to have a truly biblical understanding of ministry devoid of the active presence and participation of those who occupy the overwhelmingly prominent place in the biblical material itself. This radical mismatch between New Testament APEST ministry and contemporary Western understandings serves only to highlight the issue that what we call ministry today is a substantively different from the original forms. Either this delimitation of ministry to shepherd and teacher functions is what God intended, or it is not. And if it is not what he intended, then we have made a terrible error along the way and must do all that we can to correct it. (Kindle Locations 6935-6937)

Here we have the basic argument of the book

Strengths of the Hirsch/Catchim Argument

The strengths of this argument lie in the thrust of the premises undergirding it.  Behind the particulars, it seems to me that there are at least seven clear premises out of which and on which Hirsch/Catchim write.

The Church will only be all that it is intended to be insofar as it aligns itself with God’s original design for the Church.

That design is most authoritatively posited in the scriptures.

The scriptures are perspicuous.

The scriptural mandates are timeless and binding on the Church today.

The natural drift of man, even redeemed men, is away from the mandates of God, even when these drifts are clothed in the language of the faith.

The Church may yet return to God’s design for the Church and will, if this is done, experience the full blessings of Christ Jesus for His bride.

The spread of the gospel is critical, for in it is life, now and eternal.

I would like for it to be noted that I am not trying to manufacture positives in pointing out these premises (as I see them).  Again, I am undecided on some of the central contentions of the book, so I have no secret desire to prove these brothers wrong.  If they are right, their challenge should be heeded.  If they are wrong, there should be clear ways of showing how and why.  I am naturally conservative and cautious when faced with such sweeping proposals, but I very much hope I have not given my comforts control of my exegesis.  I want to face the Lord and say that I sought to honor His revealed truths in my stewardship as a pastor, even if those truths caused uncomfortable changes in the way I approach ministry.

Regardless of where one lands on the the validity of their particular conclusions, who of us could be undecided on their operative premises?  And I would argue that Hirsch/Catchim clearly and passionately hold to these premises.

There is a kind of simple biblicism behind the central argument that would make the most right-leaning Southern Baptist smile.  Despite their very impressive terminology and sophisticated argumentation, I do not think Hirsch/Catchim would demur at all from the suggestion that the basic thrust of their argument can be stated in these terms:  “For the Bible tells me so.”

Oddly enough, I suspect that their argument will be met by many conservative North American Christians in such a way that a weird reversal takes place:  ostensibly sola scriptura North American fundamentalists will be arguing for tradition-maintenance and Hirsch/Catchim will be arguing for a literal, complete, and non-selective adherence to Ephesians 4:11…unless their argument is shown to be false from scripture.

If one is going to disagree with their proposal, then one should rightly do so on exegetical grounds.  Other arguments, of course, are valid and worthy of consideration.  After all, Hirsch/Catchim marshal arguments from a wide panoply of areas:  historical, logical, organizational, etc.  Even so, their sine qua non is Ephesians 4:11, and, by extension, holy writ.  In this, they are being good Bible Christians.

In addition to the strength of their premises, it should be pointed out that there is no clear or explicit biblical warrant for the abandonment of the ministry of apostle.  Furthermore, the role that they play as described by Hirsch/Catchim does compliment the other four, so there is a logical force to their contentions that harmonizes well with the ipsissima vox of scripture.

Questions for the Hirsch/Catchim Argument

Even so, there are legitimate questions that need to be asked about this, exegetical and otherwise.  I’m going to offer some here.  I hope these will be received for what they are:  honest initial questions and not evidences of a clear rejection.  If anything, these questions are for myself as much as for Hirsch/Catchim.  Taken together, they constitute a working list for my own journey of working through what is being proposed here, and I can honestly say that I would not have been driven to ask these particular questions about these particular texts were it not for having seen the force of the Hirsch/Catchim argument.

Question #1: What are the implications of Ephesians 2 for this argument?

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Does the language of verse 20 (“built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”) suggest that this foundation was built, past tense, on the original apostles (and prophets – the AP of APEST) or does the wording here allow the ongoing presence of apostles in the church?  (For what it’s worth, I would suggest to Hirsch/Catchim that dismissals of honest exegetical/hermeneutical questions about this and other texts is not helpful and is not conducive to the kind of honest conversation I imagine they would like to have.)

Question #2:  Does the choosing of Matthias at the end of Acts 2 suggest that apostleship is limited to eyewitnesses of the resurrection in such a way that it is necessarily a first-generation office?

21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” 23 And they put forward two, Joseph calledBarsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. 24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry andapostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Question 3:  Of what import is the interesting language of Paul’s description of his own apostleship in 1 Corinthians 15 to the questions at hand?

7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

What are the implications of the phrase “last of all” on these discussions?  Did Paul see himself as the last of the apostles?  Is that what he means?

Question 4:  Where, in addition to Ephesians 4, are the clear arguments for the continuation of the office of apostle in the terms proposed by Hirsch/Catchim?

Question 5:  Have Hirsch/Catchim dealt sufficiently with Acts 2:42?

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

They do indeed interact with the verse, primarily to show (a) that the early church’s devotion to “the apostles’ teaching” is not antithetical to calling for the the dynamic presence of the ongoing apostolic office and (b) that mere cognitive awareness of didactic truths fall short of actualizing the role and giftings of the apostles themselves.  Knowing what the apostles said, in other words, is a matter of learning, but that is quite different from fulfilling the role they fulfilled, which is a matter of calling.

I will only hazard to say here that the early church’s devotion to the apostles’ teaching is not segmented into a vacuum in Luke’s account.  It stands hand in hand with the other marks of that amazing passage.  Most importantly, the overall thrust of their devotion to the apostles’ teaching in the context of the proclaiming, praying, fellowshipping, worshiping, bread-breaking church led to the astonishing expansion of Christianity in the world.  Which is to say, the apostles’ teaching was not merely teaching to the early church.  It compelled and propelled them forward.

Question 6:  Can the historical rejection of the idea of an ongoing apostleship in the terms proposed by Hirsch/Catchim be disregarded all that easily when the idea was apparently rejected from the very beginning of post-biblical Christianity?  Does something like the inherent wisdom of the Vincentian Canon and its definition of catholicity not at least caution us against making leap frog arguments from (a) what we think we see in the Bible and (b) us when the intervening two-thousand years shows that these passages were not read in these ways?  This is, I know, an admittedly limited argument.  In and of itself, it proves nothing, I realize.  Furthermore, my historical argument could be wrong.  But it is not an insignificant argument for those who take Christian history seriously and not simply as a two millennia long narrative of declension.

Conclusion

I conclude where I began:  that the Hirsch/Catchim proposal is a well-reasoned proposal that takes the Bible, the gospel, and the Lord Jesus seriously.  If Hirsch/Catchim are wrong, they need to be shown why.  If they are correct, the Church needs to rethink what it is doing, as many churches are currently doing (they offer helpful examples of this in the book).

I suppose I would only caution others and myself with these three things:  be careful, be cautious, be biblical.  This is not to say that Hirsch/Catchim have not been.  They have been.  This needs to be a conversation among Christians of good will, for whether or not one ultimately agrees with their argument, Hirsch/Catchim have done yeoman’s work in taking the Bible seriously, taking the gospel seriously, taking the call of the Lord Jesus seriously, taking ministry seriously, and courageously facing what they believe the full implications of the scripture to be.

More to come.

As I have connected with dozens of PKs, I have often asked the question “Do you think your parents understood the struggles you had or the pressures you faced?” The only PKs who answer yes, their parents understood, are those whose parents are also PKs. Without fail the rest say no. 

Barnabas Piper

Barnabas Piper is the son of the well-known former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church,  founder of Desiring God Ministries, and current Chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary, John Piper.  To say that he is the son of a “big name pastor” would be an understatement.  John Piper has achieved, in many quarters, almost rock star status, especially among the “young restless and reformed” crowd.  (I go back and forth in my own feelings concerning Piper, for what it’s worth.  I sincerely appreciate much about him and his ministry  ((i.e., the basic core of his Christian hedonism idea)) but also have disagreements with some aspects of his ministry.  But that’s neither here nor there.)

When I heard that Barnabas had written The Pastor’s Kid I decided immediately that I wanted to read it.  NOT because I wanted to hear personal stuff about John Piper.  I’m long past the point of coating Christian celebrities in a veneer of sainthood or devilry.  The fact is that Christian celebrities are like all Christians:  capable of great good and great bad. Or, as Luther put it, simul justus et peccatore.  No, I assume that John Piper is just like all of us who are seeking to follow the Lord:  flawed, a cracked vessel, but a redeemed child of God.

While it is true that the fact that John Piper’s son wrote this piqued my interest, it wasn’t for the purposes of pastoral or ecclesiological voyeurism that I picked it up.  It was rather because, as a pastor with a child, the issue is very near and dear to my heart and I felt that I might possibly hear in Barnabas Piper’s words thoughts that my own child might or might not be thinking.  Truth be told, most pastor’s around my age worry a great deal about the effects that the ministry might have on our children.  My wife and I certainly do.  And while we work very hard to be balanced and to guard our child from certain debilitating effects in appropriate ways, the fact that she is a PK cannot be avoided, and, I should say, should not be apologized for.  So I turned to the book with great interest.

It is a fascinating book.  In it, Barnabas tells of his own journey, of what it is like being the son of a pastor, and of what it is like being the son of a pastor in the midst of the congregation his father pastors.  The overall picture that emerges is one of gratitude mixed with a strong desire for pastors and churches to try to understand the unique position preachers’ kids (PK’s) are in.

On a personal level, Barnabas speaks of having to come to own his own faith and of feeling the challenge of working out his own faith in ways that, at times, was not like the ways his well-known father works out his faith.  Raised as a believer, it was not until Barnabas underwent an intense spiritual crisis resulting from hidden sin that he came to understand (a) the severity of the destructive power of sin and (b) the exhaustive severity of the saving grace of God.

Barnabas is refreshingly transparent in telling his own story.  He got caught up in hidden sin, his life fell apart, and God restored him and his marriage and his faith.  Furthermore, Barnabas talks of how he was not always the friend he should have been or the leader he should have been.  He tells of a youth minister lovingly confronting him about these things and of friends who have to occasionally remind him that they do not care that he is John Piper’s son.

The great takeaway in all of this for me is to remember that PK’s are on their own journey.  Perhaps the most poignant statement Barnabas makes in the entire book is when he says, “Fewer PKs would walk away from the faith if we were freely allowed to walk away from our parents’ version of faith.”  That, it seems to me, is a critical distinction:  the faith and our parents’ version of the faith.  Helpfully, and reassuringly, Barnabas nuances what he means by this:

What we need is room to explore. I don’t mean that all boundaries and parenting efforts should be forsaken; that would be foolish. But we need emotional and relational space to be different. I need to be able to come to God differently than my father does. I need to be able to express faith differently without being corrected or dismissed. I need to be free to have doubts, to speak them without recrimination, and to not know answers. I need to be able to be wrong and then find the right without parental hyperventilating and intrusion in my life. And I need a relationship that is deeper than theological particulars and lifestyle choices. In short, I need a parent’s love that runs so deep that no matter what lifestyle or theological choices I make, the relationship holds strong. This is not the same thing as validating all lifestyle choices or decisions; it just means loving deeply no matter what. Pastors need to know that a child’s exploration and wandering is not, in most cases, an effort to hurt them. It is an honest seeking of identity, truth, and life.

This is a needed qualification, and it is much appreciated.  It does not dilute his point:  PK’s need the freedom to walk their own journey with the Lord without feeling as if the abandonment of their parents’ categories is the abandonment of the faith itself.  Of course, it is possible to abandon the faith itself, and parents are correct to raise their kids in the Lord and in the knowledge of the gospel, along with encouraging them to biblical fidelity.  But I get Barnabas’ point.  There is a kind of suffocating template we can force on our kids if we’re not careful.  His point is well made.

Concerning pastors in particular, Barnabas stresses that PK’s need parents before they need pastors.  PK’s don’t need sermons at home, they need normal, healthy, parent-child relationships.  They do not want to be second place to the church (“What pastors need to realize is that their first calling is to their families, not the church.”). They need to hear their parents apologize when they are wrong (it seemed to me he stressed this more than a few times), admit their weakness, and be transparent.  PK’s do not want to be reduced to sermon illustration fodder.  Furthermore, he argues that it is soul-crushing for PK’s to see radical incongruity between what their dads are at home and what they are on the platform.  Tellingly, he notes that his greatest times with his own father have been when they were simply doing father-son stuff together.  This is a welcome reminder to me.

Barnabas also has a lot to say about the ways that the church can harm PK’s through wrongful assumptions and careless actions.  For instance, the assumption that the PK knows all the answers, that he or she is a bible scholar, that he or she is (or must be) a perfect angel, or that he or she is an expert theologian.  They do not like being held to a different standard from everybody else, being corrected by church members who think they should not do this or that because they are PK’s, etc.  I suppose these kinds of things happen naturally enough, but it was a powerful reminder to hear a PK tell how frustrating, embarrassing and irritating this can be.

Finally, some aspects of the book, as I read them, cannot help but be the result of being John Piper’s son.  For instance, Barnabas chafes under being asked, “What does your dad think about…”  While this happens, I know, with PK’s in general, it surely must be the case that that kind of thing is going to happen a LOT more with John Piper’s son than with the children of other pastors.  The same with folks trying to meet Barnabas’ dad through Barnabas, etc.  Some aspects of this, whether Barnabas realizes it or not (and I’m sure he does), is less about being the son of a pastor than being the son of a celebrity.

The book is well written, honest, transparent, heart-felt, and avoids being disrespectful.  On this last point, I kept thinking that this is the kind of book Frank Schaeffer needs to write about his dad instead of the (at points) inappropriate hit pieces he has penned.  There is a way, in other words, to say these kinds of things without attacking one’s parents.  Barnabas has modeled that way well in this book.  John Piper actually wrote the foreword for the book, and he says that it was a painful read at times.  I suspect that is so.  It would be for me.  Even so, I suspect Piper saw clearly the underlying current of respect, admiration, and appreciation from his son.  I certainly did.

I have struggled with whether or not to offer this one criticism, but I think maybe I should.  This is subjective, granted, but, while I truly found the work helpful and insightful, there was, at times, a degree of whine in it as well.  It’s a fine line to walk, I suppose:  telling of your struggles without sounding like you’re whining about your troubles.  In Barnabas’ defense, he is very transparent about his own shortcomings, and he also says that PK’s cannot walk around as perpetual victims.  This is true, and my wife and I have made the point to our daughter.  He also clearly notes the upside of being a PK.  I was grateful for this.  But I do struggle a bit with an entire book-length treatment of these kinds of things.  Of course, I’m putting Barnabas Piper in an impossible position here:  “Tell your story.  It is important.  I need to hear it.  But try to man-up while telling it!” Ha!  Again, just a bit of a gut reaction on my part.

Overall, a strong piece or work, an important book, and one for which I am grateful.

Acts 2:22-36

²² “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— ²³ this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. ²⁴ God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. ²⁵ For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; ²⁶ therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope. ²⁷ For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption. ²⁸ You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ ²⁹ “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. ³⁰ Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, ³¹ he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. ³² This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. ³³ Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. ³⁴ For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand, ³⁵ until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ ³⁶ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Christopher Buckley is the son of the late William F. Buckley, the man largely credited with being the father of the modern conservative movement in America.  In his book about the deaths of his parents, Christopher writes about being raised as a Christian but eventually losing his faith.  When he had lost his faith, he struggled with whether or not he should tell his father that he was no longer a believer.  His words are sad and telling:

This was not the moment to break what remained of his heart by telling him that although I greatly admired the teachings of Jesus, I had long ago stopped believing that he had risen from the dead; it’s an honest enough doubt, really, but one that rather undercuts the supernatural aspect of Christianity.[1]

That is an understatement if ever there was one:  denying the resurrection “rather undercuts the supernatural aspect of Christianity.”  In fact, denying the resurrection rather undercuts Christianity.  When one considers how often and how passionately and how frequently the other believers drew the attention of all who would listen to the fact that Christ had risen from the dead, it is safe to say that the apostles would have considered the idea of a resurrection-less Christianity to be an absurdity.  This is nowhere more evident than in Peter’s justly famed Pentecost sermon, a careful consideration of which leads us to certain unavoidable conclusions about what the early Church was primarily concerned with proclaiming.

The resurrection of Christ is the central message of the Christian Church and the cornerstone content of our witness in the world.

It is not an overstatement to say that the resurrection of Christ was the central message of the early Church and the cornerstone content of their witness in the world.  Having declared to the gathered crowd that the coming of the Spirit signaled the beginning of the end, Peter then moved to a consideration of Jesus.

²² “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— ²³ this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

It has been pointed out by many that in these words we find one of the earliest New Testament examples of the paradoxical tension between the sovereign acts of God and the ostensibly free acts of men.  Many theologians, reformed and non-reformed, view the tension between God’s predetermined plan and man’s actions as an “antinomy,” a word closely connected to paradox:  the idea that two claims can be mutually contradictory yet both somehow true.  This is probably a valid word to use here.  We must tread carefully.  We can fall into a deep abyss of speculative theology if we do not.  Even so, let us content ourselves with these two thoughts:  (1) Jesus went to the cross as a result of the definitive, sovereign plan of God and (2) the men who crucified Jesus were responsible for their actions.

²⁴ God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

So great is the plan of God that it cannot be thwarted, even by the so-called laws of nature.  There are no laws above God’s laws and there are no true laws that are not, in fact, God’s laws.  Thus, the law that dead men stay dead cannot eclipse the greater law of God that His Son would lay down His life on the cross then rise victorious over death.  “God raised him up.”  Easter is ushered in by the strong hand of God, over whom “the pangs of death” hold no authority.

Peter then turns, once again, to scripture, quoting verses from Psalm 16.

²⁵ For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; ²⁶ therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope. ²⁷ For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption. ²⁸ You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

Peter acknowledges that these words were written by David, and it is clear that the Jews had interpreted them to be about David.  Peter rejects this interpretation, applying the words instead to Jesus.  “David says concerning him.”  The “him” to which Peter is referring is none other than Christ.  On what basis does Peter conclude that these words cannot be about David?  He concludes thus by using a logical process of elimination.

²⁹ “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. ³⁰ Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, ³¹ he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. ³² This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.

Peter argues that this cannot be about David because everybody under the sound of his voice knew exactly where David was buried.  David’s body was still with them.  New Testament scholar Ben Witherington offers some helpful background on David’s tomb, the tomb assumed by Peter to be known by all.

The tomb of David is mentioned in the postexilic text Neh. 3:16, and we are told by Josephus that this tomb was opened and robbed by John Hyrcanus during the siege of Jerusalem (135 B.C.).  In addition, Herod the Great apparently attempted the same sort of sacrilege, but tradition says he was stopped by divine intervention, and made amends by building a white marble monument at the tomb of entrance…The location of David’s tomb according to ancient tradition is thought to have been near the old city of David, which is south of the present city, thus near the pool of Siloam.

Peter’s point is that David’s tomb was still in plain view for any Jew to see and there was no evidence of David having vacated the premises.[2]

Of interest to our modern day consideration of Peter’s words, Clinton E. Arnold points to French archaeologist Raymond Weill’s claim to have discovered the tomb of David in 1913.  In “the southern portion of the City of David” Weill discovered “nine burial tombs” the largest of which “measured over fifty-two feet long, eight feet wide, thirteen feet high at the front and…six feet at the deepest portion.”  Weill claimed that this was David’s tomb, a claim that is dismissed by many, though not all, modern archaeologists.[3]

Regardless, the present day location of David’s tomb is, in fact, much less important to the point at hand than the fact that Peter could essentially point to David’s remaining body and burial place in contrasting the author of Psalm 16 with the risen Christ.  In other words, these words could not really be applied to David, but they can be applied to Christ, whose tomb was empty.  Peter takes great pains to argue the core of his message:  Jesus, who was crucified, lives!

The resurrection is the cornerstone doctrine of the Church.  By that I mean it is the doctrine on which all others depend.  For instance, if Christ did not rise from the dead, then Christ is not divine but a man.  If Christ did not rise from the dead, then His teachings, which pointed to the coming resurrection, were lies.  If Christ did not rise from the dead, we are still in our sins and are without hope (1 Corinthians 15:17).  If Christ did not rise from the dead, we have no real hope (1 Corinthians 15:19).  If Christ did not rise from the dead, then the cross was His, and our, ultimate defeat.  If Christ did not rise from the dead, we have no basis for real and abiding joy.

Do you see?  The central message of the early Church must be the central message of the modern Church:  the crucified Christ is the living Christ.  He has risen in confirmation of all that He said about Himself and the Father.  This means that what modern man most needs to hear is that Christ is alive.  As a result, modern man must come to terms with Jesus in His totality:  all that He said and all that He did.

On the basis of the resurrection, we proclaim the sovereignty and Lordship of Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life.

The resurrection is the foundation on which proclaim the sovereignty and Lordship of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.  Peter moves next to explain the outpouring of the Spirit and the mission of the Church in terms of the resurrected, exalted Christ.  It is Christ who sends the Spirit so that His people may bear witness to Him.

³³ Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

Peter repeats his point about David bearing witness to Christ because David’s words simply could not be applied to David himself.  Here, Peter appeals again to the Psalms, this time to Psalm 110:1, a passage that was very important to the early Christians.

³⁴ For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand, ³⁵ until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ ³⁶ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Some early heretics argued that the phrase, “God has made him both Lord and Christ,” meant that Jesus was not really Lord or Christ until after His resurrection.  The early Church rejected this idea as false teaching, arguing instead that Jesus was divine from eternity past and that this was not the meaning of these words.  Many of the early church fathers in fact argued that this phrase was referring to the humanity of Jesus, not His deity.  Thus, Gregory, the 4^th century bishop of Nyssa, wrote:

Who then was “exalted”?  He that was lowly, or he that was the highest?  And what else is the lowly but the humanity?  What else is the highest but the divinity?  Surely, God needs not to be exalted, seeing that he is the highest.  It follows, then, that the apostle’s meaning is that the humanity was exalted:  and its exaltation was effected by its becoming Lord and Christ.  And this took place after the passion.  It is not therefore the pretemporal existence of the Lord that the apostle indicates by the word made but that change of the lowly to the lofty that was effected “by the right hand of God.”

Also, Theodoret, the 5^th century bishop of Cyr, wrote:

Now it was the humanity, not the Godhead, that became a corpse, and he who raised it was the Word, the power of God…So when it is said that God has made him who became a corpse and rose from the dead both Lord and Christ, what is meant is the flesh, and not the Godhead of the Son.[4]

The late Jaroslav Pelikan admitted that “the initial impression” upon reading this statement about God “making” Jesus Lord and Christ might be “that Jesus had been neither ‘Lord’…nor ‘Christ’…and Messiah until the resurrection,” but he argued that “this passage needs to be considered in the light of the entire confession of the early church.”[5]  He is correct in this.

In point of fact, the early Church considered Jesus to be divine, the second person of the Trinity, the eternal Logos, the Word.  Whatever Peter meant by this (and it seems reasonable, as the church fathers quoted above argued, that this was a way for him to explain the exaltation of the resurrected Christ in His humanity), it was not intended as a denial of the central Christian confession, “Jesus is Lord.”

The message of the early Church is the message of the modern Church.  The proclamation that Christ lives and reigns is the hope and challenge that the world most desperately needs to hear.  Without this proclamation, we have no message.

Charles Colson once recounted a powerful story about the bold witness of a Russian Orthodox monk.  It happened in 1990 in Moscow on the Russian May Day.  Mikhail Gorbachev and other Russian leaders were standing on a platform in Red Square watching a procession of tanks, missiles and troops rumble past them.  That year’s May Day celebration was different, however, for, behind the tanks and missiles and troops, followed a massive throng of protesters calling for freedom and heralding the collapse of the old Communist state.  It was out of this mass of protesters that this monk made his bold statement.  As they passed before the platform, this monk hoisted a huge crucifix into the air, stepped out of the mass of protesters towards the leaders on the platform and shouted, “Mikhail Sergeyevich!  Christ is risen!”  At this, Gorbachev turned and walked off the platform.[6]

Yes, Christ is risen!  You cannot proclaim that fact without proclaiming that Christ has came in flesh, born of a virgin.  You cannot proclaim that fact without proclaiming that Christ taught the Kingdom.  You cannot proclaim that fact without proclaiming that Christ worked mighty and miraculous works of power.  You cannot proclaim that fact without proclaiming that Christ cast out demons.  You cannot proclaim the resurrection without proclaiming that Christ modeled the mercy, love, and justice of God.  You cannot proclaim the resurrection without proclaiming that Christ was crucified.  You cannot proclaim it without proclaiming that Christ rose and ascended on high.  And you cannot proclaim the resurrection without proclaiming that salvation is in His and only in His name.  As a result, you cannot proclaim the resurrection without proclaiming that men and women and boys and girls need to come to Jesus and be saved…here…now!

This, then, is our message:  the crucified Christ is alive!  He lives!  He lives and He is holding out His saving hand to all who will come to Him!