Along comes Peter

Thirteenth Monday after Pentecost

Greetings from the NC OBX. We'll be writing from our place in Manteo, NC until Labor Day weekend. Congratulations to Jerry for correctly answering the quiz question. What I remember about the song, "Along Comes Mary," besides the music, is that the words come too fast for me to understand them. After what Jerry said about looking up the words, I think I will remain in ignorance.

 

I'm realizing now that I should have allowed myself a couple of more months research on Acts before launching this Bible study.The literature on Acts is vast. I seem to have a fifty year habit of thinking I best learn about something by teaching it. I also like teaching on stuff that I never had a course on in Divinity School or Graduate School. I had a full semester course on Mark, another course on Matthew, a course oh Luke, two courses on John, numerous courses on Paul. I had no course on Revelation. I then made Revelation my major research for publication work for fifteen years. I had a course on the the Greeks texts of the Apostolic Fathers. The only writing of the Apostolic Fathers which we didn't read was The Shepherd of Hermas. I then wrote my dissertation on--guess what. Having taught all the courses in the Disciple Bible Study series at least twice, this past year I decided to teach a non-Disciple course on Judges and another on Hebrews, neither of which I have ever had a course on. 

Now we come to Acts, which I never had a course. I have taught the Disciple Course that has Acts in it, and I have taught a year long Sunday School class on Acts. It looks like I would know something by now. What I've been finding these last few weeks is that on this blog I'm moving too fast for me to keep up. I'm realizing more and more that Acts is an amazingly rich multi-layered document.  It deserves more thorough treatment than I have been giving it so far. 

Here are the layers that I want us to explore in greater depth:

• The historical layer--how Acts corresponds to the history of the Roman Empire in the first century. How it corresponds with Jewish history and thought of the period. The Apostles spend a lot of time on trial. I want to better understand better both the Jewish and the Roman legal systems. In chapters 9, 13-28, we will want to see how Acts corresponds with the letters of Paul.
• The Lucan layer--How Luke's theology permeates his historical writing and how Luke's theology corresponds with that of other NT writers, particularly Paul's.
• The early response level--How early Christianity was perceived by Jews and how it was perceived by Gentiles in the different cities of the Roman Empire where the Apostles travel and preach.
• The Divine level--How the Holy Spirit directs the work of the Apostles

All of this is to say that I want to put in a little more research time on this than I have so far, that I want us  to examine the text a little closer than we have so far. What you will notice is that on most Bible study days on this blog, we'll be dealing with smaller amounts of material in much greater depth. I hope this will

be rewarding for you, and even fascinating for you.

 

All this is also to say I'm not quite ready to get into Acts 4 yet. We will get into it on Saturday's blog.

 

Right now I'm re-reading (third time) Kavin Rowe's brilliant 2013 book, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age. I'm also reading C.K. Barrett's massive 2 volume commentary on Acts. My fascination with Acts keeps going deeper. I hope I can convey more of that to you. So far next Bible study read Acts 4:1-7.

Faithfully,

Christian