Paul's First Speech

 Third Saturday after the Epiphany

Today we return to our Acts Bible Study. Please read Acts 13:16-41.

 

To what extent are Paul's speeches/sermons in Acts Paul's own words and thoughts and to what extent are they Luke's compositions? Scholars have debated this issue for over a century. All except fundamentalists realize that there are no recordings. Paul didn't write down his speeches and publish them later. The vocabulary and style of the speeches are Luke's. The theology of the speeches appears to be more Lucan than Pauline. 

Putting words in the mouths of historical characters is a common practice in ancient historiography (i.e. history writing). The fourth century BC Greek historian Xenophon explains this practice in detail. He says that his historical characters' speeches are his words but their thoughts. They are at least what Xenophon may have thought were their thoughts. The practice is, in a slightly different way, common today. No president since Woodrow Wilson has written his own speeches. John Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." John Kennedy said it, but Ted Sorensen wrote it. Amanda Gorman wrote her own poem which she read at the inauguration, but a speech writer wrote President Biden's address. It's still President Biden's inaugural address

All this said, while Paul did not speak or write the words in the speeches of Paul in Acts, he most likely did speak/preach in the places Luke catalogued, in this case, in the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. Moreover, in my understanding of scripture, Luke's words put in the mouth of Paul are divinely inspired. 

In the mid-twentieth century the renowned German NT scholar Ernst Haenchen theorized that the speeches of Paul in Acts could be read as a continuous whole. The next one builds on the previous one. We'll test Haenchen's theory as we proceed through Acts. 

Now to Paul's speech/sermon. Speaking to an all Jewish audience, Paul links Jesus to the long course of Jewish history. Our very separation of the OT from the NT leads us to think in terms of Jesus as being someone radically new. When Paul speaks and Luke writes--for a Jewish audience--they place Jesus as the culmination of the old, the ancient history of Israel. In this case the history goes back to the Exodus. In Romans 7 Paul says that he has become all things to all people that by all means he might save some. Showing a Jewish audience that Jesus is "their boy," the culmination of their whole history, and not someone totally new and out of the blue, is the most effective way for Paul/Luke to communicate the gospel to Jews. We'll find Paul speaking in a totally different way to the philosophical crowd in Athens in chapter 17.

There are a couple of things curious about Paul's speech here. He starts his Jewish history not with Abraham but with the Exodus. He speaks of several heroes of the OT/Jewish faith, Samuel, Saul, and David, but does not mention Moses. Could this be because he wants to minimize the importance of the Law (Torah) which Moses is alleged to have written? 

We'll do one more post on Paul's speech. There is so much to say and think about. Acts is an incredibly rich work of history and theology--and I would even add--of art.

Faithfully,

Christian