Acts end

Eleventh Saturday after Pentecost

Lectionary Texts:

Saturday:

2 Samuel 22 

Sunday:

OT: 2 Samuel 18:5-19, 15:31-33

Psalter: Psalm 130 (UMH 848)

Epistle: Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51

Thanks to Stuart and Glenda Nelson, who have both read all the blogs. When I initially asked this question, I expected maybe one or at the most two. It's five. Thanks to all of you,

Today we conclude our study of Acts. Please read Acts 28:23-31.

Paul's house arrest situation did allow him to preach to crowds. The majority who came appear to have been Jews. Some came to faith in Christ; most did not. This seems to have been Paul's experience throughout most of both Acts and his letters. He quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10 as being fulfilled in his own time. Acts 28:29 has been taken as justification for supercessionism, the idea that the Jews have been replaced by gentiles as the chosen people of God. Paul had no such idea (cf. Romans 9-11), nor did Luke.

Acts ends very oddly with Luke telling us that Paul continued to live under house arrest for two more years at his own expense. Most likely the Christian community in Rome contributed. Paul preached the Kingdom of God openly during those two years. That's the end of Acts. 

It's a strange ending. We know that Paul was executed during the Neronian persecution of 64-65 AD. Why does Luke not carry the story all the way to its conclusion? I have heard and read many answers to that question. Here are a few: (1) Luke did not want to end negatively. (2) There may be a lost ending of Acts. (3) Luke may have intended a third volume, which he never completed. (4) Luke did not want to show Romans in a bad light. (5) Luke may have died much earlier than is thought, perhaps he too in the Neronian persecution (though he is never mentioned in any subsequent Christian writing as having died then). (6) Luke may have had a deadline with his publisher and patron Theophilus (cf Luke 1:1-4, Acts 1:1), and just didn't get it finished. None of these answers is convincing to me but I don't have any other alternatives that are convincing. Nevertheless, the more time I read Acts; the last dissatisfied I become with its ending. The ending is neither tragic nor triumphant. It is more of a "life goes on" ending. Life goes on in the Christian effort to usher in the Kingdom of God. This Acts study and this blog have been a small part of that effort.

This is my last blog post. It's time for me to move on to other things. The blog began in April of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. I intended it to be something for you to read during a time when there was no in-person church or Sunday school. I thought that would be a month or two. I never would have dreamed that either the blog or the pandemic would last this long.

Here are a couple of final statistics: 407 blog posts. 287 comments. 10069 reads, a.k.a. hits, pages.

Readership peaked in June of 2020. There has been a fairly steady decline since then. The most popular series was my Faith-Life Journey. I never would have thought people would find my life all that interesting--except for my travels. Indeed the travelogue series was very popular. 

Marianne and April are the only people who knew of my intent to end the blog with the end of the Acts study. April asked me not to take the blog down. There were some posts she had not read and some she wanted to reread. I told her that I didn't even know how to take the blog down. So it will remain up, but no more posts. 

My health is reasonably good for a 76 year old who eats too much and exercises too little. My pulmonary fibrosis is advancing at about the normal pace of the disease. I have a good chance to make it to age 80 but little chance of much beyond that. That's plenty.

I'm very much looking forward to having some more time for other things. I have been neglecting my Daily Office and look forward to returning to it. I do accept prayer requests. I do write and respond to emails. 

It's a bit odd how my passions have changed. I've lost my enthusiasm for the Daily Office Project. I've gained more and more enthusiasm for the study or Acts. We have completed what for laypeople is a very thorough study of Acts. I completed today Ben Witherington's 800+ page commentary. I'm about to start Richard Pervo's commentary of about the same length. After that comes C.K. Barrett's two volume commentary, then Luke Timothy Johnson's Commentary, then Joseph Fitzmyer's commentary. All these are scholarly commentaries based on the Greek text. I'm going to take lots of notes and read the Greek text again with substantial study of the textual variants. There is so much more depth I want to go into.

I don't intend at this point to write for publication anymore. Although I am pleased to have had two popular and two scholarly books published, along with about 40 articles, I have to admit that I never enjoyed writing for publication, especially scholarly writing. It's just harder work than I want to do, I am retired, after all. Moreover, I don't have the computer skills that are required to do the scholarly research needed nowadays. I'm just going to have fun studying the Bible. 

For all of you and your reading and your comments and emails I am deeply thankful.

Lord of Luke and Peter and Paul and all the rest,

I give you thanks for the opportunity I've had in writing this blog for these past many months and for all who have read it. May it in some small way advance the work of your kingdom. In Christ's name. Amen.

 

Faithfully,

Christian