Effective this week, as a cost-cutting measure—and to enable the streamlined Baptist Standard staff to focus time on producing news and features of interest to Texas Baptists—the number of Bible studies per week will be reduced from three curriculum series to the one that draws the greatest number of readers, LifeWay’s Explore the Bible.
• The Explore the Bible lesson for March 6 focuses on Acts 1:1-11.
The Sequel: Acts 1:1-3
What makes a good sequel? The best sequels build on what came before, introducing something new that expands on and enhances the original. We want to see familiar faces and be introduced to new characters, recapture the greatness we are familiar with and be taken in surprising new directions.
Of course, Luke was not concerned with writing a sequel to his Gospel when he wrote the book of Acts, but he did connect the two. He starts by greeting Theophilus again. He summarizes “the story so far” and begins with a scene that parallels the ending of his Gospel (Luke 24:26-53). Jesus joins the apostles for a meal, instructs them in what will happen soon, and then ascends into heaven. Each account reads as though it could have happened in one day, but Luke is clear 40 days passed between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, and the conversations Luke records in both books likely were spread out over that time period. The key parallels in both are the fulfilment of God’s work of salvation in Christ, the promise of the Spirit and the apostles’ mission as witnesses.
The Risen Lord and the Coming Kingdom: Acts 1:6-7, 10-11
After Jesus’ resurrection, his disciples want to know, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” The Messiah is risen. The Holy Spirit is on the way. The pagan powers of the idol-worshipping world (Rome) and the false teachers of Israel (Pharisees and Sadducees) gave it their best shot, and Christ still is standing. Isn’t now the time for God to complete his promises to his people and put the heir of David back on the throne of Jerusalem where he belongs?
First, Jesus tells his disciples that they don’t get to see God’s calendar. Their job is not to plot out the date when all God’s promises come true, but to be faithful as witnesses to the fulfilled promises they have seen with their own eyes (Jesus crucified and risen) and will see shortly (Jesus ascended to reign, the Holy Spirit given). In spite of this plain statement by Jesus, some still keep trying to calendar the return of Christ—and those who set a date have been wrong 100 percent of the time! To paraphrase what the angels told the disciples: “Why are you watching the sky? He said he would come back, and he will! He will set all things right. In the meantime, don’t you guys have work to do? Something about the Holy Spirit?”
Second, Jesus answers their question by giving them a different mission than “restoring the kingdom to Israel.” Instead they will build, through their witness, a community of faith in Jesus Christ, living like they belong to the kingdom of God. They will be a foretaste, an advance guard, of what God will do when all is set right. They will worship, they will love one another, they will meet one another’s needs, and they will bring in those who had been excluded. It’s what Jesus did! Now it will be expanded and enhanced. That’s the plot of the rest of Acts—and, indeed, the rest of the New Testament.
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The Gift, The Prophecy and The Power: Acts 1:4-5, 8
The apostles are instructed to wait in Jerusalem for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus reminds his disciples, “We’ve talked about this before,” and God has been talking about it for a long time. God’s promise of the gift of the Spirit features throughout the promises of the Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 32:15, 44:3; Ezekiel 39:29; Zechariah 12:10; and of course, Joel 2:28-32 which Peter will quote in the next chapter).
The promise of the Spirit also connects Luke’s Gospel and Acts. The first several chapters of Luke’s Gospel are full of references to the work of the Holy Spirit and fulfilled prophecies. But a prophecy spoken by John the Baptist has been waiting for fulfillment since Luke 3:16—that the Mighty One who came after John would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus tells his disciples: “That promise is coming true soon—in a few days, in fact!”
In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his disciples when the Holy Spirit comes, they will receive power. This is not the superhero origin story of the disciples. The power Jesus promises through the Spirit is miraculous power from God, and Acts is full of stories of miraculous events. But in each case, these miraculous events are not for their own sake. They are for the same purpose for which the gift of the Spirit is given—that they will be witnesses. The power given by the Spirit is not invincibility, not a gift that makes life more convenient for the apostles. It is the power specifically to accomplish the mission Jesus has given them by calling them to be witnesses.
The Mission of the Witnesses: Acts 1:8
“You will be my witnesses.” Consider two aspects of being a witness that are fairly obvious, and one that is less so. To be a witness is to have personal experience with the matter at hand. In this case, the apostles were those who had seen the risen Lord. The gospel is not a philosophy or abstract theological concepts; the gospel is an event that happened and was witnessed! The other obvious part of being a witness is to testify to what you experienced. The apostles have experienced it, and now will proclaim it, in the concentric circles of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and everywhere else. The third aspect of being witness is character. It doesn’t do you much good to proclaim or testify if you are not a trustworthy person. As the missiologist Darrell Guder has written, “witness” is a comprehensive term that includes who we are, what we do and what we say, both as individuals and as a church. The preaching and the testimonies in Acts are “witness,” of course, but so are working toward the goal of unity in the church, sharing with any who had need, teaching, prayer and worshipping.
Believers today carry on the calling to be witnesses. If you are a believer, you are a witness to the resurrected Christ and his kingdom in your life, your actions and your words. You (your name here) are his witness. Where is your Jerusalem? I suggest it is your family and your close friends. Your Judea is your acquaintances and those you come into contact with but don’t know well—perhaps your neighbors. Your Samaria is the people you know but don’t like—again, perhaps, your neighbors? The ends of the earth is just what it sounds like. You are a witness to all these. The question is whether you are a faithful one. The Holy Spirit was given to empower you to be the witness he calls you to be.
You, (your church name here) are his witnesses. Your Jerusalem is your city, your Judea the surrounding community, your Samaria the parts of your community you would rather avoid, and the ends of the earth still speaks for itself. Has your church left any of those places out as it considers its mission to be the advance guard of the kingdom of God? We have good news to share and have been given the power to share it. The same Holy Spirit empowers us to testify to what we have received from the eyewitnesses through Scripture and to what we have experienced in our own life through salvation and our continuing relationship with God in Christ. Our churches witness in the way they become a testimony of the kingdom of God in their worship, their prayer, their unity, their love for one another and their service to those inside and outside their walls.
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