2. ‘’
Presentation: Pentecost & the Eschatological Setting of the
Early Church in Acts.’’ Course Video, 2021.
1)
Presentation: The Jewish Setting of the Early Church In Acts
There are lots of here he is as to why Luke wrote Acts to
highlight the role of the Holy Spirit and the emergence of a
hood church to explain to her Roman audience we were his
repeated bloody conflicts with the Jews overruns occupation of
the Holy Land that they Jesus' followers were not that kind of
Jews as a prequel source to the letters of Paul introducing the
church's most celebrated missioner in finger to new and far
flung readers of his letter S. but one possibility I think a good
one is that Luke wrote Acts to remind his audience both then
and now that your perspective of the distance is that have
subsequently developed between Judaism and Christianity
Christianity began as a legitimate movement within the piety of
1st century Judaism. The 1st Christians who are misers would
you most and the less we understand that we will likely
misunderstand misinterpret and misappropriate much of the
New Testament. Luke makes that point both subtly and over.
Know the Jewish context of the opening scenes in at Square
Luke depicts the 1st Christians going about their day to day
lives Jews all that pray they worship they celebrate that you can
eat as yours looking for example in Jerusalem was a sabbath
days journey from the mouth of Olives employee to Jewish
odometer to measure distances look describes the jesus
followers as regular attenders a temple a synagogue they still
practice circumcision kosher eating the mic Jewish ritual battles
their scripture is Israel's scripture Torah prophet and Psalms
they observe the Jewish feasts and festivals and then cry to
Israel's God These 1st jesus followers Luke asserts are neither
pagan nor heretics they are faithful to yours and if the Jewish
beginnings of the church were that important for a look should
3. they be for us we want to understand the New Testament if we
forget what Luke takes great pains to remember that his
Christians are roots why in Judaism take baptism for example
Christian baptism didn't arise from a vacuum it was a practice
already well known among the 1st year as Christians they called
it meant a Jewish ritual bath in which the participants confess
their 7 repented of their rebellion against God and committed
themselves and knew to a life of covenant faithfulness to the
one true god. So look says that to some he is alluding to a
Jewish practice already well known among Jews Jesus followers
modified both by their belief that the new age of the Kingdom
of God had broken in Jesus of Nazareth and by the practice of
John the Baptist who perform baptism as an S. has a logical act
of repentance and preparation for participation in the coming
kingdom but if we read our modern practice of baptism back
onto the pages of Luke's acts will misunderstand and misread it
in Acts baptism was not subsequent to or ancillary to repentance
just as it was in Judaism that isn't was itself an act of
repentance but in today's Christian churches Patterson's almost
an afterthought to the act of repentance and confession we've
replaced the early Jewish Christian ritual of bettas him with
walking down the aisle and shaking the preacher's hand we'll
meet back here next week to baptize religion the separating the
act of the ritual that signifies what we did that the wedding.
Stand before the minister in exchange valves promising that we
are no longer 2 separate and distinct individuals but as the
Scripture says we are one flesh and then a climactic point in the
wedding the minister says now we'll meet back here next week
sometimes I place for the exchange of rings signifying the unity
of these 2 nuns to be sure you can have a wedding without
exchanging rings just as you can have repentance and faith
without baptism but just as exchanging rings X. al our mutual
commitment to each other that's his and doesn't just send
repentance it acts it out buried with him in baptism all will say
so that we might walk in newness of life. So we react what is
true baptism is true of everything the 1st Christians did they
4. were who living out their faith in Jesus utilizing the only
symbols and expressions of faith they knew the ones they had
learned and lived in Judaism and so keep that in much as you
read asks you not only understand it better. You may look at it
till next time take care God bless.
2)Presentation: Pentecost & the Eschatological Setting of the
Early Church in Acts
The 1st Christians Jews all believe themselves to be in as
Quetta logical community of the new age of the Kingdom of
God long prophesied by Israel's prophets to appear in the last
days the holy Hope promised to Israel to be fulfilled at the day
of the Lord has now been fulfilled they believed but not to the
nation but to the community gathered at Pentecost believing that
Jesus was not just Israel's Messiah but God's own Son nowhere
is that characterization clearer than in Luke portrayed of the
early church in the Acts of the apostles as did most Jews of the
1st century world the 1st Christians believed in the concept of
the 2 ages the present evil age given over to the power of Satan
and the age of the Kingdom of God when God will overthrow
Satan and once again establish gods and challenge to power
over his world and everyone in it the 1st Christians believe that
they lived on the cusp of the new age of the kingdom and that is
a prelude to this imminent breakthrough of God's power God's
people needed to get ready this they would do by repenting of
their idolatry to the powers of this world and by recommitting
themselves to be God's very own people the sign of this
repentance was bad tism a symbol that one had washed away old
allegiances so as to live under God's power which is what the
Bible means when it says kingdom of God Not so much a place
as a power this is the key to understanding the ministry of John
the Baptist so important in the gospels the context makes it
clear that Luke believed that Jesus prophecy was fulfilled at
Pentecost he follows Jesus' words with his own telling of the
Pentecost story and Luke makes it clear by the way he tells the
5. story of Pentecost that he understood the events in terms of the
fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and Ochs about the day
of the Lord. To be sure Luke describes that Pentecost
celebration of the early Jewish Christians as something of a
sound and light show but when it comes to the question of what
does it all mean Luke answers via the interpretive speech of
Simon Peter for Luke Peter sermon Pentecost in which Peter
explains what just happened is his own interpretation of the
Pentecost events as he is writing the narrative and explaining
Pentecost through the character of Peter in the story and what
the events of Pentecost mean says Luke is that the day of the
Lord has dawned notice what Peter says it is not as some
suggest merely a debauch drunken spectacle After all it is only
9 in the morning what you have witnessed here is nothing less
than the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joal about the advent of
the day of the Lord and then he quotes the relevant passage
from the prophecy to censure the matter and in the last days it
shall be says God that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh and
your sons and daughters will prophesied in your young men will
see visions and your old men will dream dreams indeed both on
my min servants and maid servants in those days I will pour out
my Spirit and they shall prophesied before the day of the Lord
comes that great and terrible day at chapter 2 verses 16 and Vali
and Peter says that day is today. Now take notice that Peter's
quotation of Joel 2 makes one very significant change Luke as
Peter quote Joel 2 from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew
text the Hebrew text of Joel 228 says and it shall come to pass
afterwards but the Septuagint of Joel 228 says but in the last
days this indicating that he sees what has just happened as the
fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel 2 Regarding the day of the
Lord that is to say Peter is explaining the original meaning of
the prophecy in Joel to say that what has just happened at
Pentecost signifies that the last days had dawned Joel like many
many other Old Testament prophets talks about the day of the
Lord or of the day of ya boy which was in this catalogs Nicol
day when you off way would come to vindicate the faithful and
6. vanquish the wicked and supremely to establish always power
over the earth that is the kingdom of God and the Pentecost
story in Acts indicates that Luke believed that they had arrived
New Testament people believe that the day of the Lord had
broken in and broken through and the life death and resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth and so Luke sets the Pentecost event firmly
in the context of Old Testament hopes and prophecies about the
day of the Lord that is he is saying that the in the has begun
which is of course precisely what is cattle logical means. Now it
was not the end of the end there is an argument among scholars
over the issue of how the day of the Lord could have arrived at
Pentecost as Luke appears to be saying this because story
without also bringing in into history itself and so some scholar
such as George elder and a lad in his New Testament the ology
separate the last days from the day of the Lord which lead
argues yet remains future the argument flies in the face of Luke
story in that Peter clearly points to the outpouring of the spirit
at Pentecost as evidence that the last days had come and that the
long awaited they of the Lord don't want Moreover the argument
is unnecessary if one keeps in mind that Jesus Himself taught
that the eschatology at the end had both a present and a future
aspect and already and did not yet there is a beginning of the
end and an end of the end nothing Peter says at Pentecost
suggests that he thinks that the end of the end had arrived just
the beginning of the end Jesus' life so the 1st Christians believe
Mark good beginning of the end nothing in of the end the day of
the Lord broke into history in the events surrounding the life
ministry death and resurrection of Jesus but it yet awaits its
final fulfillment in the future this is sometimes called
inaugurated eschatology that is we live in the tension between
the already and the not yet of the Ask a time. Think of it this
way if someone asks you Do you read around your home. Even
so-called homeowners if they are honest have to say neither We
don't rent but neither do we yet own the home since the bank
still owns most of it yet here and now we live in it and already
enjoy the benefits of home ownership in the same way the day
7. of the Lord and the Kingdom of God which it brings is already
here but still awaits its final and full fulfillment and so keep
this as have a logical setting of the early church in mind as you
read Luke's account in Acts Luke pictures the 1st Christians as
a community of the new age of the Kingdom of God already
enjoying its benefits but not yet fully so still in the world but no
longer of it.
