Now we come to one of the clearest parallels between Luke’s Gospel and his Acts of the Apostles. Both books have baptism scenes just a few pages in. In the Gospel, it’s John who baptizes, and his baptism is one of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In Acts, it’s the apostles who baptize, and … Continue reading Acts 2:37-47 The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
My grandmother often told the same stories over and over again, to such an extent that we made up a joking diagnosis for her, saying that she had RSS, Repetitive Story Syndrome. My daughter has begun to point out my own tendency to repeat stories, and has also begun noticing when she does this. All … Continue reading Acts 2:14-36 The First Retelling
In a sense, the scoffers are right. The disciples are full of new wine. Without meaning to, they use Jesus’ own language, when he says that you cannot put new wine into old wine skins (Luke 5:33-39). Their very scoffing in the presence of the miracle of Pentecost shows that they are the old wine … Continue reading Acts 2:1-13 They are full of new wine
The first concern of the disciples after the resurrection is to heal their community. They have several reasons to feel incomplete if there are only eleven of them. They are twelve because twelve is the number of Jacob’s sons, and thus of the original tribes of Israel. They are twelve because Jesus appointed twelve, and … Continue reading Acts 1:12-26 The Witnesses
At the end of Luke’s Gospel, it seems that Jesus ascends into heaven very soon after he appears to the frightened disciples in the Upper Room. But at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke is willing to be more expansive, to linger over the time that Jesus was with his followers, those … Continue reading Acts 1:1-11 The Big Heart
KPB Stevens 