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Acts 1

Luke begins Acts by resetting things a little bit; he mentions his ‘first’ book, where he wrote all about what Jesus did and taught, how he suffered and died but then presented himself to be alive, continuing to speak about the Kingdom. Jesus told his followers to stay put to wait for ‘the promise of the Father’, the Holy Spirit. I wonder if they were still a little confused when they ask Jesus if this was now the time that he would ‘restore the Kingdom to Israel’ – were they still expecting Jesus to overthrow Rome? If so, then we begin to see how vital this promise of the Spirit was – the living, breathing voice of God that continues to speak and guide the people of God. Jesus seems to be steering them away from that faulty Messianic expectation by giving them a wider vision. Not only were they to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, but also in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Maybe the question wasn’t supposed to be ‘will you restore the kingdom to Israel?’ but ‘will you restore the the world to the Kingdom, and how can we be a part of it?’

I love how the two men in white robes appear minutes after Jesus is taken up to heaven and ask ‘why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ It’s as if they’re saying ‘there’s work to be done … didn’t you hear that bit about the ends of the earth? Get going!’ How often do we get caught standing around like that, believing that salvation is all about going to heaven after we die, or waiting for Jesus to come back and do it all himself. These two men could easily be saying the same things to the church today.

I love the picture of the upper room that we read of next. Jesus’ followers, probably not really sure where to start or what to do next, devoting themselves to prayer. Finally, Peter steps up and gets down to some practical business – replacing Judas. Two men were chosen as candidates. They begin to pray, asking God to show them which one was to be chosen to be the replacement apostle. Curiously, the decision was ultimately made by the casting of lots, and it fell on Matthias. After praying, did they have different ideas about who was to be chosen, so they decided to cast lots instead? Or did they maybe believe that the Spirit would speak through the lots? It raises questions about decision making in the church, how we are to interpret the moving of the Spirit among us.

That’s chapter 1. I believe Joel will be posting at some point this weekend as well. I understand that this is not an in depth, comprehensive exegesis of the text, but it’s a way to start tangibly engaging with it, raising questions and making observations. Again, please feel free to comment and join in the dialogue – this is the whole idea behind starting a blog like this.

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