Geskryf deur Chris van Wyk | 19 Mei 2009
Posted in Vennote - Communitas

Paper read at the Acts Conference in Stellenbosch in May 2009

Abstract

The crossing of boundaries is a key element in understanding the way the Holy Spirit grows the church in The Acts of the Apostles.  Whereas Luke's Gospel focuses on the way the salvation of Jesus Christ impacted all levels of Jewish society in a vertical manner, Acts shows how the Holy Spirit inspired the believers in various ways to cross horizontal boundaries.  We read of the crossing of language, economical, sociological, geographical, cultural, ethnic, religious and intellectual boundaries.  This far-reaching boundary crossing forms an integral part of the dynamics of a missional understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the way the church grew in the first century AD and indeed of what a missional church looks like.

The Gospel of Luke and Acts

1.  Luke tells the story about Jesus and the spreading of the gospel in two more or less equal parts, The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostels.  The Gospel focuses on the ministry of Jesus to the Jewish nation and Acts on the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the believers to the nation of the world.

The two parts of his story correspond to one another in an ingenious way:

• Luke 1-9 tells about the spreading of the Gospel as does Acts 1-12 - the geography is just turned around: in the Gospel Jesus starts and works mainly in the rural areas of Galilee and Judea, whereas in Acts the Spirit leads the church from the city Jerusalem to the rural areas of Galilee and Judea.
• Luke 10-19 tells a travel story as does Acts 13-20 - in the Gospel Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for the consummation of his mission and in Acts Paul takes the gospel to Asia and Europe on three missionary travels.
• Luke 20-24 tells the story of a hearing as does Acts 21-28 - Jesus and Paul appear before the same three tribunals, the Jewish Sanhedrin (Luke 22 - Acts 22), the Roman governor (Luke 23 - Acts 25) and one of the Herod kings (Luke 23 - Acts 25).

Luke's Gospel thus focuses on the spreading of the gospel to Jerusalem, the heart of the Jewish nation, and his Acts focuses on the spreading of the gospel to Rome, the heart of the Roman empire.

The implication for a missional theology, of this way the gospel spread in the first century, is that in its focus on the locality of people in the community, it must always also reckon with the communities across geographical boundaries, the Judea's, Samaria's and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).  Going local should never stand against going global.

Geskryf deur Chris van Wyk | 11 Maart 2009
Posted in Vennote - Communitas