Direction/Expansion in Acts

It's hardly news that the book of Acts is structured heavily on Jesus' pronouncement in Acts 1.8 that the gospel will spread from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, and eventually to the ends of the earth. It is widely recognized that Acts 1-7 addresses the Jerusalem component, Acts 8-12 address the Judea/Samaria component, and Acts 13-28 addresses the ends of the earth. No surprises here.

But there are other very interesting directional structures in Acts. It's not simply that the Gospel is expanding geographically to the ends of the earth. What Acts also tells us is that the Gospel is expanding beyond the earliest Jewish followers of Christ, and as it expands geographically, it also expanding ethnically and culturally. In addition to Jewish converts like Paul, Acts shows that the Kingdom began including Samaritans (8.14), God-fearing greeks (17.4, 17.17), and gentiles of all stripes (11.1, 11.18). For Luke, the Gospel has not just expanded territorially, but culturally and ethnically. This is a major emphasis of Acts that is often missed.

What is also often missed is that Acts 1.8 is not the only signpost verse for revealing the structure of Acts. Acts 9.15 is another statement of Jesus that provides a roadmap for reading Acts. Here, God, speaking to Ananias, says that Paul will proclaim the name of Christ in the presence of the gentiles, and of their kings, and of Israel's sons. Not surprisingly, the section of Acts that primarily details the ministry of Paul is structured in this manner. Acts 13-20 focuses on outreach to the gentiles, while chapters 24-26 showcase Paul's speeches before pagan kings. Chapters 22 and 28 show Paul's testimony before the people of Israel. That Acts 1.8 and 9.15 are both statements of Christ himself should make us realize that even though the emphasis is on the apostles, the word of the Lord, and the manifestations of the Spirit, it is the words of Christ that frame the entire story.

In addition, when Acts is taken together with the Gospel of Luke, one notices something rather interesting. In his Gospel, Luke is concerned to show Jesus' gradual movement toward Jerusalem (Luke 9.51, 13.22, 17.11, 19.11). In contrast, Acts is concerned to show the Gospel's spread away from Jerusalem and towards the ends of the earth (Acts 8.1, 8.26, 8.40, 9.19, 9.32, 10.1, 11.19, 13.4). The Lukan corpus taken together shows the centrality of Jerusalem as the beachhead upon which the Kingdom of Christ expands through the preaching of the word of the Lord.

And speaking of the word of the Lord, the reader of Acts can hardly escape what seems like a constant refrain throughout the book - the word of the Lord grew. Acts 6.7 kicks off this emphasis, and it is repeated in paraphrase in 12.24, 13.49, and 19.20. In addition, there are well over a dozen other verses in Acts that speak of the preaching of the word of the Lord to captivated audiences. "The word of the Lord" is such an emphasis in Acts that it should come as little surprise that nearly a third of the book is devoted to preserving the actual preaching of Paul, Peter and others. Again, this emphasis is often missed, but it's vitally important not to overlook this important point. Interpreters of Acts are often fond of focusing on the miraculous events recorded in Acts, and this, of course, is fine. But it must be noted that in a number of cases the explanatory preaching of the miraculous takes up more space in Acts than the recounting of the actual events themselves. The Spirit's coming at Pentecost takes up about 13 verses in Acts. But Peter's later preaching about these events takes up 23 verses in chapter 2. The same goes for the healing of the lame man in the temple in chapter 3. The event itself is described in ten verses, but Peter's explanations of its implications comprise two speeches of Peter in chs. 3-4, totaling 22 verses. It is primarily through the sermons given to us by Luke in Acts that the meaning and implications of the miraculous are explained.

Acts is a wonderful book. In future posts, I hope to be able to talk about Acts in greater detail, because there's so much to mine in this book.