An Aerial View of the New Testament - Part 5

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For those of you who are visiting with us, let me just give you some context – you find me in an impossible situation; I made a commitment a number of months ago that I would cover the Old Testament in six weeks, and I did that, that I would cover the intertestamental period in one week and I did that, but the hardest of all is covering the New Testament in six weeks as well. You find me on night number five, and we've finished the gospels, and tonight, we begin the rest of the New Testament, although our study isn't so much of the individual letters of the apostles, as to give some historical context to the New Testament. My goal in this study is not to cover every verse – that's impossible – but rather, to give you an overarching comprehension of the flow of the New Testament's record, and how exactly to understand the epistles and how they all fold back into the acts of the apostles.

We have examined the ministry of Jesus recorded in the gospel accounts, but the work and ministry of Jesus did not end with His ascension into heaven – it continued, in fact, with more success after that. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He had little more than 500 truly committed disciples – you'll remember that sometime between Resurrection Sunday and His ascension, He appeared to more than 500 of His brethren at one time on a mountain in Galilee. But apparently, most of those lived in Galilee, where the bulk of His ministry had occurred, because when He leaves His disciples in Acts 1, they assembled the core of His followers that are in Jerusalem, and they can meet in one room – 120 men and women, in the upper room, praying. Now, just think about that for a moment – for three and a half years, our Lord had ministered faithfully day and night across the land of Israel and had about 500 committed disciples at the time of His ascension, and only about 120 of those can be identified in and around the city of Jerusalem.

So, how does the church of Jesus Christ grow from a small group of people that can fit into a large room in a home to become this sort of massive movement that sweeps like wildfire across the Roman Empire? That's, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story – and the rest of the story of Jesus Christ is contained in the fifth and last book of history of the New Testament. The four gospels are histories, and the fifth is the book of Acts. The rest of the New Testament books, with one exception, and that's Revelation, are simply a collection of apostolic letters, and most of those letters – we call them the epistles – as we will see next week, can be filed into the historical context of the book of Acts. Just as the prophets of the Old Testament, you remember from our study, fit into the books of Israel's history, even so, the letters of the apostles fit into the historical account of the early church, and that historical account is called, in our Bibles, the Acts of the Apostles. We're going to begin our study of Acts tonight – let me just warn you, in case you get worried, I don't intend to get very far, because we're going to cover the foundational part of the church. Next week, we'll cover, Lord willing, the rest of Acts, and I'll show you how the epistles file into the rest of the contents of Acts. But tonight, we deal with the foundation of the church, which is so important.

Let me, before we begin our look at Acts, give you a bit of a historical timeline of New Testament history – some of these are ones we've already looked at together. Somewhere between 5 and 6 B.C. is the birth of Christ, and we looked at all this in great detail when we started the life of Christ, so if you weren't here, you can back up and catch up with us. In about 26 A.D., beginning probably in the summer, was Jesus' baptism, and so began His ministry. 30 A.D. in April was the crucifixion and the resurrection, in May the ascension, forty days after the resurrection, and ten days later was Pentecost. About 32 to 33 A.D. – so now, we've moved forward two to three years after our Lord's ascension – comes the conversion of the apostle Paul. 47 to 48 A.D. is his first missionary journey, some time into his life as a believer. In 49 A.D. comes the Jerusalem Council, recorded in Acts 15, followed by Paul's second missionary journey – 49 to 52 A.D., including eighteen months spent in Corinth. From 52 to 57 A.D. is the third missionary journey, which includes almost three years in Ephesus, from which he reached out to those towns and churches in the surrounding area, including, undoubtedly, the churches that John writes to, the seven churches of Asia Minor in the book of Revelation. In 57 A.D., he sails for Jerusalem around April. 57 to 59, he's in custody at Caesarea; you remember, in Jerusalem he creates – not his own fault – but an uproar is created, and he ends up imprisoned by the Romans for two years there in Caesarea. And then, he's taken on to Rome, and from 60 to 62 A.D. is Paul's first Roman imprisonment – that's at the end of the book of Acts. He's released after a hearing before Caesar, he's declared innocent and released from any accusation of sedition against the state. And he goes on to minister, we believe, in Spain, and we'll talk about that in the future. But then, he's rearrested in 65 A.D. – his second Roman imprisonment begins, it's a two-year imprisonment; it ends in 67 with Paul's death. Since Paul was a Roman, he was probably executed by beheading just outside the city limits of Rome. In 70 A.D. comes the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and the first century New Testament history ends with the death of the last apostle, John the apostle, who dies somewhere in the 90's A.D. That is a timeline of the New Testament events, and you don't have to write all of this down; I'm going to cover a lot tonight. The reason I'm using PowerPoint is so I can cover it, and then we'll print these out and have them available for you next week, but just to give you some context of what we're talking about.

Now, when we look at Acts, the author of Acts clearly is Luke – there's a lot of external evidence for that; I'm not going to spend a lot of time here. The early church fathers attribute Luke to the third gospel, and to Acts – Irenaeus does that. The Muratorian fragment, dated about 170 A.D., the earliest surviving list of the New Testament books, says: "The Acts of all the Apostles were written in one volume. Luke compiled for 'most excellent' Theophilus what things were done, in detail, in his presence." Clement of Alexandria says: "As Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, relates what Paul said..." And then, Tertullian of Carthage makes the same claim. All of these, claiming that Luke wrote the gospel which bears his name, some of them commenting on Acts – and I'll get to that in just a moment – the internal evidence for Luke being the author of Acts; it's kind of a backward way to get there actually. If you look at the book of Acts, there are a series of passages that are called the "we" sections – I've listed them here for you. If you look in Acts, you will see that whoever is writing the book is travelling with Paul because he says, "we did this" and "we went here" and "we" and so forth; and so, you have these "we" sections – the author was one of Paul's companions on his journeys. The rest of the book was written by the author of the "we" sections, same vocabulary and style – the writer of Acts and the third gospel are the same, and the testimony, as I've just shown you, of the church fathers was absolutely conclusive on that front. And the final "we" section includes Paul's imprisonment in Rome, in chapter 28. From Rome, Paul wrote the prison epistles, including Philemon and Colossians, and Luke is mentioned in both of those letters as a current companion. In fact, all of Paul's travelling companions can be ruled out, except for Luke and Titus, and there's absolutely no evidence for Titus, but there's strong evidence for Luke. Acts is obviously a continuation of the book of Luke in its content, if you look at how Luke ends and how Acts begins, and both Luke and Acts are addressed to Theophilus. There's medical language that confirms that Luke was the author – Luke shows more interest in disease and sickness than the other gospel writers, and you see this carried out in the book of Acts as well – so the author is Luke.

I'm not going to give you a lot of information about Luke, but just a couple of things – he was a Gentile, and in Colossians 4, Paul contrasts him with the Jews. He was well-educated in Greek culture and language – by the way, that makes Luke the sole Gentile author of scripture, except for Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4. His hometown was Syrian Antioch, and Luke joined up with Paul in Troas on his second missionary journey, stayed in Philippi until Paul comes through on his third missionary journey, and from that time on, they seem absolutely inseparable. Luke was a physician by profession – and it's interesting, there were three educational centers in the first century, where Luke undoubtedly went to one of them; they were in Athens, Alexandria, and interestingly, in Tarsus. There are some scholars, therefore, that believe it's possible that Luke and Paul met while Luke was a student at the university in Tarsus – we can't be sure of that; that's merely a conjecture. Paul's only companion during his second imprisonment was Luke, and the only thing we know about the end of Luke's life is from a Latin writer, and we can't be sure of this, this is not canonical, but that Luke was never married, and that he died at the age of 74.

So, Luke is the author of this great book – it was written somewhere between 60 and 62 A.D. I'm just going to give you the reasons here, but I'm not going to spend any time going through these – you can look at these, if you care to, when the slides are printed off. But I do want you to look at the last item on this list – the date of the book's events. Acts begins with our Lord's ascension in 30 A.D., and it runs through 32 years to the end of the second year of Paul's first Roman imprisonment, so it covers a 32-year span. The recipient of the book was a man named Theophilus; it's a very common, both Jewish and Gentile name – it simply means God-lover or loved of God. He was a Gentile, apparently living some distance from Palestine, because Luke often explains things, like in Acts 1:12, that any Jew living in Palestine would have known, or for that manner, any Gentile living in Palestine would have known. His title is "most excellent," Luke 1:3. It could just be a term of respect, but most likely, it indicates that this man held a high government position – you can see it used in several passages later in Acts that seem to indicate that he was a Roman official of some kind. He was probably already a Christian – I say that because Luke says that Theophilus had been thoroughly taught about Christ's life. In Luke 1, he literally says he was catechized, he had already been catechized. Some conjecture that Theophilus was Luke's patron who financed the writing and publication of Acts, and Luke as well, and although Luke originally wrote to one man, this man Theophilus, that it's clear that he intended his work to be circulated among other Christians as well – so, one saved Roman official, but for all of us as well.

When you look at the book of Acts, there are several ways you can outline it – you can do it by the main characters; Peter is the main driving force in chapters 1-12, and Paul in chapters 13-28. You can also do it by Acts 1:8, where Jesus said, "you shall be My witnesses," "you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you; you will be witnesses of Mine in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and into the uttermost, or remotest, part of the earth." Jerusalem is dealt with in chapters 1-7, Judea and Samaria in chapters 8-12, and the remotest part of the earth in chapters 12-28. A third way you could outline it is by the series of progress reports – I'm not going to read each of these, but throughout the book there are these progress reports of the gospel: 2:47 we'll look at tonight, 6:7, 9:31, 12:24, 16:5, 19:20 and 28:30-31. Each of these summaries represents about five years of early church history, and each of those five years is summed up with, if you will, a progress report about how the gospel is advancing, how the church is growing.

Now, I want us to come to why the book was written, because this is absolutely foundational to the rest of our study – why is it that Luke wrote this book? Well, it seems strange, but I want to start back in Luke 1, because the purpose of Acts grows out of the purpose of Luke, and Luke tells us exactly what he's doing. Now, if you look at verses 1-4, you'll see four successive stages that he captures, and let me just give it to you up here on the overhead; I think it'll be clearer for you. First of all, there are the historical events themselves – notice he says, inasmuch as "many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us" – certain things happened among us; those are the historical events. The second successive stage is, those historical events were passed down by contemporary oral eyewitness accounts, primarily that of the apostles – notice verse 2: "just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word." Then came Luke's research and investigation – in verse 3, he says I "investigated everything carefully from the beginning." Remember, Luke was with Paul for those two years in Caesarea when Paul was imprisoned there, and it's very possible that Luke did extensive research and investigation during those times – both talking to eyewitnesses who saw all the events of both Jesus' life as well as the early church, as well as looking at any written documents that had been prepared – but he researched everything carefully. The fourth stage, then, was his writing – verse 3 says "it seemed fitting for me as well … to write it out for you" in consecutive order. So, when you get down to verse 4 then, Luke tells us exactly why he wrote his gospel – Luke 1:4, he says "so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." Let me paraphrase that for you from the Greek text – that you may know with complete certainty that what you have been orally taught has an historical foundation. Literally, what he says in verse 4 is, the things you have been catechized in, the things you have been taught in this series of questions and answers, I want you to know they are completely certain, they are historically accurate, they are true.

So, then, when we come to Acts – turn over to Acts 1 and notice what he says, how he adds to that, verse 1: "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen." Now, when we come to Acts, then, you could say that the implied purpose of Acts is the same – if he's writing to Theophilus, apparently writing these books fairly close together, in the sense that there wasn't a huge time gap between when they were written, Luke and Acts, you can assume or imply that he had the same purpose, "that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." 32 years have passed since the events at the end of Luke's gospel, Christianity has now spread all over the world – how can Theophilus know that what he sees in his community, in his church, under the name of Christ, is what Christ truly intended? And who is Paul, and what's a church? Enter the book of Acts.

But there's another purpose that's shared here in this first verse, and that is, he wrote this book to give us the continuing work of Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit – notice Acts 1:1 again: "The first account (that's Luke's gospel) I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up." Now, what strikes you as odd about that statement? Luke's gospel is what Jesus began to do and to teach, and yet, Luke's gospel ends with the life of Christ. So, in other words, that means that Acts is what Jesus continues to do and to teach. Remember what Jesus told His disciples on the night before His crucifixion, back in John 16? He said, "it is to your advantage if I go away." Now, think about that for a moment – wouldn't you like to have Jesus here as a part of our church? But Jesus told the disciples whom He had lived with, 24 hours a day for three and a half years, "it is to your advantage that I go away," because if I go away, I'm going to send the Spirit – and what does He tell the disciples the Spirit's going to do? The Spirit is going to recall everything to their minds that He's taught them, and then He gives them the responsibility to write it down. And so, the book of Acts is not somebody else's story – the book of Acts is what Jesus continued to do through the miracle-working power He gave His apostles, and to teach through the men He chose as His proxies. So, this is the great purpose of the book of Acts.

There are also some secondary purposes – there are the historical themes, the spread of the gospel, the growth of the church. It gives us the historical setting for Paul and his letters – in fact, Acts furnishes the background for ten of the epistles: 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, and Philippians. All find a place – can be filed, if you will – in the book of Acts. There are some secondary purposes beyond that – there's an apologetic purpose. It's a defense, the book of Acts is a defense against pagan religion: Christianity is true, paganism is false, and there are several passages that communicate that. It's a defense against Judaism – Christianity is the fulfillment of true Judaism, we learn in Stephen's speech, and in Paul's messages as well. It is a defense against political accusations – Christianity is not subversive; it is innocent of any offense against Roman law. When you look at the response of the Roman officials, as you flow through this in chapters 17-28, the fact that a Roman official is receiving this letter, it shows that, in fact – and, of course, Paul was ultimately released by Caesar as innocent of the charges of insurrection – it identifies the reality that Christianity is not a threat to the Roman Empire, a political threat. It is also a defense for Gentile evangelization – Christianity is for Gentiles, as well as Jews, and the account with Cornelius, and Peter's defense of that in chapter 11, makes that clear. Finally, there is a missionary purpose to the book – the gospel is to be spread, and that was not just for the apostles, as we will see when we get to chapter 8 – that is for every ordinary Christian. The gospel is to be made known.

So, with that in mind, with that background of the book of Acts, let's look at the book itself – turn to Acts 1, and in Acts 1, you have what I've called preparation. Beginning with the post-resurrection ministry of Christ in the first eight verses, Jesus begins by building the foundation of the church, as Ephesians calls the apostles. The apostles – notice that we're told that He chose them, that He proved His resurrection to them, that He commissioned them, that He taught them, and that He promised them the Spirit – Luke is showing Theophilus, and us, that Jesus put His stamp of approval on these eleven men who would go out and be His witnesses. He was pouring Himself into what would be the foundation of the church – these apostles.

He was also establishing the mission of the church – He was making them witnesses in verses 6-8. I want you to notice verse 6, it says: "So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, 'Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?'" Now, I want you to see here the disciples' misunderstanding; they misunderstood several things. First of all, they thought the kingdom was a political one – notice the word restore; what was to be restored? Only a political kingdom, so, they thought there was going to be a political kingdom, they thought it was going to be a national kingdom – restore it "to Israel" – and they thought it was going to be an immediate kingdom – "at this time." But I want you to see how Christ corrects all of that. He does acknowledge in verse 7 that there is a future kingdom coming for Israel: "It is not for you to know the times or the epochs." He didn't deny that it's going to happen, He just said you're not going to know the time. But then, He explains the current kingdom manifestation – you see, as we talked about when we dealt with the kingdom, there is a future aspect of the kingdom, when Christ will reign on the earth, but there is a present aspect of His kingdom as well. What is that current kingdom manifestation? It is spiritual – notice "Holy Spirit." It is international – "to the remotest part of the earth." And it is gradual – it starts with 120 in Jerusalem, and it spreads across the world. It reminds me of the parable Jesus tells, in Matthew 13, of the kingdom of heaven being like leaven – if you could see yeast under a microscope, it is not a pretty picture, because that yeast literally explodes into the adjoining cells in that bread to make it rise. That's how it is with the kingdom – it seems gradual, it seems beneath the surface, it seems meek and calm, but it literally is exploding through the world – and Jesus wanted them to know that the kingdom of heaven was like that, gradually spreading with pervasive power.

Note, in verse 8, the mission of the apostles: "you are to be My witnesses." I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, actually on Easter Sunday, that the disciples were to be witnesses, the apostles were to be witnesses of Jesus in their preaching, and you see this theme through the book of Acts. He tells them here, you're going to be My witnesses. Look at Acts 2:32 – Peter, on his sermon on the day of Pentecost, says, "This Jesus, God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses." His second sermon in Acts 3:15, Peter says "(you) put to death the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses." Acts 4:33: "with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Acts 5:32: "And we are witnesses of these things." Acts 10, when Peter shows up at the house of Cornelius, verse 39, he says, after he explains about Jesus in verse 38:

We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day, granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people, and to solemnly testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead.

Acts 13:31: "God raised Jesus from the dead; and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people." Now, what I want you to see is Jesus gave them a commission, and they fulfill that commission – they saw themselves as divinely chosen eyewitnesses, and they were simply bearing testimony of what they had seen. A witness is one who has personally seen or heard or experienced something and tells it to others as accurately as he can. They were to be witnesses in their preaching; they were also witnesses through their writing. The New Testament is their written testimony to Jesus Christ. They were to be witnesses – that was the mission God gave the apostles, and when you see that mission played out in Acts, that's exactly how they saw it as well. So, He gives them this great mission to be witnesses, and by the way, this is not merely the mission of the apostles, this is our mission as well. Do you see yourself as a witness of Jesus Christ? You have been changed, your life is not what it once was, you have seen testimony of Christ through the ministry of the apostles, you've come to understand it, you have experienced it personally – you now are to be witnesses of that truth to others. You're not here as a Christian for what you can get out of the Christian life – we are here to be witnesses.

Well, let's move on. As He continues to prepare the disciples for what's coming, the ascension occurs. Now, have you ever thought about why the ascension is important – I mean, why did Jesus ascend into the sky? Just think about that for a moment. For forty days, He has come and gone, vanishing and reappearing – remember, on the night of the resurrection, He just shows up in a locked room – so, why doesn't Jesus just go away, why doesn't He just vanish? Why does He take them outside the city and have them stand there and watch Him ascend into the sky? Ascension made the point to the disciples that Jesus was gone for good. And the angels then, you'll notice, make the same point, in verse 11, in the opposite way – they say, "'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.'" Folks, the ascension was not for Jesus – that wasn't the only way Jesus could get to heaven. The ascension was for His disciples, and for us – it was to show them and us that He was really gone this time, and it was a powerful illustration of the reality that He would come in just the same way that He ascended. It's a testimony to the future, and it says that – verse 9 says "a cloud received Him out of their sight." This wasn't that Jesus sort of timed His departure just right to catch a passing cumulus cloud – this is the glory cloud, the Shekinah cloud. This is the glory of God that manifested itself in His transfiguration. Jesus is received into His glory with the approval of the Father, and He's gone.

They are to return the three-quarter mile into the city to the upper room and they are to wait – verse 12 says that's exactly what they did. "They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. And when they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying." They go to the upper room, and there they wait – this is recorded for us in verses 12-26. Now, in New Testament times, the upper floor of a large home was often a large open room – it was used as a dining room, it was used as a room for guests, sometimes it was sublet to poorer families. This one was especially large; it held 120 people – in New Testament times, that would have been huge. This was a very wealthy family – it's possible, we can't prove this, but it's possible, and I personally believe – it is the home of John Mark, the place of the Last Supper, the room where the disciples had gathered on the night of the resurrection. And if you fast forward to Acts 12:12, it says that when Peter's released from prison, "he went into the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying." Once again, the church in Jerusalem is gathered in a room praying – I can't prove it to you, but I think that's probably what's going on here. Who's present? Well, verse 13 tells us the eleven apostles were there, certain women, Jesus' mother Mary, and – this is amazing – Jesus' brothers. Eight months before, John 7:5 had told us they did not believe in Him, and now His brothers are there – James, who became a leader in the Jerusalem church, Joseph, Judas, also known as Jude, who wrote the little epistle near the end of the scripture, and Simon. It's possible that several of His sisters were there as well – we know Jesus had at least two sisters because it says sisters; it doesn't tell us how many, it doesn't tell us what their names were, but Mark's gospel tells us He had sisters. So, as I've mentioned to you before, Jesus grew up in a home of at least seven children – He was the oldest.

You know, when you think about His brothers being there, I can't help but think about what this says for Christ's claims to be both God and Messiah, and the fact that they had not believed. With all that He'd done, all of the miracles, everything that had happened, they still had not believed His claims, even though, as I've told you, He would have been like their surrogate father after Joseph died – He was the leader of that family, as the oldest boy. He had taught them the scripture, He had been their shepherd personally, up close, and they had rejected His claims. But after His resurrection, and after we know He had appeared to James – and we assume that His brothers, at some point, may have been involved in that as well, His other brothers – they believed, and they're there. His younger siblings follow Jesus as God and Lord. What does that say for His claims?

What were they doing in the upper room? Well, verse 14 says they were praying continually, waiting for the Spirit to come, and the rest of the chapter tells us that they were replacing Judas. Now, Judas, the scripture tells us in Matthew 27, had gone out and hanged himself after guilt had gotten a hold of him, and apparently, reconciling that with Acts, apparently either the rope he used, or whatever he tied the rope to, broke in the process of his hanging himself, and he fell headlong and either fell on something, a stake or perhaps a jagged rock. His body was ruptured, Acts 1:18 says, and he died and "all of his bowels gushed out," as the Authorized Version says. The priests then take the thirty pieces of silver – they can't return it to the treasury because it's blood money (don't you love legalism?), and they take the money and they made the transaction to buy the field where Judas died, in Judas' name. And so, we're told that he bought it, but in reality, it was his money that bought it, and the transaction was in his name.

And so, the disciples set out to replace Judas – you say, should they have done this? Well, it was necessary, according to what we read in this passage, because the scripture had foretold it. The Psalms of David had said that there would be this betrayal, and another would be put in his place. The requirement for the replacement was that the person be a witness of Jesus, an eyewitness of Jesus, from His baptism until His ascension, and a witness of His resurrection – all of that makes sense, since their job is what? Witnesses. And so, those are the qualifications that are assigned to the filling of this role. Two men were qualified, Joseph and Matthias, and so they allowed Christ to choose by lot – this is not, by the way, a wholesale recommendation of using those sort of means. There was a guy – I have to tell you a story – there was a guy, when I was in school, who lived in my dormitory who was a new Christian, and it came to my attention that he was discerning God's will by the use of the gumball machine at the end of the hall – I'm not making this up, this is a true story. The most pressing decision for a young man of his age was whom to date, and so that was how the gumball machine got used most frequently, and he would go to the end of the hall and he would say something like this, a little prayer of "Dear Lord, if You want me to date Susie, then let me get a yellow gumball" – I'm not making this up – and he put his coin into the gumball machine and turned the handle, and if he got a yellow gumball, he dated Susie, and if he didn't, he kept looking. That's not what this passage is recommending – we've studied God's will before, and how to discern it – that's not how you do it. Essentially, there were two equally valid choices here, and with such a monumental decision upon them, they allowed Christ, in this case, in an extraordinary way, to choose by lot.

Now, that's the preparation – that brings us to the first major section of this history. Jesus said in 1:8, "You shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem." Beginning in chapter 2, verse 1 and running through the end of chapter 7 is a record of the disciples' ministry in Jerusalem – these chapters cover a period of about two to three years. Roughly, these chapters run from the ascension in May of 30 A.D. to the conversion of Saul – and there's some guessing here, but it's pretty close, based on various timelines that I won't force you to go through with me – 32 to 33 A.D. So, these chapters, beginning in chapter 2 and running through the end of chapter 7, is roughly two to three years of time – the very foundational time of the church. Now, when we come to chapter 2, you have to understand that there was a feast going on, and therefore, people were returning to Jerusalem for the feast – you'll remember that the Old Testament prescribed three feasts at which the Old Testament saints were required to journey annually to Jerusalem to celebrate – one of those feasts was the feast of Pentecost. And you'll notice that the people who came were spread from all over – the pink that you'll see here on the map, this sort of pinkish purple, shows you the greatest concentration of Jewish population. Just to orient you, here is Jerusalem, here's the land of Israel. And so, you get a little idea of the size and scope of the diaspora, as it's called, the scattering – those who were spread all over, Jewish people spread all over the then-known world. They came back to Jerusalem, the devout ones, for the feast of Passover, and there's a list of where they all came from in Acts 2, and you'll see in verse 9 and following, there's a list of people from all over, from many of these areas that are in the purplish area on the map – so they've come for the feast of Pentecost.

It's at this feast that a significant event occurs – the first four verses of chapter 2 describe the descent of the Spirit. The Spirit comes, this special – by the way, let me just say that, you understand, the Spirit is a member of the Trinity; He is and shares the attributes of the other two members of the Trinity. That means the Holy Spirit is omnipresent – has been, always will be, so don't think of the Spirit as never having been on earth and showing up on the day of Pentecost. Instead, He is coming, in a special manifestation of His power, to equip the apostles for a special role. And He comes in a special way on them with three phenomena – a noise like a rushing wind filled the house, tongues resembling fire rest on each of them. Fire, by the way, often symbolizes God's presence – and tongues, why tongues? Well, that's symbolic, probably, of speech and communication – that's the most natural explanation. And then, the third is speaking in tongues – and we'll come back to that in a minute – but two very important events related to the Holy Spirit happen to the apostles at this moment. They were baptized with the Spirit – if you go back to chapter 1, verse 5, Jesus promised this: "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now," and "they were filled with the Spirit" according to chapter 2, verse 4. These two events occurred at the same time to those who were already Christians, but understand, this is an anomaly, this is a special event, this is the new era of the work of the Spirit.

So, when we think of baptism of the Spirit versus filling of the Spirit, the rest of the New Testament makes it clear that the baptism of the Spirit is initiatory, that is, when you become a Christian, you are baptized into the body of Christ. It happens once – you can see this in Acts 11 – and it is connected to the moment of salvation. When you became a Christian, according to the New Testament, you were baptized by the Sprint into Christ, and that happens once, that's not something that happens many times – again, you can look at these verses. The filling of the Spirit, on the other hand, comes after conversion, the rest of the New Testament tells us, because Ephesians 5:18 tells Christian people in Ephesus to "be filled with the Spirit" – it is an ongoing reality, because Ephesians 5:18 says being "filled with the Spirit," and even in Acts, you can see that the disciples were filled with the Spirit on a couple of other occasions. And filling of the Spirit is connected not to salvation, but continuing growth, sanctification, and to special work. But, if you'll notice Ephesians 5, you have the filling of the Spirit in 5:18, and then you have all the practical outliving of the Christian life in the verses that follow – so, being filled with the Spirit is connected to growth in holiness, to sanctification, whereas baptism of the Spirit happens at the moment of salvation and is not repeated.

Now let's go back to that troublesome third phenomenon – speaking in tongues. Several points you need to understand – first of all, this is the first occurrence of speaking in tongues in the Bible – that means, this is the pattern; whatever was going on in Corinth must be a reflection of this. So, what happened? Well in chapter 2, verse 4, it says that "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance." The Greek word is glossa – this word is used in the New Testament, in every context, for only two purposes. It is either the fleshy instrument in the mouth that's used in the articulation of speech, or it is a language known by ordinary people – and you can see that's true, even here in this context. Look at chapter 2, verse 6: "And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together; they were bewildered because each one of them was hearing the apostles speak in his own language" – literally, the word is dialect, the specialized form of language that they spoke ordinarily. You see the same thing in verse 8: "How is it that we can each hear them in our own language (our own dialect) to which we were born?" This is the language they spoke from birth that the apostles are now able to speak, apparently without having studied these languages. Verse 11: "we hear them in our own" – tongues is a bad translation; our own glossa, our own languages – "speaking of the mighty deeds of God." So, what's happening here is very simply the miraculous ability to speak in a language that you have never studied, but a known language that people speak, languages they were born speaking, and so forth.

Now, why tongues, why this gift of speaking in tongues, to speak in a language you've never studied? Well, there are two reasons – first of all, the diaspora. Look at how these people are spread everywhere, from all these different places, with all these different dialects, and all these different languages – and yet Jesus Christ, through His apostles, wants to get His message out to them, and so, He gives His apostles this miraculous ability. The other is the miraculous confirmation of the apostles' message – in 2 Corinthians 12:12, it speaks of "the signs of a true apostle performed among you (Paul says) with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles." The signs and wonders and miracles were intended to punctuate a true apostle and confirm His message. In Acts, when tongues happen, an apostle is always present, and the Holy Spirit is being introduced for the first time to a group of people.

So, what about tongues today, why shouldn't Christians speak in tongues today? First of all, let me say that I will not say that it isn't possible today – in fact, I think it's possible; the Holy Spirit can do what the Holy Spirit wants to do. If He wants to give somebody somewhere the ability to speak in a language he's never studied, then He can do that. However, I don't believe it is the norm, I don't believe that it is a gift for today's church that people ought to seek and that people in every church ought to be exercising – why? Well, let me give you several reasons. First of all, it was specifically given to confirm the apostles and their message during the apostolic period – you saw that in 2 Corinthians 12:12, I've already read that to you. But turn secondly to Hebrews 2. Notice verse 3: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at first spoken through the Lord" – he's talking about the message of this salvation, the message of the gospel – "after it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard." Who heard the Lord? The apostles, and their message was confirmed to us, the writer of Hebrews says, how? Verse 4: "God testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will." Several things are important here – first of all, the writer of Hebrews doesn't claim to have those same abilities; he says the apostles were given those by God. They were given those for a particular purpose, these miraculous gifts, they were given them to confirm the word spoken by them that the Lord originally spoke. And the Lord did this according to His will – it was for confirmation of the apostolic period.

Secondly, and I'm rushing through this, but I just want to give you an overview. Tongues, speaking in tongues, declines even during the period of the apostles – let me just track you through this real quickly. In Acts 2:4, you have the first occasion of speaking in tongues within ten days of the ascension of Christ. The next occurrence in the book of Acts is Acts 10 – this is before 44 A.D.; we know that because James dies in chapter 12 and James died in 44 A.D. The third occurrence is in Acts 19:6 – this is early in Paul's ministry to the church in Ephesus, it's in the early 50's A.D. The last mention of tongues in the scripture comes in 1 Corinthians, which was written about 55 to 56 A.D. – it is only the fourth inspired letter of Paul, following Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Paul writes nine other letters after 1 Corinthians to six different churches, and he never mentions tongues again. Even during the period of the church foundation, even in the inspired documents, the confirmational miracles that had accompanied the apostles and their message had begun to die out. And then, when you look beyond the New Testament at the testimony of church history, the bulk of the testimony of the church fathers, and all of church history until modern times, argues that speaking in tongues and the other miraculous gifts passed with the apostles – at some point, we'll do a study of the modern phenomenon of speaking in tongues, but it is a modern one. There have been a few occurrences through the history of the church, but they've always been connected to aberrant groups and aberrant theology.

Quickly, let me look at Peter's explanation of what happened that day – in chapter 2, beginning in verse 14, running down through verse 21, he quotes Joel 2 – things that were to happen at the last days. The last days started with the first advent of Christ and will end with the second advent of Christ – you and I live in the last days. In Acts 2, Peter says that the first part of that prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost at the beginning of the last days, and that's the Holy Spirit coming, and people speaking with languages. The second part of it, those dramatic signs in the heavens, will be fulfilled at the day of the Lord at the end of the last days, when Jesus returns again – that's Peter's explanation. Very quickly, Peter's testimony to Christ – look at it in verses 22-36. He spends one verse on Jesus' life, and essentially, he says, God performed miracles and wonders and signs through Him. He spends one verse on Jesus' death, and he says God delivered Him to death. He spends from verse 24 to verse 32 on Jesus' resurrection, and he says God raised Him from the dead, and you shouldn't be surprised, because Psalm 16:8-11 says somebody is not going to be abandoned to the grave and somebody's not going to undergo decay. David wrote it, but it certainly isn't true of him – go look at his tomb. David looked ahead, Peter says, and spoke of Christ. And therefore, Jesus has been raised, and one day, He has been exalted to God's right hand. Chapter 2, verse 33-36, he quotes Psalm 110, and he comes to this conclusion – look at verse 36, here's the punch line of his sermon. Acts 2:36: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord (both sovereign Master) and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." That's the message, that's the witness the apostles will bear throughout their lives – Jesus is alive, and God has made Him both sovereign and Messiah. Next week, we'll look at the results and look at the rest of this great book. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are struck, as we look at the beginning of the church, at the incredible sovereignty and wisdom of our Lord, who left His disciples there, told them that ten days later they would receive the Spirit, and they minister the gospel at Pentecost. And Lord, we know the rest of the story, that 3,000 of those people confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah. Certainly, it's true, Father, that our Lord's promise – that He would build His church, and the gates of death itself would not overpower His church – Father, we thank You that that promise continues, that our Lord is still alive, that our Lord is still at Your right hand, that our Lord is still building His church, that He is adding daily to the church those whom He chooses. Father, help us to lift our eyes from the discouragement all around us as we look at churches that seem to be leaving their first love, that seem to be leaving the scripture, leaving Christ, and acclimating themselves to the world. Father, help us to remember that our Lord is still on His throne, and He is still the master builder who promised to build His church. Lord, help us to be faithful, whether we labor long for little fruit, or whether, in one day, we see 3,000 come to faith in Christ. Help us simply to be faithful to the Lord of the church until He comes. Father, I pray for each of us, that You would help us to live not for ourselves but help us to live for the glory of Christ and for the glory of His church for which He gave His life.

We pray it in Jesus' name – Amen.