Lukan Logic

MD Goulder (Type and History in Acts) summarizes the complaints against Luke’s history of the early church in Acts: “No student can read Acts without dissatisfaction: he would not have written it thus. Why does it end where it ends? Why is so much space devoted to the account of the storm and shipwreck? Why are St Paul’s trials described in such repetitive detail? Why is so rigorous a subdivision imposed that we hear no more of Philip or Peter when once we have left them, except where their paths cross Paul’s?” (15).

There seem to be, Goulder says, two possibilities. Either “St Luke was critically short of material” or “St Luke was critically short of sense” (15).

He doesn’t think either is the case. Rather, though Luke is interested in recording historical events, he is not only interested in recording historical events. When we attend to the pattern of the events, we realize that Acts “is a cyclical book. Mighty works of God are expounded by the Church in preaching which achieves both the conversion of the open-minded and the alienation of the hard-hearted. While the converted flood into the Church, and enrich it with their charity and devotion, the alienated raise persecution against her leaders. The faithfulness of these leaders in tribulation is answered by divine intervention triumphing over the powers of darkness; and so to more mighty works, and fresh preaching to expound them, and round the cycle again. The movement of the hook is like a spiral, always moving on and out into new territory, into deeper trials, into new communities, like a series of waves breaking higher and higher on the sea-shore”(16).

Three cycles begin the book, all involving the Twelve, all powered by the Spirit, all leading to intensifying persecution. With the fourth cycle, we move into a new phase, both geographically and in terms of the persecution: “All the first three waves have been under the apostles’ ministry, and all has hitherto been confined to Jerusalem, and to the Jewish people. With the fourth wave he carries the persecution theme to its uttermost limit, martyrdom; and out of the martyrdom of Stephen he traces the manifold expansion of the Church. The apostles are now virtually left behind, giving only their imprimatur to Philip’s Samaritan ministry, and the right hand of fellowship to Saul. The stage is taken by the Seven . . . The movement of the story is now from Jerusalem to the boundaries of Judaism: to Hellenist Judaism in the synagogues, to heterodox Judaism at Samaria, to outcast Judaism in the eunuch, to colonial Judaism at Damascus” (22-23).

Paul’s ministry follows a similar pattern: “The ministry of Paul falls in four further cycles of the same shape. The spiral widens out geographically: to Cyprus and Galatia, to Greece, to Asia, and finally to Rome. It widens out theologically with the conversion of Gentiles in the world outside Palestine. It takes Paul as its hero in each case, first with Barnabas, then with Silas, then assisted by Apollos, and finally with a number of his own converts of whom Aristarchus and the author stay with him to the end” (26).

The second cycle of Paul’s mission moves out from Jerusalem to the Greek world. As Goulder writes, “There is no pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit, but a very pronounced activity of the Holy Ghost, who forbids their preaching in Asia, and does not allow them to go into Bithynia. Associated with the Spirit hitherto has been the preaching of the word with power (2.14; 10.28), but the actual specimen of the apostolic preaching to Greece is delayed until Paul reaches the Greek capital. The Athenian sermon is the last full-scale preaching in Acts, and marks the furthest development of the Church’s approach in her increasingly Gentile mission. It achieves some converts including Dionysius and Damaris.” Yet the accent is on the opposition that Paul provokes, like the opposition that the Twelve provoked in Jerusalem: “As with the apostles, and as with Paul himself at Lystra, it is the mighty work of healing which triggers off opposition and persecution. Paul heals the girl with the python at Philippi, and he and Silas are seized and flogged (cf. the Twelve, 5.40), and ·imprisoned (cf. the Twelve, 5.17; Peter, 12.2). Again like the Twelve and Peter, they are miraculously delivered from prison, only this time God sends not a angel but an earthquake. The events at Philippi are· the centre-piece of the Greek mission, and set the pattern for what is to happen elsewhere, and to be described briefly: words of power from the apostles draw Gentile converts in number and a few Jews, others of whom are moved with envy to persecute the Christians (Jason, Sosthenes), while Paul and Silas themselves wonderfully escape” (28-29). Only in Corinth does Paul have a long stay.

Through these cycles, Luke is not only recording but theologizing, describing the pattern of the church’s mission: “God’s choice of new ministers for the preaching of the gospel; God’s mighty works through them; the crowd that is drawn, the word that is preached, the converts that it brings, their faithfulness and charity; and on the other side the rejection of the preaching, especially by the Jews, who are led therefore to persecute, try, assault, and martyr the Christian leaders. But God always retains the last word, and from the Church’s faithfulness he brings new opportunities, and new leaders, for a new cycle (33).