Resurrection changes the world
This is the third instalment of my notes written for BRF Guidelines Bible reading notes which have merely come out and lead up to the Easter season. Yous can read the first instalment (…'creates a transformed community') hither and the 2nd instalment ('…the fulfilment of God's promises') hither. If you are non encouraging those in your congregation to utilize Guidelines, what Bible reading notes are yous encouraging?
10. Resurrection as a challenge to culture (2) Acts 17:22–34
Because of his debating in the agora, the main marketplace in the center of Athens, Paul has been called earlier the council of the senior men governing Athens. They meet at the Areopagus ('Ares Rock'), a rocky hill overlooking the marketplace, to the west of the chief acropolis on which the Parthenon was built. The implication is that Paul is making an appeal for recognition of his new gods, and the council need to grant approval for new altar to exist added in the pantheon—though Paul chop-chop dismisses this option. The God he proclaims cannot only be slotted in to the existing patterns of conventionalities.
His speech is often taken as an example of Paul's accommodation to civilization, and Paul certainly engages his listeners in terms they understand. His opening greeting 'Men of Athens!' (sometimes translated 'People of Athens' or 'Athenians'—though only men are present) is the formally correct way to address the council, and Paul's speech, even as edited past Luke, contains numerous rhetorical devices that would have impressed his listeners. And Paul cites writings from two Greek philosophers—the Cretica ofEpimenides from Crete (which he also quotes in Titus 1:12), and the Phenomenaof Aratus, whom came from Paul'due south home region of Cilicia. This confirms what we might suppose from Paul's own writings, that he was well educated in Greek philosophy and rhetoric too equally beingness steeped in the Scriptures.
Only we also need to note the manner of Paul'southward engagement. He begins past highlighting an inconsistency or incoherence in his listeners' perception of the earth—that amid all the known and named gods, the truthful God remains unknown to them. This God, who is magisterial in his ability, is also (paradoxically) closer than they realise, Paul hinting hither at the incarnation of Jesus as God's presence on earth. Their whole system of statues and temples is an ignorant falsehood, which calls for repentance—and the lynchpin of Paul's argument is the proof of the resurrection. God'southward vindication of Jesus overturns human judgements, establishes Jesus every bit Lord, and anticipates the cease of the world—and in doing then confirms the Jewish view of God, the world and humanity, over confronting the Greek view. Though expressed in cultural habiliment, Paul's message is uncompromising in its conceptual claiming.
11. The resurrection as a source of theological segmentation Acts 22:xxx–23:11
Luke is here carefully recording Paul's fourth dimension in Jerusalem prior to the journey to Rome and the end of his story. Paul has already caused a stir in the metropolis amongst the Jews, and was most to be flogged by the Roman garrison commander when Paul reveals that he is a Roman citizen. The commander wants to learn more than well-nigh why Paul is controversial, and then takes him the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. The deep divisions and antagonism between groups in first-century Judaism recorded by Luke match what we know from other sources, and it is now customary to refer to 'first-century Judaismdue south' to reverberate this diverseness.
The main partitioning here is between the Sadducees—the aristocratic rulers who regulated temple worship, oversaw ceremonious government and regulated relations with the Romans (every bit successors to the Hasmoneans)—and the Pharisees, who were by and large a lay motility concerned with practical questions of holiness. Although, in the gospels, Jesus' chief disputes appeared to be with the Pharisees, Jesus' biggest theological differences were actually with the Sadducees. At one indicate, Jesus fifty-fifty tells both the crowd and his disciples to follow the education of the Pharisees (in Matthew 23:3)—simply he questions the core belief of the Sadducees that in that location is no resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23).
The differences in belief ascend from different views of Scripture. The Sadducees only believed that the Torah (the get-go five books of the Sometime Attestation) were scripture, and the idea of resurrection is barely axiomatic there. It is a central notion in the prophetic vision of Ezekiel 37, merely only becomes a personal hope in Daniel 12, texts as well considered Scripture by the Pharisees. Despite the deviation of view, for Paul the resurrection is the key theological hope of Scripture—and is the heart of his message. Conventionalities in Jesus' actual resurrection should never be dismissed as a 'juggling trick with bones' as some have done. It is the ground of our promise for the time to come; it says something fundamental about the importance of the torso for human being; and (as Paul expounds in Romans 6:1–v) it is a central metaphor for the new life of the baptised follower of Jesus. It is non something about which nosotros can 'concord to disagree'.
12. Resurrection as the hope of judgement Acts 24:10–26
Luke continues with his detailed account of Paul'due south various trials, demonstrating both the opposition he faced, and his steadfast defence before various government. We are now in the coastal settlement of Caesarea, residence of the governor of Judea. Felix was governor from AD 52, and other sources confirm he was violent, unsympathetic to the Jews, and unpredictable—leading to his being recalled past the emperor in Advertisement 58.
The trial follows the usual Roman design of face-to-face accusation before the judge, after which the defendant offers his apologia. Both Tertullus, the accusing lawyer, and Paul in his defense, refer to the followers of Jesus ('Nazarenes' 5. 5, 'followers of the way' v. 14) equally a 'sect'. The word hairesiscan have a neutral sense of 'party' or 'group' (equally in Acts 5:17), but it more unremarkably has a negative connotation, closer to our derived give-and-take 'heresy' (Galatians 5:20 and two Peter 2:i). Paul refutes the specific accusations of being ritually impure within the temple precincts, and the proffer of causing a anarchism (of detail involvement to the Roman governor). But he then once again turns to the theme of continuity that we saw in his earlier speeches, equally well equally those of Peter and Stephen: he worships 'the God of our ancestors'; he believes everything in 'the Police force and the prophets'; and he shares their hope of resurrection. The claim of ancient belief would be important to Romans, who greeted novelty with suspicion. But he is as well arguing against his fellow Jews, claiming that the resurrection of Jesus accords with the Jewish scriptures.
It is particularly interesting that he talks of the 'resurrection of the righteous and the wicked'. The image of resurrection in Ezekiel 37 is simply of God's people, illustrating God bringing them back to life. The primeval mention of a universalresurrection comes in Daniel 12:2, and the purpose is that people might be judged before God. This theological conviction has a very practical outworking: since Paul knows that God is his judge, and that in the resurrection there is vindication for all those who trust in him, he can confront accusers of every sort confidently and with a clear conscience. This hope provides Paul with an ballast in the storm of theological fence, personal abuse ('he hoped for a bribe' v. 26) and political turmoil.
13. Resurrection equally catholic fulfilment of history Acts 26:1–23
Two years have passed; the more noble Festus has succeeded Felix as governor (Acts 24:27); and Festus, unsure what to do and needing advice, has invited Herod Agrippa Two, customer king over territory to the e of Judea, to assistance him. Agrippa was the great grandson of Herod the Neat, and the final of the Herodian dynasty to bear the title 'king'. He spent large sums beautifying Jerusalem to curry favour with the Jewish leaders, and had ability the engage the high priests—but his capricious decisions in appointment fabricated him unpopular. In focussing on Paul's appearance before Festus and Agrippa, Luke is doing what he has done from the beginning: describing the Jesus motion not as a local, Jewish issue alone, merely locating it on the stage of world history (come across Luke i:5, 2:i and 3:1). Paul's testimony is of truly global significance.
Paul is flattering Agrippa by treating him as a respectable Jew, despite both his ancestry and his unpopularity; he talks inclusively of 'our ancestors' (v. 6) and makes the assumption of faith explicit at the end of his appeal (v. 27). As he does and then, he expounds the resurrection in three means. First, he sees it as a test of 18-carat faith in God: why would anyone who believes 'in the God of the living, not of the dead' (Luke 20:38) think information technology impossible for God to take raised Jesus (v. 8)? Secondly, the resurrection is indeed the fulfilment of 'the promise' of God which was the hope of the people of God from the beginning (the 'twelve tribes', v. vii). In a close parallel to Jesus' explanation on the Emmaus Route (Luke 24:26–27), Paul reiterates that Moses and the prophets anticipate that the Messiah would 'suffer and ascension from the dead' (vv. 22–23).
But, in Paul'southward account of his meeting with Jesus on the Damascus Road, he goes even further, to a third perspective. The risen Jesus is not simply a completion of what went before, simply a catholic answer to the questions of all humanity—the light in their darkness, release from the power of Satan, and forgiveness of sins (v. 18). In an important sense, this is the terminate of history, in that God has in Jesus and his resurrection spoken a concluding word not just to State of israel, just to all humanity.
14. Reflection: the centrality of the resurrection
When reading the gospels and Paul'south letters, it is not always evident how key the resurrection of Jesus was to the early proclamation of the offset Christian communities. Merely our survey of Acts shows how consistently important it was in the public communication and defence of the bulletin. The later chapters of Acts are generally less well known than the early and eye sections, but here Luke appears to give u.s. a reliable record of Paul'south apologetic defence of himself and his gospel—and the resurrection continues to feature equally of cardinal importance.
Fifty-fifty when in quite a different cultural context, i in which the thought of bodily resurrection made little sense, Paul persists in focussing on 'Jesus and the resurrection' as his cadre message. When given a hazard to expand on this, he adapts his style and established points of cultural contact—but he does this in order to present as apparent a still challenging message, whose acceptance would have required some significant philosophical rethinking on the role of his listeners. The same is true when Paul is faced with intra-Jewish theological controversy; his delivery to a belief in resurrection remains business firm, even when that feeds into existing disputes and differences. Paul is convinced that the risen Jesus is indeed the fulfilment of the hope of God, given to his people in the scriptures of the Old Attestation, and that this promise has now spilled out—as prophesied—to be a approving to those of all nations.
But the resurrection is not just the content of Paul's message; it also provides the animating motivation for his mission. If Jesus has indeed been raised, so everything has changed. The function of the temple has been transformed, since forgiveness is at present through trust in Jesus. The nature of hope has inverse, since the resurrection brings the time to come into the present. Even the condition of God's people has moved on, since the message is for all nations and God'south people are to be the carriers of that good news. And the resurrection gives Paul his confidence, since he has met the risen Jesus who volition be his judge, and who has deputed him for this task and promised to be with him in it.
I would heartily recommendGuidelines as a way of enabling personal Bible reading. They have a slap-up slate of writers (as you can see from the embrace of the current edition here) and are arranged into weekly blocks. Simply the days are non individually dated, which helps to assuage any guilt for missed days, and there is a summary reflection at the end of the calendar week to draw themes together. So they aim to stimulate understanding, reflection and application. You can society online from the BRF website here. Practice likewise check out the resource available from Scripture Union.
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