Acts and the Experience of God
Ввласенко, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Every time I read the book of Acts in the New Testament, I become more convinced that it is a book for our time. It goes without saying, of course, that every book in Scripture is a book for all times. But there are features of Acts that make it especially worthy of our renewed attention in this disorienting moment. In particular, the centrality of the Holy Spirit’s power, the global orientation, the opposition of a hostile world to the gospel, and the powerful narratives of transformation that resound in Acts offer key signposts for Wesleyans in the twenty-first century.
In what follows, however, I want to focus on two other themes that we find in Acts: the witness of the apostles and the variety of human experiences of God. Recognizing the proper relationship between these is crucial to the faithfulness of the church in every generation. And I want to suggest that the book of Acts is our best window into how that relationship must function. Throughout Acts, we see God at work in all sorts of ways among people—even before those people have any contact with the emerging Christian community. But here is the key point: it is the apostles’ witness to Jesus that shapes the interpretation of what those experiences mean. To put the same point in a slightly different way, God’s activity throughout the world prepares people to receive the apostolic witness and to be baptized into the community of faith.
In order to unpack these claims, I should begin by clarifying what I mean by the apostolic witness. We must begin at the beginning, in the first chapter of Acts. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he offered the disciples both a promise and a charge: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8). Jesus designated this particular company of disciples to serve as his witnesses throughout the world, and they would do so in the power of the Holy Spirit. And it is clear that they took this charge seriously. We see this later in Chapter 1, when the apostles selected Matthias to replace Judas as one of the Twelve. This was necessary, the apostle Peter suggested, because one of those who had accompanied Jesus from the beginning “must become a witness with us to his resurrection” (1:22).
As the apostles began to fulfill this charge throughout the episodes we read in Acts, they consistently proclaimed a core message. The particular form of that message, in each case, was shaped by the circumstances at hand. But the apostles’ proclamation was consistently centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and aimed at repentance, baptism, and reception into the community of Jesus’ disciples. We see this immediately in Acts 2, just after the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise. Peter addressed the puzzled crowd that had gathered around the disciples, explaining that what they were seeing was the fulfillment of a prophecy from Joel 2. He immediately went on to tell the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Peter’s hearers were “cut to the heart” by this message, and they asked what they should do in response. “Repent,” Peter responded, “and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (2:37-38).
This same pattern is reflected in Peter’s later speeches (3:12-26, 4:8-12, 10:34-43). These speeches serve as examples of the body of content at the heart of the apostolic witness to Jesus. As representatives of the apostolic community began taking this message to new places, that teaching was continually aimed at repentance, baptism, and immersion into the church. It is also notable that Paul in particular kept the resurrection of Jesus at the heart of his proclamation (in 17:31-32, for example, as well as in 26:22-23). These were witnesses to the resurrection indeed.
As these evangelists began moving throughout the region and eventually beyond, they did not find the world devoid of God’s activity. On the contrary, they often found deep religious instincts in place. Sometimes these instincts were misdirected toward a variety of false gods, while at other times the disciples found genuine devotion to Israel’s God. It is notable that the apostles did not aim to smother these instincts, but rather they sought to direct them toward God’s saving activity in Jesus. I want briefly to explore four such episodes in Acts, so that we can see clearly how the relationship between religious experience and the apostolic witness should be ordered. Specifically, we’ll look at the stories of the Ethiopian court official, Cornelius, Lydia, and the Athenians.
In Acts 8, we find two stories that place Philip in a central role as a representative of the apostolic community. (It should be mentioned, though, that this is most likely not Philip the apostle, listed in chapter 1, but rather the Philip who was set apart as a deacon in chapter 6.) Both of these stories involve Philip preaching the good news about Jesus with remarkable results, first in Samaria and then on the road with an Ethiopian court official. These episodes are likely why he is named as “Philip the Evangelist” in Acts 21. The second of these stories is particularly important for our purposes, and we find it in 8:26-40.
An angel of the Lord had directed Philip to go to this particular road, and what he saw and heard on that road is striking. Here was a court official, in his chariot, reading the book of Isaiah out loud. This was clearly a person seeking God—he had come to Jerusalem to worship and now was returning home reading Israel’s scripture. And yet his searching had still left him longing for more, as the court official himself acknowledged. When the Spirit directed Philip to the chariot, Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading. “He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him” (8:31). Prompted by the official’s question about the text he was reading, Philip shared the good news of Jesus with the man. The man’s response to the good news was marked by his request to be baptized, and we last find the newly baptized man “rejoicing” (8:39). To put a finer point on the story, the Holy Spirit brought together the official who was earnestly seeking God and a representative of the community bearing the apostolic witness. The result was evangelism, baptism, and joy.
We see a similar dynamic in Acts 10, where we find the story of Peter and Cornelius. Like the Ethiopian court official, Cornelius was a person devoutly seeking God. Early in the chapter, we read of an angel of the Lord appearing to Cornelius and affirming his consistent prayers and almsgiving (10:3-4). The angel directed him to send representatives to the apostle Peter in the town of Joppa. As these men were on their way to Joppa, Peter saw a vision and heard a voice that commanded him not to call profane what God has made clean. While he was still thinking about this vision, the Spirit spoke directly to Peter (10:19-20). Peter learned that the Spirit had sent the representatives of Cornelius to him. What follows is a story of transformation in two directions.
The first transformation is that Peter comes to realize that Jesus is Lord of all—including Gentiles such as Cornelius and his companions. While the message of salvation was sent through Israel, Peter saw that it was a message for all of the nations (10:34-36). The second transformation involved the Gentiles’ response to Peter’s preaching. While Peter was preaching about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard. These Gentiles who had received the gift of the Holy Spirit were then baptized (10:34-48). So it is clearly the case that God used these Gentiles to expand Peter’s vision of the extent of Jesus’ lordship. At the same time, this experience did not change the message of the apostolic witness. On the contrary, God used the proclamation of that very message to bring the experience of Cornelius to its proper end.
In Acts 16, we find another conversion story that is quite brief but deeply moving. The apostle Paul and his traveling companions found their way to the city of Philippi. One Sabbath day they went outside the city gates looking for a place of prayer by the river. They found a number of women gathered there, including a woman named Lydia. The text identifies Lydia as “a worshiper of God.” As she talked with these evangelists, we read that “the Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul” (16:14). Her positive response to the gospel led to her baptism, along with her household. Lydia’s connection to her new community of faith is marked with particular sharpness in the text, as she insisted on welcoming Paul and his partners into her home. Just as in the earlier stories, we find a worshiper of God whose encounter with the apostolic witness immerses her in the community of Jesus’ disciples.
Our final text is the latter part of Acts 17. This story is set in Athens, where Paul was waiting to be reunited with Silas and Timothy. In that city, he found plenty of signs of worship, but it was quite different from what he encountered by the river near Philippi. While walking around Athens, Paul was “deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (17:16). When he addressed the Athenians, however, he looked for a contact point in their spiritual instincts. We find this speech in 17:22-31, and it reflects a remarkable rhetorical approach. Paul began by noting the signs of their religious inclinations all over the city. He then reported that he saw one altar with the inscription, “to an unknown god.” That was his in. “What therefore you worship as unknown,” Paul continued, “this I proclaim to you.”
The remainder of the speech described the actions of the God who created the heavens and the earth, a God who “does not live in shrines made by human hands.” This God is ever-present precisely because He is transcendent, Paul suggested, and He cannot be contained within created things. Here we read that wonderful line, that “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Paul then turned to outline how this God has called all people to repentance in the face of the coming judgment. He pointed to the resurrection of Jesus as the sign of this, and it is the resurrection in particular that caused many listeners to scoff. But “some of them,” the story concludes, “joined him and became believers.”
These stories are worth returning to again and again, particularly in an age when experience is often placed on the throne of theological discernment. They remind us that the witness of the apostles down through the ages is not merely one set of experiences among many. It is simply not enough to claim that theirs was one reading of Jesus, perhaps meaningful in its time and place but no more valid for today than a different reading of Jesus shaped by different experiences. For the apostolic witness is grounded in Jesus’ own designation of this particular community to testify to this particular message to the ends of the earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit who came among them at Pentecost. God is indeed active throughout the world, both within and beyond the church. And yet Acts reminds us that the broad movement of God is rightly discerned in light of the apostles’ testimony to Jesus, and it is ordered toward repentant reception of that witness and immersion into the community that emerged out of Pentecost.
Doug Koskela is Professor of Theology at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. He is an ordained Elder in the Reach Conference of the Free Methodist Church.