The End of Acts

As I finish the first draft of a commentary on Acts (forthcoming summer of 2011), a new school year looms at Ozark Christian College where I've had the privilege of teaching for 20 years now. These two have come together in the following introduction to Acts 28:11–31. It pertains to John 3:30 in that the Gospel is not propelled primarily by the great names of church history such as Paul and Peter but much more by the millions of nameless believers who simply live the life of Jesus and speak of his goodness to those they hold dear.

"If Acts were a symphony, this is where the tympani drums would thunder, the strings would crescendo, and the brass would blast the signal of a rousing ovation. Stand to your feet for this is the finale, a long one, but the finale nonetheless. This is not merely Paul's arrival in Rome, it is the symbolic fulfillment of Acts 1:8. The gospel had penetrated the epicenter of the Empire's power. As promised, Paul would stand before Nero and present to the Lord of Rome, the galactic King of Kings. Interestingly, the dramatic encounter of Paul with Nero is not even narrated. Historically, that may be because Luke went to press before Paul was released. Literarily, the ambiguity of a "baulked" non-ending fortuitously forces the reader to complete the story him or herself. Such conjecture draws the reader into participating in writing the end of the story. One's own imagination inflates the flat narrative into a 3D experience. Missiologically, the abortive ending of Acts, along with the perpetual comparison of Peter and Paul in the shadow of Jesus in the Gospel, sucks the reader into the narrative. One intuitively asks, "How does the story then end?" The answer comes as easily as the question when the Spirit replies, "You tell me!" We have the divine privilege of making history with the God who transcends human affairs. Rome, as the symbolic end of the world, is still experiencing the arrival of the Gospel. We, like Paul, still dripping from our own shipwreck, march relentless toward the imposing city armed with the power of the Word and the promise of God that we will stand fearless before rulers because this gospel message is not our own. We are but the conduit of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, Kings, and Service

Jesus told James and John that in order to be great leaders in the kingdom they would have to become servants. This advice was counter intuitive in the entire Mediterranean world. In fact, even the Bible has some pretty strong things to say about servants who become leaders. For example, Proverbs 30:21-22, "Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: A servant who becomes king..." Or Ecclesiastes 10:16, "Woe to you, O land whose king was a servant ..." Hence, there is almost no precedent for Jesus' advice to the ambitious brothers. However, there is an interesting statment in the Old Testament. After Solomon died, his idiot son Rehoboam took over. Jeroboam appears to have been leading a rebel faction which demanded some tax relief from Solomon's grandiose self-promoting empire building. Rehoboam asked his father's advisers what to do, and here was their response: 1 Kings 12:7, "If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants." Rehoboam spurned this advice and instead followed his peers' counsel to prove himself tough. As a result, the Twelve Tribes of Israel were torn in two by a nasty civil war from which it never recovered. Had Jesus considered himself God's envoy to establish the Kingdom of God, had he considered himself Yahweh's vassal ruler, and had he ever read this passage (all three are most probable), then his advice to James and John comes with a striking precedent. Jesus established Twelve Apostles as leaders of the Twelve tribes. Thus, at some level, he envisioned a restored Israel. It thus makes sense that his political praxis would follow the spurned advice at the pivotal national crisis that destroyed its original unity. It appears that Jesus' advice is not, after all, merely about spiritual humility but was an actual vision for national Israel.