The Prophethood of All Believers by Roger Stronstad

Author:Roger Stronstad [Stronstad, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: CPT Press
Published: 2010-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

2. Programmatic Summary: Characteristics of the Prophetic Community (2.42-47)

Following the Pentecost narrative (Acts 2.1-41) Luke gives a summary of the disciples, who, as he has just described, have become a community of prophets by virtue of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. This summary is not a concluding summary, as for example will be found in Acts 6.7 among others, but it is a programmatic summary. This type of summary is to be found in the historical books of the Old Testament, whose historiography influences Luke’s own historiography. For example, Acts 1 and 2 show several structural affinities with Judges 1 and 2. First, both Judges and Acts report the history of a new (that is, a second) generation of God’s people following respectively the narrative history of the first generation of Israel which entered the land under Joshua’s leadership, and the origin of Christianity in the person and ministry of Jesus. Secondly, both Judges and Acts begin with a narrative which recapitulates final episodes reported in the previous books, Joshua and Luke, respectively. Thirdly, both Judges and Acts next give programmatic summaries which introduce themes to be developed in the remainder of the book. In Judges the programmatic summary is found in Judg. 2.11-23. It introduces a fourfold thematic cycle of Israel’s history, often summarized alliteratively as (1) sin—’the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals’ (Judg. 2.11), (2) servitude—’the Lord gave them into the hands of plunderers who plundered them’ (Judg. 2.13), (3) supplication—’the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning’ (Judg. 2.18b), and (4) salvation—’the Lord raised up judges who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them’ (Judg. 2.16). This editorial summary is programmatic for the six reports of judges which follow, beginning with Othniel, son of Kenaz (Judg. 3.7-12), and concluding with Samson (Judg. 13.16-31). Similarly in Acts 2.42-47 Luke gives his readers a programmatic summary which introduces for his readers the narrative of the acts of this eschatological community of prophets.

Luke’s programmatic summary introduces his readers first to the inner life of the prophetic community. By ‘inner life of the community’ I mean the attitudes and practices of the disciples as a community of prophets, not the interior personal spirituality of individual disciples. Describing the inner life of the disciples, who now number more than 3000 (Acts 2.41), Luke writes, ‘And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer’ (Acts 2.42). Unity is a corollary to these features (Acts 2.46; 4.32; 5.12).

Secondly, Luke’s programmatic summary introduces his readers to the outer life of the prophetic community. By ‘outer life of the community’, I mean the community in its witness about Jesus to those who are not disciples. Describing the outer life of the community Luke writes, ‘And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles’ (Acts 2.43). In addition to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.