15. Some Lukan Emphases

15. Some Lukan Emphases

15

Most scholars agree that Luke was theologian as well as historian, regardless of where their own primary academic interests or emphases lie. Indeed, these approaches must overlap considerably in Luke-Acts, since Luke’s theology is a narrative theology depicting a God who acts in history. As noted in above, ancient historiography typically included various agendas, which could be moral, political, and/or theological, among others. In Acts Luke chooses the form of a historical monograph to articulate his theology and articulates it (as any writer or speaker must do) in language- and history-specific ways. But we can also isolate a significant number of Lukan themes, emphases that, by emphatic language or repetition, emerge in the larger context of Luke-Acts.

The themes that commentators emphasize often reflect the interests of the era in which they write as well as those that dominate in the texts on which they comment. When I teach Luke-Acts, I focus on Lukan themes that recur most frequently, raising them as we first come to them in the text. Because this is a commentary, I will also reserve most comment on Luke’s theology for some of the texts that highlight this theology. (In some cases such comment will require extended treatment in an excursus, where the subject has commanded recent interest or involves many sources; in other cases I will simply emphasize the many Lukan texts addressing the theme.) Some other themes I have had to address elsewhere in the introduction; for example, although this chapter addresses Luke’s theology of signs, much material about signs was necessarily relegated to above, on signs and historiography. Likewise, discussion of Luke’s theology is inseparable from discussion of Acts’ purpose, to which and were devoted. Here I will not repeat most of the work covered elsewhere in this introduction, allowing this chapter to be more concise than it might otherwise be.

In introducing some of Luke’s emphases here, however, I am focusing not so much on themes that are merely dominant but on those that seem to me to require special comment yet are not addressed more fully under one of the texts in which they appear. I have treated some themes already, such as Luke’s perspective on salvation history (through the story of Israel and Jesus) and the relationship between the Gentile mission and the heritage of Israel (the Gentile mission is addressed in other respects below). Because this commentary’s focus is on social-historical context (albeit not exclusively), the approach where it can make the fullest distinctive contribution, I will try to approach the theological questions with this context as well.

Luke’s distinctive, frequent interests that this commentary treats elsewhere include, for example, the participation of women in his narrative (see below); prayer (see comment on ); themes such as possessions and care for the poor and marginalized (see discussion esp. at , and brief treatment below on Luke’s ; some background at Acts 3:2); baptism and repentance (See comment on ); worship and community (see comments on ); the church (see comments on ); the role of the temple and the land (comments on ); and divine deliverance (passim). This chapter, however, is reserved mostly for important themes not treated so extensively at these other points (such as the Gentile mission, the Spirit, and signs). (Readers interested in particular subjects may scan the index, though a commentary is not intended, and by its nature is not equipped, to provide a full-orbed Lukan theology.)

As noted in above, the Tendenz of ancient documents reveals a range of ideological commitments, including “theological” (in the narrower sense) and “political” elements. Commentators who look for themes generally seek to explore the range of these perspectives, whether “theology” in the narrower sense, or “ideology” or “perspectives” more broadly (what scholars often mean by texts’ “theology”). The broader use of “theology,” of course, includes the narrower sense, but it is important to be clear about which we have in mind. (This chapter surveys some of both.)

If by “theology” we mean Luke’s understanding of God, there is not a pericope that, in light of the whole work that forms its context, fails to exude this concern. If we define theology in the broader, traditional Christian way as examining particular traditional categories of Christian beliefs, however, we run the risk of forcing Luke’s evidence into molds not designed for it. That is, the contours of Luke’s message examined inductively do not coincide precisely with such traditional categories. This is not to say, for example, that Luke has no interest in, or relevance for, “hamartiology”; from Judas to Ananias and Sapphira to the enemies of the gospel, the vested economic interests of Philippian slaveholders and cultic artisans profiting from Ephesian paganism, and the corrupt, bribe-seeking governor Felix, the narrative is full of examples instructive for hamartiology.

But if we look for Luke’s own themes inductively, highlighted at foundational points (e.g., Acts 1:8) or defended by him citing Scripture, we will more readily emphasize, for example, the Gentile mission, a matter crucial for salvation history but less obvious through the lens of traditional medieval categories. “Possessions” are a crucial theme in Luke-Acts yet do not belong to one of the traditional categories. Definitions are therefore important.

Luke parallels Jesus, Peter, and Paul (and to a lesser extent Stephen), though obviously not on the same level (Jesus trains Peter and converts Paul, and they act in his name). But throughout Acts, the dominant character behind the scenes (and frequently in them) is God. God even has speaking parts, though often the message is conveyed through Jesus, angels, prophecy from the Holy Spirit, or the recitation of God’s message in the gospel. Elsewhere he often remains the silent presupposition unspoken in the background, driving the plot that, of all the characters, only he comprehends in full detail, perhaps like a sort of implicit omniscient narrator active within the story.

Luke portrays a God active in challenging human biases and promoting the Gentile mission. Thus, for example, God arranges for the witness to the African court official through an angel, the leading of the Spirit, the providential reading of the witness of appropriate Scripture, and an open heart (Acts 8:26–34). He arranges a persecutor’s conversion, confirms Paul’s calling to Gentiles, and mandates the acceptance of an uncircumcised Roman officer’s purity through double, coinciding visions (9:3–16; 10:3–20).

More explicitly, God shows no ethnic partiality (10:34, adapting a common ancient theological theme). Unlike idols, God is a “living God” (14:15; 17:29), whom pagans should recognize as Creator and benevolent sustainer of creation (14:15–17; 17:24). In contrast to the practices of pagan religion, God does not need temples or anything from humans, who are themselves his creation, like other creatures (17:24–25). (Ironically, Israel also needs this reminder [7:48–50].)

God is gracious in Christ; his message of salvation is a message of grace, of unearned benefaction (20:24, 32; cf. 2:39). God loves Israel and keeps his promises to his people (3:25–26; 24:14–15; 26:6–8; earlier, 7:17). God has not left humanity to wander in its ignorance but made them in his image, to be his children; he has therefore blessed them with the message of Christ as an opportunity to turn to him (17:27–30). Nor is God unconcerned with their response; he summons humanity to turn to him (14:15; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20).

God graciously (i.e., generously) turns many to him unexpectedly, so that others recognize this turning as God’s generous grace (11:19–23, esp. 11:23) and his gift (11:17–18); the way of Christ is the way of God’s grace (13:43; 20:32). God opens the hearts of those who will embrace his message (16:14) and adds new believers to the church (2:47; cf. 5:14). God graciously chooses even those who will be the witnesses (10:41), and his grace equips them (14:26; 15:40; 26:22). Sometimes he grants even more than what they need for their mission (27:24). The fruits of apostolic ministry are ultimately about what God himself has done (19:11), as the apostles themselves testify (14:27; 15:4, 12; 21:19).

God has acted to bring Gentiles into his people. He knows the hearts of all (1:24; 15:8), yet he confirms his acceptance of Gentiles (15:8), making no spiritual distinction between Jew and Gentile (15:9; cf. 10:34). God makes clear his guidance for the mission along the way (8:29; 16:10).

Most obviously, God acts in history, climactically in relation to the mission of Christ. Although Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 mentions multiple human characters, the pervasive protagonist is God (θεός appears sixteen times in the speech proper); Paul emphasizes that David died after he fulfilled God’s purpose for him for his generation (13:36). God is the one who continues the work, despite his individual human agents’ limitations and mortality.

For Luke, as for other early Christians, God was ultimately active especially in Christ. God was with Jesus in his benevolent ministry of healing and deliverance to humanity (10:38; Luke 4:18); Jesus is also the chief agent of grace (Acts 15:11). Christ’s suffering was part of God’s plan (2:23); his God is the God of earlier Scripture, who foretold these things (3:18, 21; cf. 13:23). God raised and exalted Christ (2:24, 32–36; 3:13; 5:30–31; 10:40; 13:30, 33), appointed him as judge for humanity (10:42; 17:31), and authorized him to pour out God’s own Spirit (2:33).

To reject God’s testimony is to put him to the test (15:10), as Israel of old had done; testing God or lying to him can have terrible consequences (5:4–5, 9–10). God can hand transgressors over to their own madness (7:42) or send other judgments (8:20–21). He can punish terribly those who usurp his role (12:22–23) and is angry with hypocrites who speak falsely in his name (23:3). The appropriate response to God’s acts is praise (3:8–9; 4:21; 10:46; 21:20; cf. 15:3; 16:25; 28:15) and faith (16:34); those in need pray to him (12:5) and can trust his words (27:25, 35). God must also be obeyed (4:19; 5:29); humanity’s rightful ruler, he summons obedience through the message of the kingdom (his rule), which will eventually be consummated (e.g., 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 28:23, 31).

In this narrow sense, theology is a pervasive theme of Luke-Acts; even when God is not speaking directly through the Spirit, God is at work behind the scenes to accomplish the divine purpose (see our discussion on theological perspectives in ancient histories, esp. in ). The very gospel is God’s message (4:31; 6:2, 7; 8:14; 11:1), and the mission (5:39), including the Gentile mission (10:15, 28; 11:9, 17–18; 15:14, 19; see below), is God’s agenda. Acts is thus God’s book, though readers may identify more with the dominant human characters through whom God often accomplishes the mission.

Use of the term “theology” can complicate our enterprise here if it risks semantic confusion with traditional “theological” categories. Luke’s “theology” can refer narrowly to his teaching specifically about God. Biblical and systematic theologians, however, generally use the term “theology” more widely, the former for key emphases in a biblical writer or book and many of the latter for conventional theological categories established from medieval times (though today often for a broader range of categories).

Biblical theology can proceed by inductively seeking a biblical work’s themes. If, closer to much NT theology than to most systematic theologians, we use the expression “theology” for the message that the implied biblical author communicated to the implied first-century audience, we are defining our quest for Luke’s theology more in terms of inductive analysis of Acts than in terms of more standardized general theological rubrics. Although Luke does display interests that fit within the confines of traditional theological categories, we must begin by acknowledging that such categories can by no means contain his interests.

Luke’s theology is not a traditional systematic theology; it may be understood, however, as a work of narrative theology. As noted in above, ancient Mediterranean historians had a Tendenz and often even communicated a picture of God active in history. (For some comments on Luke’s theology of history, see this commentary’s introduction to Acts 7.) At the same time, we must allow for what is distinctive to their genre, even if some modern existential scholars (in contrast to the salvation-historical approach) have considered such historical material relatively unimportant.

Luke is not always clear theologically or in other details. Scholars sometimes complain that Luke nuances theological debates less carefully than does Paul or Matthew (see comment on Acts 15:1). Some sayings that are clear in a Jewish setting in Matthew (e.g., Matt 23:26) become more obscure in Luke (e.g., Luke 11:41). Sometimes he appears less clear on the nature of the Pharisees (16:14), though his comments about them in 11:38, 45 seem more nuanced than the parallels in Matthew. But Luke writes biographical history, not a theological treatise; he argues by example rather than detailed linear argument, and his more generalized language at points does not detract from the point of his presentation.

Some of Luke’s interests are primarily aesthetic and historical; often he provides geographic and chronological details of little direct relevance to modern homiletic or theological concerns. Modern interpreters may, of course, consider what we can learn “theologically” from such interests. His aesthetic interests may teach us, for example, that Luke appreciates good communicative strategies; his historical interests affirm that God acts in the concrete arena of time, space, and human flesh, where people live.

Some of Luke’s geographic details evoke the world of his audience’s Scriptures; others evoke the geographic horizons of the Greek world of their own or their host culture’s ancestors. Luke contextualizes his message again within their world and blends the horizons of biblical history and contemporary response. (To some extent, the need to take this approach was predetermined by, as well as served by, the historical genre he chose.) In the very process of abstracting these principles, modern interpreters sometimes risk silencing, to a degree, Luke’s own communicative strategies.

We cannot separate Luke’s theology from his historiography as easily as modern scholars are sometimes apt to do. The pure “theology” found among later Neoplatonists is ahistorical, but it is a far cry from anything found in Luke-Acts (except, perhaps, in Acts 17:24–25) or much of the rest of first-century Christian literature. If one part of Luke’s purpose is to recount what happened among God’s people (as he emphasizes in his first volume’s proem, Luke 1:1–4), then communicating salvation history is part of his theology. The biblical tradition, explicit citations and clear allusions to which pervade Luke’s work, informed his approach to salvation history; God’s acts continued in recent times as in earlier biblical times, and Luke was continuing the biblical story (as noted in above, on Luke and Israel, and esp. Luke and Scripture).

Most Jewish people not immersed in Greek philosophy found in such a story God’s acts in history; reciting God’s acts honored God and was deeply theological, albeit by reflecting on God by recounting his acts rather than by philosophic abstractions. As suggested above, scholars today would call it “narrative theology.” Paul, for example, writes with significant christological assumptions but constantly rehearses Jesus’s death and resurrection; even the earliest Christian creeds focused on Jesus’s “work” as well as on his “person.” But all Greco-Roman historians advanced agendas and emphases through their concrete examples (as noted in , , above), and Luke-Acts is no exception.

For an example already addressed above in , a major emphasis in Acts is Luke’s political apologetic, arguing that, contrary to accusations (Acts 17:7; 24:5), Christians were not a subversive movement out to undermine the state. (Luke may undermine the larger society’s values and gods, but any public disorder in his narrative is blamed on the Christians’ enemies.) Those who study Luke as a guide for modern Christian faith and praxis (rather than for purely historical interests) may find more of a model here than traditional theological categories might lead us to expect: Luke offers a sort of church-state model for his culture (where Christians were a tiny minority). Political cultures vary too greatly (e.g., secular democracies, Islamic states) to simply import Luke’s model wholesale into different systems. Nevertheless, his apologetic strategies provide a well-thought-through model of contextualization relevant for those constructing appropriate models for various respective cultures.

What of the details that Luke supplies because his chosen genre of apologetic historiography demands them? His point in including some names and details may be the same as that of other historians in including names and details: their historical enterprise demanded it, though political or theological agendas may have guided their selection and arrangement of, and slant on, their materials. If some modern theological readers are tempted to dismiss such details as irrelevant to their theological enterprise, they should not therefore assume that these details were irrelevant to Luke’s “message.”

Luke’s historical method is itself important theologically precisely because it reveals that he affirmed that verifiable history could not only serve other historians’ political agendas but reveal God’s acts. Just as Luke appeals to apologetic eyewitness claims within speeches (Acts 2:32; 3:15; 5:32; 10:39–41; 13:31; 22:15; 26:16), he implies their value for his narratives (e.g., Luke 1:2; Acts 1:8, 22; 4:33). Although some modern readers may doubt his claim that such events occurred in history, they should not pretend that such a claim is not part of Luke’s message, that is, what we commonly call his theology. Although Luke’s theology is prominent in Acts, one can divorce it completely from his narrative only at a steep price.

Having posed the problem of definition, I will focus below on several of Luke’s recurrent interests in the book that are usually considered “theological.” Luke’s theology can be (and often has been) explored in much greater detail, but I focus here on several recurrent themes most easily introduced at this point. I revisit these themes and a larger number of others at appropriate locations within the commentary proper. Because this commentary, by its nature, focuses on the text’s ancient meaning and works through each passage in some detail, a more integrative treatment of the themes is better suited to a separate study. That being said, the themes and literary unity of Luke-Acts are presupposed in each passage that the commentary explores.

Luke’s speeches and narratives are full of themes and emphases through which Luke (as one expects for an ancient historian) is teaching about various subjects, including God.

One place to look for Luke’s theology would be the “standard set of topics” in the speeches in Acts, often repeated even when not directly relevant to the situation at hand. That is, they remain a fixed part of the preaching of the good news for various settings. C. H. Dodd listed elements he found central in the apostolic preaching in Acts:

Soards gives the following, similar list:

Some of these themes are more pervasive than others, but their distribution within Acts is appropriate. Most evangelistic speeches mention the resurrection, and other speeches may do so as well (Acts 1:22; 2:24, 31–32; 3:15; 4:2, 10, 33; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 33–37; 17:18, 31–32; 23:6; 24:15, 21; 26:8, 23). By contrast, the Holy Spirit appears in speeches to Jewish audiences and, when to Gentiles, to Gentile Christians (1:5, 8, 16; 2:17–18, 33, 38; 5:32; 7:51; 10:38; 11:12, 15–16; 15:8, 28; 20:23, 28; 28:25); most non-Christian Gentiles would not understand the Jewish and Christian meaning of the Spirit without explanation.

But Luke’s narrative teaches “theology” no less than the apostolic message announced by his reliable protagonists, and hence repetition of divine works may teach us there as well. After all, Luke’s first volume, his own Gospel, develops in greater detail some of the basic elements of the kerygma encapsulated above. Narrative diversifies the “normative” patterns—for example, the pattern for receiving the Spirit in Acts 2:38–39 (e.g., 8:15–17; 10:44–47).

Here I treat only selected themes in Acts, treating others at greater length under one of the early passages where they occur in the commentary (e.g., prayer, at Acts 1:14; or God’s sovereignty, especially at 2:23; or faith, which is mentioned roughly fifty times, at Acts 3:16) or as they appear at various points in the text (e.g., the theme of persecution). If we define “theology” broadly as not simply Luke’s perspectives about God but his message more generally, it could include such themes as Christians’ uprightness before Roman law (see above in , on apologetic) and the integrity of Paul’s message. Further, although the “theology” of Luke-Acts may be its message, shaped to some degree by its purpose, Luke may have held other theological convictions shared among early Christians or Jewish people that he did not need to articulate in his work.

As already noted, the question of definition is necessary to limit the range of a “theological” investigation, and writing a theology of Luke-Acts is beyond the purpose of this work, in any case (though it is hoped that the passage-by-passage insights in light of the whole could contribute to such a work). But here I introduce (in relatively cursory form) several themes, namely, Christology (treated further under, e.g., Acts 2:21, 34–36); salvation (cf. comment on Acts 27:20); briefly, eschatology (treated in greater detail at Acts 1:6–8); much more extensively, the Gentile mission (also treated, with other aspects, under Acts 1:8); the Spirit (although different aspects of this are treated under Acts 1:8; 2:17–18); and signs. Because this is a social-historical and rhetorical commentary, my emphasis here is to put these themes in their late first-century context, and so the survey of secondary literature on these subjects will be necessarily limited.

The theme of Jesus as God’s saving agent is too pervasive and central to warrant detailed treatment in one place; I will simply survey it here. (For background on Jewish Christology and further comment on Luke’s, see, e.g., comment at Acts 2:21, 34–36). Since Luke’s first volume, as a whole, deals with “all that Jesus began to do and to teach” (Luke 1:1), one might rehearse this entire Gospel here. Luke’s second volume repeatedly summarizes this mission, which will be merely highlighted here. Epideictic rhetoric permitted one to highlight the centrality of one’s main character (e.g., Libanius Encomium 2.24), but Jesus’s role for early Christianity was foundational, and hence warranted distinctive focus and praise.

Jesus is the central focus of proclamation in Acts (highly significant given the prominence of the speeches; even in Acts 17:22–31, Jesus is the climax in 17:31). Luke often shows that Jesus is the object of proclamation or “preaching good news” (e.g., 5:42; 8:5, 35; 9:20; 11:20; 17:3; climactically, 28:31), the equivalent of preaching the kingdom (8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23; especially 28:31) and the “peace” it includes (10:36; cf. Isa 52:7). As already noted above (sect. 2.a), the speeches in Acts summarize elements of how God used and exalted Jesus in the first volume. God was with Jesus, having anointed him to perform benefactions of healing and deliverance for Israel (Acts 10:38). God gave him these signs to attest him to Israel (2:22). Nevertheless, some of his people rejected and murdered him (2:23; 7:52) according to God’s plan (2:23; 3:18; 4:28); the leaders held special responsibility (3:17; 4:10, 26–27; 5:30; 13:27).

But God raised him up (2:32; 3:15; 5:30) and enthroned him at his own right hand, as the psalmist’s “lord” (2:33–35; 5:31). He is also the coming “Son of Man” (7:56; cf. Dan 7:13), “standing” at God’s right hand (Acts 7:56), perhaps as the true judge. Most important, he is “Lord” (e.g., 9:1, 10, 11, 17, 27, 28; 11:16; 22:10; 23:11; 26:15), often as “the Lord Jesus” (e.g., 4:33; 8:16; 9:17; 11:17, 20; 15:11, 26; 16:31; 19:5, 13, 17; 20:21, 24, 35; 21:13; 28:31); he appears in the form of divine glory (9:3–5; 22:7–8; 26:14–15). His resurrection and exaltation grant him this public status, in accordance with the proclamation of Psalm 110 (Acts 2:34–36).

Jesus’s lordship applies to him traditionally divine language. In antiquity in general, “Lord,” when not used in the vocative, could function especially as a divine title. “Lord” is clearly used as a divine title also in Acts (Acts 2:34, 39; 5:9; 8:22, 24, 39; 9:31; 13:2; 16:14), especially when referring to OT citations (2:20–21; 3:22; 4:26; 7:31, 33, 49; 13:47; 15:17, 18) or employing OT phrases such as “angel of the Lord” (5:19; 8:26; 12:7, 23), “hand of the Lord” (11:21; 13:11), and “name of the Lord” (2:21; applied to Jesus in 8:16; 9:28; 19:5, 13, 17; 21:13). As just noted, this title often applies specifically to Jesus (e.g., 1:21; 2:36; 4:33; 8:16; 9:5), including in a foundational context that applies a programmatic text to Jesus (see 2:21 with 2:34, 36, 38; cf. also Luke 3:4). Jesus is also designated as “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36), again normally a divine title. There can be no question that Luke accepts Jesus’s divinity in at least some sense; this is not surprising if he was in Paul’s circle (which uses some divine language for Jesus), though it appears much more widely in first-century Christology than advocates of traditional hypotheses demanding a slowly evolving Christology have been prepared to acknowledge.

Because Jesus is God’s Christ, he will also rule his people in the future era (3:20–21) and is already the rightful Lord (2:34–35). In the present, he is the one who pours out the Spirit (2:33; Luke 3:16), a divine role (Acts 2:17). We even read of the divine Spirit as “the Spirit of Jesus” (16:7). God offers Israel and others forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit in Jesus’s name (2:38; 5:31). Jesus is the only means of salvation (4:12; 15:11) and is Israel’s rightful leader and only savior (5:31; 13:23). It is in his name that those turning to God must be baptized (2:38; 8:16; 19:5). He, like God, is the appropriate object of faith (11:17; 16:31; 20:21; 28:31), glorification (19:17), and proclamation (11:20; 28:31); preaching can be done in his name (9:28).

Jesus fulfills what Moses only started (3:22–23; 7:37) and what all prophets foretold (3:24) and deliverers foreshadowed (7:9–37); he suffered rejection from God’s own people, as did deliverers such as Joseph (7:9) and Moses (7:35). He is the Son of David, who fulfills God’s promise to David and David’s aspirations for his line (2:25–30).

Jesus is God’s servant (3:13, 26) and obeyed God even to the death (8:32–33, an observation relevant to Jesus’s servant role especially if we may assume the immediate Isaian context). He is the truly holy and righteous one (3:14; 7:52), the prince of life (3:15). He is the psalmist’s rejected but exalted cornerstone (4:11).

God had chosen particular witnesses who would testify about Jesus. They needed to know the entire story since John the Baptist (1:21–22), but they especially testified about the key issue (in terms of salvation-historical significance), Jesus’s resurrection (2:32; 3:15). It was the resurrection that vindicated Jesus after the cross, confirming him as God’s agent; this was the climax of God’s acts, one that, being naturally incredible, required special attestation. The Spirit also attests Jesus’s exaltation, both as a present reality (2:33) and as a witness (5:32).

Jesus is not only the primary subject of proclamation in the speeches; he remains also a dramatic actor in the second volume’s narrative, intervening by direct revelations (9:3–6, 10–16; 16:7; 18:9–10; 22:7–8, 10, 18–21; 23:11; 26:14–18). Jesus is also the one who continues to work in the book of Acts, because it is his name that produces healings (3:6, 16; 4:10; cf. 19:13); he stands behind all action done genuinely “in His name” (see 9:34).

Jesus remains in fact no less central to Acts than to Paul or Revelation, though Luke is no longer writing a biography of Jesus as in his first volume. The subject of Luke’s first volume (Acts 1:1), Jesus remains directly central in the opening scene of Acts, where he instructs the disciples, ascends, and remains the subject of angelic discourse (esp. 1:11). Yet even after the ascension, Jesus is never far from the action. He is the promised one whose betrayal thus commands significance in 1:16–20, and for whom the number of witnesses must be completed (1:8, 20–23). He is the one who gives the Spirit in chapter 2 (see 2:33), and thus the subject of Peter’s preaching (2:22–38). He is the one in whose name the lame man in chapter 3 is healed (3:6, 13, 16; 4:10), and thus again the subject of Peter’s preaching (3:13–26), and the subject of the prophets’ discourse (3:18–26; cf. also 2:25–30). The apostles’ proclamation of Jesus is the occasion of their arrest (4:2), and the apostles preach Jesus again to the council (4:10–12); their very behavior marks them as exhibiting the model of Jesus (4:13). Warned no longer to speak for Jesus (4:18), the apostles find such wicked threats foretold in Scripture (4:26–30; cf. 5:40) and continue preaching Jesus (4:33; 5:30, 42). Stephen preaches Jesus as the rejected deliverer, following earlier biblical models (); Philip, as the true great one of God (in contrast to magical claims, 8:10–12) and the suffering servant (8:32–35).

Jesus himself converts and calls Paul directly (9:3–6; 22:6–10; 26:13–18; cf. 20:24), sends Ananias as his confirming and healing agent (9:17), becomes the subject of Paul’s proclamation (9:20, 22, 27), and heals through Peter (9:34) and others (14:3). As the subject of Peter’s preaching (10:36–43), he is the reason that Gentiles receive the Spirit (11:17), the basis of their salvation (15:11). Those who spread the word beyond Palestine also preach Jesus (11:20), who remains the subject of Paul’s message (13:23–39; 14:21); risking one’s life for Jesus’s honor attests one’s fidelity to what the movement is about (15:26; cf. 21:13). Jesus continues to guide the mission (16:7) and remains the basis for exorcism (16:18) and salvation (16:31); he is promised in and proclaimed from Scripture (17:3; 18:28; 26:22–23; 28:23; cf. 18:4–5). He remains the clear subject of proclamation (19:4–5; 20:21, 35; 24:24; 28:31), even when hearers misunderstand or twist the message (17:7, 18; 25:19). The real Jesus cannot be manipulated by magical formulas but works only through his chosen agents (19:13–17). He continues to speak to his servants about their mission (18:9–10; 23:11) and to guide the action (22:17–21; cf. 23:11; 27:23). Jesus thus remains central in Acts, as in most of earliest Christian literature.

Luke is interested in what we call salvation history, from God’s promise to Israel to the consummated salvation of the resurrection and Israel’s restoration under its true king. Discussion is limited here to the particular term σῴζω and its cognates; other aspects and terminology are treated in key passages. Other scholars have surveyed this theme much more thoroughly, and I will not simply repeat the surveys here. For how Luke’s use compares with ancient usage of the terminology in general, see comment at Acts 27:20, 34. One should note, however, that Luke employs the nouns (with the exception of 16:17) especially in a Jewish context.

The verb σῴζω is the least theologically specific of the set of cognates bearing its wide range of Greek meanings. Most basically, it can mean “rescue.” In the Gospel, it includes the Lord bringing physical wholeness (Luke 7:50; 8:48, 50; 17:19; 18:42; cf. 6:9) and deliverance from demonization (8:36); Acts occasionally applies the verb to physical restoration (Acts 4:9), which can also come through faith (14:9). Luke can use such healings as portraits of the wider salvation God brings for individuals who trust in Christ and ultimately for Israel as a whole (cf. the use in 4:9, 12). Those who believe in Jesus may be saved (Luke 8:12); those who offer their lives for Christ will save them (9:24); those who sacrifice all may enter the kingdom someday (18:25) and hence be saved (18:26). Only a minority are being saved (13:23), but Jesus came to “save” what was lost in Israel (19:10).

In Acts, whoever calls on the Lord’s name will be saved before the eschatological day of judgment (Acts 2:21); in context, this requirement is fulfilled through baptism in Jesus’s name (2:38). Peter exhorts people to “save” themselves from a generation headed for destruction (2:40). Luke refers to those “who were being saved”; the present participle may refer to the continuing conversions but, in any case, does not depict salvation as taking place only in the future. One is saved from destruction by coming to Christ; but one who has believed can return to the path of destruction by abandoning Christ (cf. Luke 8:12–14; Acts 8:13, 20–22; 14:22; 20:26–30), making salvation secure (from the standpoint of human experience) only in the end. Jesus is the only way of salvation (Acts 4:12), and those who receive the message are saved (11:14); salvation is not through circumcision (15:1) but through Christ’s grace (15:11), through faith (16:31).

Salvation (σωτηρία) is Israel’s expected deliverance from its enemies (Luke 1:71) and from its sins (1:77) through the promised Son of David (1:69); salvation rightly belongs to descendants of Abraham (19:9). Moses was God’s earlier agent of deliverance (Acts 7:25). Jesus is humanity’s only way of salvation (4:12), and through Israel’s savior, God brings salvation also to the Gentiles (13:47). Σωτηρία also refers to physical deliverance or safety; this general usage could be due more to the Greek term’s semantic range than to a deliberate theological application on Luke’s part, though such deliverance was also the gift of God (or, among pagans, gods). In view of the overall story (and Luke’s play on different senses of cognate language in 4:9–12), however, this other usage might reflect more than lexical coincidence.

Jesus is the savior (σωτήρ), the messianic Lord of David’s house, in Luke 2:11; he is Israel’s savior who brings them forgiveness (Acts 5:31) and fulfills the Davidic promise (13:23). Given the premise of Luke’s divine Christology, “Savior” may support this usage (as in Luke 1:47), in view of its use in the LXX. (An LXX background is most likely, given Luke’s application of the title “Savior” to specifically Jewish contexts; Acts 5:31; 13:23.) For other points, see comment on the relevant passages (e.g., ).

I earlier commented on the theme of God’s purpose, foreshadowed by both biblical and contemporary oracles and repeatedly fulfilled in the narrative. Aune regards this theme of divine guidance (along with that of the mostly Jewish rejection and mostly Gentile acceptance of the new prophets) as the major plot-moving device in Luke-Acts. Some scholars have developed this and related themes in detail.

Throughout Acts, God’s plan advances through suffering. Because I elsewhere treat the persecution theme under some passages where it appears, I summarize here some of the ways first-century hearers might have viewed it. Jewish piety emphasized the value of suffering for doing good (e.g., Tob 1:17–20; 2:7–10); by the first century, some Jews viewed martyrdom as having atoning value (4 Macc 6:27–29; 17:21–22). The theme of meritorious suffering became prominent in early and rabbinic Judaism (see comment at Acts 9:16; on martyrs and atonement, see comment at Acts 7:60). At the same time, some apparently held the contradictory notion that martyrs suffered justly yet martyrs were innocent, perhaps best resolved by recognizing their innocence before people and the fact that none are innocent before God.

Acts does not, however, speak of martyrs’ atoning deaths (even where the best opportunity presents itself, Acts 7:60), probably because Jesus’s death holds pride of place in this regard (cf. comment on Acts 8:32–33). Nor does it connect martyrs’ deaths with their sins; rather, martyrs die through others’ sins (7:60). Like Paul, however, Luke does connect sufferings with the mission, and does so repeatedly (see commentary on the respective passages).

Some have compared the lists of Paul’s sufferings in his writings to the traditional catalogues of philosophers’ “labors” or sufferings (1 Cor 4:11–13; 15:30–32; 2 Cor 4:8–11; 6:4–10; 11:23–29). Given the view here that Luke portrays Paul as a model philosopher for his Greco-Roman audience (see comment on Acts 19:9), it seems likely that Luke would narrate some of Paul’s sufferings with a goal similar to that of Paul’s suffering lists, despite the different (narrative) literary form.

The Gentile mission was addressed briefly under proposed purposes for Acts, but it can be addressed more fully here. Most scholars recognize that the Gentile mission (i.e., more accurately, a “universal” mission) is one of the central themes (if not the central theme) in the book of Acts.

Clearly, the focus of Acts is not church history in general but tracing the expansion of the early Jesus movement from Jerusalem to the heart of the empire. Whereas Luke’s first volume opens and closes in or near Jerusalem, his second volume moves from Jerusalem to Rome—from heritage to mission. Luke recounts a variety of the sorts of obstacles that the Christian mission faced, and he shows how, by the power of God’s Spirit, the mission successfully surmounted these barriers “unhindered” (Acts 28:31; cf. 8:36; 10:47; 11:17). The final section of Acts recapitulates this theme as Paul proceeds to Rome after being dramatically and continuously rejected in Jerusalem (Acts 21–28).

The prominence of evangelism in this focus may be observed by noting, with David Matson, that “next to the speeches, conversion stories may represent the most important formal grouping in Acts, comprising just over one-fourth of its narrative material.” Some aspects of A. J. Mattill Jr.’s proposed setting for Acts are debatable, but he could be correct in contending that Luke authored Acts (at least in part) “to expedite an essential part of the apocalyptic plan, the evangelization of the world in his generation.”

When we speak of the “Gentile mission,” we speak only about what is distinctive in Luke’s (and much of the early Christian movement’s) vision; Paul’s continuing ministry to Diaspora Jewish communities shows that the mission is never exclusively to Gentiles but simply includes them. Thus, for example, the strategic Diaspora church in Antioch reaches both Jews and Gentiles; its missionaries reach both Jews and Gentiles in the Diaspora. That is, the mission is for all people; the overall pattern is therefore mission, not specifically the Gentile mission.

It was Gentiles’ inclusion, however, that was controversial to Jesus’s early movement in Jerusalem, and hence it warrants Luke’s special emphasis. If we may gather insight from a similar emphasis in Matthew (Matt 1:3–5; 2:1–2; 3:9; 4:15; 8:11, 28; 10:15; 11:21–22; 12:39–42; 15:21–22; 24:14; 25:32–33; 27:54; 28:19), the issue may have remained controversial in some circles even well past the close of Paul’s ministry. Matthew sought to motivate his audience to embrace controversial cross-cultural mission to culturally undesirable people; Luke may seek recognition for the mission on which the Pauline circle of churches is based, as well as encouragement for continuing mission.

Acts, as a whole, develops the announcement of the Gentile mission in Luke 24:47, which is interpreted in the language of Acts 1:8 as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision for the Gentiles. But Luke prepares for this theme long before the conclusion of his Gospel. The birth narratives foreshadow it. Likewise, Jesus’s programmatic mission statement in Luke 4:18–27 includes ministry to the Gentiles: though Isa 61 speaks primarily of the marginalized within Israel, Jesus’s examples are Elijah’s and Elisha’s ministry (fitting Luke’s emphasis on Jesus as prophet greater than Elijah; see discussion on Acts 1:9–11) to a Gentile leper and a possibly Gentile (or at least Diaspora) widow (Luke 4:26–27). Thus Luke prepares the reader for a theme to be taken up in his second volume.

Although the Gospel of Luke suggests ministry to Samaritans (Luke 9:52; 10:33; 17:16; cf. Acts 8:1, 5, 25) and Gentiles (Luke 2:32; 24:47), especially illustrated by foreign soldiers in Palestine (e.g., 3:14; 7:2–10; 23:47; cf. Acts 10:1), it also omits some of Mark’s examples that it could have used, such as the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30, which would have well fit Luke 4:26), the crucial “for all nations” in Mark 11:17 (cf. Luke 19:46), and Mark 13:10 (perhaps because of Luke’s emphasis on the events surrounding 70 C.E.; cf. Luke 21:24–25). It seems that Luke reserves most of his explicit emphasis on the Gentile mission for his second volume, for the period following Jesus’s explicit command to evangelize all nations (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). Conscious of his role as a historian, Luke certainly does not invent examples of ministry to the Gentiles for his Gospel!

Luke prepares the way for the Gentile mission, however, by showing in the Gospel how Jesus welcomes other powerless or needy groups, such as lepers, other infirm people, women, the poor, and especially “sinners” (e.g., Luke 5:32; 7:22, 34; 14:21; 15:1–2). Sacrificial ministry to the poor continues in the second volume (Acts 2:44–45; 4:32–35; 6:1–3; 11:28–30; 24:17), though in a different way, and women continue to play prominent roles (e.g., 1:14; 2:17–18; 8:3, 12; 9:2; 16:13; 17:4, 12; 22:4). Lepers disappear (perhaps because of the geographic shift), but Jesus’s name continues to heal the sick.

The most noticeable difference is that “sinners” (a term that appears nearly twenty times in Luke) do not appear by that title in Acts. Likewise, the morally marginalized of Israel (the “lost” who must be saved, Luke 19:10) give way to the morally marginalized nations, those outside Israel. But the principle of inversion continues from the Gospel into Acts; as in the entire gospel tradition, those who feel most secure with power, including among God’s people, are most susceptible to the blindness that power brings. The marginalized, by contrast, are most ready to depend on Christ the healer, liberator, and savior.

Many scholars regard the debate over the necessity of circumcision and, consequently, law-keeping in Acts 15 as the theological center of Acts. Most Jews accepted the possibility of Gentiles’ becoming part of Judaism, but the vast majority of Jews would have required them to be circumcised if these Gentiles wished to belong to Israel fully (not simply as righteous God-fearers attending the synagogue). What makes Paul’s Gentile mission distinctive is that it welcomes Gentiles as genuine converts, spiritual peers of Jewish Christians, with whom they can have table fellowship (cf. the different approach in 11:3; 15:20). A strict reading of the covenant (cf. Gen 17:10–14) might seem to disallow this practice, but some believers might justify it on the basis of half-measures already accepted for Gentiles (see comment on Acts 15:20) and biblical interpretation about the new eschatological situation (Acts 15:15–19). What is clear is that God has led the church to this discovery (15:7–14). To “trouble” the Gentiles now (15:19) is tantamount to opposing God (cf. 11:17; 26:14), a proposition doomed to failure (5:39).

Scholars debate the reason for emphasizing the Gentile mission. Some believe that the Judean church of Luke’s day remained skeptical of the Gentile mission and that Luke writes to encourage it otherwise. Others, especially those who (including myself) date Acts after Jerusalem’s destruction, find dubious the notion that the Judean church’s views would remain so critical for Diaspora churches, especially in a document clearly addressed to a Diaspora audience. (One could use this argument to date Acts before 70, but see above.) The contrary formulation, that Acts presents as necessary for the church’s mission its rupture, accomplished through the insights of Paul, from what Luke is supposed to have viewed as the bondage of contemporary Judaism, is still less likely. Would a work that includes the apologetic focus of connecting Christians with their (officially tolerated) Jewish ancestry seek to articulate precisely the opposite position?

Many scholars believe that Gentile Christians, now joining the Jewish Jesus movement and learning from a Jewish Bible, needed encouragement that God himself had welcomed them as part of his people. Moreover, in keeping with the partly apologetic purpose for Acts described above, underlining the connection of the Gentile church with its ancient Jewish roots would provide a response to “pagan and Jewish detractors.” The church’s commitment to Gentiles also serves a public apologetic purpose, in view of common propaganda against Judaism (especially in the wake of Judea’s revolts); for example, while discussing circumcision (cf. Acts 15), Tacitus complains that those converted to Judaism follow the Jewish practice of rejecting gods, country, parents, and other family (Hist. 5.5). While maintaining Judaism’s theological exclusivism, the Christians rejected ethnic exclusivism and hence could combat negative perceptions attached to many other Jews.

Carrying out the Gentile mission connects with some other themes in Luke-Acts, especially the Spirit’s empowerment (see, e.g., ; ; 8:29; 10:19, 45–47; 11:16–18; 13:2, 4, 9; 15:28; 16:6–7; ; and, further, comment on ), signs and wonders (see ), prayer (see comment on ), God’s purpose and guidance (See comment on and passim), and suffering, which proved inseparable from the mission.

Some of these solutions (including affirming Gentile Christians and apologetic purposes) seem to me to represent valid aspects of Luke’s purpose, although I doubt that any by itself is the entire solution. I believe that Luke intends Acts not merely as a historical record (although it is that) but also as a model for the continuing work of his own day. Granted, the gospel message had reached Rome in Acts 28, following the same pattern (Jewish division, some Gentiles accepting) as earlier in the book. But this pattern suggests the continuance of the mission “to the ends of the earth” (1:8). This universal mission is prefigured in Jerusalem (2:5–11; cf. 2:39); the conversion of the first Gentile, who was from “Ethiopia” (8:27); the conversion of a representative of Rome (10:1); and, finally, the gospel in the heart of the empire itself (28:17).

As we argued in , historiography and biography regularly employed their accounts as positive or negative models; early Christians were also accustomed to reading inspired narrative in this manner (1 Cor 10:11). For Luke, many models in his book are prescriptive; he provides models for the church’s continuing cross-cultural mission, which he believed to be the natural expression of the Spirit’s empowerment (1:8). Because the Spirit means to empower, the apostolic witness (1:8) is to be shared among all believers in all places (2:39), including (deliberately) among Samaritans (8:15–17) and (more surprisingly) among Gentiles (10:45–46), and Luke anticipates that all believers, including his audience, should share this empowerment. Because this empowerment is for mission, all new believers and churches must become not merely objects of mission (their initial status) but indigenous partners in mission.

Clearly, much of Acts is intended as a model. Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders (20:18–35) offers a warning for the future, presumably included because relevant for Luke’s generation. This passage makes much of Paul’s apostolic example of sacrificial ministry (20:18–21, 31, 33–35). Because Luke includes Paul as an example in discourse material (which authors could employ to underline their emphases), it seems likely that Paul also functions as a model in Luke’s narrative. above has already discussed the paradigmatic function of much ancient historiography in general.

It is thus not surprising that contemporary missiologists and others interested in contextualization find in Acts important models for mission. Many of the growing churches in the global South and East are using Acts as a model for their present mission and empowerment. Acts addresses the conflicts of shifting cultures and provides models for contextualization, and readers who so use it are rediscovering an approach to Acts that appears in keeping with the work’s own emphases.

In speaking of missions, however, I should emphasize that I am using modern language to communicate something different from much of the modern concept. It is anachronistic to view Paul’s “missionary” work through the postcolonial lens that often intertwines Western missions with colonialism (an understanding more applicable to some missionaries’ work in the 1700s–1900s than to others), especially in view of the dominance of Majority World missions movements today. In Paul’s day, the Romans (not the apostles) were the oppressive colonialists; Paul belonged to a suppressed people in Asia, but he contextualized the gospel for others and brought them a message that urged a new, multicultural unity without any one people’s dominance. (Cultural-sensitivity concerns should also be distinguished from a priori philosophic objections to Paul’s monotheistic message.)

Earlier I argued that Luke is not anti-Jewish; rather, he affirms the importance of the mission to all the nations (citing Isaianic precedent) as over against any lethargy or resistance to expansion. There is therefore a sense in which Luke’s concern about the Judean elite involves religious elites more generally. Initially even the leaders of the Jerusalem church unconsciously echo the complaints of Jesus’s Pharisaic detractors when God invites them to accept the Gentile mission (Acts 11:3; cf. Luke 15:2). Long before the Judean-Roman war would scatter Judeans, God forces the church to decentralize (8:4; 11:19–20), and the apostles catch the vision afterward (8:14, 25; 9:26–28; 11:22–24). As often in history, however, nationalism and local concerns came to obscure the divine imperative for expansion (cf. 21:20–21).

Despite Jesus’s teaching on the subject in the narrative (Acts 1:8), many Jerusalem Christians probably took little more interest in a Gentile mission than did their Judean contemporaries. Gentiles were not, after all, part of their everyday lives the way they were for Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Most segments of Judaism welcomed proselytes, but it is doubtful that seeking them was uppermost on most Jerusalemites’ minds. For Gentile offspring of the Gentile mission, however, the issue was central to their own faith and practice; they had to reconcile their faith with the centrality of the Jerusalem church before 70 and the Judeocentric history that they received in the LXX, which was now their Scripture.

Although Judaism did not send missionaries (see discussion at Acts 1:8), most Diaspora Jews welcomed converts, and some went out of their way to seek them. Concern for positive relations with Gentiles, as well as the interest of some in converting interested Gentiles, helped generate an apologetic tradition that early Diaspora followers of Jesus could readily develop in their own expanding mission. It is thus useful to consider the Jewish setting for the early Christian mission to Gentiles.

Many Diaspora Jews had already grappled with the relationship between Jew and Gentile and had arrived at various solutions. Jewish views of Gentiles varied widely, from more positive Diaspora perspectives (as in Letter of Aristeas) to less positive sectarian Palestinian ones (as in 1QM). Most Diaspora Jews welcomed (and believed that God welcomed) the interest of Gentiles. Rabbis also believed in showing Gentiles kindness for the sake of peace. The emphasis toward helping Gentiles eventually predominated against the more negative approach.

Given Israel’s sufferings at the hands of foreign empires, some Jewish texts reflecting mistrust of Gentiles are not surprising. Some Jewish people believed that the nations were worthless, like spittle. Most later rabbis did accept the possibility of some “righteous Gentiles,” often those who kept the Noahide laws. Most teachers believed that righteous Gentiles could be saved without formal conversion to Judaism. Nevertheless, the vast and representative majority of Gentiles were morally untrustworthy. (By even the basic standard against idolatry in the Noahide laws and elsewhere, this was undoubtedly true.)

Clearly, Jewish people held a range of views regarding the fate of Gentiles. Many early Jewish texts indicate the damnation of the Gentiles in the end time. Later rabbis, too, often believed that most Gentiles would ultimately be lost. Yet others believed that the Gentiles would bring tribute or in some traditions even be converted wholesale by God in the eschatological time. After dividing ancient Jewish views regarding the eschatological fate of Gentiles into six categories, E. P. Sanders argues that Gentiles’ “deserved punishment” increases after 70 C.E. Terence Donaldson breaks down the categories of views concerning Gentiles as follows:

Though Christians became universalistic ethnically, they proved “less willing to recognize the possibility of salvation for nonbelievers, be they Jews or Gentiles,” than most other segments of early Judaism. (For a discussion of God-fearers, see comment on Acts 10:2.)

Some individual Jewish people even sought proselytes, and some provided apologetic to support Gentile interest; sometimes Judaism’s success (deliberate or not) at attracting sympathizers and converts generated a backlash (as apparently in Rome). Abraham (and often Sarah) became not only the model convert but the model convert maker. Nevertheless, Judaism did not send out formal “missionaries” to make proselytes. Although formal “missionaries” were not employed, those who spread the message were deeply committed to it.

Undoubtedly, many Jews, like members of various other religious groups, spread their faith when they traveled (see comment on Acts 8:4); their relative theological marginalization (as monotheists in a polytheistic society) could have made their efforts seem a part of survival. Yet Paul’s mission and the model that it provided for Luke’s audience were an element distinctive to the Christian movement in the ancient Mediterranean world.

I suspect that Gentile converts would have been less welcome in some times and places than in others—for example, in Jerusalem in the years immediately preceding the Judean revolt (cf. Acts 21:20–25; 22:21–22). Nevertheless, they were often welcome. The OT ger, or stranger, was entitled to the same justice as the native, and ger came to be understood as “proselyte” in many early Jewish texts. Proselytes were to be treated well, for they had a favorable standing before God. Just how great a measure of status could be attributed to proselytes may be illustrated by later rabbis’ common identification of Abraham as a model proselyte and by the tradition that Shemayah and Abtalion were descendants of proselytes. Proselytes could become disciples of the sages.

Despite social disadvantages to the first-generation proselyte, a proselyte’s spiritual status was, in theory, equal to that of an Israelite. Some rabbis taught that although proselytes from particular peoples could not marry directly into Israel in the first generation, according to one understanding of the Torah, they also could not marry pagans because, in regard to them, they were of Israelite status. Justin also testifies to the mid-second-century Jewish belief, apparently widespread, that the proselyte is “like one who is native born.”

This is not to say that there were not certain restrictions on proselytes, especially regarding whom they should marry. They also ranked below other members of Israel in social standing and would more quickly be accused of sin. Sincerity was absolutely essential for proselytes; Judaism despised false proselytes, with later texts explicitly demanding fear of God as the proper motive for authentic conversion. Some second-century rabbis rejected proselytes who balked at so much as a single obligation of Torah.

After a thorough review of the evidence, however, Bernard Bamberger concludes that the halakah is overwhelmingly friendly toward converts and that rabbinic texts are mostly favorable toward them. Sidney Hoenig is more convinced of this for the Tannaitic period than for the Amoraic period, but for our purposes, the Tannaitic evidence is more relevant (closer to the era in question), in any case.

The early Christian emphasis on mission not only has a historical setting (such as Jewish interest in proselytes) but provides part of the backdrop for events that have played a major role in subsequent history. The book of Acts reflected, and probably contributed to, the missions focus of early Christianity, a focus that, in turn, has contributed to the survival of Christianity (in its plethora of post-Lukan forms) to this day.

Imperial propaganda worked hard to produce a united empire out of many diverse peoples, as Alexander’s or Persia’s or other earlier empires had done. (As in most empires, some ethnic conflicts remained under the surface, sometimes for centuries. But trade, cultural interchange, the use of Greek in the East, and geographic mobility had created a degree of cultural unity among urban citizens of the eastern empire, especially in Asia, Macedonia, and Greece.) In contrast to the forced mixing of human empires, Luke instead emphasizes that Israel’s God is humanity’s God, and advocates a unity composed of diverse ethnic elements under the true Lord, Christ.

Christians were not the only ethnically and socially “universalistic” cult in the empire; some foreign cults, such as that of Isis, sought to make converts among Romans and others, and some other Mysteries lacked class barriers. Nevertheless, the combination of Christians’ ethnic universalism and their (much rarer) theistic particularism made conversion of others an imperative. (Although some streams of Judaism were more universalistic than others, Judaism, in general, remained more of an “ethnic” faith than the Pauline movement was.) Although Luke presents this ethnic universalism as God’s call and ideal, his narrative also addresses the church’s early struggles as it grappled with the cross-cultural implications of its mission.

Educated people recognized that cultures varied considerably in their preferences (e.g., Max. Tyre 21.6). Naturally, Skeptics, who reduced all arguments down to cultural differences, emphasized this recognition, using it to relativize the differences. But since Herodotus’s travels, Xenophon’s reports of Persia, and Alexander’s conquests, Greeks (while generally maintaining their own cultural superiority) in general recognized differences that extended beyond their traditional dichotomy of “Greeks” and “barbarians.” Some historians even warned readers not to judge other peoples’ customs by their own cultural standards (Corn. Nep. pref. 2–3; 15 [Epaminondas], 1.1).

Sensitivity to local customs and mores became a widespread strategy of communication and relating to local cultures; Rome also did not bind the provinces by most Roman customs (Pliny Ep. 10.68–69). G. W. Bowersock notes that the development of novels focused on anything exotic or foreign; the empire and the form of eastern Hellenism dominant in the imperial period had begun to embrace multiculturalism instead of simply “asserting the superiority of Graeco-Roman culture. The old standard of Hellenism broke down in the second and third centuries [with some tendencies in the first], and in doing so it made way for a new kind of Hellenism, an ecumenical Hellenism that could actually embrace much that was formerly barbaric.”

Most Greeks were interested, however, primarily in Mediterranean geography; even Strabo (whose geographic interest is wider than Pausanias’s) showed no interest, for example, in European peoples to the north. Garnsey and Saller observe that “from Strabo to Cassius Dio . . .  the cultural elite of the empire drew a firm line between what they saw as the Mediterranean core of the empire and its barbaric periphery. In particular, the conquest of the North did not in their view produce a broader cultural unity.”

Luke’s purview also remains the empire, especially the eastern Mediterranean, which was his home. Because of the faith’s Jewish identity, “strange” Asian Palestine receives greater attention than in traditional Hellenistic sources. But Luke gives only sample attention to the spread of the message to the south (Acts 8:27) and even less to its certain spread into Jewish Parthia; his audience in the empire would have been most interested in their gospel reaching the heart of the empire. But given this setting, Luke shows the same sort of awareness of cultural dynamics that characterizes minority cultures within a dominant culture. This sensitivity of minorities also characterized Diaspora Judaism in the empire, which provided Paul’s original context and earliest Christianity’s cultural bridge to the Gentiles. Like Paul (1 Cor 9:20–21), Luke emphasizes the need for sensitivity to local cultures within the larger universal church (Acts 11:3–18; 15:19–21; 21:20–25).

Although eschatology is not a major emphasis in Acts, it has generated considerable discussion. Since the commentary addresses the question more thoroughly at Acts 1:6–7, it is introduced only briefly here. Some scholars have played down eschatology in Luke-Acts. Luke is, after all, a historian, and those with a view to history’s long-range verdicts are not generally those who emphasize an imminent end of the age. Further, some scholars think that the delay of the parousia caused early Christians to shift their interest, whether this hope was surrendered or merely deferred indefinitely. Haenchen, for example, thinks that although Luke preserved the hope of the parousia, he denied its imminence and simply called his audience to spread their message until Christ’s return.

Others, however, are skeptical that we can safely read so much into Luke’s use of the historiographic genre. Groups could show interest in their history while maintaining future eschatology; the Qumran community preserved the teachings of their founder both when they expected the end in their generation and when they were forced to defer this expectation temporarily. Luke also maintains future eschatology (e.g., Luke 13:25–30; 17:20–18:8; 21:20–36), even in the apostolic preaching to Gentiles at points (Acts 10:42; 17:31), though more clearly to Jewish audiences (1:6–7; 3:19–21). Scholars are thus certainly not unanimously skeptical of Luke’s future eschatology. Some, indeed, have found eschatological anticipation in Luke’s eucharistic material or even proposed that Luke wrote Acts to hasten the fulfillment of the Gentile mission and its role in God’s end-time plan. Because many divine promises are fulfilled within the narrative of Luke-Acts (including the promise of the Spirit in Acts 1:4–5), Luke presumably expects us to infer that the promise of Jesus’s coming (1:11) will also be fulfilled.

Nevertheless, Luke does not emphasize imminent future eschatology the way that Mark or Matthew does. Though less than in John, Luke’s focus is realized eschatology, as Jesus’s answer to his disciples’ eschatological question in Acts 1:6–8 makes clear (see also comment on Acts 2:2–4, 17–21). At the same time, the eschatological structure of Jesus’s Palestinian Jewish kingdom message differs from contemporary Gentile expectations. Although poets and propagandists of the early Augustan period saw in their time the dawning of a new era, by the early second century (reflecting on events of Luke’s era), Roman historians (e.g., Tacitus) pessimistically regarded their civilization as in decline and viewed the past nostalgically. Luke instead views the new era in Christ as good news, part of the inbreaking of the future kingdom.

Hans Conzelmann tried to fit Luke-Acts into a tripartite division of salvation history, but subsequent scholarship has severely critiqued his perspective (see comment on ). More helpfully, one critic opines that in Luke’s perspective, “the same story keeps repeating, but in different keys and with a definite sense of escalation toward a climax represented by the parousia.”

Playing down all future eschatology in Luke may appeal to modern interpreters more than to first-century Christians, who could allow multiple elements to stand side by side. The rejection of future eschatology has often characterized modern Western attempts to “translate” biblical teaching into a noneschatological worldview, though it is likely that the early Christians, even had they understood our culture, would have viewed such “translation” as distorting their message. Thus Bultmann views the real point of eschatology as realized in preaching, both in the past and in the present. He deliberately reinterprets Johannes Weiss’s and Albert Schweitzer’s approaches to apocalyptic eschatology in terms of Martin Heidegger’s existentialism. Yet it has been argued that Bultmann works from a fairly narrow layer of NT writings, interpreting them “in a way which carries him quite close to the gnosis of the second century.”

The Gentile mission (treated above) probably plays a role in Luke’s eschatology (cf. Luke 21:24, “times of the Gentiles”). If Luke understands Isaiah as saying that the period of welcoming Gentiles lasts until Israel’s repentance and restoration, then the very hardness of Israel justifies the Gentile mission, against Jewish objections. When Israel turns to the king whom God appointed for them, God will bring about the end (Acts 3:19–21). Acts 1:6–8 might imply that the mission to the Gentiles is a prerequisite for the end (cf. Matt 24:14; Rom 11:25–26). All these matters are discussed more fully under Acts 1:6–8.

Despite the brevity of this treatment of Luke’s theology, we cannot forgo at least a brief discussion of the Spirit in Luke’s theology (and presumably the experience of the Pauline churches of which he was a part). (Because this is the most appropriate location to discuss the early Jewish context of Luke’s pneumatology, also included here is a more extensive excursus on the Spirit in early Judaism.) The Spirit is central in Luke’s theology (Acts has even been titled “the Gospel of the Holy Spirit”), and the subject has invited considerable scholarly comment. If one counts all possible references to the Spirit in Acts (59), these constitute nearly a quarter of NT references to the Spirit; no other NT book has even half as many. Even Luke’s Gospel has nearly three times the references to the Spirit found in Mark (about half its length) and about 1.4 times the references to the Spirit found in Matthew (of equivalent length).

Luke presents the Spirit as necessary for the success of the church’s mission (Acts 1:4–8). This centrality of the Spirit is made clear by the fact that in both volumes, Jesus’s final words to his disciples before his ascension include the promise of the Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–8). Indeed, the major programmatic texts of both volumes concern the Spirit’s empowerment for the mission of God’s agents (Luke 4:18–19; 24:48–49; Acts 1:8; 2:17–18); any treatment of Acts that minimizes either the Spirit or the Diaspora mission misses a central point in the work. It was not without reason that John Chrysostom called Acts “the Gospel of the Holy Spirit,” the record “of what that ‘other Paraclete’ said and did.”

Luke’s Gospel is full of references to the Spirit, with each aspect of the Spirit’s work there reappearing in Acts. For Luke, as for other early Christians, emphasis on the Spirit underlined dependence on God’s power and activity. As Richard Hays points out (commenting on Acts 2), “The idea that Acts sanctions a pallid and stultifying ‘early catholicism’ can only have been promulgated by academics utterly oblivious to the lure of the Spirit’s power. This text is, if anything, an expression of ‘early Pentecostalism,’ not ‘early catholicism.’”

In an inaugural scene of Jesus’s ministry in the Gospel, Jesus, whose empowerment by the Spirit in the Gospel prefigures that of the church in Acts, declares that he is empowered with the Spirit in connection with his mission (Luke 4:18–19). That this passage is the “programmatic” text for Luke’s Gospel and that it goes on to prefigure the Gentile mission (4:25–27) make it all the more ideal as a prototype for the church’s empowerment to reach the Gentiles (Acts 1:8). Many regard Acts 2:17–18 as the key programmatic text of the second volume; here (as in 1:8, which must count as Acts’ thesis statement if it has one) the emphasis on the Spirit’s empowerment is paramount.

R. E. O. White also emphasizes the degree to which the mission in Acts depends on the Spirit:

It is difficult to convey at all adequately the place of the Spirit in Luke’s conception of the church without rewriting his entire book. The New Age is the age of the Spirit, the church is above all else the locus of the Spirit, her origin, direction, authority, expansion, and development are directly the Spirit’s concern, and her members are those upon whom the Spirit has “fallen” or “been poured.”

For Luke, baptism in the Spirit offers more than the optimum results of human obedience by adding an obviously divine dimension. Whereas Paul associates the Spirit especially with ethical empowerment and also particular gifts for ministry, Luke focuses on the Spirit’s empowerment for, and the Spirit’s guiding the church in, cross-cultural evangelism (his theme, 1:8; see comment ).

As noted above, the Spirit, sent fundamentally to empower the apostolic witness (1:8), is democratized in subsequent narratives among all believers in all places (2:39), including Samaritans (8:15–17) and Gentiles (10:45–46). Luke thus anticipates that all believers, including his audience, should share this empowerment. Because this empowerment is for mission, all new believers and churches must become not merely objects of mission (their initial status) but indigenous partners in mission. Such an understanding and experience of the Spirit undoubtedly fueled earliest Christianity’s phenomenal growth rate (a growth rate paralleled in some Christian movements today, most commonly in the Majority World, that have appropriated the same ideal).

One key text is John’s prophecy about the coming one’s baptizing the righteous in the Spirit and the wicked in fire (Luke 3:16). This promise of baptism in the Spirit (Acts 1:5) is identical with the “gift” (2:38; cf. 8:20) and “promise” (1:4; 2:33, 39; Luke 24:49) of the Spirit, clearly identified with the experience in Acts 2 (Acts 2:33, 39 show the fulfillment of the “promise” in 1:4). The identification is also clear because the Spirit as “gift” (2:38; 8:20; 10:45; 11:17) is the Spirit as “promise” (they are identified in 2:38–39). As gift and promise, the Spirit further reflects God’s benevolence, not a resource people can buy (8:20) or earn (cf., similarly, Rom 5:5; Gal 3:2–5). This perspective contrasts with the idea in one stream of Jewish tradition that the Spirit is reserved only for the very pious (or would be so reserved, had the generation not been unworthy).

The phrase “baptism in the Spirit” must include what all believers experience; in Luke 3:16 John’s wording refers to an eschatological outpouring on all the righteous in contrast with the eschatological fire baptism of the wicked. It includes the entire sphere of the Spirit’s work, into which conversion initiates the believer. Nevertheless, Acts is clear that believers do not all experience every aspect of the Spirit upon conversion (cf., e.g., Acts 4:8, 31). (See discussion at Acts 1:4–5; 8:15–16.) Luke emphasizes the Spirit’s activity especially in empowerment for ministry, and in his narrative these experiences do not always occur precisely at conversion (though the anticipated norm for his ideal, evangelistic church was that it occur very close to that time).

In Paul (and apparently even in Luke’s theology, 2:38), empowerment for ministry belongs to the entire sphere of the Spirit’s activity initiated in the believer’s life through conversion. Luke, however, readily departs from this neat schema in his narrative, suggesting that early Christian experience was fairly diverse. Despite the common temptation to read Paul’s theology into Acts, it seems fairly clear that, in Acts, believers could experience the Spirit at faith but before baptism (10:44–48), immediately after baptism (19:5–6) or somewhere close to that time (9:17–18), clearly subsequent to baptism (8:12–17), and on multiple occasions (compare 2:4 with 4:8, 31; 9:17 with 13:9). Interpreters often regard up to two-thirds of Luke’s examples as “exceptions” to what they view as his ideal pattern, but it seems more prudent to suspect that Luke invites his audience to recognize that the pattern varied in practice. It should be remembered, however, that Luke only rarely focuses explicitly on the Spirit’s role in conversion and that he focuses most often on the prophetic-empowerment dimension of the Spirit’s activity. Thus Luke allows for a particular dimension of Christian experience subsequent to faith and repentance but is not distinguishing conversion from the latter. The gift, apparently, technically begins at conversion in principle but, in terms of Luke’s emphasis on its prophetic-empowerment dimension for mission, may be experienced in this prophetic form subsequent to conversion (and on multiple occasions).

The portrayal of God’s agents as filled with the Spirit may serve multiple theological purposes. One of these may be as apologetic toward Judaism: the end-time Spirit (Acts 2:17) earmarks the true community of God’s Messiah. The apostolic leaders of this community are also led by God as the prophets of old were, including in their outreach to Gentiles (cf. Luke 4:25–27; 6:23). Because pagans also respected some mystic sages, the narrative might serve an apologetic function even toward them; for an analogy, Philo may have an apologetic purpose in portraying Moses as having a continuous prophetic experience of being filled with divine spirit. But the specific setting for Luke’s theological language about the Spirit is distinctively Jewish and Christian. His thoroughgoing emphasis on the Spirit also suggests a genuine theological belief that God’s direct prophetic empowerment enables the church to carry out God’s mission and that this mission is not possible apart from the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:4 and Luke 24:49, forbidding the mission to begin without this empowerment).

Certainly, Luke associates the Spirit with prophetic proclamation, as the vast majority of Lukan scholars agree. According to the early Jewish model, prophetic inspiration could include not merely verbal inspiration (although this is its most common focus) but also activity like that of the prophets (cf. the model of Jesus in Luke 24:19). The Spirit provides power for confronting those hostile to the message (e.g., Acts 4:8; 5:32; 7:55; 13:9), most obviously in Paul’s defense speeches in Acts 22–26 (see Luke 12:11–12). The Spirit also inspires the content of the message, “the word of the Lord” or “the word of God,” which throughout Acts represents most often the good news about Christ (particularly his resurrection and attendant offer of life). To summarize the content of the protagonists’ speeches in Acts is also to summarize the sort of message Luke expects the Spirit to inspire: bold preaching of, and argument for, Christ.

We will explore the following texts in considerably greater detail in the commentary proper and pause only to survey them briefly here (using this introduction to survey more fully key elements of the understanding of God’s Spirit among Luke’s contemporaries). Even aside from the abundant passages discussing the Spirit in Luke-Acts, the Spirit plays a central role in the pivotal conclusion of the Gospel of Luke and its recapitulation in Acts (Acts 1:4–8); introductions typically laid out main themes. The Spirit is an essential prerequisite for all the disciples’ ministry in and beyond Jerusalem, and they dare not begin this ministry without the Spirit (1:4). This empowerment was apparently necessary to fulfill testimony to all the nations as the prerequisite for the kingdom (1:6–8).

Baptism in the Spirit is realization of the eschatological promise (2:17), perhaps again by bringing many to call on the Lord before the fullness of the kingdom (2:21). Paul, too, associated the experience of the Spirit with realized eschatology (e.g., Rom 8:11, 23; 1 Cor 2:9–10; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Gal 6:8; Eph 1:13–14), and so this perspective is appropriate for a writer in the Pauline circle of Christianity. Because some Jewish circles believed that the Spirit had been suppressed (at least in the sense of inspiring full prophets), it was natural to link the Spirit with eschatology even more (e.g., Isa 44:3; 59:21; Ezek 36:27–28; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28–3:1). Some other Jewish circles apparently believed that the Spirit’s activity among them represented the proximity of the end time.

Cross-cultural empowerment by the Spirit (see discussion of the Gentile mission, above) is essentially a new mission. This cross-cultural empowerment is marked initially by other peoples’ tongues (Acts 2:4) reflecting the wide range of peoples directly known to those present (2:5–11); that Luke also mentions other tongues on two subsequent occasions (10:46; 19:6) underlines just how important this gift’s function is in communicating Luke’s emphasis on the cross-cultural element of the Spirit’s empowerment.

Although Luke explains this phenomenon in terms of biblically sanctioned inspired speech (2:17–18), the cross-linguistic character of tongues speaking is new and points to the distinctively new character of cross-cultural ministry to the Gentiles. In seeking to underline the Spirit’s empowerment to witness to all peoples (1:8), to what more obvious sign could Luke appeal in the inaugural Pentecost narrative than Spirit-generated worship in other people’s languages? (Although Luke also views this experience as a turning point in salvation history, he grounds the eschatological ministry to the Gentiles in Isaiah’s prophecy of the Gentile mission; see comment on .)

The Spirit empowers cross-cultural evangelism in the rest of the book (8:29; 10:19–20; 11:12), pointing out where (or where not) to evangelize at a given time (16:6–7) and even snatching Philip away so that he will keep preaching to other strategic places (8:39–40). The Spirit sends Paul and Barnabas out (13:2, 4), as demonstrated by the Spirit’s power in 13:9, providing a Spirit-empowered paradigm for the rest of their mission (as with Jesus’s ministry in Luke 4:1, 14, 18), even though Luke does not mention the Spirit explicitly at every turn. Ultimately, the goal of cross-cultural evangelism is the multicultural church; addressing cross-cultural conflicts, the Spirit guides believers to cross-cultural unity (Acts 15:28).

Luke’s focus is on key leading agents of the mission, demonstrating continuity between the apostolic ministries of Peter (for the circumcision) and Paul (for the uncircumcision; cf. Gal 2:8). Despite Luke’s narrative focus, however, he affirms that the Spirit is for all believers (Acts 2:17) and hence participation in the mission extends beyond the original “witnesses” (1:8) to all believers (8:4). This empowerment continues to be offered to all believers (2:38), including later generations of Gentile Christians (like much of Luke’s audience; 2:39).

The Jerusalem church expected the Spirit always to follow in churches that were in spiritual continuity with the apostles (8:14–17; 9:17; 10:44); the signs of continuity could be that later groups received the Spirit “just as” the first believers did (10:47; cf. 11:15; 15:8). New churches join in the mission, empowered by the same Spirit. God was readier to accept the later groups than were the apostles, and confirmed his acceptance of them by this gift (10:44–48; 11:15; cf. 13:52). The Spirit corroborates such members as God’s people (15:8), again performing the literary function of connecting believers from all peoples (and all generations, including those subsequent to that of Pentecost; cf. 2:39).

Although Acts emphasizes the Spirit’s connection with evangelism and other prophetic speech more than with acts of compassion and justice, the two cannot be totally separated. The Gospel’s concern for the marginalized continues in Acts, and while in Acts this emphasis figures predominantly in terms of the Gentile mission, the Gospel’s theme of justice for the poor is nowhere repudiated. Indeed, it remains, albeit usually in the background, as part of the ideal community that the good news of the kingdom is meant to produce (e.g., Acts 6:1; 24:17), and is connected with outpourings of the Spirit on the community (2:44–45; 4:32–35).

This theme fits Jesus’s inaugural statement in Luke’s Gospel, where the Spirit anoints Jesus to bring good news to the poor and liberation to the captives (Luke 4:18–19). Although Luke probably envisions this liberation initially especially with regard to hostile spiritual powers (Acts 10:38), Jesus’s concern is for the literal poor (Luke 6:20; 7:22; 16:20; 21:2–3), whom the new community must serve (14:13, 21; 18:22; 19:8; Acts 4:34), and for the literal blind, whom he literally heals (Luke 4:18; 7:21–22; 18:41–43; Acts 9:18) and the community must serve (cf. Luke 14:13, 21). Healing is connected to God’s “power” in Luke-Acts (see comment on ), which is in turn connected with the empowerment of the Spirit to bear witness to the truth of Christ’s exaltation and gracious character (Acts 1:8).

In contrast to some traditional Christian approaches, however, the Spirit’s relation to social concern in Luke-Acts involves not only compassion but empowerment. Christ not merely helps but heals and restores the broken. Likewise, he welcomes the marginalized not simply to receive charity but to become partners themselves in the fellowship of the new community (see discussion of κοινωνία and κοινός at Acts 2:42, 44)—not objects but participants. The Spirit’s empowerment obviates gender and age barriers (2:17–18) and, throughout Acts, cultural and ethnic boundaries; all these groups become themselves sharers in the Spirit (2:17–18; 8:17; 10:45; cf. 2:39) and hence participants in the mission (cf. 1:8). This means that Luke connects the Spirit not just with acts of justice (by themselves potentially paternalistic) but with the creation of a new community of people equally dependent on Christ and committed to one another (hence the climax of the Pentecost narrative in the formation of the ideal community, 2:41–47; cf. 4:31–35).

The Spirit is related to prophecy in 11:28, probably 13:2, 4, and especially in the programmatic quotation of 2:17–18 (for the Spirit and OT prophecy, see 4:25; 28:25). Trustworthy leaders could be “full of the Spirit” (Luke 4:1; Acts 6:3, 5; 7:55; 11:24), and the Spirit appoints leaders to guide the local churches (Acts 20:28); perhaps this means that they were appointed through the Spirit’s direction, perhaps in prophecy as in 13:2–4 (though this was confirmatory; cf. 1 Tim 1:18; 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6). The Spirit also gives leaders discernment (Acts 5:3).

The Spirit empowers believers to witness for Christ even against rulers (4:8, 31; 5:32; 7:51; cf. Luke 12:11–12) and other opposition (Acts 6:10); the Spirit provides boldness to speak for God even in the face of death (7:55). The Spirit is related to the power of signs (6:3, 8; cf. 4:33), a topic explored at greater length below (in sect. 6; in addition to above).

The Spirit figures in Luke’s Christology: this outpouring is proof of Jesus’s enthronement (2:33), and by pouring out God’s Spirit, Jesus takes on a clearly divine role (cf. Luke 3:16). Some scholars have argued that the locus of Luke’s treatment of the Spirit is personal holiness; but although some early Christian writers do emphasize the activity of the Spirit in moral purification, Luke’s primary focus is power for mission. It does seem likely that Luke sometimes associates the Spirit with salvation (cf. Luke 3:16; Acts 2:38–39), but the prophetic emphasis tends to be dominant even in these very contexts (cf. Acts 2:17–18).

The emphasis on God’s presence and covenant renewal also appears, especially in the Pentecost narrative, though it is expressed in Acts especially in a prophetic way. Acts 1:8, a programmatic text, places Spirit-inspired speech (there “witness”) in the context of Isaiah’s restoration promises (i.e., covenant renewal). The promised (eschatological) prophetic Spirit is indeed a sign of God among his people and serves an apologetic purpose to this effect. But when one compares Luke with Paul or John, it is difficult to evade the conclusion that Luke’s emphasis on the practical activity of the Spirit is overwhelmingly prophetic, even if placed in a broader covenant framework. This broader covenant framework helps us evaluate the theological importance of this empowerment, however, in terms of Luke’s reading of the new community as part of God’s larger story of salvation history (see above).

As in the rest of early Judaism, we cannot speak of God’s Spirit in Luke-Acts without thinking of God. In 5:3–4, lying to the Spirit is lying to God. At the same time, like some other early Christians, Luke may go beyond the traditional Jewish understanding of the divine Spirit at times. Although Luke does not write to provide answers for later trinitarian debates, his language at many points (e.g., Acts 1:16; 5:3, 32; 7:51; 13:2, 4; 15:28; 16:6; 20:23, 28; 21:11; 28:25) is not inconsistent with the view that the Spirit acts as a person. Paul seems to presuppose a prototrinitarianism already in his letters, and Luke portrays the Spirit carrying on Jesus’s ministry and even as an actor throughout Luke-Acts. As Gaventa points out, the Spirit sometimes acts as “the initiator of events” and sometimes is “resisted”; in such cases, “it is exceedingly difficult to disentangle the Spirit from God.”

But even if we may assume that Luke was usually unlikely to contradict Paul (his protagonist and in whose circle of churches he moved), Luke is hardly explicit in portraying the Spirit as a distinct divine identity. Whatever else he may have believed, Luke includes nothing like John’s Paraclete sayings; rather, his emphasis is on the Spirit’s power for evangelism, continuing the OT idea of God’s Spirit providing prophetic empowerment to speak for him. The Spirit speaks, as to the prophets of old; given Luke’s focus, it is not surprising that he emphasizes this activity particularly in connection with cross-cultural evangelism (8:29; 10:19; 11:12; 13:2; 16:6–7). It is on this aspect of the Spirit’s work, therefore, that this commentary must focus. See, more fully, comment on Acts 1:4–5; 2:4, 17–18.

Although I will focus in this excursus on less-familiar elements of Luke’s context, his most significant backgrounds for portraying the Spirit in his work are early Christian experience and understanding of Scripture. In his Gospel, Luke retains most references about the Spirit from Mark and Q and adds others. Most of Luke’s themes about the Spirit derive (whether through the gospel tradition or directly) from the OT. This is significant because the Spirit marks out believers as the restored people of God, in continuity with the biblical remnant, those who keep God’s covenant (cf. Isa 32:15; 42:1; 44:3; 59:21; 61:1; Ezek 36:26–27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28–29; Zech 12:10). More particularly, Luke develops the biblical theme of the Spirit who empowered the prophets to speak (and sometimes to act, with signs and wonders) for God. Although Luke does not focus on prophetic empowerment exclusively, there is a wide consensus that he focuses especially on prophetic inspiration and witness.

Early Judaism would recognize most of these themes, but its emphasis differed from what biblically illiterate Gentiles would readily comprehend. Because Luke’s themes about the Spirit already appear in his Bible (although the pervasiveness of pneumatic and prophetic experience among believers is especially an eschatological amplification of the earlier experiences, following Joel 2:28–29), I will not belabor early Jewish perspectives (which mostly develop the same biblical material) at undue length. Nevertheless, we must at least survey this material because it offers a context for how many of Luke’s contemporaries would have understood both his text and the earlier experiences that his text describes. This introduction, rather than the main text, is the appropriate place to survey some thoughts about the Spirit in early Judaism relevant to Luke-Acts (other points specifically relevant to Acts 2:17–18, relating early Jewish pneumatology to eschatology and prophetism, will be surveyed in the commentary on that passage).

Although some scholars have suggested a Persian background for the Spirit (more plausible for the “holy spirit” phrase than for the content), scholars have appealed to Greek usage more frequently. Yet even the non-Christian Greek range of usage for πνεῦμα differs considerably from the Jewish range for what we translate as “Spirit” (with reference to the divine Spirit). Max-Alain Chevallier summarizes its Gentile Greek usage as follows:

1. Breath, wind

2. A personal power—a good or bad δαίμων

3. Anthropologically, dualistically opposed to the body

4. Not the divine spirit in the sense found in Jewish literature

5. Psychological dispositions

Although there is considerable overlap with the usage of רוח (ruakh) on points 1–3, Chevallier finds little overlap on points 4 and 5.

The image of the divine spirit varied in Greco-Roman literature. Quintilian, for instance, observes that some think that god (deum) is a spirit (spiritum) “permeating all things” (omnibus partibus immixtum), whereas others, such as Epicurus, think god has a human form.

The Stoics and those influenced by their language sometimes associated πνεῦμα with the divine, but hardly in the Jewish or Christian sense. “Spirit” in Stoicism was an impersonal cosmic substance, “the finest form of matter,” a mixture of fire and air that interpenetrated all other matter and was like the soul of the universe. It was not central to Stoicism’s ethics but to its physics and metaphysics, conceptualized in terms of Stoic monism. As Arthur Darby Nock points out, the Stoics knew πνεῦμα ἱερόν (sacred spirit) but not πνεῦμα ἅγιον; the Stoic concept is thus quite different from the traditional Jewish concept. It is part of early Stoicism’s monistic pantheism.

There is, however, one context in which Greek discussion of divine spirit overlaps somewhat with Jewish interests. Greeks and Romans understood the notion of divine inspiration, a concept that pervades their literature (see comment on ). Usually this inspiration is attributed to particular deities, such as Apollo or the Muses (See comment on ), but given the discussion of the divine spirit above, it is not surprising that some texts would also speak of inspiration by the divine spirit.

Some ancients claimed that inspiring vapors possessed the Pythian priestess (see comment on Acts 16:16) and other mantics to speak for local deities (Pliny E. N.H. 2.95.207–8). Yet in the formative period of Jewish and Christian usage, such inspiration only rarely emphasized divine πνεῦμα. Hans Leisegang can cite texts associating “spirit” with the inspiration of the Pythoness, but apart from Strabo, most of his sources are late enough to betray Christian influence. A stronger case can be made with Plutarch’s late first-century use of πνεῦμα as a source of inspiration. But the concept of “spirit” here has more to do with Stoic-like conceptions of a pervasive substance, or with exhalations from the earth such as those affecting the Pythian priestess at Delphi (the standard view earlier held by Plutarch), than with a spirit associated particularly with inspiration. As Aune observes, “While Greco-Roman writers certainly had a concept of inspiration, they did not normally associate that conception with pneuma.” The rare occurrence of possible exceptions contrasts starkly with the abundance of sources in early Judaism (see discussion below).

In other cases, earlier Jewish usage may have even occasionally influenced Greek usage, given strong Jewish influences in Greco-Roman magical practices. The LXX’s rendering of רוח (ruakh) as πνεῦμα probably influenced “subsequent Greek literature.”

One could divide the evidence of early Jewish pneumatology in a variety of ways, but I have chosen to divide it into two categories. This is because some usages (such as praise) seemed too rare to merit their own large category (unless it is “other”); some applications (such as to the Messiah) often overlapped with other categories (such as prophecy); some usages (such as prophecy and knowledge) are more distinguishable (and hence could, in fact, justify separate categories) but overlap considerably; miracles were normally performed by prophets in biblical tradition, and so the few examples of this association also may be subsumed here. The two most readily distinguishable streams appear to be purification and prophetic empowerment, although the latter is a much broader category, and more widespread in early Judaism, than the former.

Beyond these two larger rubrics, the Spirit of God anoints God’s servants for a variety of functions in the OT, including wisdom for craftsmanship, and physical prowess and strength. Such usages continue in early Jewish texts, although rarely (except for the spirit of revelatory wisdom), compared with more dominant uses. Thus one could be clothed with the Lord’s spirit, the spirit of power, for battle, though reference to this function of the Spirit of God sometimes occurs in the expounding of the OT texts that speak of it. Some other occasional usages, such as praise and miracles, are treated below under the spirit of prophecy, since they are not common and can be related to the broader categories of inspiration and activity associated with biblical prophets.

More common, however, are references to the Spirit of God or Holy Spirit as the Spirit that purifies. This usage also has biblical roots, perhaps in the image of prophetic empowerment also transforming character, but especially in the image of eschatological cleansing by God’s Spirit portrayed as water. The spirit of purification appears less frequently than the spirit of prophecy in early Judaism, more limited to Essene-like circles.

In the Qumran scrolls, the “Holy Spirit” can refer to the “spirit of holiness” genuinely emphasizing holiness, whether the Spirit of God who purifies (e.g., 1QH^a VIII, 20; 4Q255 2 1; 4Q257 III, 10) or the human spirit (e.g., CD V, 11; 4Q266 3 III, 5; 4Q270 2 II, 11; 4Q418 8 4) that has been set apart to God. Thus the “holy spirit” in 1QS III, 7 and IV, 21 is characterized as the spirit that cleanses or purifies from sin, with a possible background in passages such as Ezek 36:25–27; 1QS IV, 21 compares the spirit of holiness to purifying waters poured out on the chosen at the time of the end; and III, 4, 8–9 speaks of a ritual immersion upon initiation into the community. In some of these contexts, especially that of IV, 21, the Spirit is associated with the spirit of truth in contrast with the spirit of error, along with a number of other adjectival genitive constructions. God’s “Holy Spirit” similarly has moral associations in 1QH^a XVII, 32, although here it is also linked with the truth-teaching function of the Spirit. In 4Q444 1 I, 1, the Holy Spirit enables the righteous to do good, withstanding the ways of evil spirits (1 I, 2–4).

Some texts warn against defiling one’s own spirit (CD V, 11–12; VII, 3–4). Although these texts do not refer to God’s Spirit, they do illustrate that the language of “holy spirit” could be applied easily enough to moral holiness, possibly related to the Qumran purification baths. Other texts are not clearly connected to this concept, although a possible relationship cannot be ruled out. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, for instance, of less certainly pre-Christian date, can associate the Spirit of God with doing good, as in Test. Sim. 4:4.

These are not a large number of texts, but outside rabbinic literature, our references to the Spirit of God acting on humans are not abundant to begin with; John Pryke has suggested that of ninety-seven texts definitely referring to Spirit “in the four main documents of Qumran,” there are only seven clear references to God’s Spirit and seventy-two referring to the human spirit. Whether or not this estimate is accurate, it is clear that of the Qumran texts referring to God’s “Holy Spirit,” a significant portion do refer to the purifying Spirit.

Jubilees also shares the general outlook of much of the Qumran literature and may reflect the same circles that authored the sectarian documents. Jubilees, after a warning against the spirit of Beliar, who leads into sin (Jub. 1:20), notes that God will “create a pure heart and a holy spirit” for Israel, purifying it to obey his will (1:21, 23). The language echoes that of Ezekiel, who also associates Israel’s new heart and new spirit, as well as God’s own Spirit, with Israel’s restoration and obedience. Interestingly, some early Christian writers also emphasize this imagery from Ezekiel (e.g., John 3:5). Yet even the Qumran scrolls associate the Spirit with revelation more often than with purification.

Early Jewish sources often associate the Spirit with inspiration (usually of a prophetic nature) and divine illumination or revelation in wisdom or knowledge. The Qumran scrolls emphasize especially the spirit of wisdom and knowledge, and the rabbis especially prophecy, but there is enough overlap between inspired insight and inspired predictions, pronouncements, and so forth for us to associate them together (for our purposes) in a more general category. (The alternative approach would be quite viable, but the points of overlap would be significant.)

Those who assign the connection of the Spirit with prophecy almost exclusively to rabbinic Judaism have missed much of the evidence (not least the OT antecedents). The association appears in Jewish literature written or preserved in Greek. Josephus, for example, notes that when the divine Spirit (τοῦ θείου ίνεύματος) first came to David, he “began to prophesy,” a point not found in the biblical text here. Philo similarly speaks of “the Divine Spirit of prophecy,” commenting on Num 11:16 (Flight 186). In Sir 48:24 Isaiah foresaw the future by means of a great spirit. In Test. Job 48:3 (though its pre-Christian nature is not beyond doubt) we read that as Job’s daughter Hemera spoke ecstatically, “the Spirit” was written on her cloak.

The association also appears in early Palestinian Jewish literature. When Isaac was to bless Jacob’s sons in Jubilees, “a spirit of prophecy came down upon his mouth,” and the Spirit also functions as the spirit of prophecy in the fifth book of 1 Enoch (1 En. 91:1). The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets also in the Qumran scrolls, although texts about the present are more apt to stress the Spirit’s role in granting insight to God’s mysteries. In a later work, a “holy spirit” (spiritus sanctus) moved someone to ecstasy and he prophesied (L.A.B. 28:6). Likewise, Ezra is inspired to write many books through the Holy Spirit (4 Ezra 14:22). It is further worthy of note that some early Christian texts carry over the same concept and language.

In other early Jewish texts, the Holy Spirit also revealed or inspired in other ways besides prophecy in the strictest sense. The Spirit revealed matters in dreams (to biblical characters in Test. Ab. 4:7–8 A; L.A.B. 9:10). Similarly, the Spirit could be associated with singing a spontaneously created song, which would have been associated with inspiration in antiquity. One could also “see,” in the sense of prophetic perception, by the Spirit. Prophetic associations were the most common for the Spirit in early Jewish texts.

What was true of early Judaism in general became even more emphatic in rabbinic literature (which, though later than many of our other sources, by its sheer volume provides more abundant examples). For example, the Tannaim could associate the Spirit with prophetic revelation and insight. Thus the people of Israel knew Pharaoh’s plans against them through the Holy Spirit that rested on them.

The later Amoraim follow this tradition as well: the Spirit gives correct knowledge about persons or events, foretells the future, is associated with visions, and is generally associated with prophecy. It appears as “a divine power” for prophecy, praise, and so forth in the Targumim; in the Targumim, “Holy Spirit” and “Spirit of Prophecy” are functionally interchangeable, the differences mandated by style. It is therefore not surprising that modern students of rabbinic texts often comment on the association of the Spirit with prophecy there.

The rabbis, who focused heavily on the Torah, especially often associated the spirit of prophecy with the inspiration of books of the Bible. Given the Spirit’s association with prophecy, such a usage naturally appears also in nonrabbinic Jewish texts, but it becomes far more prominent in Tannaitic and Amoraic texts and pervasive in the Midrash Rabbah and Pesiqta Rabbati.

This information may suggest that rabbinic Judaism not only developed the concept of the Spirit as the prophetic Spirit, almost to the exclusion of other possible models, but also developed this role particularly with regard to the supremacy of the Scriptures that the rabbis interpreted. This is a natural development, since the rabbis’ primary attention as legal scholars was to the biblical texts. Further, this strategy provided an epistemological guard against strongly pneumatic movements (e.g., the intensely charismatic early Jesus movement). For further comment on prophecy and the spirit of prophecy, see the excursus at Acts 2:17–18.

Another matter of interest as background for Luke’s pneumatology was the widespread view that prophets had ceased (see full discussion in the excursus on Acts 2:17–18). Although most Jewish people believed that prophecy and revelation continued, the specific title “prophet” is usually granted (e.g., in Josephus, Philo, Qumran, and rabbinic sources) only to figures of the biblical era. Some (like most rabbis, for whom our sources postdate Luke) believed that the Spirit (which they associated especially with inspiration) had been quenched; others (like the Qumran sectarians) believed that they possessed the Spirit, yet do not seem to emphasize an association of the Spirit with the present activity of “prophets” (and perhaps in the present only with inspired insight). Likewise, even Josephus, when mentioning prophecy in the present, does not mention the Spirit as he does for prophecy on occasion during the biblical era (Ant. 6.166, 222; cf. 8.408). Luke’s unapologetic mention of full-fledged prophets (e.g., Acts 11:27–28; 13:1; 21:9–11) is a dramatic departure from the norm, emphasizing his view that Jesus has inaugurated the era of the Spirit (2:17–18, 33).

↑ Back to top