Saturday: The Apostles Drop Out of the Acts of the Apostles
WEEK 12
SATURDAY
THE APOSTLES DROP OUT OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Galatians 2:7-13
We saw yesterday that the center of revival and the center of persecution shifted from the apostles to the lay group headed by Stephen, and later by Philip. The apostles escaped both revival and persecution. “At that time, the church in Jerusalem began to be subjected to vicious harassment. Everyone except the apostles was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1). Why “except the apostles”? Were they braver than the rest? I used to think so, but I changed my mind. I think the edge of the persecution turned toward not them but this lay group for two reasons: (1) the apostles fitted into the Jewish system better than the lay group. They were conservatives; the lay group were radicals. (2) The Jewish leaders saw instinctively that when the apostles confined themselves to the severely spiritual; they were no longer dangerous. It was the lay group who held life together and demanded that it come under control of the kingdom; these were the dangerous ones.
When this interpretation dawned on me, I went to the commentaries to see how wrong I was. In the Speaker’s Bible, edited by James Hastings, I found this:
For a time, even though the Book in which the story lies be called “the Acts of the Apostles,” the apostles disappear, and the whole crisis of which Stephen is the chief factor and which culminates in the conversion of Saul, and the opening of the world to the church, and her mission to the Gentiles, is achieved without one of them being present. Stephen stands alone to our view.*
It was Stephen who was in back of the conversion of Paul; and it was Paul, a product of the lay group, who took over from the apostles the lead in the movement. He shaped the thinking of the churches through his epistles. It was said of him, “Because they practiced the same trade, he stayed and worked with them. They all worked in leather” (Acts 18:3). And it was Paul who said, “Whatever you do, you should do it all for God’s glory” (1 Cor 10:31). He held the secular and the sacred together in himself and helped the churches to do the same. The estrangement between the worker and the church would not have taken place if we had followed Paul’s emphasis.
O Jesus, you who worked at a carpenter’s bench and thereby did glorify all toil, help me to do everything I do in a sacred way. In your name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: If I do all to the glory of God, then all I do will be glorified.
* James Hastings, Speaker’s Bible: The Acts of the Apostles (Aberdeen, Scotland: The Speaker’s Bible Office, 1927–1928), page number not available.