Week 36: The First Christian Sermon
Week 36: The First Christian Sermon
Luke records in the Acts nineteen significant Christian speeches, constituting about 25 percent of his book. Nobody imagines that these speeches are verbatim accounts of what was said on each occasion. For one thing, they are too brief to be complete. For example, Peter’s Pentecost sermon as recorded by Luke would have taken only about three minutes to deliver.
Liberal scholars in recent years have gone to the opposite extreme and argued that ancient historians like Thucydides invented speeches and inserted them into the mouths of their chief characters, and that Luke will have followed the same convention.
But conservative scholars have challenged this thesis. It fails to do justice to the historical conscience of Thucydides or to the claim of Luke to be recording carefully researched material. Rejecting both extremes of literalism and skepticism, it is better to regard the Acts speeches as reliable summaries of what was said on each occasion.
Sunday: Peter’s Quotation from Joel
Monday: Jesus’s Life and Ministry
Tuesday: Jesus’s Death
Wednesday: Jesus’s Resurrection
Thursday: Jesus’s Exaltation
Friday: Jesus’s Salvation
Saturday: The Gospel for Today