Monday
Monday
Jesus’s Life and Ministry
Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles.
Acts 2:22
We saw yesterday that Peter applied Joel’s prophecy to Pentecost. The best way to understand Pentecost, however, is not through the Old Testament prediction but through the New Testament fulfillment, not through Joel but through Jesus.
As Peter summoned the people of Israel to listen to him, his very first words following the quotation from Joel were “Jesus of Nazareth.” In all evangelism it should be the same. Our chief and overriding responsibility is to point people to Jesus. In every evangelistic proclamation, the wise evangelist keeps bringing the conversation back to the person and work of Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul was later to write at the beginning of Romans, the gospel of God concerns the Son of God. As T. R. Glover wrote in The Jesus of History, “Jesus remains the very heart and soul of the Christian movement, still controlling men, still capturing men.”
Having named the name (of Jesus), Peter went on to tell his story in six stages, the first of which being his life and ministry: he “was a man accredited by God.” This expression is very striking. We cannot claim that Peter was already affirming the divine-human person of Jesus. Nevertheless, Peter did sense that there was about Jesus both a human and a divine reality.
Moreover, Peter emphasized God’s attestation of Jesus by bringing together the three New Testament words for the miracles that God performed publicly through him, namely miracles, wonders, and signs. The first word, miracles (dunameis), indicates their nature; they were exhibitions of God’s power (dunamis). The second word, wonders (terata), indicates their consequence; they aroused amazement in those who witnessed them. Then the third word, signs (s
maia), indicates their purpose; they were intended to have significance, to signify the claims of the Messiah.
For further reading: Acts 10:38–39