Lecture 6 – Acts 6-8 – Expansion Beyond Jerusalem

6:8-9:31
9:32-12:24 16:6 -19:20
1:1-6:7 12:25-16:5 19:21-28:31
The Gospel
The Gospel The Gospel
The Gospel in in Judea, The Gospel The Gospel
goes to the goes to
Jerusalem Galilee and goes to Asia goes to Rome
Gentiles Europe
Samaria

Luke signals that this panel is ending because his summary statement in 6:7 is:

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied
greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

6:1-7 – final section leads into the next section

6:1

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the
Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in
the daily distribution.

Hellenists = Diaspora Jews who worship in Greek-speaking synagogues.

Hebrews = Aramaic speaking Jews who worship in Aramaic synagogues.

Both Jewish – a linguistic distinction although with cultural implications.

Lecture 6 – Acts 6-8 – Expansion Beyond Jerusalem

Why so many widows?

The appointment of Hellenist leaders for the Hellenist widows

They’re mundane introduction as characters who will be highly significant

The Second Panel (6:8-9:31) begins.

Stephen the synagogue preacher

Saul and the connection with Stephen

How 6:9-14 sets the stage for chapter 7 (isolating the issues of Temple and Torah)

The speech of Stephen in chapter 7 – a retelling of Israel’s history

1. God is not bound to Jerusalem.

Verse 2 - The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in
Mesopotamia
Lecture 6 – Acts 6-8 – Expansion Beyond Jerusalem

Verse 9 - And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was
with him

Verse 29-30 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian,
where he became the father of two sons.
30 "Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness
of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush

God in the past accommodated himself to a temple but “the Most High does not dwell
in houses made by hands” (7:48).

2. The second, and larger theme in Stephen’s speech is that he reviews Israels’
history and shows that God’s people have a long history of not listening to him
– whenever God makes a new move in salvation history they reject him.

51 "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the
Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who
announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now
betrayed and murdered,
53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it."

Stephen’s speech doesn’t clarify their new relationship to the law - that will have to
be resolved for the Gentile mission later.

8:1-4 - fresh outbreak of persecution against the church.

The apostles stay but the Hellenists move outwards

Lecture 6 – Acts 6-8 – Expansion Beyond Jerusalem

The unplanned Samaritan mission

Who are the Samaritans – hated by the Jews as schismatics or heretics, but ultimately
probably to be regarded as part of the lost sheep of Israel.

Philip’s preaching is effective (8:12), and he proves more than a match for the
magician Simon.

8:14 – the apostles get wind of the mission, and come down to observe.

The Samaritans have not received the Holy Spirit – The Pentecostal/Non-Pentecostal
Debate.

Pentecostals – Reception of the Holy Spirit is a second and subsequent work

to salvation. Just like the Samaritans. Spirit baptism is not something essential
to salvation, but it is another experience of the Spirit in which you are taken to
another level in discipleship and mission.

Non-Pentecostals - reception of the Holy Spirit is something that happens at

the point of salvation – it is one of the gifts of salvation in Jesus – along with
forgiveness of sins, adoption, justification, etc. (see Rom 8:9).

Thinking through the issue in Acts

1. The normativity of Acts 2:38

2. The uniqueness of the delay in Acts 8

a. What is Luke’s main aim in writing Acts?

Lecture 6 – Acts 6-8 – Expansion Beyond Jerusalem

b. The problem of unplanned evangelism by Hellenist missionaries

c. What does the narrative focus on in terms of emphasis?

d. The importance of understanding these boundary moments.

“It is important for Luke’s readers to know that the mission had both
divine and apostolic approval, as evidenced by the withholding of the
Spirit until the laying on of the apostle’s hands. It is in keeping with
Luke’s overall concern to show that the missionary work of the
Hellenists was not a maverick movement, although it happened quite
apart from any apostolic conference on church growth” (Fee and
Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth, p.117)

The problems of Simon

The narrative of the Ethiopian eunuch

But who does he represent – is he a Gentile?

His status as a eunuch in Judaism (see Deut 23:1)

Passing note – 8:30 – reading aloud is the normally practiced thing.