The Acts of God

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Scripture:  Acts 1:1-14

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning… Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

History is the past. But it’s the past as left behind in documents and architecture, in stories and traditions, in art and culture. It is the story of people – their grand achievements and their abysmal failures. It’s been said that “history is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side,”[1] which suggests that there is not such a thing as a truly objective account of history. But neither are legitimate historians (as opposed to propagandists or rhetoricians) unconcerned with truth and accuracy. More often than not, it is their dependence on documents and artifacts that have survived that shapes the history they write, and that which survives is often that of the victor.

In the ancient Greco-Roman world, history was less about the distant past and more typically about current events or at least events that were still impacting the historian’s world. Ancient history writing (historiography) is perhaps better understood as a newspaper chronicling current or recent events than as a modern history book we might read in school. (That being said, the current tendency of many news reporters and writers to completely shun even the appearance of balanced reporting, makes this comparison flawed, to say the least.) The point is that in the ancient Greco-Roman world, historians were first and foremost investigators tasked with writing about events that had changed or were changing the world. They did not imagine themselves to be purely objective, but they did hold truth and accuracy in high regard.

The man who wrote the Gospel of Luke as well as the Book of Acts, was just such a historian. We know him as Luke.

Beginning this Sunday, we’re going to be diving into the second of his books, titled in many of our Bibles, The Acts of the Apostles. It’s a book that tells the story of God’s activity in the years immediately following Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s the story of Jesus’ good news that the kingdom of God has come, spreading out from Jerusalem all the way to Rome. It’s the earliest history of the Christian Church that we have. I wonder what God might say to us in the 21st century, from the pen of this man in the 1st century.

As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps take the time to read the beginning of Acts. On Sunday we’re going to focus specifically on the first 14 verses of Acts 1. Are the words familiar? What do they suggest about the purpose of this book? What questions do they raise? If you were Theophilus, the person for whom Luke is writing this book, what would you most want to know? Go back to the beginning of Luke’s gospel and read Luke 1:1-4. This is where we meet Theophilus and this is where Luke tells us why he’s decided to write this two-part history – the Gospel and the Acts. As you prepare for Sunday and for the Sundays that follow through this series, what do you need to hear? What do you hope to learn?

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[1] This quote is attributed to Missouri Sent. George Graham Vest in 1891, who was quoted in the Kansas City Gazette on Aug. 21, 1891. However, he was not the first to express the sentiment. (https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html, accessed Aug. 28, 2020)