Category Archives: Gospels

Making Acts part of the gospel

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OK, real life caught up with me. I just couldn’t get any posts done the last few days. I hope to get caught up soon.

I’ll share a thought that might lead others to say something significant (since I don’t seem to have significant thoughts these days). I was thinking the other day about the fact that Luke and Acts are basically two volumes of the same work. Essentially, Luke’s gospel was written in two parts.

So doesn’t it make sense that we should see in Acts Luke’s view of how the gospel was lived? Not just his idea, but his account of how the church did just that. It’s also his teaching of how the gospel was intended to be lived, for like all historians, Luke presents the events in a way that conveys a certain message.

What we don’t see is the benevolent society that some would make of the church today. Yes, the early Christians shared among themselves. Yes, they healed people. Yes, Paul spent major amounts of time raising money for the poor Christians in Jerusalem.

But where are the feeding trips? Where do we see the Christians doing major social projects directed at outsiders? Their priority was preaching and establishing churches. They did not forget the poor and they did much good. But that was not their focus. Their focus was on spreading the good news of the kingdom of God.

Why would that not be our focus as well?

Am I missing something here?

MMLJBC

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MMLJBC. I hadn’t even heard those initials strung together until recently. For those who don’t know, it stands for Matthew Mark Luke John Before Cross. It’s used by those who teach, as one book puts it, “Jesus’ public ministry was nailed to the cross.” Sure, read that statement again. The basic idea is that Christians shouldn’t worry about what Jesus’ taught; only what is contained from Acts 2 through Revelation 22 applies to us as “New Covenant Law.”

Sometimes a teaching is so far-fetched that it’s hard to know where to begin to refute it. I’ll lay out some basic principles, and if any of my thousands of faithful readers want any further clarification, I’ll offer it.

  • The “New Covenant Law” is nothing like the Law of Moses, that is, it is not a set of ordinances and regulations spelled out in legislative passages. The heart of the two covenants is the same.
  • The gospels are not biographies of Jesus nor are they documents composed out of a sense of historical curiosity. They are documents of the early church, written by Christians, for Christians. They do not compete with the teachings of the apostles; they are teachings of the apostles. If you fail to grasp that fact, you will never read the gospels correctly.
  • As followers of Christ, we follow the teachings of Christ. That should be obvious. Admittedly, those who want to turn the New Testament into a legal code have problems with that concept, wanting to take this revelation of God’s will and turn it into legislation. Since it is not legislation, it naturally does not fit well within those confines. Try this simple exercise: read Numbers 35. Now find a chapter in the New Testament that resembles the language of Numbers 35. Numbers 35 is legal code. It was intended to be legal code. Which part of the New Testament looks like legal code to you? Which part of Jesus’ teachings seems to be legal code?

I’ll stop there for now. Let me sum it up this way: the gospels form an important part of the revelation that God gave to the apostles to pass on to us. Let’s not neglect God’s generous gift to us.