To Caesar You Have Appealed,To Caesar You Shall… Not Go?The Book of Acts is not a thriller. It took me awhile to realize that. At first blush, Luke heeds neither classical nor contemporary storytelling advice. For example, what’s the big idea changing protagonists halfway through? I mean, I’d only just warmed up to perpetually-erring Peter after his strong stand on behalf of Cornelius and the other Gentile believers in Acts 10–11 and during the Jerusalem Council in ch. 15. But then he vanishes from the stage. No more Peter! Meanwhile, the real protagonist of the story, Saul/Paul, doesn’t even show up till the tail end of ch. 7. To be sure, our acceptance of this untimely-born hero is rewarded. Paul traces a dramatic story arc, from his conversion through his wild missionary journeys, getting stoned here, getting mistaken for a god there. But then Luke goes and blows it again. We trail after Paul at breathless pace all the way to ch. 25 out of 28 at which point we get the tip-off, or so it seems, for the final, fatal confrontation between Paul and the Powers That Be: “To Caesar you have appealed; to Caesar you shall go!” (Acts 25:12). As playwright Anton Chekov famously warned, “One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.” Luke’s loaded rifle is the promise to deliver Paul to Caesar… but Luke never gets around to delivering Paul to Caesar at all. Contrary to all expectations, Acts wraps up with a reasonably safe and happy (if still on house arrest) Paul preaching the gospel in Rome: “He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance” (28:30–31). The end. Really? What kind of an ending is that? Discerning the Message from the MediumI’m not the first to wonder if Acts is a piece of unfinished business. Ever since John Chrysostom in the fourth century, readers of Acts have puzzled over its abrupt and undramatic conclusion, proposed that it may have lost a few chapters, or theorized that Luke himself got interrupted by any number of calamities likely to befall early Christians. Much like the mid-sentence ending of the Gospel of Mark, Acts has struck many readers as incomplete—though rather less susceptible to later supplements than the Gospel. In fact, in my own studies of Acts to date, I have been so annoyed by Luke’s apparent dead end, signaled by the fake foreshadowing, that I’ve just ignored it. Last year I talked my dad into recording a podcast episode on “The First-Two Thirds of Acts” because I was really excited about the narrative unity in chs. 1–19 and wanted to share it. But as you can’t fail to notice, for all intents and purposes I just deleted the rest of the book from consideration (as the lectionary is wont to do as well, maybe for similar reasons). However, I’ve learned by now that if I find some part of Scripture perplexing or off-putting, the problem certainly lies with me, not with it (hence my late-in-life conversion to Leviticus). The stubborn unassimilability of Acts 20–28 has continued to bug me. So I’ve kept pecking away at it. Here’s what I’ve found. The Holy Spirit’s World Tour
in Five Easy StopsThe interconnected and overlapping plotlines of Acts are worthy of a Netflix series, not to mention its vast cast of characters, but let’s zero in on the major developments that unfold from chs. 1 to 19: namely, the Spirit’s gathering in of every estranged group of people on earth, if not every individual within those groups. Buckle your seatbelts and here we go! First Stop: Jerusalem
“Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.’” (2:5–11) This must be the single most confusing passage ever to be perpetrated upon contemporary Gentile Christians. That long list of nations is deceptive to us now—because they are all Jews! The Jewish people had long since dispersed throughout the known world, from those who stayed behind in Babylon after the Persian conquest, to the thriving community of Alexandria in Egypt, to the little synagogues across Asia Minor and in Greek ports, not to mention Rome. Some Jews had been installed in their new home so long they could no longer speak or understand Aramaic, Hebrew, or cognate dialects. But when opportunity afforded, they made a pilgrimage back to the holy land, its holy city and holy temple, to observe the major festivals and offer sacrifices. That’s what brought these diverse Jews back to the motherland for Shavuot, i.e., Pentecost. It’s to these Jews-in-good-standing that Peter first preaches: preaching in his own Galilean patois, but understandable to one and and all. Note that the visiting Jews aren’t awarded fluency in the home language, but rather their own new and diverse languages are blessed with receptivity to the gospel. That’s why there is no holy language in Christianity: the Holy Spirit exploded that option from the get-go. The irony is, of course, that the first group to be gathered in is the one group that should have been in in the first place—the good Jews of the world. Next Stop: Samaria
“Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed… Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.” (8:5–7, 14–17) All those good Jews receiving baptism prompts pushback from the temple leadership, but the gospel mission in Jerusalem is chugging along so well that the apostles see no real need to push onward and outward. Why mess with success? …until success turns into tragedy: and that’s the major shift that takes place with the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr after Jesus himself. Add to that Saul “ravaging the church” (8:3) and you gotta rethink your whole strategy: “they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (8:1). Now here’s a fun fact: the apostles are literally the “messengers” sent out with the good news, but they stay home in Jerusalem. There is certainly courage at work in their remaining at the place of persecution. But it also means that someone who is not an apostle is the one who extends the apostolic task, namely Philip, one of the seven deacons/table-servers of Acts 6 and proud father of four prophetess daughters in Acts 21, where he also receives the title “evangelist,” for reasons that will immediately become clear. In ch. 8 Philip wanders abroad to the city of Samaria—that notorious repository of compromised half-Jews, still loyal to their abolished northern kingdom and its heretical monarchs, not to mention their being intermingled with the nasty Assyrians. Luke, however, has primed us for this moment with his heroic Samaritan rescuing the wounded man on the roadside, and the thankful Samaritan leper, back in the pages of the Gospel. The Samaritans respond to Philip’s preaching, exorcising, and healing with faith, to which Philip responds with baptisms left, right, and center. Peter and John are so appalled by the reports filtering back to Jerusalem that they come to investigate. In this one exceptional case of a time delay between Spirit and baptism, the first breach of the mighty barrier takes place: it’s the first time not-good-Jews become part of the gospel fellowship. They presage the next three barriers to fall. Third Stop: The road between Jerusalem and Gaza
“There was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’” (8:27–30) Philip is on a roll now. Samaria safely secured for the gospel, he continues on his merry way and runs into an Ethiopian eunuch. Now please, let’s not get distracted into our usual anti-Judaisms here, waxing eloquent on how nice the gospel is to let sexual deviants in, where exclusionary Israel kept them out. That particular problem had already been addressed by Isaiah at least six hundred years earlier (Isaiah 56:3–4), which may be why the Ethiopian was reading this very prophet, just three chapters before the eunuch passage. No, the interesting thing about this fellow is that he is a proselyte to Judaism: a non-ethnic Jew who has come to believe in the God of Israel and accordingly has been to Jerusalem to worship. It’s no accident that his turning to the gospel takes place not in a city or any other clearly demarcated location, but in a blurry in-between place. That’s what the Ethiopian eunuch actually is—a blurry in-between person, in so many ways, but above all as regards Judaism. He is an Israelite through conversion but not according to the flesh. As such, he’s one step closer to the largest and most alarming category to come galloping into the gospel at our next stop. Fourth Stop: Caesarea
“At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, ‘Cornelius.’ And he stared at him in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ And he said to him, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God…’” (10:1–4) Of all the unsubtle places so far—Jerusalem for the Jews, Samaria for the Samaritans, nowhere in particular for the foreign proselyte—this one has to be the least subtle of all: Caesarea, Judean capital of the Gentile conquerors, built by collaborator Herod, named for the biggest bad guy of them all. Sure, Caesarean resident Cornelius has his strong points. He’s devout, fears God, supports charity, and prays without ceasing. But that doesn’t erase the fundamental fact about him or the reason he’s in Caesarea at all. He’s a centurion, agent of the occupiers and colonizers. He’s not even a lowly foot soldier or downtrodden recruit. He’s a military leader, good at his job, promoted accordingly. And that’s exactly whom the Holy Spirit selects as the firstborn of the Gentile believers. No wonder the other apostles were outraged at Peter’s decision to baptize! It’s kind of comical in this extended story, actually, to trace all the ways Peter tries to hold off the inevitable. More pious than God, he refuses unclean food that the Lord has specifically authorized. God in turn foists the same nightmare on Peter three times in a row. On meeting Cornelius, Peter can’t resist a little dig about how improper it is for a Jew like himself to be in Gentile company, but he’ll condescend to do so because God has forced him to. Even when Peter agrees to share the good news about Jesus, he seems compelled to make the story as Israel-centric as humanly possible. God is not overly impressed with human possibilities. And in the end Peter can’t argue, nor the apostles back home, nor even the circumcision party. The Gentiles are in, like it or not. Fifth and Final Stop: Ephesus
“And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ And they said, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ And he said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ They said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’ And Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.’” (19:1–4) You’d think that, with the ingathering of the Gentiles, the Holy Spirit’s tour would be over. Logically, who’s left? Well, to figure that out, you have to go all the way back to the beginning… not to Acts 1, but to Luke 1. Because this whole story didn’t actually begin with Jesus. It began with John the Baptist. After two millennia of Christian management of John and his baptizing, the fact of his nickname doesn’t even strike us anymore. Of course he’s the Baptist, or the Baptizer, because he baptized! Duh. But that’s just it. Baptizing was weird, way weirder than eating grasshoppers (which, to this day, remain a delicacy in many parts of the world). Up till John, you could immerse yourself in water for a number of reasons, from conversion to ritual purity, but no one else ever immersed you. It was always self-administered. Until John. It seems pretty likely that Christian baptism has its origins in John’s baptism. But in what was probably the first-ever denominational battle, the early church had to sort out just what made John’s baptism different from Jesus’ disciples’ baptism. If you follow the through-line from Luke 1 to Acts 19 (via Luke 3:16, 5:33, 7:18–30, 11:1, 16:16, 20:1–8, and Acts 1:5, 2:38, 10:37, 11:16, 13:24–25, 18:25), then the differences are these: a) John’s baptism is in no name at all, but Christian baptism is in Jesus’ name; b) John’s baptism demonstrates your repentance, but Christian baptism also grants you forgiveness; and c) John’s baptism does not convey the Holy Spirit, but Christian baptism does. So that’s the setup for the episode in Acts 19, which actually begins in Acts 18, where we learn about Apollos, a believer from Alexandria who knows only about John’s baptism and thus must receive a little doctrinal update from all-star-married-couple Priscilla and Aquila. From John’s hangout at the Jordan River, Alexandria is way off to the west in Egypt, while Ephesus is even farther away to the northwest in Asia Minor (today’s Turkey, but no Turks there yet). John’s geographical reach was huge! So it’s no surprise that the earliest Christian apostles and evangelists sometimes stumbled across John’s followers: people who’d received John’s baptism but never got the upgrade to Christian baptism in Jesus’ name with the accompanying Holy Spirit. Once Paul realizes the Ephesian disciples’ deficiency, he takes care of it in short order. Looking back now on the Spirit’s multi-city tour, we can see that all the world has been accounted for, in principle: – good Jews
– bad Jews
– new Jews
– non-Jews
– John’s Jews That is every group, if not yet every member of every group. Analogous to Jesus on the cross, at this point the Holy Spirit could rightly declare: It is accomplished. And in fact, the Holy Spirit almost vanishes from Acts after this point. The work is done. But the story is not. The Misadventures of Paul, or,It’s So Hard to Find a Fair Trial These DaysWith the baptism of John’s disciples, a real milestone has been achieved. But the Christian community faces some lingering—challenges, let’s call them. Here’s one: indeed, all groups are accounted for, but not all members of all groups. Turns out “Gentiles” is a vast collection of vastly different peoples. Lydia in Macedonia is not like the jailer in Philippi is not like the philosophical dilettantes in Athens. A lot of traveling and preaching needs to be done to track down all the subsets of the nations and all their members (a process that continues to the present!). Here’s another and rather more painful point: if anyone should take to the gospel like a duck to water, it’s the “good Jews.” But they’re actually putting up the most resistance. This is so acutely painful to Paul that he devotes chs. 9–11 of his Epistle to the Romans to agonizing over the paradox. Throughout Acts, Luke always shows Paul starting his preaching campaign in each new city in its synagogue, only to give up in frustration at the intransigent spirit he encounters there. And then, creeping up behind this deep spiritual and religious crisis is a mounting political one. It shouldn’t come as a surprise; after all, the Lord Jesus was executed as a political prisoner. History is going to repeat itself. An unholy alliance of Jewish and Roman authorities breathes threats and murder down the necks of the new believers, and Paul’s neck most of all. What goes around comes around, eh? Undeterred, though, immediately after dealing with the “Baptistas” in Ephesus, Paul makes plans to visit Macedonia, Achaia, and Jerusalem, and then utters a line of momentous consequence: “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” This turns out to be the real linchpin of the action in Acts—this, and not the declaration about Caesar, which is just the mechanism for getting Paul where he needs to go. But the logic of the story is: once you have all the communities of the earth accounted for, you need to move from “Judea and Samaria and the end of the earth” (1:8) to the center of the universe. And that isn’t colonized Jerusalem. It’s the seat of Caesar, the imperial capital. Rome. From this point on, all Paul’s activities lead him closer and closer to Rome, if not exactly in the straightest possible line. His path to Rome is through Jerusalem, where the religious leaders get angry at him, accuse him of profaning the temple, and plot to kill him. Paul knows he’ll never get a fair trial in Judea, so he appeals for help further up the ladder of justice. Once the temple leaders have been deprived of the opportunity to kill Paul, the Romans take over responsibility for the legal proceedings themselves. Does any of this ring a bell? Why-This-Ending? Part One:Parallels a Little Too Close for ComfortLuke’s Gospel and Acts are by design a two-volume work. All kinds of parallels, analogies, and overlaps abound between the two, despite their obvious differences. And the similarities are especially marked when you home in on the biographies of their respective protagonists. Take a closer look.
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