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The gospel crosses to Europe in Acts 16 video discussion

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The gospel crosses to Europe in Acts 16 video discussion

We continue focussing on the passages in Acts, and for Easter 6 in Year C the reading is Acts 16.9–15. This starts half-way through a paragraph, so we should really start reading at verse 6.

We are now in the second half of Acts, focussing on what the Spirit is doing through the ministry of Paul. In this passage, the Spirit is most clearly active, constraining and directing Paul and his companions—who now appear to include Luke, since he starts using ‘we’ to describe their action and decisions.

Their approach to mission follows the pattern that Jesus has offered in Luke 9, seeking out a ‘person of peace’. The gospel comes to rich and poor alike, and the Spirit has directed them to cross over and take the gospel to Europe, another major stage in the apostles being witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’.

For written commentary on this passage, see the previous blog post here.

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Canterbury tales: what happens next?

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Canterbury tales: what happens next?

Andrew Goddard writes: This week the number of confirmed members of the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) rose from 3 to 14 with only 3 names left to be determined and announced (those from Canterbury diocese). A helpful website provides details of each of the people and the 3 non-voting members.  What can we learn about the process so far and what still lies ahead?

I set out the basic process back in late February when the only known confirmed names were the independent lay Chair appointed by the Prime Minister (Lord Jonathan Evans), the Archbishop of York, and (to many people’s surprise given he was often listed as a leading candidate for the post himself) Graham Usher, the Bishop of Norwich who was elected by the House of Bishops as a representative of the episcopate from within Canterbury Province.

The eleven new names come from two groupings: the 6 central members drawn from General Synod; and 5 representatives of the wider Anglican Communion.

New Church of England names

The 6 central members are, with one exception, well-known as they have been elected by the General Synod and worked with one another (and the Archbishop of York) on multiple CNC nominations since 2022. Synod originally elected 6 “pairs”, 3 clergy and 3 lay, with 4 being broadly conservative (Anglo-Catholic or evangelical) and 2 broadly liberal or progressive. Since 2022, three of the pairs have been reduced to a single member through one of the pair leaving General Synod so those names, though unconfirmed, have been fairly clear for some time:

Ms Christina Baron, a retired academic based in Bath and Wells diocese (and former mayor of Wells) who has been involved in appointing bishops since 2017.

The Revd Lis Goddard, a London-based parish priest first elected to Synod in a by-election in 2020.

Mr Clive Scowen, a retired lawyer and licensed lay minister in a London parish who has been on General Synod since 2005.

One of the clergy pairs (Andrew Cornes and Paul Benfield) has neither member serving and so, under Standing Order 137(3B), they have nominated another member of the House of Clergy who has been agreed by the Prolocutor for York Province (Kate Wharton):

The Revd Canon Paul Cartwright is vicar of a parish under the Bishop of Beverly (so an Anglo-Catholic opposed to women priests and bishops) based in Wakefield in the Diocese of Leeds. His selection ensures one of the 6 central members is from the northern province. He is Vice-Chair of General Synod’s Business Committee (on which Clive Scowen also serves).

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Why is encouragement so important to us?

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Why is encouragement so important to us?

Ian Silk has written a Grove booklet on the vital subject of encouragement. I interviewed him about it, and include the video below. Here is the start of the chapter of the booklet, to give you a flavour. You can buy from the Grove website here.

What is encouragement in common experience, and where is it needed? I asked some friends: ‘heartfelt, sincere words to build up,’ ‘a word ministry to the church that addresses discouragement, meeting a need or solving a problem,’ ‘deeds of kindness.’ So is it words, or actions, or both? Is there a difference between giving encouragement and showing mercy? Someone said encouragement does it with words while mercy rolls up its sleeves and gets its hands dirty. Someone else said education and encouragement go naturally together, the one lovingly drawing out and building with what is within and the other putting in what is needed to confront our fears.

Encouragement is an intentional ministry of word and action that aims to make a difference to people in body, mind and spirit. ‘Encourage’ is ‘in-courage’— giving support, confidence or hope to a person or a group of people. ‘Without this gift of encouragement we die. Bereft of it life becomes unbearable and full of misery’ (Russ Parker, The Wild Spirit (London: Triangle, 1997) p 62).

I wonder, is encouragement a home thing or an away thing? In order to encourage others should we stay where we are or do we go somewhere else? People came to visit John Newton in his home and were encouraged and he also wrote to them from his home—although letter writing could also be understood as a form of visiting. Elizabeth Fry went to visit people nobody else visited, in prison; she was an away encourager and yet it seems her own home was often full of people who needed encouragement—family members, friends, church members. Home or away? Perhaps the answer to ‘where’ is ‘everywhere!’

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Why does the Acts of the Apostles matter today?

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Why does the Acts of the Apostles matter today?

Steve Walton has been a friend for many years—but he is also a great scholar, and has just published a collection of essays on the theology of Acts, and the first volume of his Word commentary on Acts. So I thought it was a good time to ask him about his study, Acts as a key part of the New Testament, and its importance for us today.

IP: Why are you so interested in Acts of the Apostles? What drew you to it in the first place?

SW: In my first term at theological college, I wrote an essay on ‘Luke’s theological themes’ for Charlie Moule, and that got me into the debate about how far the portrait of Paul in Acts is similar to or different from that in the letters. This topic remained with me, and I was very drawn to reading Luke-Acts. I wrote a final year undergraduate dissertation on the gentile mission in Luke-Acts, and then followed that with my PhD work on Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders in Miletus (Acts 20:18-35). There I argued that there are similar themes using some strikingly rare similar words in the speech and in 1 Thessalonians. Not long after that, I was invited to write the Word Biblical Commentary on Acts, and the rest is history!

IP: Between his gospel and Acts, Luke is the largest single contributor to the New Testament, with his writings making up around 28% of the whole text—compared with Paul’s 24%. Do we pay enough attention to him, in in particular to Acts, in the contemporary church?

SW: It depends which part of the contemporary church you’re talking about! One of the down sides of the three-year lectionary used by many mainstream churches is that Acts only appears between Easter and Pentecost, and then only the early parts of the book. That’s a huge pity. On the other hand, pentecostals are very taken with Acts and do a lot of work and preaching on the mission in Acts and, particularly, the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts.

Indeed, it was the effects of the beginnings of pentecostalism in the early twentieth century and the charismatic movement of the mid-twentieth century which persuaded ‘mainstream’ scholarship to start engaging with Acts, notably in Jimmy Dunn’s doctoral work (published as Baptism in the Holy Spirit), with responses by Bob Menzies from a pentecostal perspective (Empowered for Witness) and Max Turner from a third-wave charismatic perspective (Power from on High and The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts Then and Now). One of my hopes for my Acts commentary is that it will feed discussion, study and preaching and teaching on Acts in the years to come.

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The Holy Spirit, Peter, and Cornelius in Acts 11

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The Holy Spirit, Peter, and Cornelius in Acts 11

On Easter 5 in Year C, we find that once again the Sunday lectionary points us towards the reading from Acts as an important point of focus in the post-Easter narrative. The reading ‘which must be used as either the first or the second reading’ is Acts 11.1–18, the final episode in the ‘Petrine narrative’ which began with Peter healing Aeneas and raising Tabitha at the end of chapter 9, which was last week’s reading. After this week’s reading, we see the focus shift from Jerusalem to Antioch, which becomes a major centre of the Christian community, sending Paul and Barnabas out on their ‘missionary journeys’. Peter makes an appearance in chapter 12 when he is miraculously released from prison (as Paul is too in chapter 16), and gets one mention at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.7—and that is his last appearance in Acts.

(For video discussion of this passage, see here. The video is also linked at the bottom of the article.)

The episode with Cornelius is pivotal to Luke’s narrative in Acts, marking the formal admission of Gentiles as Gentiles into what was until now a Jewish renewal movement which hailed Jesus as the (unexpected) Jewish Messiah. This move has been adumbrated first in the response of Samaritans to the good news, brought by Philip in Acts 8.4, and in Philip’s further ministry to the Ethiopian official (‘eunuch’) in Acts 8.26f. This man appears to have been a ‘God fearer’ since, though not Jewish, he has ‘come to Jerusalem to worship’ (Acts 8.27). Here, faith comes to those groups immediately adjacent to the Jewish nation, but the flood of the good news is about to burst even these banks. The importance of the Cornelius incident is shown by Luke’s recounting it, then recounting it again in Peter’s first speech, and again now. Luke appears to communicate the importance of events by including detail and repetition—and so we later hear several accounts of Paul’s ‘conversion’ as well, signalling the importance of that incident in the spreading of the good news about Jesus. 

The comment in Acts 11.1 that the apostles and ‘brothers’ (believers) in Judea had heard about what happened is a classic device of Luke to link the previous episodes with what he now relates. But it also contains some important detail. First, Cornelius has functioned (as have the Samaritans and the Ethiopian official) as a ‘bridge’ character; he is not a pagan, but belongs to a group that Luke has called ‘God fearers’. To adapt Jesus’ words in Mark 12.34, he is not far from the people of God—and yet he is clearly not yet counted a member. However respected he is, as far as the (Jewish) Jesus movement is concerned, he represented ‘Gentiles’ who have received the ‘word of God’—a phrase sometimes denoting Jesus, sometimes the Scriptures, but here, the message of the good news as it has been proclaimed.

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