In the previous entry, I started into the wacky world that is the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts, we find Peter making the power play to become the de facto head of the church. Peter showed that he wasn’t above twisting facts or re-interpreting scripture to make his points. Also, the Holy Spirit burns a babel fish into the ears of the gathered Christians, allowing them to speak and hear other languages. Or something like that. It sounds a bit nutty to me.

Chapter 5
Holy shit, Peter starts killing people! And believers, to boot! Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold their land, and put most of the money at “the apostles’ feet.” However, Peter became enraged that Ananias didn’t hand over all of the money. Which seems unreasonable to me: It was Ananias’s property, why couldn’t he keep some of the money? Peter sees it differently, however, saing that Satan is making Ananias lie to the Holy Spirit. Ananias then falls down dead, apparently from hearing Peter’s words. As you’d expect, most of the people present freak out.

Three hours later, Sapphira comes to the place. She doesn’t know that her husband is dead, and doesn’t realize that Peter has a homocidal street. Peter asks her if she and Ananias planned to keep some of the proceeds from the land sale, and she says yes. Peter tells her that her husband is dead, and that she is, too. Sapphira then drops dead. This scares the hell out of everyone in the church, and everyone who heard the story afterwards. And rightly it should!

The disciples continue to preach that Jesus was the Messiah, and the Pharisees follow through on their threat to arrest them. The disciples spend a night in jail, but then the Angel of the Lord breaks them out. Unfortunately, he then tells the disciples they must go back to the temple and start teaching again. When you break out of prison, it’s hard to make a clean getway if you then go directly back to the scene of the crime.

The Pharisees are surprised to see the disciples at the temple, but immediately take the opportunity to arrest them again. Annas asks Peter why Peter would ignore the threat to stop proclaiming Jesus the Christ. Peter again pulls out the “we must obey god rather than men” which was funny the first time, but not so much the second time. Peter accuses the Pharisees of killing the Christ, which sent the Pharisees into a homocidal rage. Kinda like Peter was earlier.

Fortunately, there was a wise Pharisee in the group. Gamaliel was a teacher of the law and was widely respected among the Pharisees. Gamaliel points out that most everyone who has come into Isreal proclaiming that they were “important” and gathering followers to themselves ended up dying. For example, Theudas and Judas the Galilean both amassed a large number of followers, but their followers dispersed once the leader died. Gamaliel suggests that this will happen to Peter and John, too, as long as the Pharisees leave them alone. So the disciples are released and allowed to go forward and preach as they see fit.

One bit of this chapter really annoys me. Acts 5:41: “They left the Council, rejoicing to have been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name.”

Chapter 6
Acts is a very strange book. Or the events it recounts are very strange. Or a combination of the two. By Chapter 6, the disciples had become a very numerous organization, which was ruled by the Twelve. The Twelve made decisions for the group, such as choosing to leave only seven  disciples (none from the Twelve) to help feed widows while the rest of the disciples continued to gather worshippers into the flock.

One question immediately comes to mind: why are the Twelve putting their group ahead of the needy? Jesus was very straight-forward about priorities: being servants to the poor and hungry was his top priority. One would assum that any church based off his teachings would be, too. But the Twelve decided that the widows were only worth seven disciples. Already I am seeing the Disciples make major changes from what Jesus taught.

Stephen was also gaining power and fame as a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. People started coming from far away to debate with Stephen, but they couldn’t match his Holy Spirit-granted wisdom. Instead of trying to find another way to outsmart him, the losers instead bring many to bear false witness against Stephen. They pull out the same lie, that Jesus promised to destroy the temple, but attribute those words to Stephen.

Chapter 7
Stephen is allowed to testify in his own behalf, and he decides to show off. In 50 verses, Luke recounts Stephen recounting most of the Old Testament, from Abraham seeing God to Solomon building his Temple. Stephen apparently said all of this so he could start a scathing diatribe against the Pharisees. He accuses the Pharisees ancestors of killing all of the old Prophets who propheised the coming of the Christ, as well as killing the Christ himself.

The Pharisees were pissed off so much that they started “grinding their teeth at him.” Which doesn’t seem too bad, when you think of it. “Grinding your teeth” might’ve meant something different back then? Stephen looked toward heaven and declared that the saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. This was too much for the Pharisees. They rushed Stephen, took him out of town and stoned him to death.

Chapter 8
We are introduced to a few new and interesting characters here. First up is Saul, a man who delights in persecuting followers of Christ. Saul was very pleased that Stephen was stoned to death. Saul did such a good job at capturing and imprisoning new Christian converts that the disciples ended up scattering across the map.

Philip heads down to Samaria. Philip heals many people and casts out many demons, which is enough to win a lot of converts.

While Philip was in Samaria, he came across a man named Simon. Simon was a master of the dark arts. Or at least was strong in arcane practices. Simon had declared himself great, and the people in Smaria proclaimed Simon the Power of God. But when the people – and Simon – heard what Philip said about Jesus, they believed and asked to be baptised.

Once they hear about the successful conversions in Samaria, Peter and John decided to hone in on the action. They come into town and started putting their hands on the believers, allowing the believers to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. Simon saw this, and decided he wanted to be in on the Holy spirit, too. So he offers to buy this from Peter and John.

Peter curses Simon, but fortunately doesn’t kill Simon. Instead, Peter demands that Simon pray for forgiveness and truly repentof the wickedness of not knowing how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Couldn’t Peter have just said, “Sorry, Simon, that’s not how it works. The way you get baptised with the Spirit is….”

The disciples are finally through with Samaria, so they pack up and join a convoy on the road from Gaza. There they come across the path of a eunuch. I am pretty sure this is the first time we’ve run into a eunuch in the New Testament. I thought being a eunuch had run its course in the Old Testament? The eunuch is actually a Big Deal in Ethiopia: he serves as Queen Candace’s treasurer. Literally, he is in charge of her treasure. Anyway, the eunuch (who Luke uncharacteristicly does not name) is sitting back in his chariot reading Isaiah. Which make sense, since he didn’t have any Dan Brown or Stephen King novels to pass the time.

The Holy Spirit tells Philip to go to the chariot and make friends with the eunuch. Philip asks the eunuch if he needs help understanding what Isaiah is saying, and offers his help when the eunuch admits he can’t make hide nor hair of Isaiah 53:7. The eunuch asks whether the prophet is speaking of himself: Philip assured the eunuch that the prophet speaks of Jesus Christ. The eunuch immediately stops the chariot and has Philip baptise him. Score another conversion for Phillip. At this rate, Phillip is going to outdistance Peter!

Up next: WORMS!!!!!

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

With the completion of the Gospel of John, all four canonical Gospels are now in the can. We can now move on to fresh material. I have to say that I am not quite looking forward to the Acts of the Apostles (from here on in referred to as Acts). I remember Acts as the book that subverted Christianity. It pulled people away from the core teachings of Christ and towards what the Apostles wanted to teach. The authority for this apparently comes from Jesus saying that he was granting his disciples the Holy Spirit, and the ability to bind things on earth and heaven. I can understand why people would follow this. The question is, when you have to choose between what Jesus said and what the Apostles said, which do you choose? To me, that seems pretty straight-forward.

But I am not a bible scholar. Nor am I a believer. Nor do I really remember a lot of Acts. In the end, I might be either remembering falsehoods or not remembering Acts at all. There’s only one way to find out. On to:

The Acts Of the Apostles

Chapter 1
Hey! Hey now! Within the first sentence of the first chapter of Acts, I am suddenly filled with great joy and hope! Why? “In my first book, Theophilus…” I remember that Theophilus is someone who is lost to history, but I also remember who wrote the first book for Theophilus: LUKE! The man who wrote the most wondrous of the Gospels and one of the most magnificent books in the Bible (rivaled only by Ecclesiastes). Why didn’t I know that Luke wrote Acts? I don’t know how that escaped my attention. Of course, I only realized just how amazing Luke’s Gospel is earlier this month. So even if I had known Luke was the author, there would’ve been no attachment to make.

No matter how you slice it, though, this is a wonderful surprise!

Luke starts out by wrapping up the story of Jesus. Jesus has been back from the dead for 40 days now, and has been teaching his disciples what to do as they move forward without him. Jesus forbade the disciples to leave Jerusalem, but instead to wait for the Holy Spirit to descend upon them. Jesus then ascends into heaven in a cloud. This whole section of Acts corresponds perfectly with Luke’s tale of Jesus’s ascension in Luke 24:48-51.

The disciples rent a room in Jerusalem to await as Jesus instructed them. Luke is nice enough to give the name of the Eleven: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Simon the Zealot, and Judas (not Iscariot). Jesus’s mother and brothers are there, as well as “other women.”

More people gather as time goes on. There are about 120 people present at this point. THE disciples are a man short, though: apparently The Eleven felt strongly that they should be The Twelve. So they nominate two men from among the 120 or so, and draw lots. Matthias is our big winner, and is officially part of The Twelve.

One other thing that I must note from Chapter One is the final fate of Judas Iscariot: “Now this man bought a field with the money he got for his crime. Falling on his face, he burst open in the middle, and all his intestines gushed out.” EWWWW!!!!

Chapter 2
In one of my previous entries, I mentioned that I went to a psycho church back in the day. Psycho is a little harsh, true, but I just like the sound of that.   It was a Pentecostal church, which is very relevant here. A huge part of Pentecostal church doctrine is anchored in Acts 2. The Holy Spirit descends on the disciples, and suddenly the Disciples start to speak in other tongues. People from nations throughout the area hear the disciples speaking in the people’s native tongues. This is much like a meeting in the United Nations, except the Holy Spirit takes the place of the hundreds of UN translators.

The people who haven’t heard the translation trick just figure the other people had been drinking too much wine. Peter speaks up against this, though, pointing out that they can’t be drunk, because it is only 9:00 in the morning. Reminds me of a t-shirt I saw at a concert once: “You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.”

You know the thing I love about Luke? Characters sing in his books. I don’t mean a line or two: when his subjects get started, they can sing for a half a chapter or more. Joel 2:28 has never sounded better than when Peter stands in front of the crowd and sings:

In those days I will even pour out my Spirit
on my slaves, men and women alike,
and they will prophesy.

But it gets even better, as Peter then goes on to sing David’s prophecies of the coming messiah:

I always see the Lord in front of me,
for he is at my right hand
so that I cannot be shaken.

That is why my heart is glad
and my tongue rejoices

Unfortunately, the lusciousness of the lyrics are used to hide some rather specious logic.  This is kind of hard to follow, mostly because it is crap. Peter says that David proves that God rescued Jesus from the pains of death. David was a prophet, of course, and so far, this holds up okay. A prophet prophesying the Messiah would be raised from the dead holds logic, even if one doesn’t believe in prophesy or resurrection. However, in his prophecy, David is not talking about the Messiah, he is talking about himself (“For you will not abandon my soul to Hades). Peter gets around this minor issue by saying that since David provably died, David could not be talking about himself. So David had to be talking about the Messiah.

I am not making this up! I can hear the cries of logicians throughout the centuries, their whimpers saying “There’s no logic here, none at all.” This speech does show one important fact, something that we must be certain to remember: Peter is not above distorting scripture to get his point across.
Chapter 3
I just noticed a slight bias in what I wrote in the previous chapter. I am assuming that Luke wrote everything that happened, and that included Peter’s logic bending, scripture twisting speeches. So I am attributing all of the things I like about Acts to Luke, and all of the things I don’t like to Peter. I know, that is definitely biased. I will try to be a bit more level-headed about this. The bias could be Luke’s own, and he could be quoting Peter out of context. (However, in my defense, Luke is quoting long swaths of Peter’s speech. And Peter’s topics don’t sound like anything out of Luke’s Gospel.)

This chapter starts out with one of those stories that Luke excels at telling. There’s a crippled man who sits outside the Beautiful Gate every day begging for food or money. Peter and John walked by the Beautiful Gate and the man stopped them. The man stops Peter and John and asks them to give him something. Peter says he does not have gold or silver with him, but will give the man something even more valuable. Peter grabbed the man by the hand and says “In the name of Jesus Christ.” The man is healed, of course.

Instead of saying thanks or telling everyone around him to look at him, the no-longer-crippled man starts walking, then running and jumping to the temple, praising God the whole way. People in the town who knew that the man was crippled stand in amazement. They ask how this was possible. Peter and John have an answer for them: Jesus.

But not in the way that you might imagine. Instead, this is about Jesus the servant.
“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—the God of our ancestors—has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you betrayed and rejected in the presence of Pilate, even though he had decided to let him go. [..] It is his name, that is, by the faith of his name, that has healed this man.”

Servant?

Peter kinda continues in this vein, talking about Jesus as a prophet. Which is interesting, only because of how he isn’t talking about Jesus. e.g. as the Messiah.

Chapter 4
The Sadducees make their return, showing that they are still in the mood to be pricks. Even though Jesus is dead, they are still raging against what he said and did, and they are infuriated that the apostles are continuing to teach as Jesus did – even if the disciples are starting to change the message. The Pharisees high priest Annas and underlings Caiaphas (who we’ve met before), John and Alexandar have Peter and John arrested, then interrogate them.

The Pharisees want to know how the disciples healed the crippled man. Peter goes all old-tyme preacher on them, saying that all of Israel must understand that it is in Jesus of Nazareth’s name that the man was healed. The Pharisees had no answer to this, especially since they saw Peter and John as uneducated morons. But the Pharisees couldn’t persecute them for being uneducated, so they are forced to let them go. First, though, they gave Peter and John a warning, that they would be arrested if Peter and John did not stop talking about Jesus.

There is one thing rather confusing in Acts, and it isn’t something that Luke did in his Gospel: we can’t tell for certain who is talking. In his Gospel, John gave pretty much all of his characters a name, and specifically told us who was speaking when there was dialogue. In Acts, Luke keeps saying that “Peter and John said..” I don’t know which of the two are doing all the talking. Does this mean that Luke isn’t sure who was delivering the speeches? Or that they took turns while delivering the speeches, like Peter saying one paragraph then turning it over to John to say the second? Confusing. I’m just going to assume that Peter did all the talking, and John was his wingman. Note that I have no basis for this assumption.

Peter takes umbrage at the veiled threat, and delivers an excellent zinger: “You must decide whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God…” There’s no better way to insult a supposed man of god than that!

Of course, that royally ticked of the Pharisees and Sadducees. But they could still find no reason to arrest the disciples. Peter and John return to where the rest of the disciples are staying, and proceed to give a group choir version of Psalms 2:1. Peter pays just a touch of revising history, saying that Herod and Pilate met against Jesus. Astute readers will remember that Herod and Pilate did their best to release Jesus, but in the end were forced to turn Jesus over for crucifixion.

Up next: Everyone goes a little nutso

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Monday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.