Freedom Offered

 

Acts 16:16-34 is the First Reading for the 7th Sunday of Easter in the Year of Luke.  It is a story about freedom aptly positioned near the celebration of Memorial Day in the U.S.  A number of people are freed: a slave girl, the apostles, and, through faith and baptism, the jailer.  It will be the preacher's task to preach this freedom to all who listen.

(The following questions are fashioned to help the exegete understand the function of the Word in the text, a fundamental concern of Law and Gospel preachers.  These questions are not meant to be exhaustive, but are best used in conjunction with other fine sets of exegetical questions.  For more on this method and on Law and Gospel preaching in general, see my brief guide, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  The Word announces freedom throughout the story.  In verse 18, the spirit of divination is ordered to come out of the girl, and does.  In verse 26 we have God, through natural causes, freeing the apostles from their chains, and in verse 31 Paul announces to the jailer what he must do to be freed from sin and judgment.  These are all Gospel functions.  The Word also lifts up the attitudes and practices of the owners of the slave girl.  Their vile comments before the magistrates and the punishments that follow for the apostles are all evidence of the world's need for a Savior.  This is the Word functioning as Law.

2.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  It is always advisable to identify with those to whom the Word is addressed, so in this case we identify primarily with those who are freed.  We can choose if that is the slave girl, the apostles, or the jailer, or perhaps all three.

3.  What, if any, call to obedience is there in this text?  The call to obedience is the Word functioning to invite us to live in response to God's work.  There is nothing explicit here, but we might note the example of the jailer who, after hearing God's word, binds up the wounds of the apostles and sets before them food and hospitality.  Faith produces gratitude and generosity.

4.  What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text?  Using the terms in the text we can imagine several couplets:  bound/freed; slaves/free; condemned/forgiven.

5.  Exegetical work:  In one of the ironies of this text on freedom, the apostles are named by the slave girl as "slaves of the Most High God who proclaim to you a way of salvation."  As it turns out being slaves of the Most High is another definition of being free.  We see this in the reaction the apostles have to the earthquake which breaks their chains.  Even though they have been unjustly accused, spoken of in vile terms, beaten brutally, and cast into a jail cell, it is they who are singing hymns and making prayers to God in the night.  It is they who, though free to do so, refuse to slay their jailer in his sleep, or even run away when the opportunity presents itself.  The ones who purport to be free - the slave owners, the magistrates, and the jailer - are the ones in bondage to greed, power, and fear, in that order.  As William Willimon states so well in his commentary, "At Philippi it was demonstrated that there is freedom and then there is freedom."  (Interpretation series, Acts, p. 141).

6.  How does the Crossings Community model work with this text?  In his recent analysis, Jonas Ellison, allegorizes the jailer as one who is in bondage to the Law.  His predicament is the futility of salvation through the Law.  What Christ offers, according Ellison's analysis, is "unfettered freedom."  Go to crossings.org/text-study for the entire analysis.

Blessings on your proclamation!

An Unlikely Convert?

 

Now in the 6th Sunday of Easter, we continue in the Book of Acts, chapter 16:9-15, to hear about God's amazing work in the first days of the Church. This text, the First Reading appointed for this Sunday in the Year of Luke, is another story of one household that, like Cornelius' household (Ch. 10) will affect the way the Church goes forward.  Is this a working out of Galatians 3:28?  (No longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female).  It will be the preacher's task to speak to what God is up to here.

(The following questions are not meant to be exhaustive, but are best used in conjunction with other sets of questions that have other concerns.  These questions have been developed to unearth the function of the Word in the text, a fundamental concern of Law and Gospel preachers.  For more on this method and Law and Gospel preaching in general, see my brief guide, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  The Word is speaking first through the vision that comes to the evangelists, and then it comes to Lydia, about whom the writer says "the Lord opened her heart."  This is all a gospel function as God is at work calling and redeeming.

2.  How is the Word not functioning in the text?  There is no word of Law here, no place where the Word functions to expose our need for Christ.

3.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  We most often will identify with those to whom the Word comes.  In this case, then, those would be the evangelists and Lydia.  We could choose to identify with those called by God to answer  the call "Help us!" or we could choose to identify with Lydia, whose heart was opened by the Spirit to hear the good news.

4.  What, if any call to obedience is there in this text?  There is not an explicit call to obedience here, but a very good example is put before us.  As soon as Lydia and her household are baptized her hospitality knows no bounds.  This is an example of living in response to God's grace, which is what a call to obedience calls us to.

5.  What Law/Gospel couplet  is suggested by this text? Since there is no word of Law here, we will need to manufacture a few couplets.  Some suggestions:  closed heart/opened heart; judged unfaithful/judged faithful.

6.  Exegetical work:  Narrative exegetes are always keen to notice when the action deliberately slows down in the telling of a story, and we are invited to pay attention to a particular situation or person.  This is what we have here.  The story is tripping along with the report of smooth sailing from Troas to Samothrace, and then from there to Neapolis and Philippi.  Suddenly in verse 16, the action stops and the camera focuses on "a certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God...from city of Thyatira, a seller of purple cloth."  In this single sentence we learn the name of a woman who is not native to Philippi and apparently has moved to Philippi to sell her purple cloth.  She is a businesswoman.  Then the story goes on to say that God has been at work to open her up to hear the Gospel, which she does, and is subsequently baptized with all her household.  William Willimon, in his commentary, points out that Lydia's conversion is interesting for a number of reasons.  First, the writer is keen to attribute her conversion to "the work of God."  Second, she is a woman, and third, she is a rich woman.  (Interpretation series, Acts, p. 136-137).  One can't help but wonder if this story isn't a living out of Paul's ancient creed in Galatians 3:28:  "There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male and female."  Lydia's conversion breaks several of the power boundaries.  She is not a Jew, she is not a man, and she is not poor.  She is a rich Gentile woman.  Surprising?  No more than some of the other converts in the Book of Acts.  (e.g. the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius the Roman centurion).  

7.  Consider the insights of the pioneers of the New Homiletic?  Henry Mitchell always urged the preacher to celebrate with gusto at some point in the sermon.  In light of God's work in Macedonia, and specifically in Lydia and her household, why not celebrate God's grace which comes to the most unlikely souls.

Blessings on your proclamation!

When God's Work is a Problem for Us

 

Acts 11:1-18 is the First Reading appointed for the Fifth Sunday of Easter in the Year of Luke.  It is the apostle Peter's retelling of his encounter with Cornelius, the Roman centurion, who was visited by an angel who instructed him to send for Peter and hear a word from him.  It is striking how the narrative makes clear that the events described herein are God's work, not the work of either Peter or Cornelius.  It will be the task of the preacher to announce this powerful work to God's people.

(The following questions have been developed to lift up the function of the Word in the text, a primary concern of Law and Gospel preachers.  The way the Word functions informs us as to how the sermon will function, thus its essential role.  For more on this method and on Law and Gospel preaching in general, see my brief guide, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  The Word is functioning primarily as Gospel, showing God's determination to bring the good news to all people.  In Peter's retelling, it is the Spirit, the Lord, and God who are the subject of the verbs.

2.  How is the Word not functioning in the text?  The Law is little present here, calling us to repentance.  The only hint of Law is in the opening verses when the circumcision party calls into question Peter's willingness to enter into the house of and eat with Gentiles.

3.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  The Word is being spoken to the circumcision party, those who are resistant to this new state of affairs, so it will be important for us to identify with them and ask ourselves, "When have I resisted God's embrace of others?"

4.  What, if any, call to obedience is there in this text?  This text could primarily be heard as an implicit  call to obedience, the call being, "What God has made clean, you must not call profane."  In other words, our response to God's generous grace to us, is a generous grace towards those who differ from us.

5.  What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text?  Using some of the terms in the text, we might construct a number of couplets.  A few ideas:  unclean/clean; rejected/embraced; judged lacking/accepted completely.

6.  Exegetical work:  Kittel has an important insight into the word translated "accepted" in verse 1.  The word is dexomai.  "The use of dexomai in this connexion - it is an equivalent of faith - shows us that in the total NT view man's existence over against God is limited to the reception of His gift.  It has no immanent possibilities.  In hearing this message, however, man is liberated for decision in relation to it... The divine claim of the Gospel sets man in the freedom of decision. This is the theological significance of the term dexomai." (Theological Dictionary of the NT, vol. II, p. 54).  What this points out is that even what is initially reported in verse one, that "the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God," is God's work.  Their faith, their acceptance, their welcome of God's word to them, was the Word doing it's work in them. That means that what has scandalized the circumcision party is God's work.  Isn't that often the case?  Our resistance to reach out to others or to allow them a place and a role in the Church is often justified using the Bible, when God is the one going ahead of us doing this outreach!  We can see this played out again and again in the disputes over the roles of all sorts of folks in our churches.

7.  How does the Crossings Community model work with this text?  Mark Marius does an excellent job of showing how our insistence on "law-abiding believers" only insures our own condemnation.  Thankfully, Christ has other ideas and sends the Holy Spirit to call us to God.  See this entire analysis at crossings.org/text-study.

Blessings on your proclamation!