People of the Spirit : Exploring Luke's View of the Church

by Twelftree, Graham H.

• ISBN13: 9780801038808
• ISBN10: 0801038804
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Baker Pub Group

Summary

"A fresh and refreshing look at Luke's understanding of the church. The book should certainly promote some lively discussion as to the present-day churches' praxis, priorities, and structures of authority." James D. G. Dunn, University of DurhamToday's church suffers a crisis of confidence as a result of pluralism, globalism, and postmodernity. Seasoned New Testament scholar Graham Twelftree's historical exploration of Luke's view of the church contributes to the current conversation about what the church is and should do. Twelftree draws together various strands in Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles to show Luke's profound influence on the church and explain Luke's thought regarding the church's origin, nature, purpose, and mission. A final chapter proposes Lukan conclusions to such debated questions as the relationship between church and salvation; the relationship between the Spirit, water baptism, and glossolalia in Christian initiation; the question of infant baptism; the character of worship; the interplay of Scripture and experience; church structure and leadership; and the nature of Christian mission.

Author Biography

Graham H. Twelftree (PhD, University of Nottingham) is distinguished professor of New Testament at the Regent University School of Divinity. In addition to many scholarly articles and reviews, he is the author of a number of books, including In the Name of Jesus, Jesus the Exorcist, and Jesus the Miracle Worker.

Table of Contents

About the author	p. x
Preface	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xiii
The issues	p. 1
Back to the Bible?	p. 2
Why Luke?	p. 4
Luke?	p. 5
Who?	p. 6
When and where?	p. 7
What?	p. 7
Why?	p. 8
The readers?	p. 10
Which Church?	p. 11
'Church'	p. 11
The issues	p. 12
Our goal	p. 14
Origins and purpose	p. 15
Between Easter and Pentecost	p. 15
The apostles	p. 17
Apostles and die nature of the Church	p. 18
Apostles and the origin of the Church	p. 21
Apostles and the purpose of the Church	p. 22
The apostles (the Church) in the Gospel	p. 22
The Church (the apostles) in Acts	p. 23
Extending the apostolate	p. 25
Conclusions	p. 28
Jesus: the Church modelled	p. 30
Jesus paralleled	p. 30
The Holy Spirit	p. 31
Teaching and preaching the good news	p. 32
Healing and exorcizing	p. 33
Parallels in prayer	p. 33
Parallel qualities	p. 34
Jesus, Stephen and Paul	p. 35
Conclusions	p. 36
The Church: Jesus modelled	p. 36
The Ascension story repeated	p. 36
The structure of Acts	p. 38
The invitation of the end of Acts	p. 41
Conclusions	p. 43
Salvation and the Church	p. 45
Salvation	p. 45
The scope of salvation	p. 45
The nature of salvation	p. 46
Salvation and the Church	p. 47
The Church dispenses salvation?	p. 49
Conclusion	p. 51
The Church as the people of God	p. 52
The Church and Judaism	p. 52
A synagogue?	p. 56
A sect?	p. 58
'The Way'	p. 59
Ekklesia	p. 61
A household	p. 63
In sum ...	p. 64
Luke's Pentecosts	p. 65
A Jerusalem Pentecost?	p. 65
Post-Easter experiences	p. 66
Luke's Pentecosts	p. 69
So far ...	p. 70
What happened?	p. 71
A communal vision	p. 71
The Holy Spirit filled all the followers of Jesus	p. 72
They 'began to speak in other tongues' - Acts 2:4	p. 73
In summary, and beyond	p. 74
The significance of Pentecost	p. 74
The birth of the Church	p. 75
The coming of the Spirit is an eschatological event	p. 75
The implications of the coming of the Spirit	p. 79
A new era and relationship with God is inaugurated	p. 79
The disciples are transformed	p. 80
The followers of Jesus receive power	p. 81
The Spirit was given for mission	p. 82
Conclusion	p. 83
The Spirit, tongues and baptism	p. 84
Pentecost: the mark of Spirit baptism - Acts 1:5	p. 84
Pentecost: Spirit baptism and tongues -Acts 2:4	p. 85
Pentecost: a programmatic statement? - Acts 2:38, 41	p. 85
Samaritans: baptism and belief-Acts 8:12, 14-16	p. 87
The Ethiopian: water baptism as response -Acts 8:36, 38	p. 88
Paul: Spirit-filled, then baptized - Acts 9:17-18	p. 89
Cornelius: belief, the Spirit, then water baptism - Acts 10:44-48	p. 90
Lydia: faith, then baptism as communal acceptance - Acts 16:14-15	p. 91
The Philippian gaoler: belief, then water baptism - Acts 16:30-33	p. 92
Crispus: belief, then water baptism - Acts 18:8	p. 92
The Ephesians: John's baptism, belief, water baptism, then the Spirit - Acts 19:1-7	p. 93
Paul: water baptism, forgiveness and faith - Acts 22:13-14, 16	p. 94
Discussion and conclusions	p. 95
Baptism in the Spirit	p. 95
Aspects of initiation	p. 96
Tongues as initial evidence?	p. 98
The Spirit and water baptism	p. 99
The necessity of water baptism	p. 99
Infant baptism?	p. 100
So far ...	p. 100
Problems in the early Church	p. 101
Persecution	p. 101
Persecution and suffering are part of God's order for his messengers	p. 102
The encouragement and example of Jesus	p. 103
Suffering and success	p. 105
Prayer	p. 106
God is tangibly present	p. 107
The Church is to be characterized by joy	p. 108
The imperative of community	p. 110
The Church: Jews or Gentiles or both?	p. 110
Rich and poor, high and low	p. 112
The foolishness of wealth	p. 114
The blessing of poverty	p. 114
The cost of wealth	p. 115
Hospitality	p. 115
The damage of dishonesty and selfishness	p. 117
A further breach of community: Hebrews and Hellenists	p. 117
Women	p. 119
Conclusion	p. 123
Worship	p. 124
The temple	p. 124
Maintaining Jewish ways of worship -Acts 1:12-14	p. 126
Prayer and community meetings -Acts 1:15-26	p. 127
Pentecost - Acts 2:1-4	p. 128
A summary of activity - Acts 2:42	p. 128
A summary -Acts 2:43-47	p. 132
A prayer meeting -Acts 4:23-31	p. 133
Outside Jerusalem	p. 133
A leaders' meeting? - Acts 13:1-3	p. 135
Sunday worship? -Acts 20:7-13	p. 137
	p. 138
Scripture and knowing God	p. 140
Luke and Scripture	p. 140
Old Testament quotations	p. 141
Acts 1:16-20	p. 142
Acts 2:17-35	p. 142
Acts 3:13-25	p. 143
Acts 4:11	p. 143
Acts 4:24-26	p. 144
Acts 7:2-53	p. 144
Acts 8:32-33	p. 145
Acts 13:16-52	p. 146
Acts 15:13-21	p. 147
Acts 23:5	p. 148
Acts 28:26-27	p. 149
Discussion and conclusions	p. 149
Experience and knowing God	p. 153
Jesus and guidance	p. 153
Ongoing experience of the numinous	p. 155
Inspire eloquence	p. 155
Dreams and visions	p. 155
Prophecy	p. 157
The guidance of prophecy	p. 158
Testing prophecy	p. 159
The divine and the human	p. 160
Conclusions	p. 163
Early catholic, Protestant or charismatic?	p. 164
Luke's models of ministry	p. 165
Jesus and his followers	p. 166
Ministry at Jerusalem	p. 167
Ministry at Antioch	p. 169
The Ephesian ministry	p. 171
Qualifications and tasks for key figures	p. 172
Conclusions	p. 175
Mission: evangelism or social action or both?	p. 177
Eschatology and mission	p. 178
Failure in mission	p. 180
Evangelism or social action or both?	p. 181
A mission of freedom from sin and the demonic - Luke 4:16-30	p. 182
The Magnificat - Luke l:46b-56	p. 187
The Beatitudes - Luke 6:20-26	p. 187
The ethical material	p. 188
The nature of Jesus' ministry	p. 192
Mission and social action in Acts	p. 194
So far ...	p. 196
The mission	p. 197
Mission as witness	p. 197
Message	p. 198
God's tangible presence	p. 200
The character of the community	p. 202
Conclusions	p. 202
Listening to Luke	p. 204
Christo-centric not pneuma-centric	p. 205
The purpose of the Church	p. 207
People of the Spirit	p. 207
Joining the people of God	p. 208
Facing problems and persecution	p. 210
Luke on worship	p. 210
Scripture and experience	p. 211
Church structures and leadership	p. 213
Mission	p. 214
Luke's voice	p. 216
Bibliography	p. 218
Index of ancient and biblical texts	p. 243
Index of subjects	p. 264
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.