Dr. Keith Essex · The Master's Seminary · 88 minutes
Lecture by Dr. Keith Essex, from The Master's Seminary's public channel. Study notes below from Medina Community Church.
This lecture takes up the places in Acts where interpreters divide. Dr. Essex works through the two passages liberals call historical blunders, the century-long debate over the speeches, and three questions evangelicals wrestle with among themselves: Joel at Pentecost, baptized for forgiveness, and the tabernacle of David. He closes with a caution about preaching Acts and opens the door to the Gospel of John. Listen for how often the answer turns on reading the grammar and the context more carefully than the critics do.
The major interpretive issue of the last century and more is the factuality of the history Acts records. Luke's purpose statement leaves no doubt that he saw himself as consciously writing accurate history, investigated from the beginning so that Theophilus might have certainty, and even most liberal commentators grant his sincerity. But the moderate critical approach still treats Luke as guilty until proved innocent, checking each claim against extra-biblical sources, though Fitzmyer concedes that where Luke can be checked he proves accurate. The evangelical approach is the reverse: Luke is to be accepted as accurate, and if extra-biblical information seems to contradict him, perhaps it is the extra-biblical information that should be questioned.
The first alleged blunder sits in Gamaliel's speech to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5. Josephus places a revolutionary named Theudas in the AD 40s, a decade after Gamaliel spoke, and puts Judas of Galilee at the census of AD 6, yet Gamaliel names Theudas first and says Judas rose up after this man. Critics conclude Luke invented the speech and bungled the dating. But there are options: this may be a different Theudas from an earlier generation, revolutionaries were plentiful, or Josephus himself may be wrong, for he is not always accurate either. Essex asks why critics are always so quick to assume Josephus is right and Luke is wrong. His own explanation: Gamaliel said it, Luke recorded it accurately, and a Theudas of the generation before Gamaliel did precede Judas of Galilee.
The second alleged blunder is Stephen's statement in Acts 7:16 that the sons of Jacob were carried to Shechem and laid in the tomb Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor. The Old Testament records no such purchase by Abraham; Joshua 24 says Jacob bought ground at Shechem, and the cave Abraham bought in Genesis 23 lies at Hebron, the wrong place with the wrong people buried in it. So this is a separate transaction not recorded in the Old Testament, plausibly preserved in tradition, for Abraham had built an altar at Shechem and may well have purchased there. The context settles the larger question: Stephen is introduced as full of grace, power, and the Spirit, his opponents unable to withstand his wisdom, and the Sanhedrin's fury at the end of the speech is over his indictment of them, not over any historical mistake.
Speeches make up roughly a third of Acts; the book has been described as speeches linked by narrative. Since Thucydides, historians have debated whether ancient writers reproduced what was said or composed what should have been said. Three positions result: the speeches are exact reproductions of the words spoken; they are accurate summaries, as Marshall and Stott hold and Bruce assumes, the sense of an hour compressed into minutes; or they are inventions of the writer, as Barrett holds, so that Gamaliel and Stephen never said these things at all. Essex lands between the first two: accurate abridgements in which Luke summarizes yet uses the actual words spoken, which is why Paul sounds like Paul and Peter like Peter. Both of the first two positions are represented on the seminary faculty, and he would question no one's orthodoxy over them; the third is another matter, for it makes Luke the inventor of Scripture's record.
In Acts 2 Peter introduces a long quotation of Joel with the words, this is what was spoken of through the prophet. Three readings compete. Bruce and Stott take complete fulfillment, reading the wonders in the heavens as metaphor for the darkness at the crucifixion and the smoke of AD 70. The most popular view is partial fulfillment: the Spirit's outpouring fulfills the first verses, a gap intervenes before the cosmic signs, and Peter quotes the whole passage to reach the point of verse 21, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; Longenecker calls this pesher interpretation. The third position, held by MacArthur following Feinberg, and by Essex, is analogy: Pentecost is a pre-fulfillment, a taste of the Spirit poured out as Joel promised for the kingdom age, and Peter is saying that Joel prophesied something like this.
The analogy reading connects to a larger claim: the potential of the kingdom was renewed to that generation of Israel. In Acts 3 Peter calls the nation to repent so that times of refreshing may come and God may send the Christ appointed for them, the period of restoration of all things the prophets spoke. Acts 1 fits the same frame: asked whether he is now restoring the kingdom to Israel, Jesus does not correct the question but says it is not for them to know the times the Father has fixed. Only history would show whether that was the generation, and Acts 7 gives the answer: the Sanhedrin's verdict against Stephen and the scattering of the believers mark the cutting off, and the message moves outward to the Gentiles. The Bible Knowledge Commentary and Stanley Toussaint work this reading out through Acts 1 through 3.
Acts 2:38 raises the question of whether baptism is necessary for forgiveness. One position takes the preposition at face value: baptism unto forgiveness, a renewal of John's baptism for the Jews of that day. A second, from A. T. Robertson, reads the preposition as on the basis of, so that baptism follows a forgiveness already granted; nearly every grammarian since has judged this special pleading. Essex commends a third reading grounded in the grammar Peter actually used: repent is second person plural, be baptized is second person singular. The command to the whole crowd is repentance, and each individual shows that repentance by baptism. Forgiveness rests on repentance, which Acts 3:19 confirms by promising sins wiped away through repentance with no mention of baptism at all. Baptism is the visible picture of repentance, not the ground of forgiveness, and baptismal regeneration finds no footing here.
At the Jerusalem Council James declares that Gentile salvation agrees with the words of the prophets and quotes Amos: after these things I will return and rebuild the fallen tabernacle of David, that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. Covenant theologians call this the clearest New Testament statement that the church is the new Israel, the tent of David now rebuilt. A second view reads the verses as chronological steps, but the quotation's own sequence resists it. The third view, held by MacArthur and Essex, is that James claims harmony, not fulfillment: Gentiles are being saved as Gentiles today, just as the prophets said they will be in the future kingdom, so they need not become Jews in either age. The whole debate narrows to one verb: does agree mean these words are fulfilled, or that present experience harmonizes with what the prophets foresaw? The Greek word behind it is the root of our word symphony.
Essex closes Acts with a warning: do not make Acts prescriptive. Evangelicals rightly tell charismatics that the tongues of Acts describe what happened rather than setting a paradigm for every believer, then turn around and draw missionary strategy, evangelistic method, or church practice from the same narratives. The believers at Troas met in the evening of the first day because they were slaves with no day off; Jerusalem believers met daily and also worshiped at the temple. None of that is commanded. The purpose statement governs the use: Luke wrote so Theophilus would know the certainty of what he had been taught, the same truths now reflected in the epistles. Start with the epistles for what is prescribed, then return to Acts to see an example of how the early church practiced it. You cannot pick and choose your paradigms and still answer the charismatic.
John does not read like the other gospels, and readers have always felt it. Westcott counted the words and concluded that 92 percent of John appears nowhere in the first three gospels, most of the shared material lying in the passion and resurrection accounts. Clement of Alexandria called John the spiritual gospel, and the church has treasured it as the place where the inner life of the incarnate Son is displayed: the other gospels say that Jesus prayed, John gives the prayer of John 17; the others recount the miracles, John unfolds their significance as signs that manifest his glory and lead to faith.
The title according to John was universally understood from the second century to mean John the apostle; strikingly, in the early church it was the heretics who denied it and the orthodox who defended it. Within the book the author names himself only as the disciple Jesus loved, and John 21 states plainly that this disciple wrote these things. The gospel lets the reader identify him by elimination: he was at the table in the upper room, was given the care of Jesus's mother at the cross, ran to the empty tomb, and fished with the seven in chapter 21, where he is not Peter, Thomas, or Nathanael. That leaves the sons of Zebedee, and since James was executed within a decade of the resurrection while the rumor spread that this disciple would not die until the Lord returned, the beloved disciple is John, who long outlived his brother.
John states his purpose outright: these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. The imagery presumes readers steeped in the Old Testament: the good shepherd discourse of John 10 makes full sense only against Ezekiel 34, where the Lord himself promises to shepherd his people in place of the false shepherds. The intended readers are best seen as unbelieving Jews and God-fearers who knew the Scriptures. The traditional setting fits the aim: written around AD 90 from John's ministry at Ephesus, after Jerusalem's destruction had thrown Israel's hopes into open debate, a singularly opportune hour to press the claim that Jesus is the true Messiah.
Each opens the chapter in your ESV app or on esv.org.
Tap an answer. A wrong guess points you back to the outline; when all eighteen are right, the lecture is marked complete on this device.
1. How does the moderate critical approach treat the history recorded in Acts?
2. What does even Fitzmyer concede about Luke's record?
3. What is Essex's explanation of Theudas in Gamaliel's speech?
4. Why can Acts 7:16 not refer to the purchase recorded in Genesis 23?
5. What does the Sanhedrin's reaction at the end of Stephen's speech show?
6. Roughly how much of Acts is made up of speeches?
7. Where does Essex land on the nature of the speeches?
8. Which position on the speeches would Essex call a question of orthodoxy?
9. What is the most popular evangelical reading of Peter's use of Joel?
10. What is the analogy position that Essex holds on Pentecost?
11. How does Acts 7 answer the question of whether that generation would receive the kingdom?
12. What grammatical observation grounds Essex's reading of Acts 2:38?
13. How does Acts 3:19 confirm that forgiveness rests on repentance?
14. What single verb does the debate over James's use of Amos come down to?
15. What is Essex's warning about preaching Acts?
16. What did Westcott's count of the words of John show?
17. How does the gospel itself identify the beloved disciple as John?
18. Why was AD 90 an opportune hour for John's gospel?
All eighteen correct. Lecture 12 is complete.
Essex asks why critics are so quick to assume Josephus is right and Luke is wrong. What does that question reveal about the assumptions a reader brings to Scripture, and what would it look like to reverse them honestly rather than naively?
The debate over Acts 2:38 turns on grammar that most listeners would never notice. What does this lecture suggest about the value of careful, even technical, reading for questions as weighty as what forgiveness rests on?
Essex warns that you cannot make Acts a paradigm for church practice and still answer the charismatic who does the same with tongues. Where might our own church habits rest on description rather than prescription, and does that matter?
John states the purpose of his gospel plainly: these things were written so that readers would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing they would have life in his name. (A paraphrase of John 20:31)
For the reading of Acts 1 through 3 as a renewed offer of the kingdom to that generation of Israel, Dr. Essex points students to Stanley Toussaint's treatment of Acts in the Bible Knowledge Commentary.