231. Interview with Rev. Dr. Steve Walton on the book of Acts

[00:00:08] Hi friends, welcome to another episode of Making Disciples. My name is Cris and I am your host. It's lovely to be with you again this week on this Discipleship podcast. Now, this week is going to be another interview. I've got a couple of interviews for you this term as we start. I want to take you back to 1999-2000, just finishing my middle way through, I guess, of my degree in theology.

[00:00:31] Getting really excited about studying theology, understanding the Bible, context, how it was crafted, put together, why it was translated the way it was translated. Loving all that stuff. To do some of that kind of in-depth theological work, you use something called a commentary. It's a book that helps you explore the Bible and in that book, a good commentary will be really, really dense in walking through word choices, sentence structure,

[00:00:59] that really you can go into that kind of minutia, that tiny detail on each verse that you find in the Bible. And it's interesting because you can find a word, it's translated in English this way, but also it can be translated in all these ways. So these are called commentaries. There are less academic ones and there are more academic ones. One of the academic ones is called the word biblical commentary. I was collecting the word biblical commentaries. And, you know, part of it, you know, you want to be a completist, don't you?

[00:01:26] But one of the things that I realized back in 2000 was they'd never written a word biblical commentary on the book of Acts. And I wanted to get that commentary. And over the years, there has been rumors that it was coming or it was happening and it never did.

[00:01:49] Well, Steve Walton has written the first part of the book of Acts, chapters one to nine, word biblical commentaries. The idea is he's written a commentary and this commentary is going to be three editions, three pieces, part one, part two, part three, as he walks through. So he's explored the first nine chapters of the book of Acts. So it's literally on the first nine chapters and he's written it.

[00:02:14] It's published, it's just come out and I was really excited because I studied at Trinity College Bristol. Well, Steve wasn't in Bristol when I studied there, but he now is one of the lecturers at Trinity College in Bristol, the seminary that I trained at. When I realized the college I had trained at, the professor there had now written the commentary. I was like, I have to speak to this guy. So I emailed Steve and just said, hi, let's chat.

[00:02:42] I'd love to interview you about your word biblical commentary that you've written about the book of Acts. So that's what we've done. So here we've got an interview with Steve Walton on the book of Acts and asked him a whole string of different things on the book of Acts. Now, in some ways, this is not going to be one of those episodes that is deeply inspiring in the sense of obvious.

[00:03:05] But I'm really hoping that as you hear him talk about the book of Acts, the culture, the context, you will be inspired. So it's definitely a head episode, but it's also a heart episode. When we do good theology, it should inspire our hearts. So that's what's happening in this episode. So I hope you find it really, really interesting hearing what he has to say. Would I say the word biblical commentary is for everybody that listens to this podcast to go and buy one?

[00:03:36] No, definitely not. Some of you may, though, like to go and read some of the other stuff that Steve has written. But you might also want to get a copy because you might want to see some of the things that we've been talking about in this episode. Now, it's not cheap. Somewhere between £14 or £50 just for that particular piece of the book. So, friends, do join me as I spend some time interviewing Steve Walton, exploring the word biblical commentary on the book of Acts.

[00:04:15] Steve, welcome to Making Disciples. This is a real honour and privilege to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being with me today. Thanks. It's lovely to be here. So you have written the book, a part of the book, because there's going to be two more parts. You've written the book I've been waiting for for 25 years, and that is no joke. And it was on my list of things to buy back in 2000 when I was leaving Trinity College Bristol.

[00:04:43] The book of Acts, the word biblical commentary, it was there. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting, and you've written it, and it's just come out. I'd love to ask you this question as I start. You've written this book on the book of Acts. What surprised you? You know, what for you as a learner, not just as a writer, what surprised you by what you found in the book? I think the major discovery is the way that God is the driver of the whole narrative.

[00:05:15] I'm used to reading books on Acts, and they tend to focus on the human characters. So they look at the role of Peter or the role of Paul in the story, and they're the two major human characters. But in place after place after place, things happen because God does something. Yeah.

[00:05:36] So the opportunity to engage with the Jewish council in Acts 4 happens because God heals this man at the beautiful gate who's had a congenital disability for 40 years, which has meant he can't walk. And through Peter and John, God heals him. And that then opens up the opportunity to speak.

[00:06:02] Similarly, when Peter starts engaging with people who are not Jewish or Gentile, the way that happens is by divine appointment. God sends an angel who visits Cornelius through the centurion when he's praying. God sends a bizarre vision to Peter in Acts 10, where he sees this huge sheet let down from heaven with all kinds of animals on it.

[00:06:32] And he hears a voice saying, kill and eat. And he knows he can't because some of these animals are unclean by Jewish law. And this happens three times and he just doesn't get it until there's a knocking at the door. And the spirit then says to him, Peter, there are three guys downstairs. Invite them in. And so he does invite in these messengers from Cornelius.

[00:07:02] And they tell him the story of what's happened with Cornelius. And Peter says, oh, well, I'd better go meet this Cornelius guy. And they go off the next day. And when Peter meets Cornelius, Cornelius falls down and worships him. And Peter says, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't worship me. I'm not God. And then Cornelius tells the story. And Peter says, do you know, I get it. I get it.

[00:07:32] God has shown me that nobody's unclean. And then he speaks the gospel. And God, he doesn't get to make his appeal at the end of the speech because God pulls the spirit out on these people. So it's all, it's divine action that's driving the mission at those points. Remarkably so.

[00:07:52] Whereas a ton of books on Acts will use Acts wrongly, I think, to say, here's a strategy for church planting or evangelism. And let's model, let's copy the model that's there. And I don't think it's about that at all. I think it's about the story of how God changed a group of people who followed a Jewish prophet

[00:08:20] and embraced people from all the nations of the earth to worship him as God. Yeah. So it's very much God instigated, isn't it? Yeah. When you see it, God is the instigator of the story. It's like God is opening a door. Here's another door that I'm going to open. Here's another door that I'm going to open. And all the way through, you get this pacey narrative of God doing something else and then God's doing something else.

[00:08:46] And you can almost not keep up with it when you're reading the book of Acts because every few paragraphs, there's another account of another something happening. It's quite fast paced, isn't it? Yes, it is. And it's interesting because there are two stories that Luke tells three times. So he's slowing up the narrative to say to you, these stories are really, really important. One is Peter's encounter with Cornelius.

[00:09:15] It's told in chapter 10 from the narrator's perspective. It's told in chapter 11 from Peter's perspective when he goes back to Jerusalem and he's criticised for eating with Gentiles. And then it's told very briefly in chapter 15 where Peter says, you remember that I was the one God chose to take the gospel to the Gentiles in the council in Jerusalem.

[00:09:42] So it's in Peter's voice again. So it's just told three times over. So Luke clearly thinks this is a very, very important event. The other event, of course, is Saul's encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, which you get from the narrator's perspective in chapter 9, then from Paul's own perspective in chapter 2 and chapter 26.

[00:10:07] 22, he's standing in front of a mob in the Jewish temple who want to kill him. 26, he's standing in a Roman court. So the way he tells the story in those two situations differs. For instance, in the temple, he tells them about Ananias, the godly Jewish believer to whom Jesus appears in a vision and sends to Paul to baptise him and to heal him.

[00:10:37] No mention of him at all in Acts 26 in the Roman court. Because in 22, he's trying to win over a Jewish audience. No such thing exists in chapter 26 because it's Roman audience. So the story is slanted to audience in the different places. But by telling us this story three times, Luke is saying, look, here's the major proponent of the Gentile mission.

[00:11:07] And let me tell you three times over that the exalted Jesus called him to do this. Could I ask, what would you say the book of Acts is? Is it history? Is it a telling of history? You know, some people would describe it as rhetorical. That it's actually trying to get the church to think about themselves and their mission. You know, what would you say the book of Acts is?

[00:11:38] It's a mixture. I'm sceptical of the idea that a book has one purpose. I never write a book with one purpose. And I don't think ancient people did either. It's modelling what the Christian life and the Christian faith and the Christian community are to be like. And there are lessons to draw from that.

[00:12:04] It's showing how God got the church going from its very, very beginnings. It's a small Jewish sect until it became an international community. It's telling you the gospel message. Because it comes repeatedly. It's there in Acts 2 in the Pentecost speech. It's there in Acts 3 in the speech to the council.

[00:12:33] It's there in Acts 7 in Stephen's long speech. It's there in Acts 10 when Peter speaks to Cornelius' household. It's there in Acts 13 where Paul speaks to the synagogue in Antioch. It's there in chapter 17 where Paul speaks to the pagan audience in Athens. So Luke is repeatedly showing you the gospel. But he's showing you that it sounds different in different places.

[00:13:02] Core elements are shared. But there are features that are very different. There's no quotation of scripture in Athens. But scripture underpins just about every clause of every sentence of that speech. Whereas in Antioch and in Jerusalem, loads of scripture gets quoted to show you that Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture. He's Israel's Messiah.

[00:13:32] He's now Lord of all. So I think Acts is communicating at a number of levels. Now it's doing it through something that looks like ancient history writing. Although it's not typical ancient history writing. Because ancient history writing typically is about really significant people like emperors or generals.

[00:14:00] And it's about really significant events like battles or key senate debates or things like that. So it's not your typical ancient history that the Greeks and the Romans wrote. It's much more like biblical history in the Old Testament scriptures. That's really interesting. Can I take you, I'd love to just take you to Acts chapter 5. I'd love to get your take on this.

[00:14:29] I think one of, you know, so much of Acts is easy to preach on. Some of the conflicts between the disciples are interesting. But chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira, it's one of those passages that for many new Christians reading the book of Acts, you get to this point. You think this is all rosy. It's going really well. You know, they're eating together. They're selling their goods. They're eradicating poverty in Jerusalem. This is amazing.

[00:14:56] And then you get to chapter 5 and you find out that Ananias and then God smites them both. Do you have any answers for us or any ways of us approaching this that you think is really helpful? Because it can look quite negative and difficult. It doesn't paint God in a good picture, does it? Well, he's doing the kind of stuff he does elsewhere. I mean, when people say to me, oh, isn't the God of the Old Testament terrible because of the way he judges people? I say to them, have you read the Gospels?

[00:15:27] Because Jesus teaches really clearly about God's judgment. Now, this story is interesting. This is one of the classic cases where the chapter division is in the wrong place. Okay. Yeah. The 432 to 35 is a passage that summarizes the life of the early community. And particularly in 434 says that there's no person in need.

[00:15:54] And that's almost a verbatim quotation from Deuteronomy 15.4. But in Deuteronomy, it's about no person in Israel being in need because of the sabbatical system. That every seven years, the land took a rest, debts were forgiven, and so on. And then you get in 436 to 37, this little mini portrait of Barnabas.

[00:16:21] Barnabas is a Levite from Cyprus. He sells a piece of land, brings the money and puts it at the apostles' feet and it's distributed. So Barnabas is a model, a positive example of what 432 to 35 has been describing. 5.1 to 11 is a negative example. Oh, so one should feed into the other, a positive, negative. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. So here, what's going on?

[00:16:50] It's not that Ananias and Sapphira have held back the money, some of the money they got for selling their property. It's that they've lied about it. So Peter says to them, the property was yours before you sold it. The money was yours afterwards. It was up to you what you did with it. You've not lied to us, but to the Holy Spirit. And that's the point where Ananias falls dead.

[00:17:20] And that's very common in ancient writing, that we don't get to kind of dig inside characters and find out what's going on. Maybe you had a heart attack. But this story is also part of cosmic conflict. Why has Satan caused you to lie, says Peter?

[00:17:48] And these human actions are greater powers at work. Satan is the arch deceiver. He's the tester of God and his people. And the Holy Spirit, by contrast, brings the truth to light. So what Ananias and Sapphira have done is participated in Satan's work. That's why it's so serious.

[00:18:12] They've brought Satan into one of the holiest parts of the community. It's sharing of possessions with each other. And they encounter God's judgment as a result. There's a guy called McCabe who's written a book called How to Kill People with Words, which is about this passage. And he says this.

[00:18:40] He says, Ananias and Sapphira were pretending to act as insiders. To expose them as dangerous, satanic outsiders. And I think he's right about that. So Luke, in this story, is educating his readers about the nature of the community that they belong to. And saying, look, you have a choice.

[00:19:06] You live in the holy way the community calls you to live. Or God will judge you. Now, that's incredibly sobering. But it's really significant. I think Luke, as a result, invites his readers, hearers, because, of course, the first people would hear the book read aloud, to examine themselves in terms of their attitude to possessions.

[00:19:33] And in his gospel, Luke has given us a ton of material about how you handle possessions. The way you handle money and possessions in Luke's gospel is an index of your spirituality. It's an index of how genuine you are as a follower of Jesus. And the other thing this story is there to do, I think, is to encourage openness to God and brothers and sisters.

[00:20:02] To keep living out God's generous love by sharing what they have. I preached on 2 Corinthians 9, 6 to 15 last night at our church, which is the last part of 2 Corinthians 8 to 9. About giving, where Paul's calling the Corinthians to contribute to the collection for the poor church in Jerusalem.

[00:20:29] And what's striking there is that Paul doesn't motivate them by guilt. In fact, he says they mustn't be motivated by guilt. He says, God gives you. Chapter 8, verse 9. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because he was rich, he became poor for your sake. So that through his poverty, you might become rich. God has enriched you in every way, he says in verse 13 of chapter 9.

[00:20:58] In order that you can give to us. So the things God gives to his people, he gives them to share, not to hoard. And that's a key lesson of this story. And of the Barnabas story before, and of the general immediately before that. So read those three stories together.

[00:21:23] And you get both a positive message and a really serious warning, I think. I love what you were just saying. And I think, I don't think it's incidental that this story appears in chapter 5. Because it's almost setting up expectation, isn't it? And in many ways, it's setting up the behavior of what God is expecting of his people. And then as you see the life of Peter and the life of Paul going forwards,

[00:21:50] you actually see these are people who are genuinely living in a sacrificial way. So it's almost like the story is setting up the story, isn't it? God's expectations. Yes. Yes. It's noticeable to the Ephesian elders in chapter 20, in verses 33 to 35, when he's teaching them about how to be a Christian leader. One of his key things, he says, look at my example. These hands, he says, are provided.

[00:22:22] In other words, Paul has been working with his hands to provide for his colleagues who travel with him, because he always takes a team around with him. And we know from a scene when they're in Corinth that that happens through him being a skenopoios, is the Greek word. It's usually translated something like tent maker. It may mean something about dealing with cloth or leather,

[00:22:52] which was what solid tents were made of in those days. That sort of thing shows you, Paul, being willing to do that. So in first verse 2, he talks about working night and day so that you support me. He's somebody who really does walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

[00:23:21] And the same is true with Peter, because Peter, when he travels, just depends on others' hospitality. Can I ask you about a criticism that some scholars have made towards the Book of Acts? Some have said that the Book of Acts is meant to be an idealized version of the early church. This is what he was meant to be like, and this is what we're meant to do.

[00:23:45] Do you think the Book of Acts is setting up what the church should look like and how we should behave? Or do you think he's just telling us the story of what happened? A bit of both. There are clear conflicts in the Book of Acts. This is one of them. In chapter 6, there's conflict over the care for Hellenistic, Greek-speaking widows.

[00:24:08] In chapter 15, there's a major conflict over the terms on which Gentiles can become members of the believing community. Jewish believers, Jewish people knew that Gentiles could become members of the Jewish community. If there were men, they had to be circumcised and through a ritual bath, and they committed themselves to keeping the Torah.

[00:24:36] If there were women, they had the ritual bath to keep the Torah. And so they knew that you could. So if this new community of Jesus followers were simply a sect within Judaism, that would be the way that you became a believer. But actually, the believer was by baptism, by water baptism.

[00:25:03] And so that changes how you can join the faith. Water baptism, of course, is egalitarian because it's the same for men and women. It was different for men and women in Judaism. And it's making a significant difference over how you become a believer. You're baptised, you call on the name of Jesus and become his follower.

[00:25:31] Whereas the Jewish way is to say you submit to the Torah. And Peter, Paul and others in Acts are in conflict with others within the believing community who want to say, no, no, no, become Jewish in order to be a follower of Jesus. And Peter and Paul are saying, absolutely not. That's not what God is doing.

[00:25:58] And James then pulls the threads together when he quotes from Al and says, but look, look, these. This scripture talks about the rebuilding of the tent of David, the restoration. And that being the time when the Gentiles are admitted. Look, the restoration of Israel is well in progress. So this must be the time when the Gentiles start coming in.

[00:26:27] If the book of Acts were a book without conflict. You really wouldn't put those stories in and you absolutely wouldn't put the story in chapter 21, where there's where there's this rumour going around that Paul is telling Jewish believers that they don't have to circumcise their baby boys. Paul say nothing of the sort. He's telling Gentile believers, but they don't have to do that. But he's not telling Jewish believers that.

[00:26:56] I think if Paul had had a son, he'd have probably circumcised him. But but interestingly, again, there's the 21 and Paul submits to a Jewish vow, pays the hairdressing expenses of the guys who are taking the vow with him because they have to have the head shaved. And ends up in ruins because people lie about him saying that he's taken Gentiles into the temple.

[00:27:25] Now, this this doesn't sound like a smoothed over account where the big just quietly settled down so that there's just one story. I don't buy that, I'm afraid. Yeah, that's really good.

[00:27:45] I mean, I'd love to ask the question around so much about the Book of Acts is about the movement going from a Jewish movement to a Gentile inclusive church. And I just like, is there anything you think we should be learning today from the Book of Acts about inclusion? Or is there something we should be listening to in the Book of Acts to help us at the moment as the church?

[00:28:12] I think the Book of Acts calls us to keep the main thing, the main thing. That's the centre of what we're doing. And that gospel, interestingly in Acts, is particularly focused on Jesus' resurrection and exaltation. Jesus is now Lord of heaven and earth and he's Lord of the church. And our call as Christians today, we're called to submit to him.

[00:28:42] And the scriptures are the record of his teaching in the gospels, the record of the growth and development of his people in Acts and the letters in the Book of Revelation. And we're called to submit to his voice through the scriptures. Can I ask you one last question? The Book of Acts seems to end really abruptly with Paul and the house arrest in Rome.

[00:29:09] For you, what's the significance story ending there? Because if this was a movie, you'd be expecting part two. Hmm. And it is odd the way it ends. We know that Luke knows more because he tells us that Paul was in house arrest in Rome for two years. And one school of thought is, well, he doesn't tell us because he doesn't know.

[00:29:36] And he stopped at that point because that's the end of the information he has. Luke is with Paul in Rome. The wee character arrives in Rome. So Luke's there with him. And indeed, last year in Rome, I visited the church that's been built over the place where they think he was in. And where Luke sat and wrote the Book of Acts. It was a really interesting place.

[00:30:04] No, you can't be sure either way whether it's genuine. But it was very, very moving to see it. Now, but what happened after that? Luke says two years went by. And you think, well, what happened? Did he make it to Rome? Did he make it to Spain? Where Romans 16 tells us that he really wanted to go. And he wrote Romans to the Roman church.

[00:30:33] Partly as a letter saying, I would like your support and sponsorship in travelling further west. Or did he get freed and travel somewhere else? Or did he... Acts finishes in about AD 62. Now, according to one Clement, Paul dies in about AD 65. There's a three-year hole somewhere in there. And it's difficult to know what happens.

[00:31:04] Now, if the majority view of Luke's writing Acts is that he wrote later, sometime around AD 80 or so AD case, then he certainly knew more. But why did he not tell us more? Was he planning a volume three? Sure. The closing of Acts echoes the beginning of Acts.

[00:31:29] So there are elements of completion in Acts 28. There are also elements, as you've rightly suggested, of open-endedness. And maybe that's becoming to his readers to living in Acts 29. You guys are now carrying on the mission that the Apostle Unity was carrying on in its day. That's certainly what I've heard Tom Wright talk about in the past.

[00:31:59] That he's set up in a way to invite us now to be the next chapter. I'd have liked a better ending. Yes. Well, yeah, it's on my long list of questions for Luke when I meet him. Yeah. Steve, thank you so much for just giving us your insights into the Book of Acts. It's so wonderful to hear you talk about the Book of Acts in such a way.

[00:32:24] It's very obvious you've lived and breathed with this text for so long. It's a part of who you are. And it's such a privilege to hear you speaking that way. And I think that intense knowledge on the Book of Acts. So thank you so much for giving us some of your time. You're welcome. Thank you for the conversation. Steve, so the book is out. Number 37A of the Word Biblical Commentaries.

[00:32:52] If anybody wanted to hear you more on the Book of Acts, where could they go? Well, they could go and look at my YouTube channel. Because I've got a few things on there when I've spoken about and talked about the Book of Acts. Or at my blog, which is called Acts and More. So if you just put Acts and More, it'll turn up pretty quickly. So those are the main places. I've also published a book called Reading Acts Logically with TNT Clark.

[00:33:22] It came out in hardback, very expensive, about two and a half years ago. But the paper came out this January, so it's much, much cheaper. And that's a collection of writings about it. And David Wernham and I wrote a book called Exploring the New Testament, Volume 1, Gospels and Acts. And the chapter on Acts at the end of that is my handy.

[00:33:47] So there's a few places around where I've written less tailed things than this book. Brilliant. We'll put those into the show notes so people can find them and get a hold of those. Steve, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. That's okay. You're most welcome.