About 20 years ago while teaching in Taiwan I was reading a book, the title of which is lost in my remembrance, but the theme was about recognizing patterns of repeated actions. I believe what caught my attention was a statement to the effect, “if you see something repeated two or three times in scripture, pay close attention.” At the time I was preparing a teaching on the Day of Pentecost Coming of the Holy Spirit. Back then. I would often rework my teaching material over and over again working on the felt-logic for an application in the context I was teaching. Actually, that is a great practice, and it finally leads to internalizing one’s content to be much more sparked by the Spirit-in-the-moment. The following excerpt is a short study in what I would call the Four-Fold Pattern of Kingdom Ways.
Early in the morning on the Day of
Pentecost, one of the major Jewish festivals, the coming of the Holy Spirit is
both dramatic (the sound of mighty rushing wind) and awe-inspiring (tongues of
fire resting on the disciples). The
response to being filled with the Holy Spirit was speaking praises to God in
other languages (tongues). As this event
spills out of the upper room onto the streets of Jerusalem, a crowd gathers,
and Peter preaches to those assembled.
Peter anchors his message in the Prophet Joel’s anticipation that the
“promise of the Father” would be manifest in the “last days.”[1] Peter assures the crowd of gathering Jews
from many countries that Jesus of Nazareth, who was condemned by a similar
crowd less than two months earlier, has been raised from the dead. The bodily resurrection attests that Jesus is
the Jewish Messiah (King) and is now alive at the Father’s right hand. From this place of power and authority, Jesus
is the one who has sent the Holy Spirit to be present to fulfill Joel’s
prophecy. Peter’s emphasis to the crowd
is the unflinching reality that the Jewish people had rejected Jesus as Messiah
and condemned Him to death by crucifixion.
The climax of Peter’s message happens when the crowd, increasingly
“pierced to the heart,” cry out, “Brethren, what should we do?”[2]
Peter gives a very clear response
with, “Repent, and let each one of you is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.”[3] While Acts has no details of what happens
next, there is the indication in verse 2:41 that 3000 souls (men) were
baptized. This is the first conversion
story of the Way, a sect of Judaism that accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the
Jewish Messiah and the Son of God. Ten
more detailed conversion stories in Acts begin to paint a pattern of conversion
that includes the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as the new way for God
to be with His people.[4] I think this is important to emphasize since
the explosive growth of the disciples of Jesus after Pentecost was not due to
any clever strategy based on the apostles. Instead, it was the dynamic presence
of the Holy Spirit that indeed was the life force of the early church. The Greek word used in Acts for the verb
repent metanoeo, meaning to “think differently, to reconsider, to feel
compunction.”[5]
While the term “repent” is often immediately connected to sin, as, in repenting
of one’s sins, the meaning here has a broader focus. The Pentecost crowd were to reconsider and
change their mind about killing Jesus- this is
the sin that the Passover crowd had accepted before Pontius Pilate when
they said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.”[6] Considering the resurrection and the
claim that Jesus was the one who had sent the Holy Spirit, in other words, He
was alive, would have been very upsetting and confusing to the hearers of
Peter’s sermon. So, there was sin
involved, and a major one at that. The
crowd chanted before Pontius Pilate, “Crucify Him!” when he asked what he should
do to their king. Peter challenges them
to change their thinking about Jesus, who was not dead but now very much alive
through resurrection. So, metanoia,
repent, has the weight of changing your thinking about killing Jesus the
Messiah (a sin), changing your thinking about who he is, and changing one’s
thinking about Jesus’ death since He was now proclaimed to be alive by
resurrection at the right hand of the Father, and the sender of the Holy
Spirit. A shorter way of saying this
that fits the context would be “to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, alive
through resurrection and present with the Father in heaven.” John Stott describes the Pentecost scene this
way:
“Peter commanded the crowd to repent, completely
changing their mind about Jesus and their attitude to him, and be baptized
in his name, submitting to the humiliation of baptism, which Jews regarded as
necessary for Gentile converts only, and submitting to it in the name of the
very person they had rejected. This
would be a clear, public token of their repentance and their faith in him. Though Peter did not call on the crowd to
specifically believe they did so, since they are termed ‘believers’ in verse
44, and in any case, repentance and faith involve each other, the turn from sin
being impossible without the turn to God, and vice versa (cf. 3:19).”[7]
The Pentecost story captures what could be
termed the spiritualized or pneumatic presence in the early church, a dynamic
body animated by Holy Spirit reality.
Apostolic discipleship by those who had walked with Jesus during his itinerate
ministry was only enhanced by the spiritual energy of the Holy Spirit’s
presence. Scripture further amplifies this dynamic as the Pentecost believers
“were continually devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching, and
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer. And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and
many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.”[8]
Figure 2.1 Conversion and the Believing Community
This is essentially a similar pattern
of activities that dovetails with their conversion experience pattern.
Believing in Jesus as an act of faith was enhanced by apostolic teaching, which
was the apostles-eyewitnesses recounting the stories and the teachings of
Jesus. Fellowship, from the Greek koinonia,
meaning the “common life or communion,” was a communal reinforcement to the
discipleship of the new believers. In
organizing the converts of his evangelistic endeavors, John Wesley placed them
in classes where they could experience koinonia, “mutual encouragement and
admonition within a body.”[9]
The physical, sacramental act of “breaking of bread together” extended the
physicality of water baptism as both a sacred action and a joint activity of
faith. The communal eating together and
celebration of the eucharist knit this early community together as the ekklesia,
the church. The presence of the Holy
Spirit was tangible among them in both prayer and answered prayer with miracles
and a sense of awe. See Figure 2.1 for a
visual connection recognizing a four-fold dynamic of spiritual reality
resulting from the Pentecost events. The
center circle in blue highlights the actions of the individuals as they come to
faith at Pentecost. At the same time, the outer boxes extend the same dynamic
of conversion into the very earliest summation of the practices of the early
church as a discipling community.
Figure 2.2 Conversion and the
Missional Movement to the Nations (Ethne-Peoples)
As one reads through the Book of Acts,
the other conversion stories reinforce the dynamic illustrated above. While there is no set pattern of words used
in presenting a “steps to salvation” plan, the stories resonate with something
extraordinary happening as various people respond to the good news about
Jesus. Additionally, Luke wrote Acts to
indicate the missional nature of the early church as “The Way” very rapidly
spread out from Jerusalem and encompassed Gentiles and Jews beyond the nation
of Israel. There are five references to the “Great Commission”[10]
in the Gospels and Acts that recount the words of Jesus and the worldwide scope
of Jesus’ mission. In Figure 2:2,
Matthew 28:18b-20 activities are added as another layer to the four-fold
pattern of salvation to all the nations (ethne-peoples). “All authority
has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.”[11]
Linking Jesus’s command to teach new disciples “all that he commanded” with the
three 4-fold diagrams would at least define the topics of an early-church
catechism.
[1] Acts 2:16,17 cf. Joel 2:28-32.
[2] Acts 2:37.
[3] Acts 2:38.
[4] Conversion stories in Acts:
Pentecost 3000 souls (men) (Acts 2); Temple preaching 2000 men (Acts 4); Philip
in Samaria and Ethiopian eunuch in the desert (Acts 6); Saul’s Conversion (Acts
9); Cornelius’ Gentile Roman household (Acts 10); God-fearers and Jews in
Pisidian Antioch synagogue (Acts 13); Lydia’s household and Philippian Jailer’s
household (Acts 16); Berean synagogue, Mars Hill and Apollos (Acts 17);
Disciples of John the Baptist (Acts 19).
[5] James Strong. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), Greek Dictionary #3340, 47.
[6]
Matthew 27:28.
[7] John R.W. Stott. The Message of Acts (Leicester, England:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 78.
[8]
Acts 2:42,43.
[9] Howard A. Snyder. The Radical Wesley (Downers Grove, IL:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1980), 139.
[10] Matthew 28: 8-20; Mark 16:15-18;
Luke 24:44-48; John 20:21-23; Acts 1:8.
[11] Gunter Krallmann in his book on
Jesus’ leadership principles stresses that Jesus fundamental stance in
discipling (mentoring) his followers was to be with them. This was true throughout his public ministry,
but also equally true as the Holy Spirit becomes the second paraclete to
continue Jesus ministry. Gunter
Krallmann. Mentoring for Missions
(Hong Kong: Jensco Ltd., 1984), 19.
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