The Jewish Setting and Context of the Early Church

Note: Use below Textbook and 2 Presentations only. 300 Words

Thread: Write a blog for your church website in which you discuss the Jewish setting & context of the early church as described by Luke in the early chapters of Acts. Provide specific examples from the early chapters of Acts of the church’s “Jewishness.” Explain why you think Luke went to such lengths to depict the early church as authentically Jewish. Why is it important for Christians today to understand the Jewish roots of their faith? You must interact with assigned materials, including textbook and presentations, and document all sources used (including textbooks and presentations) in current Turabian format. textbooks. You must document all sources used in current Turabian format. 

TEXTBOOKS 

1) Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey (Chapters, 13-14)

Third Edition

© 2013 by Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough 

PRESENTATIONS

1)Stacy, Robert W. ‘’Presentation: The Jewish Setting of the Early Church In Acts.’’ Course Video, 2021.

2) Stacy, Robert W. ‘’Presentation: Pentecost & the Eschatological Setting of the Early Church in Acts.’’ Course Video, 2021.

1) Presentation: The Jewish Setting of the Early Church In Acts

There are lots of here he is as to why Luke wrote Acts to highlight the role of the Holy Spirit and the emergence of a hood church to explain to her Roman audience we were his repeated bloody conflicts with the Jews overruns occupation of the Holy Land that they Jesus’ followers were not that kind of Jews as a prequel source to the letters of Paul introducing the church’s most celebrated missioner in finger to new and far flung readers of his letter S. but one possibility I think a good one is that Luke wrote Acts to remind his audience both then and now that your perspective of the distance is that have subsequently developed between Judaism and Christianity Christianity began as a legitimate movement within the piety of 1st century Judaism. The 1st Christians who are misers would you most and the less we understand that we will likely misunderstand misinterpret and misappropriate much of the New Testament. Luke makes that point both subtly and over. Know the Jewish context of the opening scenes in at Square Luke depicts the 1st Christians going about their day to day lives Jews all that pray they worship they celebrate that you can eat as yours looking for example in Jerusalem was a sabbath days journey from the mouth of Olives employee to Jewish odometer to measure distances look describes the jesus followers as regular attenders a temple a synagogue they still practice circumcision kosher eating the mic Jewish ritual battles their scripture is Israel’s scripture Torah prophet and Psalms they observe the Jewish feasts and festivals and then cry to Israel’s God These 1st jesus followers Luke asserts are neither pagan nor heretics they are faithful to yours and if the Jewish beginnings of the church were that important for a look should they be for us we want to understand the New Testament if we forget what Luke takes great pains to remember that his Christians are roots why in Judaism take baptism for example Christian baptism didn’t arise from a vacuum it was a practice already well known among the 1st year as Christians they called it meant a Jewish ritual bath in which the participants confess their 7 repented of their rebellion against God and committed themselves and knew to a life of covenant faithfulness to the one true god. So look says that to some he is alluding to a Jewish practice already well known among Jews Jesus followers modified both by their belief that the new age of the Kingdom of God had broken in Jesus of Nazareth and by the practice of John the Baptist who perform baptism as an S. has a logical act of repentance and preparation for participation in the coming kingdom but if we read our modern practice of baptism back onto the pages of Luke’s acts will misunderstand and misread it in Acts baptism was not subsequent to or ancillary to repentance just as it was in Judaism that isn’t was itself an act of repentance but in today’s Christian churches Patterson’s almost an afterthought to the act of repentance and confession we’ve replaced the early Jewish Christian ritual of bettas him with walking down the aisle and shaking the preacher’s hand we’ll meet back here next week to baptize religion the separating the act of the ritual that signifies what we did that the wedding. Stand before the minister in exchange valves promising that we are no longer 2 separate and distinct individuals but as the Scripture says we are one flesh and then a climactic point in the wedding the minister says now we’ll meet back here next week sometimes I place for the exchange of rings signifying the unity of these 2 nuns to be sure you can have a wedding without exchanging rings just as you can have repentance and faith without baptism but just as exchanging rings X. al our mutual commitment to each other that’s his and doesn’t just send repentance it acts it out buried with him in baptism all will say so that we might walk in newness of life. So we react what is true baptism is true of everything the 1st Christians did they were who living out their faith in Jesus utilizing the only symbols and expressions of faith they knew the ones they had learned and lived in Judaism and so keep that in much as you read asks you not only understand it better. You may look at it till next time take care God bless.

2)Presentation: Pentecost & the Eschatological Setting of the Early Church in Acts

The 1st Christians Jews all believe themselves to be in as Quetta logical community of the new age of the Kingdom of God long prophesied by Israel’s prophets to appear in the last days the holy Hope promised to Israel to be fulfilled at the day of the Lord has now been fulfilled they believed but not to the nation but to the community gathered at Pentecost believing that Jesus was not just Israel’s Messiah but God’s own Son nowhere is that characterization clearer than in Luke portrayed of the early church in the Acts of the apostles as did most Jews of the 1st century world the 1st Christians believed in the concept of the 2 ages the present evil age given over to the power of Satan and the age of the Kingdom of God when God will overthrow Satan and once again establish gods and challenge to power over his world and everyone in it the 1st Christians believe that they lived on the cusp of the new age of the kingdom and that is a prelude to this imminent breakthrough of God’s power God’s people needed to get ready this they would do by repenting of their idolatry to the powers of this world and by recommitting themselves to be God’s very own people the sign of this repentance was bad tism a symbol that one had washed away old allegiances so as to live under God’s power which is what the Bible means when it says kingdom of God Not so much a place as a power this is the key to understanding the ministry of John the Baptist so important in the gospels the context makes it clear that Luke believed that Jesus prophecy was fulfilled at Pentecost he follows Jesus’ words with his own telling of the Pentecost story and Luke makes it clear by the way he tells the story of Pentecost that he understood the events in terms of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and Ochs about the day of the Lord. To be sure Luke describes that Pentecost celebration of the early Jewish Christians as something of a sound and light show but when it comes to the question of what does it all mean Luke answers via the interpretive speech of Simon Peter for Luke Peter sermon Pentecost in which Peter explains what just happened is his own interpretation of the Pentecost events as he is writing the narrative and explaining Pentecost through the character of Peter in the story and what the events of Pentecost mean says Luke is that the day of the Lord has dawned notice what Peter says it is not as some suggest merely a debauch drunken spectacle After all it is only 9 in the morning what you have witnessed here is nothing less than the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joal about the advent of the day of the Lord and then he quotes the relevant passage from the prophecy to censure the matter and in the last days it shall be says God that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters will prophesied in your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams indeed both on my min servants and maid servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesied before the day of the Lord comes that great and terrible day at chapter 2 verses 16 and Vali and Peter says that day is today. Now take notice that Peter’s quotation of Joel 2 makes one very significant change Luke as Peter quote Joel 2 from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew text the Hebrew text of Joel 228 says and it shall come to pass afterwards but the Septuagint of Joel 228 says but in the last days this indicating that he sees what has just happened as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel 2 Regarding the day of the Lord that is to say Peter is explaining the original meaning of the prophecy in Joel to say that what has just happened at Pentecost signifies that the last days had dawned Joel like many many other Old Testament prophets talks about the day of the Lord or of the day of ya boy which was in this catalogs Nicol day when you off way would come to vindicate the faithful and vanquish the wicked and supremely to establish always power over the earth that is the kingdom of God and the Pentecost story in Acts indicates that Luke believed that they had arrived New Testament people believe that the day of the Lord had broken in and broken through and the life death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and so Luke sets the Pentecost event firmly in the context of Old Testament hopes and prophecies about the day of the Lord that is he is saying that the in the has begun which is of course precisely what is cattle logical means. Now it was not the end of the end there is an argument among scholars over the issue of how the day of the Lord could have arrived at Pentecost as Luke appears to be saying this because story without also bringing in into history itself and so some scholar such as George elder and a lad in his New Testament the ology separate the last days from the day of the Lord which lead argues yet remains future the argument flies in the face of Luke story in that Peter clearly points to the outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost as evidence that the last days had come and that the long awaited they of the Lord don’t want Moreover the argument is unnecessary if one keeps in mind that Jesus Himself taught that the eschatology at the end had both a present and a future aspect and already and did not yet there is a beginning of the end and an end of the end nothing Peter says at Pentecost suggests that he thinks that the end of the end had arrived just the beginning of the end Jesus’ life so the 1st Christians believe Mark good beginning of the end nothing in of the end the day of the Lord broke into history in the events surrounding the life ministry death and resurrection of Jesus but it yet awaits its final fulfillment in the future this is sometimes called inaugurated eschatology that is we live in the tension between the already and the not yet of the Ask a time. Think of it this way if someone asks you Do you read around your home. Even so-called homeowners if they are honest have to say neither We don’t rent but neither do we yet own the home since the bank still owns most of it yet here and now we live in it and already enjoy the benefits of home ownership in the same way the day of the Lord and the Kingdom of God which it brings is already here but still awaits its final and full fulfillment and so keep this as have a logical setting of the early church in mind as you read Luke’s account in Acts Luke pictures the 1st Christians as a community of the new age of the Kingdom of God already enjoying its benefits but not yet fully so still in the world but no longer of it.