Parsons, M. C. (2008). Acts. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Exportado de Software Bíblico Logos, 14:47 22 de janeiro de 2018.
The Jerusalem Church’s Life Together (2:41–47)
Luke concludes this section with the first of a series of long summary statements (2:41–47). Some summaries, like Acts 1:12–14, are brief (see 6:7; 8:14; 9:31–32; 11:19–20); others, such as 2:41–47, are longer and more detailed (4:32–35; 5:12–16). These summaries are quite common in the early chapters of Acts and serve a double purpose of dividing and connecting. They divide the narrative into segments, but serve also as connective tissue or “narrative glue,” shaping the episodes into a continuous narrative. In that sense, the summaries are Janus-like “revolving doors” that look back at the previous unit and at the same time anticipate the next scene.
In this particular summary the first major section of the narrative beginning of Acts is brought to a close. Jesus departs from the disciples, but only after fully instructing them. The circle of the Twelve is restored with the election of Matthias, and the new eschatological community is formed and sealed with the giving of the Holy Spirit. This new community is the true Israel, a community populated by Jews from every nation under the heavens and a community marked by gender, age, and racial inclusiveness.
The summary begins and ends with reference to the numerical growth of the community (2:41b; 2:47b). In between, the narrator depicts the shared life of the community, which for Luke is the life of the Spirit. The believers who accepted the word and were baptized now devote themselves (2:46; see 1:14) to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (2:42). These four elements characterize the life of the Spirit and are illustrated by the examples given in 2:43–47 (see Johnson 1977, 183–90).
In 2:43, the teaching of the apostles is linked with the signs and wonders that they performed, recalling the opening verse of this narrative, which itself recalled the “first book,” which recorded all that Jesus began “to do and to teach” (1:1). The authority of the apostles, as we noted earlier, stands in the prophetic tradition of Moses and the prophet like Moses, Jesus, and fills the believers with reverent awe.
The term koinōnia (2:44), here translated “common life,” is far more “muscular” in the narrative of Acts than in its popular, contemporary Christian parlance. The first statement denotes a general, universal practice: All those who believed were in the same place and shared everything (2:44). The unity of community is empirically demonstrated by their sharing of all possessions (see comments on 1:15–23); it also echoes the practice and custom of ancient friendship, in which “friends have all things in common” (Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 9.8.2; see also Plutarch, Adul. amic. 65A; cf. Mitchell 1992). This practice is fleshed out in 2:45: They were selling their properties and possessions and distributing (the proceeds from) them to all, as anyone had a need. At this point the apostles presumably play no role in this redistribution (see 4:32–35).
Breaking … bread (2:46) is Lukan shorthand for the Lord’s Supper and refers to one aspect of the corporate worship of the early church. For Luke, the Eucharist is a revelatory experience with the Risen Lord and the reference here echoes the Emmaus narrative in which the two with whom Jesus ate report to the disciples how Christ was “made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35, emphasis added). Furthermore, by partaking of food with gladness and humility, the community was following the example of Jesus. More than any of the other gospel accounts, the Third Gospel regularly depicts Jesus at table. As one commentator has put it, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is “either going to, coming from, or at a meal!” (Karris 1985, 47).
That the believers devoted themselves to prayer (2:42d) is given content here: They praised God and had favor (2:47). Their prayer has a vertical dimension in the community praising God (see Luke 24:53), and a horizontal dimension in prayer directed outward to all the people. That the inward experience of prayer is confirmed to the community by their dealings with outsiders is a common theme in these opening chapters of Acts. This section ends with the phrase epi to auto, which has become the refrain throughout the first two chapters for the deep unity experienced in the community. They are indeed “all together.”
Theological Issues
Few, if any, biblical events have lent their name to describe a religious movement, yet this is the case for Pentecost. The full-scale movement known as Pentecostalism dates from the series of meetings held in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, beginning in 1906. Pentecostalism was (and is) grounded on the belief, drawn from its interpretation of Acts 2, that speaking in tongues is the physical manifestation of a person’s having received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, an experience that is distinct from and subsequent to conversion and that empowers believers for witness (Dunn 1970, 2). Pentecostalism continues to be a major force in global Christianity, flourishing in all quarters of the world. Not only has Pentecostalism expressed itself in various denominational structures—the Assemblies of God, for example—but Pentecostal experience and theology have swept through all the mainline Protestant denominations and Catholicism as well. For many later Pentecostals, these early beliefs about the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” have hardened into rigid doctrines that tend to require speaking in tongues as a necessary sign of salvation.
On the other hand, resistance to Pentecostalism has caused others to deny the ongoing effects of Pentecost, claiming that the “tongues” described in Acts 2 were not a permanent endowment but were rather limited to the apostolic period as a necessary sign for the inauguration of the church’s public ministry, not a practice that was required nor even allowed in modern times (Carver 1916, 24). This view, called “cessationism,” also reads the “foundation of the apostles and prophets” in Eph 2:20 as referring to the role of the apostles (including their miracle-working role and use of tongues) as foundational but not continuing. With the passing of the last apostle (or in some variations, with the writing of the NT) miracles and glossolalia ceased. The classic exposition of this view is by B. B. Warfield (1918). A. T. Robertson went so far as to dismiss “modern so-called tongues” as nothing but “jargon and hysteria” (Robertson 1933, 3.22; cf. modern popular critiques of Pentecostalism by Gaffin [1979]; for a critique of cessationism, see Ruthven [1993]).
How do we navigate among these various opinions? The place to begin is with the Pentecost narrative itself. When the apostles speak “in other tongues” (2:4) are they speaking in ecstatic, unintelligible speech (cf. 1 Cor 12–14) or are they speaking in the languages of the many foreign peoples gathered together there? Is this the distinction Paul seeks to make in 1 Cor 13:1 when he refers to the tongues “of humans” (intelligible foreign language) or “angels” (unintelligible, ecstatic speech)? If so, which does Luke intend? There is evidence for both interpretations. Those gathered there heard in their own languages (2:6–7), but others mistakenly believed the disciples were drunk (2:13), suggesting that at least for some the apostles’ speech was unintelligible. Some have observed that the miracle at Pentecost was one of hearing not of speaking, in which case Luke may have intended to convey that ecstatic speech was “translated” by the Holy Spirit into language intelligible to the audience—that is, into whatever language they spoke. So the Venerable Bede suggests:
Was the marvel rather the fact that the discourse of those who were speaking were understood by everyone of the hearers in his own language? So, for example, when any one of the apostles were talking in the assembly (for one person had to speak while the rest were silent, and one discourse had to come within the hearing of everyone) that very discourse had within itself the power that, when there were hearers of diverse nations, each of them would perceive what they heard in terms of his own language and would grasp the meaning of that one and the same discourse which had been uttered by the apostle. (Bede, Comm. Acts 2, trans. L. Martin 1989, 60; cf. PL 92.947)
Whatever the nature of glossolalia in the book of Acts, did Luke understand the Pentecost event to be a “once for all” phenomenon? The answer here is simply “No.” Filling with the Holy Spirit occurs throughout Acts (cf. 4:31 et passim). Likewise, glossolalia is sometimes depicted as the public display of the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. 10:46; 19:6). But it would be equally mistaken to suggest that tongues are a necessary evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit (cf. 8:17) or that there is any clear sequence of baptism and reception of the Holy Spirit in Acts. Sometimes baptism precedes reception of the Spirit (8:12–17); sometimes baptism follows reception of the Spirit (10:44–48); sometimes it accompanies baptism in the name of Jesus and the laying on of hands (19:5–6). All this is to suggest that our current context calls for a middle way that affirms the reality of Pentecostal experience while correcting aspects of extreme expressions of Pentecostal theology.
Cameraphoto / Art Resource, NY
Figure 2. Giotto di Bondone, Pentecost, c. 1305. Fresco cycle. Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy.
In this Pentecost fresco, Giotto depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit as shafts of light falling on the heads of the apostles. The apostles are seated within an enclosed space, as in Giotto’s earlier depiction of the Last Supper. His depiction of Pentecost as part of a life-of-Christ cycle is unusual in the history of art but in keeping with the role it plays within the Lukan narratives. As C. K. Barrett observed: “In Luke’s thought, the end of the story of Jesus is the Church; and, the story of Jesus is the beginning of the Church” (Barrett 1961, 57).
Eth. Nic. Ethica Nichomachea
Adul. amic. Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur
Comm. Acts Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles
PL Patrologia Latina [= Patrologiae cursus completus: Series graeca]. Edited by J.-P. Migne. 221 vols. Paris, 1844–1865.
IVAN TEIXEIRA
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