Ready, Set . . . Action!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem . . . Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (v. 8)

Lord, forgive us. Break into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit and turn our hearts toward Jesus Christ the Lord.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem . . . Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (v. 8)

People who want pulse-pounding, edge-of-the-seat storylines flock to action movies. The book of Acts is action-packed. Supernatural tongues of fire materialize out of thin air. Sorcerers, jailbreaks, insurrections, resurrections, and miraculous healings leap off the pages. Best of all, every word is true.

Acts is the sequel to Luke’s Gospel account. While Luke’s Gospel focused on Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Acts focuses on life after Jesus’ ascension. Acts is an action story “filmed” on location, spanning thousands of miles. It tells the ongoing story of Jesus Christ and his church empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The story moves from Jerusalem to Judea and beyond. God’s people travel down dusty roads and across raging seas to share Christ. There is no wall thick enough, no religious persecution strong enough, no gossip vicious enough to stop the spread of God’s word.

Hang on to your seats! Over the next 15 days, we will witness God’s incredible, often surprising acts of power. These works are not confined to the book of Acts. Whether we feel it or not, the Holy Spirit is active. He calls us to share the good news to the ends of the earth: “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2:21).

The Resurrection

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (v. 19)

Thank you, Father, for this gospel, this good news of your Son’s resurrection.

I read an interview once with a minister who did not believe Jesus was actually raised from the dead. He believed the resurrection stories in the New Testament were fables and that we were supposed to think of the resurrection symbolically, not literally. To him, the resurrection represented the promise of second chances and renewal, like spring coming after a long winter. “My gosh,” he said, “if I actually believed a person had been raised from the dead I’d shout about it to everyone.”

Isn’t that exactly the point?

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the singular moment in human history. It is the lens through which Christians view reality. Everything we believe, not just about death but also about life, is affected by the resurrection. If there is no resurrection, Paul says, why do any of the things we do? Why preach? Why have faith? Why fight wild beasts in Ephesus (v. 32)? (Call Paul what you will, but don’t you dare call him boring.)

We have seen that the central theme of this letter to the Corinthians is unity. The climax of Paul’s teaching and the foundation of any hope for unity among diverse and disparate people is found in the resurrection, the pivotal point of history. In Christ, Paul tells us in verse 22, all shall be made alive. That promise indeed unites us.

Early Church Worship Wars

Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church. (v. 12 NIV)

Lord, help us focus not on ourselves but on what builds up the body in all things.

If we try to imagine the worship of the early church through the filter of our own experience we may have trouble. There was no building to go to, no beautiful sanctuary to sit in, no hymnals, no pew Bibles (or pews to put them in), no order of worship, no organ, no worship band, and no professionally-trained minister guiding the service.

Instead, the picture we get from reading 1 Corinthians 14 is that worship services in the early church tended to be more chaotic than orderly and could resemble free-for-alls. The Corinthians were desirous of spiritual gifts and seem to have fixed on tongues as the gift of choice. Paul counsels otherwise. Their exercise of tongues resembled children playing side-by- side in a sandbox without actually playing with each other. Paul wants unity over individual expression.

Prophecy, the gift of speaking God’s word understandably, is to be preferred. Prophecy builds up the body while tongues build up individuals. As he has done throughout this letter, Paul is asking the Corinthians (and us) to think about what is best for all instead of just best for me. This is a principle that transcends cultures and circumstances and should mean as much today—whatever the style of worship in which we participate—as it did to those early believers in Corinth.

A More Excellent Way

Love never ends. (v. 8)

Let us choose love in all our actions.

I had a professor for hermeneutics—the art of biblical interpretation—who captured my attention by saying that the Bible is more like a mountain range than a prairie. He meant that the Bible has peaks. “All Scripture is inspired and useful,” he taught us, “but some parts tower over other parts.” Surely 1 Corinthians 13 is one of those peaks.

Let’s be honest here: Paul’s letters can be difficult to interpret sometimes. His arguments can be dense. It takes skill to unwind them. Even Peter admitted his frustration, saying about Paul’s letters: “There are some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:15-16). Anyone who has read the New Testament knows what Peter means.

But that frustration does not apply to 1 Corinthians 13. Want to be really unified? Paul’s message is crystal clear—make love the center of your life. As verses 4 through 7 make plain, love isn’t a mushy feeling but an act of the will. Sometimes we get confused and think love is something we have to feel. It is a feeling, but more than that, love is also an action. Patience and kindness, for example, aren’t feelings but actions. All the things love is “not”—not boastful, not rude, not irritable—are also actions. We decide daily, in every situation and with every person we encounter, whether or not we will choose love. When we do act in love we happily discover that our feelings follow in the same way.

Unity through Diversity

If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (vv. 19-20)

We praise you, Lord, for the variety of your family.

Since unity has been such a theme of this letter, it’s fair to wonder how unity really can be achieved. It’s easy to imagine a Corinthian or two wondering how they were supposed to be united when they were so different. It’s not hard to look across the vast landscape of different Christian denominations today and wonder the same thing.

Paul seems to be saying, “That’s exactly my point!” Unity is not to be found in everyone acting like clones of each other. Unity is achieved when we recognize we are a body with many parts, and that no part is greater than another.

For an example of what this can look like, read verses 4 through 6 again carefully. Notice what Paul says. There are varieties of gifts, services, and activities, but only one . . . one what? Here Paul may surprise us. He does not say “one God” over and over. Instead he uses the three persons of the Trinity: one Spirit, one Lord (always a reference to Jesus) and one God. Is God unified? Absolutely. Does God also have three distinct persons? No doubt about it. Unity is not found in being the same but in being diverse without being divided. Be the best “you” you can be, because that’s what the body needs. And then don’t expect other parts of the body to be exactly like you.