Wrote this for CalvininCommon.org in a discussion about Bishop Spong’s complaint about the church looking back to the 1st century all the time.

I’m working on my Acts 11 sermon while Bont’s Spong comments rumble around in the background of my imagination as I read Willimon’s comments on the text. According to Luke (even many critical scholars regard 11:19-26 as having some historical solidity about it) this new Jesus thing had gotten way out in front of what the apostles in Jerusalem imagined it should be. You’ve got unwashed Gentiles in important cities like Caesarea and Antioch experiencing spirit manifestations and calling Jesus Lord. Some undoubtedly were uncircumcised regular attenders in synagogues while others were fresh in from who knows what temple or community from the “civilized” world. These could have been slave, or slave owning, polygamist or poly-amorous, rich or poor, with or without political connections, and they’re trying to get their imaginations around this resurrection that the group was asserting. Jews I imagine struggled with the notion that these folks were re-defining Yhwh. I can’t imagine what was bending the minds of Stoics, Epicureans, and who knows what else.

Jerusalem then sends Barnabas, someone not unfamiliar with life in the broader empire being a Levite from Cyprus who apparently had some personal wealth, at least enough to make a remembered donation.

Anyone with sufficient gray matter between the ears can of course redefine Christianity (or anything else) in any way they so chose. I might enjoy imagining Paul Spyksma sneaking off to exotic locations to participate in the ESPN World’s Strongest Man competition, but that’s just me. It seems, however, that very early on in this religion the community maintained a value of trying to connect their contemporary manifestations and struggles with what remains of the witness of their communal ancestors. Jesus, and the apostles reach back to the Hebrew Scriptures. Their pattern of submission as found in the New Testament is of course a bit curious to us, both in its reverence and its liberty of interpretation but judgments always belongs to the judgers. The book of Acts itself bears witness to some remarkable revisionism, but always with a certain degree of respect and responsibility to dead authors. It’s not a simple thing but it’s also not bad thing I think. pvk