Speeches in Acts - Study 01 - Luke's Writings

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SPEECHES IN THE ACTS

 

STUDY 1

 

LUKE’S WRITINGS

 

Note from the Compiler: This transcript of the addresses was scanned from a set of study notes issued by The 1987 Australian Youth Conference Committee. Numerous corrections and some additions were then made.

 

Contents: (from Study Notes)

 

STUDY ONE: The Veracity of Luke’s Historical Account

 

STUDY TWO: Peter’s Discourse to the Jews at Pentecost. (Acts Chapter 2)

 

STUDY THREE: Peter’s Speech to Rulers after the Healing of the Lame Man. (Acts Chapters 3 & 4)

 

STUDY FOUR: Stephen’s Speech Before the Sanhedrin. (Acts Chapter 7)

 

STUDY FIVE: Paul’s Discourse in the Synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia. (Acts Chapter 13)

 

STUDY SIX: Paul’s Defence Speeches.

 

Preface: (from Study Notes)

 

Since their delivery in 1952 the talks on the Speeches in the Acts of the Apostles, by Brother John Carter, have inspired many to look more carefully at the words recorded in the scriptures. Brother Carter in his first talk demonstrates clearly the veracity of Luke’s account from many different viewpoints. He then goes on to show the key to Luke’s writing style and explains that Luke, excellent historian that he was, brilliantly summarises lengthy discourses. The result is a record filled with powerful expressions and essential Old Testament citations.

 

Apart from the obvious benefit to a study of the Acts of the Apostles, we believe that a careful reading of this work will help all brethren, sisters and young people to understand better how the Bible explains and expounds itself. This then will enhance a student’s own Bible study.

 

The 1987 Australian Youth Conference Committee.

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Reference could also be made to the series in The Christadelphian titled “First Century Preaching”. This is most probably a summary of his addresses given four years earlier, but study 5 Athens Acts 17 has been added.

1. The First Christian Lecture (Acts 2) Sep 1956 p329
   
2. The “Name” of Salvation (Acts 3) Oct 1956 p377
   
3. The Defence of Stephen (Acts 7) Nov 1956 p408
   
4. Paul’s Address in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13) Dec 1956 p445
   
5. Paul in Athens (Acts 17) Jan 1957 p9
   
6. Paul’s Defence Speeches (Acts 21ff) Feb 1957 p46
   
7. Paul’s Defence Speeches (Acts 25) Mar 1957 p86
   

[Resource Manager]

Study 01: The Veracity of Luke’s Historical Account

 

Address by Brother John Carter:

 

Dear Brethren and Sisters. This afternoon is in the nature of a little skirmish. We are being introduced, we are getting to know something about the book, and the purpose of it and something about the author of it and the quality of his work and then we can only promise you in the afternoons that follow, some fairly hard thinking. It has been said, “that one reason for the progress of Christianity, was that the Christians out thought their opponents”. And we cannot read the epistles of the New Testament without recognizing that they did some very “high thinking” and we can’t read the speeches in Acts either, without realizing with what cogency and power they put forward their case. It is an object lesson for us that we, in a similar manner, know what we believe and put it forward with a similar power of presentation that they used. We think of the epistle to the Ephesians or the epistle to the Colossians and we say, “we’ll make a study of it”, but those epistles and all the others, were written off to meet a particular situation. And one day, when the brethren and sisters were assembled in Colosse (say), the recording brother of that time says, “we’ve got with us brother so and so who has brought an epistle from Paul and he will read it to us” or some other brother of ability for reading, was given the job of reading it. And it was written to be understood then, when it was written and when it was read. I wonder sometimes if we aren’t a little small in stature compared to the first century Christians in their thinking power concerning the faith, which was in Christ Jesus.

 

Well, in keeping with that ‘high thinking’, we get the record of what they did. Just think how destitute we would be if we hadn’t got the Acts of the Apostles. It takes us to somewhere in the 7th decade of the first century. All that is written in Acts, occurred before the fall of Jerusalem. We all know something about that, but how much do we know of what happened after the fall of Jerusalem? How much of church history? Does any one of us know of the period that followed Acts, let alone the 2nd century and the 3rd. There may be a few among us with a bent for history who have made a study of it. But what I want us to impress upon ourselves is, that, if we hadn’t got the Acts of the Apostles, we would be just as destitute of knowledge concerning the first half century of Christian life and that was the vital half century. And therefore within the canon of holy writ, we have an inspired record of the beginnings of Christianity; of the outworking of the Divine purpose after the ascension of Jesus Christ in the work that the Apostles did in pursuit of the commission that he gave unto them. Acts is a record of the beginning of this Divine work upon earth of “taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name.”

 

It has been assailed, and assailed with considerable vigour. A little over a hundred years ago, there was a school in Germany which gave the name to a mode of thought with regard to the epistles and the writings of the New Testament. At Tubingeng (a school in Germany) there were a company of scholars who dismissed most of the New Testament writings to the 2nd century. We needn’t go into the philosophy of the matter, that is to say, their philosophy and history whereby they explained it (there is something much more interesting more important to do than that). But what we must recognize is that they somehow acquired a dominant interest, so that 50 years ago most scholars would have approached the New Testament from what they thought was an established position that all the epistles of Paul, except the four greater epistles, were not written by Paul at all; that the Acts of the apostles and in fact most of the gospels belonged to the 2nd century. Now if that were the case, we wouldn’t have very reliable history. If the first written records of the beginning of Christianity were dated in the 2nd century we couldn’t expect that they would be very, very dependable. And therefore Luke’s writings were very suspect. And there were a number of points in his record which were assailed as being particularly vulnerable, and I want to tell you about one or two of those as illustrating how modem discovery has vindicated, in a wonderful way, the truth of the record which we have in the writings through Luke.

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He tells us in his gospel of the birth of Jesus. And with the insight of a historian (and in all these relative remarks concerning the writer, we do not forget that behind it all was the inspiration and guidance of the power of God; but nevertheless God used the men, and used their aptitudes and abilities and we can discern the difference between John’s Gospel and Matthew’s Gospel, and Luke has his own distinctive style and method of approach). Well, Luke with a historian’s sense of proportion and fitness, puts the birth of Jesus in the frame work of world events. And he tells us that when Jesus was born, Mary at great inconvenience, must accompany Joseph, her espoused husband, to Bethlehem. No easy road from Nazareth in the north, to Bethlehem just below Jerusalem. But she must per force take this journey, because a decree had gone forth from Augustus that there should be an enrolment, and Luke tells us that this enrolment was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Judea. Then the critic comes in to play and he says it is altogether impossible, Augustus never ordered an enrolment, in any case Luke has made a mistake for Cyrenius was governor of Judea 10 years after the date of the birth of Jesus. And even if there were an enrolment, they wouldn’t have to go to their native place because it would be so very inconvenient.

 

And so recent as the turn of the century, in fact in the last commentary, complete commentary, on the New Testament text (I am showing you it is not a book that has been superceded) the writer, who has spent a lifetime as a teacher of theological students, could say concerning these opening verses of Luke chapter 2; “The passage has given rise to a host of questions which have been discussed with bewildering conflict of opinion, in an extensive critical and apologetic literature. The difficulty is not so much as to the meaning of the evangelist’s words, but rather as to their truth.” And he chooses out four points.

1. “Apart from the gospel, history knows nothing of a general imperial census in the time of Augustus;
    
   
2. There could have been no Roman census during the time of Herod the great;
    
   
3. Such a census at such a time could not have been carried out by Cyrenius for he was not governor in Syria then, not till ten years later; when he did make a census which gave right to a revolt under Judas of Galilee;
    
   
4. Under a Roman census it could not have been necessary for Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem or for Mary to accompany him.”

And on verse 2 he has this comment, “one could almost wish it had been omitted, or that there were reason to believe, or as has been suggested by several writers, that it is a gloss that has found its way into the text and that Luke is not responsible for it, so much trouble has it given to commentators.”

 

Now if these men who were professed adherents of the Christian religion for the most part, had been loyal to their text, they would have said that Luke is a credible witness, and if he tells us something that seems to have been omitted from other history, well so much the worse for them. But through the magnificent work of Sir William Ramsey, there has been an entire reversal of the attitude of scholars to Luke’s writings. On this particular issue, papyrus papers found in Egypt have shown that there was a regular system of enrolment every fourteen years. These bits of papyri have been discovered in Egypt because the dryness of the climate there has been the means whereby they have been preserved. (But what obtained in Egypt would obtain elsewhere.) And sufficient series have been discovered to show that this enrolment took place every 14 years. So far as we know there has been no discovery of any scrap of the first enrolment, but the series takes us back to the year when Christ was born, and it tells us that they had to go to their native place as a family to be enrolled. But an inscription which has been discovered by Sir William Ramsey himself, in Antioch in Pisidia in Asia minor, has established that Cyrenius was sent on a military mission, to quell a tribal revolt in Asia minor. And the strategy of it required that there should be an attack, a pincer movement from Asia minor and from Syria; and a military officer, in charge of such a matter, took precedence over the governor for the time being.

 

And the inscription shows that at that time Cyrenius was in charge and therefore the edict would be issued by him. And on every point where Luke was thought to be wrong, the discoveries of the last 50 years have shown him to be marvelously right.

[Resource Manager]

Now Ramsey went out to Asia Minor in the 80’s of last century, and he says that when he went, he accepted without question the decisions of the Tubingeng School. He was familiar with what scraps of history have survived concerning the history of Asia Minor, and he began an exploration, an archaeological exploration in Asia Minor.

 

His interest being particularly bound up with the meeting place of east and west which was there, and as a result of his discoveries on the spot, he was driven to regard Acts as a 1st Century document, absolutely accurate in every detail, always true in matters of boundaries, always correct in matters of names concerning the rulers of cities or of provinces, or whatever it may be.

 

I am going to quote you from his “Paul the Traveler”. “I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without any prejudice in favour of the conclusion, which I shall now attempt to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity had, at one time quite convinced me. It did not then lie in my line of life, to investigate the subject minutely, but more recently I found myself often brought in contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne in upon me, that in various details, the narrative showed marvelous truth. In fact, beginning with the fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on its evidence as trustworthy for first century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally, in some obscure, and difficult investigations.” And Ramsey challenged the critics and the critics attempted to meet the challenge, which led to further examination, further discussion, and Ramsey contributed to magazines a number of articles all bearing upon first century life, many of which have been issued in volumes, and if you’ve a shelf something like that, and very interesting reading they are.

 

Ramsey in his book ‘The Bearing of Modern Discovery’, tells us with some indignation, of a German writer whose name is Wilchen, who now declares that Luke’s record of the birth of Jesus is a legend! and the reason he claims it is a legend, is because in the externals it is so perfectly accurate, and he says that someone who knew exactly the circumstances (the external circumstances) and the details of the history, took them and pushed into them this ‘legend of the birth of Jesus’, in order that it might be, by the appearance of being put in the framework of history, be regarded as being a statement of historical fact.

 

Now, Ramsey is careful to say that the marvels described in Acts do not concern his purpose. He is there to test matters which are testable, and obviously such a matter as the birth of Jesus cannot be testable by ordinary canons of history. But he says that wherever, and whenever, anything that Luke has said can be tested, Luke is always found to be right. And Ramsey, in his enthusiasm for Luke’s writing, exhausts his vocabulary to extol the magnificence of what Luke has written, in the perfection of its statement, the precision of his description, and the general way in which he presents his case. Ramsey characterizes Luke, as a first rate historian.

 

And so, thus assured of the accuracy of what Luke has written, we can come to it with renewed confidence. Here is the work of a master mind, quite apart from the fact that there was the guidance of the Spirit of God behind it.

[Resource Manager]

Now, there is a way which we are going to try and illustrate in the hope that, if it is necessary, this bit can be cut out of the record where Ramsey came to see that, what Luke has written is perfectly accurate. He tells us of Paul’s visit to the churches of Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Iconium and Derbe. Now, we have no record in Acts, of a visit to a ‘Galatia’, which was known to earlier scholars. The first century was a time of frequent changes of geographical boundaries and of administrative systems. In the first century, the Romans had established a Roman ‘state of Galatia’ a Roman Province of Galatia. Now, I’m going to just turn to the map to illustrate this for you. Here is Palestine, and Paul traveled across to Cyprus, and then across there, and up into the highlands, and there are the cities of that southern portion of Galatia. He then returned to Palestine. The second journey was overland, past the Syrian Antioch, and then through the Cilician gates, and up to the uplands here, and then he hurried on to Troas. Now the Roman Province of Galatia (marked on map) didn’t exist in the 1st century B.C. It didn’t exist in the 2nd century B.C. because there had been changes. Now the ethnic territory, the territory of the old Galatians, was in the northern portion, and because Paul wrote a letter to the Galatians, it was necessary to insert into the history in Acts, a visit to the Galatians, and if the only Galatia known was the old territory where the Galatians proper lived, then obviously we have a serious gap in Acts. And even scholars of the traditional line, like Lightfoot (who was a magnificent scholar in the field of Acts, and the epistles of Paul, in the last century), had to admit that from his point of view there were some strange and inexplicable gaps in the writings in Acts.

 

But immediately it is seen that Luke is speaking, and Paul is thinking, when using the word ‘Galatia’, of the Roman ‘provincial Galatia’, then it is seen that those cities that Paul visited on the first journey, (Antioch of Pisidia, Lystra, Iconium and Derbe) that they are the Galatian cities.

 

Now this map, as you see is a new map, and we could point out that though it is a new map, it perpetuates an error, for there is a dotted travel line that takes us right up to Pessinus and Ankara, (Ankara is the capital of modern Turkey) and then back down here, but there is nothing in Acts to correspond to that journey there, nothing at all.

 

But it isn’t in Acts because it didn’t occur, and it has been postulated because of the hypothesis, that Galatia refers to the ethnic Galatia and not the political Galatia of the first century. But take Luke as recording the facts of the time, and all his references are true, concerning boundaries and so on, then we see that what he says is perfectly true and accurate, and we have no need to think of gaps, and to say that his history is a hotch potch, in fact it is a marvelously systematic unfolding. And so you see in that way, how discovery has not only illustrated the meaning of Luke, but has also established the perfect accuracy of what he has written.

[Resource Manager]

Now I just want to give one more illustration on this head. I have here Rackham’s “Acts of the New Testament”. Now this is perhaps the best commentary on the Acts of the Apostles but you won’t find much of what I shall say to you later in these addresses in here, but still I brought it with me for this reason, I thought if there were some questions on external matters, well, I could fall back on him instead of falling back upon my memory. It would be there as a stand by, but I want to quote you just a few sentences from him: “We shall be abundantly satisfied”, he says in his introduction, “as to Luke’s historical accuracy, if we reflect on the extraordinary test to which it was put, that is the variety of scene and circumstance with which he had to deal. The ground covered reached from Jerusalem to Rome, taking in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. In that field were comprised all manner of populations, civilizations, administrations Jewish and oriental life, western civilization, great capitals like Antioch and Ephesus, Roman colonies independent towns, Greek cities, barbarian country districts. The history covers a period of 30 years which witnessed in many parts, great political changes. Provinces like Cyprus and Achaia, were being exchanged between the emperor and the senate; parts of Asia Minor, for example, Pisidia and Lycaonia were undergoing a process of annexisation and latinisation: Judea itself was now a Roman province under a procurator, now an independent state under a Herodian King. Yet in all this intricacy of political arrangement, Luke is never found tripping. Instances of supposed mistakes or of anachronism, have indeed been alleged and laid to his charge, but after examination, (as will be pointed out in the commentary), we are fairly entitled at least to answer that they have not yet been proved.

 

On the other hand, Luke is equally at home with the Sanhedrin and its parties, the priests and temple guards, and the Herodian princes at Jerusalem, with the proconsuls of Cyprus and Achaia, and now mark, Luke give the perfectly right word to describe all these varied offices; that of rulers of the synagogue and the first men of Antioch in Pisidia, the priest of Zeus at Lystra, the praetors, lictors and jailer at Phillipi, the politarchs of Thessalonica, the Areopagus of Athens, the Asiarchs with the people, the assembly and the secretary of Ephesus, the centurions, tribune and the procurator of Judea, the first man of Malta and the captain of the camp at Rome. And in every case has got the right and proper description of the man concerned.”

 

Now to illustrate, how easy it is to fall into a pitfall; a fortnight ago, I spotted this note in the weekly ‘Spectator’ an English serious journal, and the editor indulges a column or two of lighter matter, but always interesting.

 

Now, Viscount Simon who was a very well read, very learned man, was replying to a proposal in a debate in the House of Lords; and, says the editor of the ‘Spectator’, “I lighted on a passage in which Lord Simon illustrated a contention by a reference to the proceedings of the Pickwick Club, that’s a classic of Dickens, as you know perhaps, in particular to a derogatory epithet, applied by Mr. Pickwick to a fellow member, ‘his name I think was Mr. Blossom of Aldwich’, that pulled me up, said Wilson Harris, a reference to Aldwich in a book published in 1836, when the old name had been dormant for centuries. Whose was the slip, the speaker’s or the reporter’s? I can’t say, but the truth must be vindicated and the truth is that the gentleman’s name was Blotham, which matters little and his domicile Aldgate, which in the circumstances matters quite a lot”. So you see here is a cultured man, Lord Simon quoting with ease a reference to a work which has entered into the household tongue almost, of the British people, and in one sentence he makes two mistakes. He gives the man’s name wrong, and by an anachronism, he gives the old name Aldwich to what was afterwards changed to Aldgate.

 

But the whole point of the story is lost because Aldgate was the place of a famous prison in the days of Dickens, and the reference put into the mouth of Mr. Pickwick is a satirical one. “His name I think was Mr. Blotham of Aldwich”, he’s a representative of the prison. It is satirical and scornful, but by the change of name it is all lost.

[Resource Manager]

How easy it is to make a mistake, and Luke had all those pitfalls which we’ve illustrated in that list of names of different places, and never once has Luke been found to be wrong. (Here’s some notes and I want them to be distributed please) and then while you have your notes with you I’ll go over something concerning the structure and purpose of Acts.

 

I thought this was so important that when I was told that anything would be done that would help, I ventured to impose on the committee connected with this gathering, one or two little jobs, in the way of notes and I would like to thank them for that.

 

Luke punctuates his history in Acts, with a number of statements which bear a family resemblance and which might be called ‘progress reports’, each of which concludes a section of his book. These guide the student in analyzing the book. They indicate how the apostles fulfilled their Lord’s commission in Acts 1:8. Now in Acts 1:8, we read (and Jesus is giving this commission to the apostles and Luke traces out in the history how this commission was faithfully discharged),

 

“Ye shall receive power”, said Jesus “after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

 

“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you”, so this work says Luke, to whomsoever it may concern, and whoever is willing to read about it, this work is a work that was guided by the Holy Spirit and this Holy Spirit was conferred by Jesus Christ risen from the dead, who ascended to the right hand of Power. But Luke tells us something more, he tells us that the second book that he’s writing was a continuation of the first.

 

You know that the preface of the gospel tells us that it was written to Theophilus, and in Acts he tells us that the former treatise he wrote unto this most excellent Theophilus, in order that he might know this which Jesus ‘began’ to do and teach. And it’s that word ‘began’, that I think we are justified in stressing, because it is the first record of Luke, (the gospel), it is an account of which Jesus began to do, then Acts is a continuation of what Jesus did. And therefore we have the work of Jesus continued through the instrumentality of the Spirit, guiding the men. In other words, Luke is claiming that this movement is Divine in it’s origin and Divine in it’s ‘guided development’ during the course of the history, that he is recording. And we have given you, in the next paragraph, some of the references where Luke tells us of the Spirit guidance, and in this witness they were continually guided by God’s Spirit for example, in those quotations.

 

Now when we read Luke carefully, we find that he is very discriminating in the space that he allots to events, and if he devotes a considerable amount of space to any particular thing, it is because he attaches importance to it.

 

He records for example Paul’s conversion three times, and that is the index of the importance he attaches to this, because Christ apprehended this one time persecutor, and made him the foremost executor of his work in the spreading of the Gospel throughout the Roman world.

[Resource Manager]

Cornelius’s reception is twice recorded because it was important in illustrating the spread of this Gospel, that it was of Divine purpose too, that the Gentiles were received into the Christian community. He refers to the Jerusalem decrees three times, because that was an important arrangement made at the mother church in Jerusalem, whereby Gentile communities and Jewish communities could live together harmoniously, and it was a provision whereby those two diverse factions could be welded together in one community.

 

Now we might note Luke’s omissions. He doesn’t tell us, although the book is called the Acts of the Apostles, of the activities of all the apostles. It centres in the work of Peter and of John, and then in the second part it is entirely taken up (or almost entirely taken up), with the work of the apostle Paul, as the Gospel is taken first into Asia Minor, then into Greece, then in the Asian provinces with Ephesus as its capital, and then lastly Paul goes to Rome as a prisoner

 

Now, upon this basis of proportion, it must be evident that Luke attaches considerable importance to the speeches. I have not figured out what proportion of Acts is devoted to the speeches, but it is a very considerable proportion, and it is thus evident that the record of the speeches, which is a record of the testimony made, of what was preached by these first century leaders, is important to the understanding of this movement to know for what it stood, to know what the Divine purpose that was embodied in it, was set out to accomplish. And therefore we shall devote our time principally in the ensuring afternoons this week, in an examination of the speeches.

 

The ‘Trial Speeches’, take up an astonishing part of Acts, about a third of Acts is devoted to the time when Paul was arrested, to his arrival in Rome. If we’ve got a right measure for the importance of things, it is evident that Paul’s arrest and the presentation of his case before the highest authorities in Rome, were vital to the object that Luke had in writing his record.

 

We shall see, as we trace through the book of Acts, and particularly those ‘Trial Speeches’, what Luke was aiming at, and I hope we shall thrill with an understanding of the experiences of these first century Christians.

[Resource Manager]

Will you please turn to your second sheet ‘The Analysis of Acts’, and the Roman figures you’ve got from I to VIII, those are the various divisions of the book. You have in the second column, the references Chapters 1:1 to 2:47, and underneath the words ‘The Progress Report’. Now let us read these progress reports and observe the family likenesses.

 

Progress Report Numbers:

 

1. “and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Chapter 2:47.
    
   
2. “And great fear came upon all the church, and upon many as heard these things.” “And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.” Chapter 5:11, 14.
    
   
3. “And the word of God increased; and the numbers of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.” Chapter 6:7.
    
   
4. “Then had the churches had rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified.” (now you notice in progress ‘3’ that the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem. Luke is telling us of the progress of the work, and he punctuates his remarks by these progress reports and says how it had been fulfilled in Jerusalem.) Now in section ‘4’, “the churches had rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, were multiplied.” Chapter 9:31.
    
   
5. “And the word of God grew and multiplied.” Chapter 12:24.
    
   
6. “So were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily.” Chapter 16:5 (and that follows the account of his first missionary journey).
    
   
7. And the report at the end of the second missionary journey, “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.” Chapter 19:20.
    
   
8. This section closes the book, and it may not seem to fit in with the suggestions we’re making, but we shall see God willing, when we come to our last study, how remarkably, that ending of Acts conforms to the aim and purpose of these other endings.

Now if you mark your Bibles, some do, some don’t (I’m a constant Bible marker myself), you might, in the margins of your Bible, mark these points just to indicate, in some way of your own devising, that this is the end of one of Luke’s sections and then you can have a little exercise in analyzing each section and observing how perfectly Luke, within the compass of that section, moves forward in the development of his historical theme.

 

You have another page which as a matter of convenience I thought would help you. It gives an outline of the events in Acts and their dates. I’m not going to go over that, but such a list is a continual help to students in relating events to the progress of time and with that we will close.

 

No, I’ve forgotten one thing, perhaps I’ll go back to it. Who was Luke? He never tells us and he never mentions himself, and the only time we know of him is when he uses ‘we’. When he is with Paul he uses ‘we’, but there is a hint in Corinthians that Luke and Titus were brothers and when we think of the magnificent work that Titus did with that very difficult ecclesia at Corinth, we can see there were two brothers of very outstanding stature, who were Paul’s companions and they form, with some others, a magnificent group of pioneers whose work is a source of continual helpfulness as we study it.

[Resource Manager]

Question Session:

 

Brother Carter: Now if any of you have any questions we will do our best to answer them.

 

Question: Brother Carter, you say if the Book of Acts had been written in the 2nd Century it wouldn’t be reliable. But if it was written under the inspiration of the Spirit it would be just as reliable, because the Books of Moses were written so many centuries after the events occurred, yet it was under the inspiration of the Spirit.

 

Answer: That is true, but Acts purports to be written by men who were there, and that’s the difference. It isn’t the Spirit writing back, that would be as you say and I heartedly agree, but it purports to be written by men who were travel companions of Paul. We did this, and we did that. Therefore it is either a 1st century document or it is a fake, you see. Now is it a 1st century document? Yes, because it is so dead accurate. If it were a 2nd century document it would be out of joint, right and left.

 

Question: … we were eyewitnesses of his resurrection …

 

Answer: No, the “we” section begins with the travels of Paul, that is in the mouth of Peter you see. But the “we” sections, what are called the “we” sections begin when Paul is joined by Luke at Troas and passes over into Europe. It is possible that the “we” in the account at Pisidia Antioch, “we must through much tribulation”, is an indication that Luke is with him there, but certainly the travel records with the “we” sections, begin when Luke joined Paul at Troas and went over to Macedonia with him, remained at Philippi while Paul went on, and when Paul came back he picked him up at Philippi, and the “we” drops out in between. I could give you the references if you like, but you can easily follow it up.

 

Question: I’m thinking of Luke 1:3: “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first.” Would that understanding be based on personal experience, or the things that he had heard, “even as they delivered them unto us” of the second verse?

 

Answer: Well now, when would the first gospel be written? I personally would agree with Ramsay’s suggestion that the first gospel was written before the crucifixion. You know they practiced shorthand in the 1st century. I had a copy for quite a long time of a photographic copy of a contract between a parent and a teacher of shorthand. That wasn’t Pitman’s, you know, or whatever one you have here, but they would give him a thorough training in shorthand and it was a contract between the parent and the teacher that the lad should be given this training. Now think of this, Matthew was at the receipt of custom. I suppose most men in a corresponding position today knows shorthand. In any case we are sure the emissaries of the scribes were at the edge of the crowds listening to Jesus, and making shorthand jottings. And we are sure there would be a file in Caiaphas’ office and in the office of Pilate concerning this man. They had a good administrative system.

 

And the very first Christians would want some record of him, and these men who had been taking notes or writing letters, there was a continual interchange, travel was never so easy and never as frequent as it was in the 1st century, and during all the centuries since, and until our century, or the centuries before. The Roman administration swept the brigands and the robbers from the road, the pirates from the sea. They had made good roads and men were travelling everywhere. There was a movement from east to west and west to east as had never happened in the world before and the time was ripe and ready. There was a fulness of the time as Paul calls it, for the preaching of the gospel. There were no passports, there was no bother getting vaccination certificates, and having your visas and all the rest of it, like you’ve got to do today. There were no currency questions either, and therefore Paul was able to go easily anywhere and everywhere. And wherever he went they would want to know about Jesus, but because of that ease of travel men of the diaspora used to go up regularly to the festivals. Look at the catalogue of those who were present at Pentecost, Cretes and Arabians, this place and that place throughout the world.

 

Well many of them had relatives or friends in Jerusalem. Letter writing was fairly common. A sheet of papyrus cost in English money today about one shilling. Letter writing was fairly common, there were bills of exchange, there were all the procedures of office grouping that characterizes today. And all those who were trained this way, would be certain during the ministry of Jesus, to say that there is a prophet and that this is what he has been doing, and that is what he has been saying. And there has been discovered in Egypt at Docurentus, papyrus fragments which are known as “the unwritten sayings of Jesus”, they aren’t in the gospels. They may be true or they may not be, but they are fragments of those compilations or records. And Luke says “forasmuch as many have taken in hand”, how many we do not know, but we may be sure with the founding of the 1st Christian ecclesia, they would want some record of the life of Christ. And I personally think that the four gospels were written much earlier than any of the critics have conceded, because it was a real need of the ecclesias that they should have some record of the life of Jesus.

 

But these “many” that Luke refers were not inspired records, as his and Matthew’s, and Mark’s and John’s were. They were acknowledged as inspired records by the men with prophetic gifts in the ecclesia. The others have gone, we don’t know where, but they were never put side by side with these four.

 

And I personally think, although you can quote a dozen scholars against me, as I can quote a few in support of what I am going to say, that “from the very first” in v3, “having a perfect understanding of all things from the very first” is the adverb “anothen” which occurs in “except ye be born from above”, “the wisdom which is from above” it occurs five or six times, and if you read “from above” there, you have “having had perfect understanding of all things from above to write unto thee”, you see, he is claiming inspiritational authority and therefore there is the certainty. It doesn’t follow the majority for that translation, but I think it’s the correct one.

 

The first record of what Jesus did, would be written during Jesus’ lifetime, not an inspired record, I’m saying, writing was common, and men were interested, burningly interested, and these fragments that have come up in Egypt show that there were records.

 

Question: The questioner wondered how they could remember the sayings of Jesus, the conversations, the interplay, question and cross-question and so on.

 

Answer: First of all, I think it is credibly asserted that the Easterners had really wonderful memories. We read newspapers and we scan the headlines and we know we don’t need it tomorrow and we forget it, and our memories are consequentially very poor compared to the trained Eastern memories. Their pupils were trained by rote to recite and to recite until they got it, and they had very tenacious memories with a grasp of the meaning.

 

But beyond all that remember Jesus said in John’s gospel that the Spirit will call all things to your remembrance. Now it is not therefore the fallibility of human memory that is here recorded, but human memory quickened by the Spirit of God. But nevertheless there would be many records.

 

If you attempt to write up, when you go away from here, an outline of what I’ve given, you may find it very difficult, some would remember one bit and others another. If the address was constructed logically, it would be hoped that one point would lead to another. Paul’s arguments are like links in a chain, linked together like that. The sayings of Jesus and the characteristic way of Eastern expressions are like so many bright twinkling stars in the heaven and you’ve got to fit them together into the pattern, but each one separate is bright and dazzling. But their minds were accustomed to think on that. But we are sure that the inspiration of God brought all things to their remembrance.

 

Speeches in Acts Study 1 John Carter Transcript.pdf