Thus far the following has been reviewed: the mood or tenor of the gospel preached by the apostles, along with two of its key presuppositions, monotheism and human sinfulness. Before moving on to the study of the core content of the apostolic gospel, there remains one further preliminary consideration. This concerns the communicative form which the apostles employed in their gospel proclamations as recorded in the Book of Acts. A survey of twelve identifiable gospel presentation accounts (2:14-41; 3:12-4:2; 4:8-12; 5:29-32; 7:1-60; 10:34-43; 13:16-41; 14:8-18; 17:2-3; 17:16-31; 26:1-29; 28:17-31) clearly reveals that there was one primary form of verbal communication. This form was simply historical and prophetic narrative.
Fundamentally, the apostolic gospel concerned an historical figure who was alive, dead, and was now alive again. The message centered on Jesus and what God had done, is doing, and will do through him. In addition, this Jesus was often demonstrated to lie in continuity with what God had done in the past, whether in relation to Israel or in relation to humanity as a whole. Furthermore, the apostles also spoke of what God was yet going to accomplish through him in the future, particularly in terms of his return and God's eschatological judgment through him. This they derived both from Jesus' own teaching concerning himself as well as from the ancient enscripturated Israelite prophecies concerning the Messiah. Consequently, it is no surprise that historical and prophetic narrative was employed by the apostles as the natural communicative form for proclaiming the good news. God had acted decisively in the person of Jesus, and the apostles were commissioned to tell his story in relation to humanity's past, present, and future.
With one partial exception, the apostles did not lay out an impersonal systematized "set of propositional truths that referred directly to objective transcendent realities" (T. Harvey). Rather, they resorted to the telling of God's story as revealed in Jesus. This is not to say that the story they told was ambiguously open to multiple interpretations and meanings, as though narrative was intrinsically diametrically juxtaposed to propositional truth. On the contrary, the apostolic gospel in its narrative form was imbued with propositional truth.
The explanation is simple. God had acted and spoken, and had also explained his actions. The entire record of scripture up to the time of the apostles underscored this maxim. The God of the Hebrews chose to reveal himself above all by acting and speaking historically in the life of various individuals and families, and in the life of Israel. This revelation was not comprised merely of the divine acts themselves, but also included the divine interpretation of the meaning and significance of the acts. Consequently, propositional truth was embedded in God's actions and was made known through the interpretation of God's acts by means of the inspiration of God's Spirit given to the prophets of ancient Israel. This, together with God's direct speech, formed the historical basis of God's enscripturated revelation.
The coming of Jesus brought greater clarification to the divine overarching narrative (metanarrative) which comprised all that God had done and said in and through Israel, and that which he was yet to do in regard to humanity as a whole. Jesus' teaching claimed that he himself was the culmination of all God's actions and words, and that the future of God's eternal purpose vis-a-vis humanity and this creation centered on him. God has a mission and its revelation is to be found not merely in the identity of Jesus, but also in Jesus' words and actions in this world, for his words and actions were declared to be God's words and actions.
Consequently, it is the telling of the story of Jesus given in its broader context of past and future, together with its divinely interpreted meaning that constitutes the gospel. Or again, the gospel is presented as God acting and speaking with coherent purpose in and through Jesus. Even though it is not presented as an abstract set of propositional truths referring directly to transcendent realities, these truths are inherent in the telling of the story since the story is given its meaning by its divinely inspired interpretation given us by the Holy Spirit through the apostles.
Nevertheless, we do have one example of the overt preaching of abstract propositional truth: the apostle Paul's address to the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31). But this appears to have been necessary to lay the presupposition of monotheism as a foundation upon which he could proclaim the good news of God's story concerning Jesus. Two contextual items are significant, however. First, the circumstances which precipitated Paul's summons to address the Areopagus were his "preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection" (Acts 17:18), which, given the rest of Luke's accounts of Paul's preaching, indicates Paul was communicating about Jesus by means of narrative. Second, Paul actually wove the overt communication of abstract propositional truth with narrative in his Areopagus address, particularly as he recounted God's general actions in human history and proclaimed God's eschatological judgment through Jesus, whom God had raised from the dead.
Having determined that narrative was the primary communicative form employed by the apostles for the proclamation of the gospel, we will next consider some additional reasons for communicating the apostolic gospel in a narrative form.
3 comments:
Interesting stuff. Who was Theophilus? The gospel of Luke, and the Acts were written for him. From Luke 1 and Acts 1, it seems that both books are intended as narative.
Was Luke's style in telling the story about Jesus to Theophilus influenced the way he wrote the story about the apostles telling the gospel? I am not in anyway saying that Luke was wrong, Holy Spirit inspired him to wrote it that way. I am wondering if there is another records where the gospel was preached differently, from different point of view than Luke.
I assume that telling the gospel narratively does not mean a gospel without a challenge. I am not sure a narrative gospel without a challenge would have provoked people to stone Paul.
Back to my question, who was Theophilus, was he a believer? Probably understanding about who he was would give more light to me about telling the gospel in narrative form.
-w
I've missed your didactic prowess and am glad for the advent of the blog. I suspect we are reading the birth of a good topical book. One can only hope...
david
No one knows who Theophilus was. The name, which means "friend of God," was common among Greeks and Jews in the first century. It's speculated that he may have been a Roman official given the attribution "most excellent," since Luke employs this when referring to governors (Ac 23:26; 24:2; 26:25), and given the apologetic tone of the work vis-a-vis both the gospel and Paul, who is under house arrest as the work closes. That is, Luke may be writing to a Roman official in defense of Paul and the gospel.
Luke's style is not unique, but is consistent with excellent Hellenistic historiography of the time. Rhetorical scholars have pointed out that the speeches attributed by Luke to the various speakers cited in Acts are worded in such manner as to most likely reflect the particular vernacular and manner of speech of those quoted. This is yet another reason for which Luke has been historically regarded as a careful historian, certainly by the standards of his time.
There are too many factors that mitigate against the idea that Luke's use of narrative was simply imposed on the various accounts of the apostolic gospel presentations for the sake of his intended audience, Theophilus. One the bible's primary literary forms is narrative, due most significantly to the fact that Yahweh especially revealed himself not in abstract revelations, but in concrete actions and interactions with humanity. Story is the bedrock of revelation. This continued with the apostles, whose mission is clearly demonstrated in Acts to be one of communicating the story concerning Jesus.
Of course this doesn't involve a mere transference of factual information concerning the man from Nazareth. Rather, his story is presented in an eschatological manner, meaning that Jesus is presented primarily as the hope of humanity, which calls for a response of radical decision on the part of the hearer. All of this will be covered as the core content of the gospel is unfolded in subsequent posts.
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