Dr. John Hartmann

Dr. Hartmann continues his exploration of Acts 11 focusing on the theological ramifications of the expansion of the Gospel into the domain of the Gentiles.

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Dr. Hartmann explores Acts 11, asking “What was the central point of contention in Jerusalem upon reports of the conversion of Gentiles to Christ?” He delves into the theological, historical, and cultural milieu that drove the thinking, expectations, and theological understanding of various Jewish sects and traditions.

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Dr. Hartmann explores the book of Acts documentation of the transition from Jerusalem to Antioch recorded in Acts 11:18-19. He outlines characteristics of Paul and the missionary sending base established in Antioch to reach the Gentile world.

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Dr. Hartmann explores Acts 10 where Peter goes to the Gentiles, in fulfillment of the eschatological plan of God.

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Forced to flee from Damascus, Saul of Tarsus visited Jerusalem about three years after his conversion, a man alienated from all in his past, from the chief priests who once supported his persecution program, from his synagogue compatriots who think he has betrayed the Jewish faith, and from the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem he had once persecuted. Saul was befriended by Barnabas, who, after hearing his testimony, introduced him to two apostles: Peter, the leading apostolic witness in Jerusalem, and James the Lord’s brother (Gal 1:18-19). Peter is the leader among the apostles, and the leader of the Jerusalem church from about 30-43 AD. James, the Lord’s brother, will later replace Peter as the leader of the church in Jerusalem, presiding as its first bishop from about 44 AD until his martyrdom in 62 AD. Paul at this time (35 AD) spends 15 days visiting with Peter, discussing what Peter knows about Jesus, and some aspects of the gospel that he (Paul) has received by revelation from the Lord (Gal 1:11-12) which he is commissioned to preach to the Gentiles.

Saul was a man set on fire by God, compelled to bear witness of Jesus, the One Who was crucified for transgressors, raised from the dead, and exalted to God’s right hand as the New Adam, a New Federal Head of humanity who is seated far above all the powers of darkness, Who is coming again to glorify those He has redeemed and to rule the nations together with them for 1000 years, in a period of time called “the times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).

The unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem not only reject his message – they plot to take his life. Saul/Paul within the space of just a couple of months has twice had to flee a city to escape a plot against his life from unbelieving Jews. Thus begins a pattern that fulfills what Jesus told him from the very beginning when he called him: he would be His witness and would be shown how much he must suffer for His Name’s sake.

Strange though it may seem, Paul views these sufferings in a most positive way, as a part of his fellowship with Christ, as a joint-heir together with Him (Rom 8:17-18)! He and the other apostles think of these sufferings as something of an honor (Acts 5:41-42), as a sign of salvation and of the judgment that rests on the persecutors, and ultimately as a means by which more and more of God’s grace and power will work through him to comfort, heal, and convert many others. Scriptures:

Matt 5:10-12 The crowning point of the 8 beatitudes: Jesus counts as blessed those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness or who suffer shame from His Name

2 Cor 1:3-11; 4:7-18; 12:1-10 As the sufferings of Christ abound, so God’s comfort abounds to us, resulting in grace ministered to many others in trial as well.

Phil 1:27-30; 2 Thess 1:3-10 Suffering a sign of salvation and judgment

Col 1:24-29 Paul makes up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ on the part of others in the Body of Christ

1 Peter 4:13-14 God is with those who suffer for the cause of Christ, even to the point of His glory resting upon them.

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In this study we look at Adam, Abraham, and Jesus, and their respective roles in redemptive history. God appointed Adam, the first man, to the Federal Head of the whole human race. His sin plunged us into a plight of sin and death, subjected to fallen angelic powers who stand in opposition to God. God’s plan for the redemption of a people who would fulfill Adam’s original immediately begins to emerge, even before Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. This plan, foreknown to God before the foundation of the world, would involve the redemption not only of God’s image-bearers, the species Man, but of the whole creation over which Man was appointed to rule.

Abraham too is an important figure in salvation-history. He is the one with whom God makes a covenant that ultimately involves redeeming the whole creation from the effects of the first Adam’s sin. Though his role in this regard is very important, Abraham was not appointed to be the new Federal Head of the human race. But he does become the father of the people God will redeem from the sin of Adam in every nation, a people defined by the faith Abraham displayed when he believed in the God Who raises the dead and calls into being what does not exist. Abraham is important then in two regards: 1) he is the bearer of a covenant that will in its fulfillment redeem the world from Adam’s sin; 2) his faith is the prototype of the faith of the people God redeems from all nations that inherits what the first Adam lost through transgression.

The covenant of redemption established with Abraham comes to fulfillment in Jesus, Whom God appoints to be a Second/New Adam, the Federal Head of a new creation. Jesus entered into stage one of this role in the Incarnation, and has now reached the 2nd stage through crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation to the right hand of God, where He is seated as Gods’ New Man, the New Federal Head of the new humanity that He redeems, far above all the powers of darkness that usurped the authority given originally to Adam. The 3rd stage comes when He returns to rule the nations with a rod of iron as God’s New Adam during the Millenial-Messianic kingdom that appears in Revelation 20:1-10 (cf. Acts 3:21), after which He then delivers the kingdom up to God the Father (1 Cor 15:20-28), so that God may be all in all in the 4th stage, when there at last is a New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21-22; cf 2 Peter 3:13).

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Saul of Tarsus was the chief instigator of a persecution against the early church in Jerusalem that was primarily aimed against the Hellenistic Jews who had believed in Jesus and who were associated with Stephen. His conversion took place while he was journeying to Damascus, to arrest and extradite any of Jesus’ followers who had fled there to escape the persecution that was taking place in Jerusalem. The risen and exalted Jesus appeared to him in a vision, and he within three days was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. The Lord also revealed to him his calling to bear witness concerning Him to the Gentiles, the sons of Israel, and even the political powers of the Roman world, and also shows him how much he will suffer in executing this mission, all for the sake of the Name of Jesus.

There thus is an inseparable connection between Paul’s apostolic witness and the sufferings he must endure for the Name of Jesus. Who were his persecutors? Not so much the Roman authorities, who generally were indifferent to Paul’s work, except when it disturbed the peace or was perceived to be a threat to Roman rule. Nor does his opposition come mostly from the general Gentile populace, though they too could become hostile when Paul’s work challenges their idolatry or the money some made through making idols. By and large, Paul’s chief opponents were his own brethren, the sons of Israel, who opposed him in nearly every major city in the Diaspora where he preached the gospel of Christ. Paul was persecuted by Jews who didn’t believe the gospel, who, after rejecting his message, would stir up riots in order to get the Roman authorities at odds with him. But he also was persecuted in some measure by Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah, but who thought that Paul erred in not telling Gentiles who repented and believed in Jesus that they could not be saved without a full initiation into Judaism, which would include circumcision and accepting the full yoke of the Law of Moses.

Paul ministers out of deep awareness that the grace of God is with him in a special way to fulfill his calling to the Gentiles. “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor 15:10) becomes something of motto for Paul’s life. And the scope of the mission and grace given to him is staggering to the mind. He is given “grace and apostleship to bring about obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His Name’s sake” (Rom 1:5; cf 12:3; 15:14-21). Paul never boasts of anything as coming from himself; everything he achieves in his ministry of the Gospel is a matter of the grace and power of God that work so mightily through him to achieve God’s goals among the Gentiles. This lays the foundation for a gift-based theology of ministry that Paul will in due time develop in his letters, displaying his unique insight that God has gifted and anointed each member of the Body of Christ for fruit-bearing in works of service that He prepared beforehand for each to walk in (Eph 2:10; 4:7-16′ 1 Cor 12; Rom 12:3-8).

Paul knows he has been given grace and apostleship in a unique way. But he in no way thinks of the work of God as something he carries out alone. Paul, more than any other NT author, again and again mentions by name those who co-labor with him in the cause of Christ, speaking of them with appreciation, affection, respect, and honor, as those who together with him lay down their lives for the Lord and His cause in the Gospel. Read through Paul’s letters and this will become so clear one wonders how we might have missed th is. Paul and the other apostles were here informed by the teaching of Jesus: that those involved in the mission of the Gospel must be ready to lose their lives in order to gain it (see Matt 10:37-42; Mark 8:34-38).

So Paul, after his conversion, was baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, and immediately began to preach in the synagogues of Damascus, proclaiming that Jesus is the risen Son of God. This continues for three years, after which a plot against his life forces him to flee from Damascus to Jerusalem. We will pick up this story in two weeks, as we continue to look at the early ministry of the apostle Paul.

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Texts: Acts 9:10-20; 2 Cor 5:14-21; Rom 7:4

The story of the apostle Paul/Saul of Tarsus is one of the most dramatic examples of radical conversion and role reversal in human history. The man so fully devoted to destroying the church of God was changed to become the chief witness of Jesus Christ. What happened to bring this about?

Paul’s own repeated explanation is that he saw the once-crucified and now risen and exalted Jesus with his own eyes (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8), and was “apprehended by Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:12).

Paul could say that he lived as he lived and did what he did because the love of Christ “constrains” him (2 Cor 5:14-15). This love so guided his course that he could live as one who becomes all things to all men that he might save some (1 Cor 9:19-23), ruling over his bodily passions and appetites so that he might attain to the great prize, running the race with endurance, fighting the good fight with purpose and aim (1 Cor 9:24-27).

Our teacher spends a good bit of time breaking down the syntax of 2 Cor 5:14. We here find that the word translated “control” or “constrain” in 2 Cor 5:14 (which refers to the action of the subject, “the love of Christ”) actually means “to compress, or hem in”. Whether Paul means Christ’s love for us (subjective genitive) or our love for Christ (objective genitive, Christ as the object of our love), either way, this love of Christ becomes that driving force by which we are apprehended and which governs what we do in a life of service poured out for God.

Paul thus makes this judgment about what actually occurred in Christ’s Cross-Work: one died for all, and therefore all died. Christ’s death is not only a Substitutionary work, in which He bears the penalty of sin in our place, which, of course, He did. Here Paul makes known that he understands Jesus’ death as the work of a Representative, Who takes the sum total of the fallen creation in Adam and crucifies it to the tree. This means that those who are in Him participate in that death. If He died for all, then all who are in Him died as well, to all that pertains to the fallen creation, which includes the reign of sin, the oppressing influence of the powers of darkness, and the world-system that is the polar opposite of the love of the Father.

Participation in Christ’s death means also participation in the newness of life that flows from His resurrection. Paul makes this clear in Romans 6:3-5: those who are baptized into His death are also raised to walk in newness of life; if they participate in His death, then so likewise they participate in His resurrection life. This is underlined in Rom 7:4 and again in Eph 2:1-10 and Col 2:12-13.

So what do we do with all of this? Five things:

1. Make knowing our participation with Christ in death and resurrection the focus of our prayers. Ephesians 1:17-19; 3:16-21; Col 1:9-11; Phil 1:9-11
2. Seek heavenly things, not things of the earth Col 3:1-4; Rom 6:1-23; 12:1-21; Eph 4-6.
3. Lose our life for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel Mark 8:34-38
4. Become all things to all men and self-disciplined for the cause of the Gospel 1 Cor 9:19-27
5. Embrace co-heir suffering with Christ Rom 8:17-39; Phil 3:8-10; Phil 1:27-30; 1 Pet 4:12-14; Rev 12-14

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The persecution that began with the death of Stephen marks a major turning point in the narrative of the Book of Acts, as the Gospel now spreads beyond Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Those scattered go into new regions preaching the Gospel of salvation in Jesus. This sets up the next five parts of the narrative in Acts, as follows:

1. Philip the Evangelist brings the gospel to Samaria and the cities of western Judea along the Mediterranean coast (Acts 8:5-40). After this, Philip settles in Caesarea, a port city on the Mediterranean coast, and the seat of Roman government for the whole region of Judea. Though he disappears from Luke’s narrative almost as quickly as he appears, Philip re-emerges about 25 years later (21:5-10), still living in Caesarea, the father of four daughters who possess the gift of prophecy. He now is designated “Philip the Evangelist”, which suggests that he had carried on a great work of evangelism in the cities of Judea, with Caesarea as his base, throughout the years 32-57 AD.
2. The Conversion and Early Ministry of Paul in Damascus, Jerusalem, Syria and Cilicia (Acts 9:1-31). Paul’s conversion was due to a dramatic vision of the risen Lord that he received on the road leading to Damascus. His first three years of ministry were in Damascus, from which he finally was forced to flee because of a plot of the Jews against his life. He then came to Jerusalem, where he met Barnabas, Peter, and James the Lord’s brother, and also engaged in debate with Hellenistic Jews in those synagogues where Stephen used to minister. Paul again was forced to flee because of a plot of the Jews against his life, and, after visiting in Caesarea, was finally sent off to Tarsus in the province of Cilicia. Paul then disappears from the narrative for about the next eight or nine years, until Barnabas seeks him out and brings him to Antioch (11:19-26; date about 45 AD). During this time he ministered throughout the regions of Syria and Cilicia (Galatians 1:21). With his conversion (32 AD) the church ceases to be persecuted and enjoys rest, though only for a season (Acts 9:31).
3. The ministry of Peter at the house of Cornelius in Caesarea, which opens a door of faith to the Gentiles that will be fully sanctioned by the leadership of the Jerusalem church (9:32-11:18).
4. The Jew-Gentile church in Antioch Syria, where God does a great work, and from which emerges the Gentile mission led by the apostle Paul, and the controversy about whether believing Gentiles must be circumcised and bear the yoke of the Law of Moses in order to be saved (11:19-26)
5. The relationship between Antioch and Jerusalem, and the persecution instigated by Herod Agrippa, which results in a leadership shift in the Jerusalem church (from Peter to James the Just, the Lord’s brother), and the ongoing triumph of the Word of God (11:27-12:25).

This study sets up a further analysis of the narrative of Acts in the weeks to come, as we seek to understand the nature of the early Christian gospel mission, and, in particular, the ministry of the apostle Paul to the Gentiles. Today we covered parts 1-3, and will pick up on this again in the weeks to come.

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Seven men were selected to oversee the care for the widows in the Greek-speaking wing of the early Jerusalem church. This study looks at the qualities of those called as leaders for that task, (as should also apply today to men raised up in the church). Our study will include a brief overview of Philip’s mission in Samaria.

The days of the choosing of the seven were hard times – famine, heavy taxation from Rome and exploitation by wealthy Jewish landowners (James 5). The community of the faith cared for their truly poor and needy. Isaiah 58 shows the fast God has chosen and is exemplified in the early church. Seven men were selected to take care of the widows. Their qualifications were as follows:

1. Men of good reputation
2. Men full of the Spirit
3. Men full of wisdom

These qualifications are similar to those given when Jethro counseled Moses to find men who would help him bear the load of shepherding the congregation in Ex. 18. Moses is advised to choose:

1. Able, gifted men, who
2. Fear God and
3. Hate dishonest gain

Going back to Acts, we find that persecution came at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom, which God used to further His purpose and strategy to take the gospel beyond Jerusalem. Philip takes the lead proclaiming the word to those living in Samaria. Like Stephen, and the apostles before him, Philip preaching is accompanied by signs and wonders.

In this study our journey through the Acts of the Apostles reaches a new turning point, as the gospel begins to go out beyond Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria. We continue next week with a fuller look at Philip’s ministry in Samaria (8:4-40), leading to the next two major developments: the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-31), and Peter’s ministry at the house of Cornelius (9:32-11:18), both of which (together with the scattering that takes place with Stephen’s death) set up the Gentile mission that will be launched from the church in Antioch-Syria (11:19-26; 13:1-4).

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