James Wong, Anchor Church intern, provides some principles to help us read and interpret Acts with confidence.
We recently began a 29-week teaching series on the book of Acts called A Movement Begins. Our hope and prayer is that this will be transformative for the Anchor family: that we will be inspired by the stories of the early church and filled with gospel confidence to take our part in Jesus’ mission.
As we make our way through the book, we’ll see the Holy Spirit poured out, the apostles preach the gospel with boldness, thousands turn to Jesus, churches planted and established, the sick healed, and the dead raised.
How do we interpret these amazing events? How do we discern the implications for our lives?
1. Is this Prescriptive or Descriptive?
These two categories help us understand the author’s intent in writing a passage. Is the author telling me how to live (prescriptive) or describing the events that have taken place (descriptive)? We want to avoid mistakenly prescribing something that was only intended as description, but we also don’t want to miss prescriptive instructions.
Examples: In Acts 1:12–28, the disciples select a replacement for Judas by casting lots. Is the author telling us to cast lots for church decision-making? In Acts 9:36–43 Peter raises Tabitha from the dead. Is the author teaching Christians to pray for the physical resurrection of the dead when attending funerals? Or are both of these descriptive passages?
To help figure out if a passage is prescriptive or descriptive, look at the verses immediately surrounding it. This will help you identify the genre. Has the author written this with the intent of instruction or as a record of events? Keeping these two categories in mind is a helpful starting point for interpreting Acts.
2. What Principles can we learn from?
While descriptive passages are not intended to tell us what to do, we can still learn from them. They may contains principles that would be helpful to adopt or appropriate in our context.
Example: Acts 2:42–47 is a detailed description of how the early church began meeting together. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to prayer, hospitality, and the breaking of bread. This is a descriptive passage but many churches have adopted these principles and appropriated them for modern church life today.
Although large sections of Acts are not prescriptive, we can still learn principles that are godly and true. These principles have much to teach us about discipleship, church-planting, mission, prayer, preaching and much more.
3. What biases do I have?
The Anchor Family is made up of Christians from a variety of diverse church backgrounds. We all bring biases, even subconsciously, from our churches of origin. Some might be truthful, others may be cultural, and others might be outright wrong.
We need to be self-aware and recognise this as we encounter stories in Acts that may feel foreign to our own experiences. As this happens it’s important to reflect and ask: ‘Why am I reacting this way? What cultural biases am I interpreting this through?’
The Big Picture
These principles can be used as tools to help us interpret and understand what God is doing in the book of Acts. Let’s be careful though to avoid getting so stuck in the theological details that we miss out on the big picture!
Through God’s Word we have the opportunity to be encouraged, inspired and moved to action by the example of the early church. We have the opportunity to learn to emulate their devotion to prayer and radical generosity. We have the privilege of calling upon the Holy Spirit to fill and empower us for Jesus’ mission.
Ultimately that’s the goal of this series. Not more knowledge, not clarification on secondary issues, but transformation in our lives that will overflow into our suburbs, families, workplaces, and city.