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Page i
Acts
INTERPRETATION
A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
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Page ii
INTERPRETATION
A BIBLE COMMENTARY FOR TEACHING AND PREACHING
James Luther Mays, Editor
Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Old Testament Editor
Paul J. Achtemeier, New Testament Editor
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Page iii
Acts
INTERPRETATION
A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
William H. Willimon
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Page iv
Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, copyright, 1946, 1952, and © 1971,
1973 by the Division of Christian Education, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and used by
permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Willimon, William H.
Acts.
(Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching
and preaching)
Bibliography: p.
1. Bible. N.T. ActsCommentaries. I. Title.
II. Series.
BS2625.3.W56 1988 226'.607 87-26085
ISBN 0-8042-3119-2
© copyright John Knox Press 1988
10 9 8
Printed in the United States of America
John Knox Press
Atlanta, Georgia 30365
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Page v
SERIES PREFACE
This series of commentaries offers an interpretation of the books of the Bible. It is designed to meet the need of
students, teachers, ministers, and priests for a contemporary expository commentary. These volumes will not
replace the historical critical commentary or homiletical aids to preaching. The purpose of this series is rather to
provide a third kind of resource, a commentary which presents the integrated result of historical and theological
work with the biblical text.
An interpretation in the full sense of the term involves a text, an interpreter, and someone for whom the
interpretation is made. Here, the text is what stands written in the Bible in its full identity as literature from the
time of "the prophets and apostles," the literature which is read to inform, inspire, and guide the life of faith. The
interpreters are scholars who seek to create an interpretation which is both faithful to the text and useful to the
church. The series is written for those who teach, preach, and study the Bible in the community of faith.
The comment generally takes the form of expository essays. It is planned and written in the light of the needs and
questions which arise in the use of the Bible as Holy Scripture. The insights and results of contemporary scholarly
research are used for the sake of the exposition. The commentators write as exegetes and theologians. The task
which they undertake is both to deal with what the texts say and to discern their meaning for faith and life. The
exposition is the unified work of one interpreter.
The text on which the comment is based is the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The general availability of
this translation makes the printing of a translation unnecessary and saves the space for comment. The text is
divided into sections appropriate to the particular book; comment deals with passages as a whole, rather than
proceeding word by word, or verse by verse.
Writers have planned their volumes in light of the requirements set by the exposition of the book assigned to them.
Biblical books differ in character, content, and arrangement. They also differ in the way they have been and are
used in the liturgy, thought, and devotion of the church. The distinctiveness and
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Page vi
use of particular books have been taken into account in decisions about the approach, emphasis, and use of space
in the commentaries. The goal has been to allow writers to develop the format which provides for the best
presentation of their interpretation.
The result, writers and editors hope, is a commentary which both explains and applies, an interpretation which
deals with both the meaning and the significance of biblical texts. Each commentary reflects, of course, the writer's
own approach and perception of the church and world. It could and should not be otherwise. Every interpretation
of any kind is individual in that sense; it is one reading of the text. But all who work at the interpretation of
Scripture in the church need the help and stimulation of a colleague's reading and understanding of the text. If these
volumes serve and encourage interpretation in that way, their preparation and publication will realize their purpose.
THE EDITORS
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Page vii
PREFACE
I began work on the Book of Acts with the fear that my challenge as an expositor would be somehow to make
ancient history live for modern Christians. I knew enough about modern Christians to know that for many of us the
acts of people in the past, even people of some notoriety like Paul or Peter, usually fail to move us. As a preacher,
I have struggled through many a Sunday morning desperately trying to coax an unwilling congregation into the
murky, stagnant waters of history by convincing them that a twenty-minute plunge into the past would do them a
lot of good. A half century ago Fosdick warned us preachers against the peril of assuming that anybody in the pew
wonders what ever became of the Jebusites.
As often happens when one studies Scripture, I was amazed by the contemporaneity of the Acts of the Apostles.
Here is remembrance in service of the reformation of the church. The church, even when Acts was written, already
needed reformation, self-criticism, bold recollection. The church in any age lives and breathes and grows by
remembrance.
Remembrance is a risky venture for the church. But not always. In my library I have probably a dozen histories of
local churches, most of them as scintillating to read as a telephone directory. All of them are affectionately written
by some sincere local historian to insure that the contribution of dear Uncle Mortimer to the construction of the
banisters on the front steps of the church will not be forgotten. Such church history is down-home hagiography,
idealized remembrance with most of the messy, really interesting stuff lovingly censored. Fierce arguments over
the purpose of the churchthe trustees' debate over what to do with the 1948 Christmas offering, the person who
stormed out in a huff in 1959 over the selection of a new pastorare nowhere to be found, swept under the carpet. In
their place we have lists of former pastors, past teachers of the Men's Bible Study Class, and fascinating data on
the square footage of the new parsonage.
Now the author of Acts is not above a little hagiography of his own. But you need not spend a long time with Acts
before you discover that Acts is engaged in a more significant undertaking than the writing of an official history of
First Church
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Jerusalem. A first encounter with Acts can be deceptive. At first one thinks, "I have come face-to-face with
history," but upon further reading one discovers that Acts is a much more interesting character than even history. A
pleasant, if somewhat idealized, recollection of the past becomes an assault upon present reality, a bold
refashioning of the church, a critique of our current discipleship arrangements. What first appeared to be history, or
apostolic memoir, explodes into a fierce argument about the nature of the church, the meaning of the Christian life,
and the sustenance of discipleship. And why would you or I still take the trouble to listen and then to teach and
preach from Scripture unless we were interested in effecting the same in our church today?
I am endebted to scholars and friends like Franklin Young, Fred Craddock, Moody Smith, and the editors of this
series who read and reacted to this commentary as it was written. Because of the nature of the Acts of the Apostles
and my vocation as a preacher, I am perhaps even more endebted to the people whom I have been privileged to
serve during my two decades of ministry. They, like Theophilus before them, raised the right questions for which
Acts provides many of the right answers. They are the ones today, who in their own struggles to be God's church,
must answer to the interrogation of Scripture. May my efforts here help them in that faithful dialogue.
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Page ix
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
What Is an Acts? 4
The Purpose of Acts 8
Dear Theophilus 11
The Presence of Christ in Acts 13
The Position of Acts 15
Preaching in Acts 16
Commentary
Prologue
Acts 1:126 19
1:114 Waiting and Praying for Restoration 19
1:1526 Leadership in the Community 22
Part One
Witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria
Acts 2:19:43 27
The Community Is Born: What Happened on Pentecost (2:147) 27
28
2:113 The Sound of a Mighty Wind: Pentecost
33
2:1441 What Does This Mean? A Pentecost Sermon
39
2:4247 The Gospel Embodied in Community
What Does the Gospel Do? (3:14:31) 42
43
3:110 Healing and Witness at the Temple
46
3:1126 Testimony Before the People
48
4:122 Testimony Before the Authorities
