Proclaimer Blog
Preaching Acts or why Muslim men have beards but no moustaches
I had to prepare a talk and a sermon on Acts this last weekend. We're doing a little series called "reading the Bible for all its worth" where we help church members understand different genres of Scripture so that they can read the Bible well themselves. Last Sunday was Acts. You've got to decide when you preach it whether it is normative or descriptive. It seems the trend today is to choose the former. This post is about why that is the wrong approach.
- First of all, it's narrative. I think we can all agree on that. And the usual rules of narrative are that it is not, by virtue of being narrative, normative (that is not to say that it may be, more of that in a moment). We don't lay out fleeces for decision making. We don't grow our hair to make us strong. We don't die on a cross. Why should we jettison the rules of narrative for this one book of the Bible?
- Second, the book of Acts is not normatively consistent. For example, I was preaching on Acts 6.1-7 on Sunday. Good stuff. But the argument between various Jewish groups necessitates a change in the way the Apostles administer physical care. In chapter 4 money and food are brought to the apostles and, presumably, they distribute it. In Acts 6, this pattern changes. It has to. Which is normative? They can't both be.
- Third, normative applications often lead you down wrong paths. Most classically, the Ephesian disciples spoke in tongues so "all Christians must" – we hear this a lot around us. 1 Cor 12 proves that this is a falsehood, whatever you think of tongues today.
- Fourth, no one understands all of Acts normatively. Even the most ardent normative fan is selective. I don't know any church that has seven male deacons whose job is to wait on tables.
This was reinforced to me by one of our local missionaries who works amongst Muslim people. At a recent street event he was asked whether he was circumcised (!). Why? he replied. Because Jesus was circumcised and therefore you should be too, came the reply, This is the way a Muslim understands the Koran and the Hadith. Mohammed did it. So must I. Mr M had a beard. So must I. Mrs M told him she didn't like his moustaches. So he had a beard without a moustache. So must I. (Bet you never knew that!)
Instinctively we know that this is not the way to interpret narrative, so why do we apply it to Acts?
Now, before my friends who disagree get all hot under the collar let me qualify everything. Acts is, like other narrative an application of truth to situations. Therefore you need to read it in the light of the rest of Scripture – and especially, the apostles' teaching. Because of its post-cross timing, it is not surprising that many of the events of Acts do turn out to be normative, but they are so because they are timeless applications of new covenant truth, not because they are in Acts.
In other words, the very fact that many of the details of Acts do turn out to be normative has distracted us from thinking of the whole book properly as narrative and interpreting it in that light.