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Monday, July 12, 2010

The Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues (pt. 8)

As we step backward to Acts 10, please bear with me as I remind you that we are backtracking the chiasm created in Luke-Acts, the two books written by the gentile physician. The beginning of Luke and the end of Acts show us the Roman influence on Jesus birth and the arrival of the gospel in Rome. The next point of the chiasm is the Galilee-Gentile connection.
Luke shows the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as Galilean. He gives geographical references that place Jesus in Galilee (4:14-15, 31; 5:1; 7:11; 8:26; 9:10) until 9:51 when Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Even then, Luke reminds us of the Galilean roots of Jesus ministry (10:13-15; 13:31-33; 17:11; 23:5-7, 55).
The corresponding point of the chiasm in Acts is the movement of the gospel, and thus the Holy Spirit, to the gentiles. This doesn’t seem to work well from our modern perspective, but the chiasm of Luke-Acts wasn’t written for us. It was written for first century believers who would have quickly picked up on the connection between Galilee and gentiles – In Isaiah 9:1, the prophet gave a Messianic prophecy in which “Galilee of the Gentiles” will be honored by the Messiah coming from there. (This is the same passage that Matthew 4:12-17 reports Jesus reading in the synagogue.)
The Luke-Acts chiasm and the immediate context of Acts 10:44-48 both point us to the gentile importance of this passage; the Holy Spirit and tongues are simply a part of the greater story. (Yes, the Holy Spirit is extremely important, but to the early church, he was already understood as the one who moved the gospel as it went out with the human activity. There was no need to specify it everytime.)
Next blog we will explore the context of Acts 10:44-48 in greater detail.

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