20th Day of Easter, Friday May 1: Acts 11:19-30

Have you got a map handy in a bible? The Jerusalem crowd scattered after Stephen’s stoning, in the persecution that Saul supported. There are folks talking all around the eastern Mediterranean. Some come from Cyrene in north Africa, and from Cyprus, and show up in Antioch, the centre of the Seleucid empire before the Romans governed Syria. Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt, will be key centres balanced with Rome in the next century, and in Orthodoxy today.

It’s a big deal to start the church in Antioch – and Acts has to give credit to the Africans and Cypriots for startup, but quickly lays down the theme that the Jerusalem church sends supervision and reinforcement in Barnabas, who picks up Paul along the way. This is the beginning of the Barnabas and Saul team, building up the believers for a year in Antioch – and claiming the new name ‘Christian’. Who starts and builds churches, and who takes and gives the credit? Who builds our communal moral and financial capital - and who spends it and parasites it away?

Agabus and the prophets come from Jerusalem to Antioch, to predict a famine – or more likely, report one - and to ask for relief for the folks back home in Judea. That’s a familiar tale in every church ever since, and in every displaced community or immigrant group in Toronto sending help back home. To whom do we owe relief, and how to we guarantee delivery? Antioch sends Barnabas and Saul. Read more...

19th Day of Easter, Thursday April 30: Acts 11:1-18

It’s one thing to come to a new understanding with another person or community, out in the week and the world. It’s another to bring it back home to the family or the church that have not shared the experience. When have you had that experience of making new friends and new sense, or adopting a new way of living differently – only to have to explain it back at home?

So the church in Judea, centred in Jerusalem, get wind of Peter befriending Gentiles. Rumour has it that Peter is eating non-kosher food with non-circumcised people, and not making them change to be like him. Again, this story stands in context of an orthodox observant community learning how to make alliances with heterodox differently observant folks, not just as a strategy to change them, but accepting them. In our context the risk is of anti-Semitic or rigidly progressive reading of this text as if Jews were less developed or smart, and lacked enlightenment – or worse, that they do today!

Peter recites the story we read yesterday. Sometimes we have to tell stories, and not speak in categorical terms. Through our church’s struggles to welcome gay and lesbian members and leaders, story telling was always more effective than legislative edicts. Can you tell a story, as you remembered in the first paragraph today, of when you expanded your horizon and perspective, and then came home to tell the story? How did that go for you? Read more...

18th Day of Easter, Wednesday April 29: Acts 10:24-48

Peter brings a crowd of his people from Joppa, up the coast to where Cornelius has gathered a crowd of his family and friends. This is public diplomacy, not a private party as it might be in our culture. Who defers to whom, and what are the consequences? What’s at stake, for whom, in such a meeting? What’s it like for orthodox folks from other Christian denominations, or from other faith groups, to visit secular irreverent communities like ours?

The words attributed to Peter about his own starting presumptions against associations with Gentiles set up the conflict and reconciliation between the Jerusalem church of the circumcised, and Antioch’s church of Gentile freedoms. However, we read them in a different context, and must not simply parrot the line that ‘Jews have laws against associating with non-Jews’ – nonsense! What do you know about being a respectful guest, or host with your Jewish friends, coworkers, and in Thornhill? Can we recognize others’ scruples without over-generalizing and making unholy alliance with anti-Semitic bigots?

Peter recites the story again – persuasive rhetoric along the lines of Kuhn’s paradigm shift, affirming the existing law and prophets, and showing how the person and work of Christ offered as much plus extended power. The key here is less his words than the event of meeting and the movement of the Spirit. If God welcomes Gentiles without prior circumcision, who is Peter to reject them? Spirit first, then baptism, then teaching – how’s that for a reversal of our strategy? Read more...

17th Day of Easter, Tuesday April 28: Acts 10:1-23

Just up the coast from Joppa, in Caesarea in Samaria, a Roman governance town, we meet a centurion, boss of a hundred soldiers. Is it possible to be a Roman officer and a good man? Acts is taking a position, and saying yes. Peter is going to meet his first Gentile host, friend, and co-religionist. Acts says that an angel, a voice, and the Spirit prepared Peter to meet Cornelius – just as Saul and Ananias were prepared to meet one another in the last chapter.

Peter’s dream happens here, with a vision repeated 3 times (and you’ll find, retold by Peter many times more). The heavens open and something like a sheet bearing all kinds of clean and unclean animals comes down, and a voice says ‘get up, Peter, kill and eat’. Peter protests – he’s not going to eat forbidden foods! He has been keeping kosher all his life – no snake snacks wrapped in bacon for him! But the seed of doubt is planted. Snoopy in the Peanuts cartoon was always going to write a book of theology, but never got past the title: ‘Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?’

A Roman soldier and 2 slaves arrive at Peter’s door. What kind of uniformed strangers would scare you? The Holy Spirit tells Peter it’s OK, and the visitors report that their officer Cornelius has been told by angels to invite Peter to visit. So Peter hosts the visitors, then heads off to be a guest himself. Have you ever reached across a cultural, ethnic, or religious boundary to exchange hospitality, and to make friends? Did you feel scared? Did you seek reassurance? Read more...

16th Day of Easter, Monday April 27: Acts 9:32-43

Having parked Saul offstage in Tarsus, the account in Acts returns focus to Peter, who is healing Aeneas in Lydda, and raising Tabitha or Dorcas from the dead in Joppa, and then staying with Simon the tanner in Joppa. Don’t skip over the proper names of people and places in quick narratives – this is, after all, the acts of the apostles, not the ideas or good intentions of the apostles. What kind of people, places, and acts are these? Are they at all like any people, places, and acts that you know?

The places are in Judea, up toward the boundary region with Samaria. Peter is still working with Judeans, or at least the people in the land, and not leap-frogging with Philip’s Ethiopian convert to Africa, or with Paul’s outreach beyond Galilee to Damascus. Often we think that ‘mission’ is ‘over there’, to ‘them’ – and we overlook the people and places close to hand, and the duties that lie next to us. Thomas Carlyle said to do that duty first, and your next duty will be clearer.

Do you recognize the parallels here between what Peter is doing, and what Jesus did in the gospels, and what the 72, going out ‘two by two’, did in Luke’s gospel? Who heals the world – Jesus, or us? What does it mean to say ‘in the name of Jesus’, or ‘by the Holy Spirit’? Nor are Aeneas, Dorcas or Tabitha, or Simon just passive recipients of Peter’s saving actions, but partners: ‘get up and make your bed’, ‘get up’ and resume your creative fabric work, and keep up your tanning, and thanks for your hospitality, says Peter. Read more...

15th Day of Easter, Sunday April 26: Acts 9:20-31

After Saul’s individual conversion, and his first contact with Ananias and a small group of disciples in Damascus, he goes public. He shows up in the synagogues in Damascus, and starts doing exactly what he came to arrest people for doing, stirring up Christian dissent in those synagogues. Imagine the resistance in the crowd – his former allies and his former victims each reassessing their responses. His former allies plan to kill him, and guard the city gates, but he escapes in a basket over the city wall at night.

Acts says that back in Jerusalem, nobody trusted him or would talk with him. Just as Ananias had to take a chance, so Barnabas (son of encouragement) goes to him, brings him to the disciples, and vouches for him. Paul’s autobiography won’t match this bio. In Galatians, Paul says he only met Peter and James, and not to learn from them or defer to their approval, just as a courtesy. Who gets to say who gets to play, in the early church or in ours?

Saul doesn’t preach for long without getting into a new fight, this time with Hellenists. That may mean Greek-speaking Jews or Greek-speaking Gentiles. They adopt the language and culture of the market, not a dialect from a religious or ethnic subculture. God knows what the fight was about, and hasn’t told me. Acts just says that’s why Saul was shipped out to Caesarea by his friends, and in turn to Tarsus, past Antioch. Conversion hardly leads to ‘happily ever after’, eh? Read more...

14th Day of Easter, Saturday April 25: Acts 9:1-19

This is the best known bit in the book: the conversion of Saul. Acts reminds us that he has been persecuting churches. Now he is heading north on the road to Damascus – the major trade route north to Syria and in turn to Asia, with warrants to arrest Christians and bring them to Jerusalem. On the road, a blinding bright light drops him, and Jesus speaks to him: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?’ (Since adolescence, I prefer the King James translation of Jesus’ next comment, ‘it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks’). Stopped. Try it.

Is that conversion? Is that necessary? Is that enough? Do we have to experience a psychotic break to join the church? No. There are thousands of conversions reported in Acts, unlike this one. And this story doesn’t end on the road, but in the city. Three days blind, neither eating nor drinking, then Saul is sent Ananias. Saul needed someone to finish what started on the road. Ananias had to do it. Acts tells us that Ananias was directed to Saul in a vision in prayer, and that Saul was prepared to receive Ananias in a vision in prayer. When they met, touched, ‘something like scales fell from his eyes’. Blinded on a road. Sighted in a city room

Our evangelical heritage includes revivals and conversions, relying on this text and John 3 ‘born again’ talk. Our personal and evangelical experience knows how hard and how necessary it is for Ananias to meet Saul to touch. It’s not enough to be justified and saved alone – we need some sanctification, in community. But the insiders have to risk reaching out. Ananias had to go to Saul. Saul had to go to the church and then to the Gentiles. It’s our job. ‘Only Nixon could go to China’. Read more...

13th Day of Easter, Friday April 24: Acts 8:26-40

An angel sends Philip south to the Gaza road heading to Egypt. Does this remind you of the birth narratives in early Luke? Do you see images of the Gaza strip today, still a critical trade route to Africa and the Mediterranean? Who do you meet on such a super highway, like an international airport today? How else did this movement reach Africa, India, and Spain in its first 20 years, except by hitchhiking on the existing flow of commerce and governors?

An Ethiopian eunuch, civil servant managing the treasury of Candace queen of Ethiopia, makes a perfect heroic type for the first Gentile convert. (Sure, there had been Hellenists and Samaritans – still cousins of the Jews of Jerusalem) The church for its first centuries was centered in Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria, only latterly in Rome. Here’s an aristocratic seeker who has already been to temple and read the prophets – not an ignorant barbarian blank slate. Philip shows him how to reread through the lens of Jesus as Christ, and he sees it.

I’m preaching this text on Sunday, as one of the many in Acts that provoke the question of ‘Us & Them’ as a movement moves beyond its ethnic homogeneity, and includes ‘others’, and has communities of varying ethnicity. Philip as a first missionary is not doing cultural imperialism – nor is he driven by family values. With our fetish for Sunday Schools and mantras of ‘the youth and young families are out future’, we need reminding that the first Gentile convert was a eunuch, castrated to ensure he would have no children tempting him to nepotism or designs on Candace’s throne for his daughter – and no kids for Sunday School! Read more...

12th Day of Easter, Thursday April 23: Acts 8:1-25

Today’s bit of Acts introduces Saul as a character, who was mentioned yesterday as the young guy who watched the coats for the witnesses who stoned Stephen for blasphemy. Saul approved of the killing, and joined the campaign of terror against the church, imprisoning disciples. The original readers of Acts were not just remembering hard times 20 and 40 years before the writing – but in their time, and as we know, in the generation ahead of them at Roman hands. They and we also know that scattering the Jerusalem church created the rest of us.

Philip is the next paragraph. Was that Philip the apostle, or the deacon? Does it matter any more? He’s taken the franchise to Samaria, in flight from Jerusalem, and is doing good and speaking truth in public. A competitor, Simon the Magician, joins the movement. Here’s another clue to how the movement grew, by amalgamation with other God-fearing religious seekers and their communities. Acts’ narrative shows us how to build alliances, increase catholicity and diversity, while discipling ourselves, lest in trying to become everything, we end up nothing.

If Philip is the advance man in Samaria, Peter and John come out from Jerusalem to check quality control on behalf of the franchisor, in Acts’ version of history. They find that Philip has been offering a water baptism of repentance, like John the Baptist in the gospel volume – but they bring the empowering gift of the Spirit from Pentecost, and patterned on the dove at Jesus’ baptism. Simon Magician shows he doesn’t get it, and is still a charlatan trying to sell supernatural tricks. Read more...

11th Day of Easter, Wednesday April 22: Acts 7:30-60

Stephen’s story continues and ends today. Did he really say all this speech, or would a camera have caught his speech in the midst of stoning just this way? This is idealized, hagiography, heroic legend-making – and a great teaching technique for equipping our own discipleship and witness.

God appears in a burning bush to Moses after he has been 40 years in Midian in the desert. The Exodus brings him back to the desert with a people and a tent of testimony, but Stephen celebrates the tent, not the arrival 40 years later in the promised land. Stephen points out that even David was told God didn’t need a temple from him, and quotes Isaiah among the prophets looking beyond the physical temple. That’s good news, for folks living after 70AD, with their temple in rubble, remembering Stephen preaching 40 years before!

Stephen’s martyrdom is operatic, shaped and modeled on Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus may have died ‘once for all’, but some followers in every generation have made their own sacrifice. I’m often derisive of ‘WWJD’ piety, ‘what would Jesus do’, since Jesus is not a role model for me to imitate while claiming ‘god in me’, but Christ for me. Better to ask ‘what would Stephen do’, or what would a faithful disciple do and say, a hero, a source and authority for my own ethical choices. Read more...

10th Day of Easter, Tuesday April 21: Acts 6:8-7:29

We’re starting the story of Stephen today. Of the 7 deacons appointed yesterday, he’s the one we remember. His service work drew resistance, and in defending himself, he went outside his original job description to do the very preaching that the 11 apostles had thought they were freeing themselves to do! Did you ever see a church job expand like his, at personal cost like he paid? Me too.

Stephen defends himself with a long peroration summarizing salvation history from Abraham in Mesopotamia up to Moses on the run in Midian today (and tomorrow continues the recital with the Exodus story). Even the deacon ‘waiting tables’ and helping the poor must be ready to defend the hope that is within him, and Stephen offers a model for 1st century Christians, and for us. How well could you sum up biblical narrative, salvation history, and why it matters?

There’s a rhythm to Stephen’s version of the story: leaving your roots or home, facing resistance, trusting a promise, making a covenant – then leaving another generation to repeat the cycle, with new resistance. Here’s a preacher or teacher selectively elaborating on scripture – ‘The Message’ translates Stephen calling young Moses ‘equally impressive as a thinker and an athlete’, with cultural roots in Egypt, but living as a resident alien in Midian. Moses is spun as Stephen’s hero. Read more...

9th Day of Easter, Monday April 20: Acts 6:1-7

Some of you were a bit skeptical of the early commune – today you might say you told us so. The Hellenists, the Greek speaking folks, complained against the Hebrews, the Aramaic or Hebrew speakers. The distribution of charity to the needy seemed to be favouring the needy (‘widows’ means more than gender and marital status – but vulnerable or marginal folks) who were of the same ethnicity as the distributors.

The 12 reframed the issue, not addressing the accusation, but saying that ‘waiting on tables’ was distracting them from preaching. They proposed delegating to a new group of servant leaders, ‘deacons’ – who just happened to all have Greek names to reassure the original complainers. Do you think that was wise leadership, or evasion?

Distributive justice, or charitable redistribution, is hard work. Who are the ‘deserving’ poor? What bias – or appearance of bias - is there in our offering of help to those in need? Who takes responsibility for making choices, and who accepts the job of implementation? What do you expect from government social service, how much from charity, and how much from individual generosity or initiative? Read more...

7th Day of Easter, Sunday April 19, Acts 5:17-42

You’ll be recognizing the pattern: religious and institutional powers-that-be are jealous and angry, and try to repress these agents of change. This change is good news for the people – but not for the rich and powerful. They lock up the apostles, but God opens the prison, and they resume doing good and telling truth in public. The council arrests them again, and threaten them – they don’t want to be accused of killing Jesus – but they want to kill the apostles! Who are ‘they’?

Don’t miss what I call ‘the Gamaliel strategy’. One of the bad guys, one of the elite, the leaders, models how to be faithful, or at least less bad, and we could learn a lot from him. ‘If this is of God, you can’t stop it – and it it’s not of God, you won’t have to’. This should be a mantra in any church council meeting responding to some new initiative among or around us. We should be less anxious, less often, to do God’s job for God, of smiting heretics.

The apostles give thanks to have suffered dishonor in the name of Jesus. They returned to doing good and telling truth – again, some more. They’re not seeking martyrdom, or celebrating random suffering – but they are better adjusted to losing faithfully than to winning at any cost. How about us? Read more...

7th Day of Easter, Saturday April 18, Acts 4:23-5:16

Now, today’s reading includes a lesson for Sunday’s worship. The lectionary captures the core nugget, 4:32-35, celebrating the earliest commune of shared property, ‘from each according to her ability, to each according to her need’. People liquidated and pooled everything they owned – what a cult! The United Church bible study “The Church We Are Becoming”, invites us to reconsider our own capitalism, our own values and priorities, compared to this model. Try it!

Don’t miss the opening speech today, which clearly accuses the Gentiles and the Roman government in the city to kill Jesus – not ‘the Jews’, but the Romans! The political reading of the bible is nothing new to the United Church – neither Ambrose nor Augustine were enamoured of private property for Christians.

Barney gets it right: he sells a field, and contributes the money. Ananias and Sapphira get it wrong: they sell a lot, and give only a part. Each lies about it, and dies on the spot. It’s not just the greedy selfishness that’s condemned, but the dishonesty, collusion, and denial. Do you recognize anybody there, either in Barnabas the generous encourager, or in the mean couple? Read more...

6th Day of Easter, Friday April 17, Acts 4:1-22

Here come the ‘them’! Priests, captain of the Temple, and Sadduccees come arrest and lock Peter and John. But the people – ‘we’, the religious – 5000 more of us bought the apostles’ pitch. Don’t demonize ‘the Jews’, as Christians have too often in lazy reading of Acts. Suspect our own clergy. Worry about those managing the institutions of what we’d call not only religion, but also health, education and social service, among the functions of ‘temple’. Keep your eye on our own affluent pious conservatives. You might hear the word, then.

Peter makes another speech, to these clergy and civil servants, this elite of the people, ‘speaking the truth in love to power’. They are surprised since Peter and John are uneducated and ordinary folks, part of the people, not the elite. ‘Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you are on – class analysis is knowing who’s there with you’. Who’s preaching to whom here?

Well the leaders let them go. Why? Because the leaders knew that the people knew that a guy was healed, and the truth was told. They told the apostles to stop, but the threats didn’t work. This captures a truth - but not anti-Semitism! Read more...

5th Day of Easter, Thursday April 16, Acts 3:1-26

So what do you make of Peter healing ‘in the name of Jesus’? Luke/Acts gives us a sort of franchise version – just as Jesus sent the 72 in Luke, now the apostles carry on the healing work. Is this Jesus’ successor, or franchisee? Is the healing a loss leader, to gather a crowd for the preaching that follows?

Worse, what do you make of Peter’s sermon? We ducked the issue yesterday, but who is Peter accusing of having killed Jesus, and with what consequences? Will we just let it lie that ‘the Jews killed Jesus’ – and read the rest of the book as ‘since they rejected, they were replaced by Gentile successors’? God forbid, coming up on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Ha’Shoah!

I prefer to read Peter as a good religious calling other religious to confess and repent their complicity in a community of faith. Peter’s talking to ‘us’ as one of us here – in coming days we’ll start dealing with the ‘them’ messages – but not yet. We are not listening in on Peter condemning a ‘them’ group, but challenging us, then and now, to consider how we have misread and misused what God gave us. This is a call to confess, not to blame. Read more...

4th Day of Easter, Wednesday April 15, Acts 2:14-47

Now we pick up the pace, closer to the average pace of 4 minutes a day reading. Peter’s speech is the first of many we’ll hear – and one of the shortest. God knows, and isn’t telling me, if you could ever have recorded this speech as it is. It’s a handy model for framing your own argument, if you got stuck yesterday.

Here’s the first ‘altar call’, as our revivalists would call it. What are you going to do about it? I’m not here to make you think, but also make you choose! Who wants to be well adjusted to a maladjusted society, or deemed sane by an insane world? Apparently 3000 people buy the pitch. Oh, yeah? You first.

What was it like at the beginning? It’s an amazing commune, eh? Do you recognize the marks of the church: making a difference in wonders and signs, sharing everything, giving to need, daily at temple, shared meals and praise? How does any church measure up to such bottom line standards? Read more...

3rd Day of Easter, Tuesday April 14, Acts 2:1-13

This is the story of the day of Pentecost, a Greek term for the festival 50 days after Passover. Our Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, on May 31, will end this study, so see if you can set a goal for yourself for this season of reading Acts. Meanwhile, we can stay in the city, until we feel the spirit move.

What happened on that day? Something changed for a huddled demoralized crowd, fearful of the ‘other’. They turned outward, and started speaking in others’ languages, and making sense. It’s not a reversal of Babel, coming back to one language with few words, but moving ahead to greater communication.

What’s your reaction to religious enthusiasm, and popularizing the faith? Are we just ‘fanatics’ who are ‘dumbing down’ religion? Does anybody make sense of the faith without making nonsense of it? What’s the gospel, according to you, and how do you share it in ‘show-and-tell’ time in front of strangers? Read more...

2nd Day of Easter, Monday April 13: Acts 1:12-26

Easter Monday is not a religious holiday, but some people take it as a fourth day of a long weekend that starts less festively than others. We could all do with a pause, a let-down to get ready to go on. The disciples huddle back in the city, not ready to rush off – noticing who and what they’ve lost, who and what’s left.

Acts lists 11 disciples - notes the company of women, and of Jesus’ mother and brothers – about 120 people in all, hardly a small upper room. Peter sums up Judas’ role, and Acts adds the tradition of the field of blood. Is it all Judas’ fault, or was it his part of making the inevitable or ordained occur?

How’d we get the replacement? Sure, there is a standard of persistence, and the candidates were qualified by sticking with Jesus from baptism to empty tomb. Sure, the whole crowd prays for God to show them the right choice. But in the end, they just draw straws – as good as the way we choose church leaders? Read more...

Easter Day, Sunday April 12: Acts 1:1-11

‘In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote’ opens a sequel to the gospel we call Luke. These first 11 verses set out the outline of the two volumes work together to form a quarter of the Christian scriptures, and shape much of our understanding of how what we call church emerged from the passion and resurrection stories.

Theophilus links two Greek words for God and love: God-lover, or loved by God? Who was that guy, called ‘excellent’ in the gospel opening? Who was writing in the first person singular? Compared to most of the company Jesus kept, these two seem pretty classy or sophisticated to me. What if this is just a literary pretext, like an open letter, to reach an audience who’d buy it better this way?

Are you like the imagined first reader, God-lover or loved by God? Do you recognize the promises and invitations, and the warnings and challenges, thrown out in these first few verses? Now what? So what? What are you gonna do? This Easter season, have you got time for this book? Join us, for time well wasted, standing about staring at the sky, scratching our heads to start.

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Easter Eve: Ready to Read Acts in Easter Season?

At the end of the 4 bible gospels, we’ve got a few demoralized disciples, a crucified Jesus, and rumours of a resurrection. What came next? Where does a ‘church’ come from, and where is it heading toward? How do we get from Jerusalem to the whole world?

Acts is like the second volume of the gospel of Luke, addressed to ‘dear Theophilus’ and carrying on the story. The United Church study is ‘The Church We Are Becoming: Exploring Change Through the Book of Acts’, edited by Ann Martin Our TUC Spiritual Nurture Committee picks up from our recent ‘Gospel According to Who’ studies – we’re always a half step off the party line of progressive successes…

From Easter Sunday, April 12, to Pentecost Sunday, May 31, the ‘Great 50 Days’ of Easter, following the 40 days of Lent, read along through Acts, an account of what followed the first Easter, tales of the emerging church, its leaders and its challenges, and compare our season to theirs:

 The early commune – how much are we going to share or pool?

 Crossing ethnic boundaries – who’s ‘us’ and who’s ‘them’?

 Race, glass, & gender – how does privilege & patriarchy operate?

 Conserving & changing – how are each & all ‘holding on’ & ‘letting go’?

Follow along on this daily Easter season blog at www.hereticslikeus.com - you can set up an RSS feed – or pick up printed copies at the end of each week at Thornhill UC. Sundays after worship, repeated on Wednesdays at 7:15pm, come talk about it! I’ve recorded Acts read in 50 pieces for the 50 days: you can pick up a set of CD’s to play in your car, or put onto your Ipod. Click ‘read more’ for the list of the 50 cuts, their chapters and verses, and the time they take read aloud…

CD #1
Days 1-21,
Acts 1:1-12:19
Cut Chapter Time
1 1:1-11 1:49
2 1:23-26 2:32
3 2:1-13 1:33
4 2:14-47 4:57
5 3:1-26 4:04
6 4:1-22 3:28
7 4:23-5:16 5:04
8 5:17-42 3:54
9 6:1-7 1:56
10 6:8-7:29 5:57
11 7:30-60 5:08
12 8:1-25 3:53
13 8:26-40 2:22
14 9:1-19 3:23
15 9:20-31 2:46
16 9:32-43 2:08
17 10:1-23 3:32
18 10:24-48 4:30
19 11:1-18 2:42
20 11:19-30 2:19
21 12:1-19 3:27

CD #2:
Days 22-34,
Acts 12:20-19:48
Cut Chapter Time
22 12:20-25 1:40
23 13:1-12 2:36
24 13:13-52 6:58
25 14:1-28 4:41
26 15:1-13 3:08
27 15:14-41 4:16
28 16:1-15 3:11
29 16:16-40 3:35
30 17:1-15 3:00
31 17:16-34 3:35
32 18:1-17 3:00
33 18:18-28 2:25
34 19:1-20 3:44
35 19:21-41 3:37

CD #3,
Days 36-50,
Acts 20:1-28:31
Cut Chapter Time
36 20:1-16 3:11
37 20:17-38 3:45
38 21:1-16 3:04
39 21:17-39 5:05
40 21:40-22:29 6:31
41 22:30-23:11 3:07
42 23:12-35 4:07
43 24:1-27 5:13
44 25:1-12 2:23
45 25:13-27 3:02
46 26:1-32 6:03
47 27:1-44 6:15
48 28:1-16 3:00
49 28:17-29 3:01
50 28:30-31 0:35

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Acts in Easter Season: Emerging or Retiring Church?

Acts: Emerging Church – will it see its shadow?

For the season of Easter, 2009, the ‘great 50 days’ from Easter Day to Pentecost, I’m planning to read through the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that book right after the 4 bible gospels. It’s ‘volume 2 of Luke’. I’ve recorded mp3 files of me reading Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Message’ version of the book in more vernacular English. At Thornhill United Church, we’ll do half a dozen sessions based loosely on the denomination’s new workbook on Acts – Sundays after worship, repeated Wednesday evenings. Join us!

Starting Easter day, I’ll post some reflections in the spirit of ‘heretics like us’, on the daily portion of the book. Tomorrow, I’ll post the chapter and verse references to the daily readings. Today in Toronto there is too much snow on the ground – a good grey day to hole up and read, for a groundhog to retreat, without seeing her shadow. The official progressive optimists of our denomination think we have an emerging church – I suspect we have a retiring one, retreating to our burrows, cocooning. Let’s see.

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