Transcript of Classes on The Acts of the Apostles by John W. Welch, Sept 2010 to Dec 2010
Acts 2—7
How many of you were able to read up to the end of Acts chapter 7 for tonight?Wonderful.I hope you will keep up with the reading.Next, we are going to read Acts chapter 10 andlook at Galatians chapter 3.In these chapters, we are going to be dealing with the beginning of the mission of the apostles to go outside of Jerusalem. In chapter 7, we end in Jerusalem and with the stoning of Stephen. You get the impression that most of the Christians probably are not too welcome and maybe they are happy to go on that mission to Samaria, and for the chance to get out of harm’s way there. In chapter 8, we go into Samaria, and then we begin seeing the gospel going to the gentiles.This presents some theological questions about whether Christian converts should continue to live the Law of Moses and to what extent.In Galatians chapter 3, we have Paul addressing that issue so that is where we are heading for nextweek.
Most of you are getting the emails successfully.Let me suggest that as you are doing your reading, feel free to send me an email if there are some words or concepts or things in the reading that you do not understand.I am happy to provide answers to those things but I can only guess what it is that you might not understand, and so if you would like to send me a note.Last week I gave you a list of words that I thought you might not have understood as English words because they are not the way we normally use English.I have not done that tonight, although we will hit a few words as we go along but if you will send me those then we will be able to do that.
Follow-Up on Previous Week
Last week, one of the words that we talked about was in Acts chapter 1, where it says that the apostles, the brethren, were meeting with the women, and I commented that the Greek has only one word for women and wife, and we do not know which that would be.We suggested using the word in an ambiguous sense is just fine because some of them were probably wives and some of them were probably single women.Then somebody asked,“How did we get the translation women instead of wives,” and I took a guess that because in Latin you have two different words, one for woman and one for wife,I bet that Jerome, whowhen he translated the Bible into Latin, (Jerome after all was a celibate monk), probably would not want to translate it as wives if he did not have to. In fact, that is what happened.In Latin you have two words for wife,uxor and coniux,and you have two words that are used for women, femina for all women and girls generally, and mulier for older women.This [mulier] is the word that appears in the Latin translation, so Jerome has given us a meaning with the older women or the mature women which would be appropriate.If it had been femina we would have had the young women’s association already organized but anyway, that is where the English translation came from.Question on that?
Precedent Setting Events in Acts
Methods of Selection and Choosing an New Apostle
(Student) In the legal cases?The second one is about replacing Judas Iscariot, and I wondered what was legal about that, then as I was looking at it, I wonder if that is an affair, but then also when I thought that, I thought “casting lots” was that a legal issue?
Yes.That is the way you would make decisions. The judges would vote, juries would vote. The way they would do this is that they would have a black rock, a little black pebble, and a white pebble. They would walk up to the boxes, nobody could see which… you know they had the black rock in one hand and they put that, the black rock, in the voting. They put in their one hand the vote whether they are voting yes or no, and drop that in the voting box, and the other rock they would put in the not to be counted box.Then they would count how many white rocks and how many black rocks and that is how they would get the vote.
(Student) Casting lots? That would be the legal sense?
That is the way the Greeks did it.The other thing about court is that a courtroom in the ancient world was viewed as a place where the will of God was determined by the process, whatever the process happened to be.It might involve a woman having to drink the bitter waters, that would be the kind of ordeal that would be evidentiary, and the Israelites did not do this because they did not have any rivers, but in the river cultures, Mesopotamia especially, if you wanted to know whether someone was telling the truth or not, they could take him out on a boat and throw him into the river, and if he drowned he was telling a lie.If he was able to get to shore, then he must have been telling the truth, but it is because the gods were then delivering him.
What I am saying is, for us the legal process is a purely secular matter.For them, and we will see this in several places in the Book of Acts and elsewhere, for them a courtroom was a type of temple.You would begin every legal proceeding with a sacrifice, and you would do that to invoke the names of the gods and have their will manifested in their ability to discern who was telling the truth. I think when Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 says to the members of the church, “How dare you go to court with the gentiles or use the gentile courts,” he might have been chastising them for a lot of reasons, but certainly one of them would have been that if you sued in the Roman or Greek Court you would have to make a sacrifice to Zeus or to the god, whoever it was, the divinity in that jurisdiction, and you would then have to swear an oath by the names of those gods.So any kind of legal proceeding has religious overtones, and vice versa.
(Student) I was thinking about it in terms of when that started; in the Book of Mormon the only one I could rememberwas when Nephi and his brothers go to get Laban’s stuff and they cast lots to choose who went to do it, but that was not necessarily a legal thing.
No, but God is choosing which one is supposed to go.
(Student) Then Nephi had to go?
Laman went and did not succeed, but at least the lot fell…
(Student) Are there places in the Book of Mormon that I do not remember?
In the Book of Mormon, they do not use the lot system or casting lots that way, but Book of Mormon trials do use the calling for signs. Sherem says, “Show me a sign.”Korihor asks for a sign.What they are asking for is somekind of manifestation of God’s will, however that might be.You ask what kind of a sign he could be asking for, and we do not know, but the Urim and Thummim, the light and truth, are plurals and Biblical scholars, using a lot of innuendoes, have said that at least one manifestation of the Urim and Thummim is that they had twelve stones.They would roll them, and they had letters on them and they would spell words.That way they would be able to determine something.They would cast knucklebones, and see how they were configured.We say, “Wait a minute, this is voodoo.This is hocus-pocus,”and the Israelites did not do this as much as the rest of the world did.They worshippedonly one God; they are not involved in magic, they are not involved in sorcery or divination.That is strictly prohibited under the Law of Moses, but they still would seek the will of God through what we would consider more proper or conventional ways.
So, yes, I like that question and the last time we asked how we should read the Book of Acts.One of the ways in which you can read it is as the Book of Acts as a series of accounts,forty of them or something like that, showing how the apostles fulfilled their calling from God.Jesus called them to testify of his resurrection unto the uttermost ends of the earth, and one way to read Acts is showing how that happened.Another wayto read the Book of Acts, a second way, and today we will see this in a couple of places, is as a fulfilment of another prophecy or charge that was given by Jesus to the Twelve.
Acts 4 Peter and John before the Sanhedrin
Question 2.What Did Jesus Say to the Apostles in Matthew 10:17-18; Mark 13:9-11, 16:17-18, and Luke 21:12-19 about Standing before Judges and Councils? How Did This Trial Turn Out?
I asked you to look at these scriptures Luke 21.We are jumping down to the question on Acts 4, number 2; what did Jesus say to the apostles in Matthew 10, Mark 13, and Luke 21?Did any of you look those scriptures up?What did you find?
(Student) I looked them up…I just wrote them down.
Jesus tells the apostles that they are going to go forth; this is one of the first things that he tells them.Hello!“You are called to be a disciple; you are going to be an apostle, that is the good news and here is the bad news.You are going to be…”In these prophecies, if you put them all together, Jesus tells them that they will be brought before synagogues, rulers, authorities, kings and governors, all for Christ’s sake, and they will be cast into prisons. However, he also tells them that this will be a time to bear testimony, and thus they should not worry about how to answer the legal charges that would be brought against them.Why?The Holy Spirit will give you, in the moment that you need it, what you should say.
How many of those situations are, in fact, present in the Book of Acts?Even in tonight’s reading?Anybody brought before the Sanhedrin?Anybody brought before them or cast into prison?Peter and John are cast into prison.Paul will be brought before the synagogues.Paul will stand before Felix and Festus, governors—you go down the list— all of these people, all of these different rulers and types of people are mentioned in the Book of Acts, showing that all of this willbe fulfilled literally.That is why I like to emphasize these legal elements because I think there is a strong legal component to the book.
Stephen, Paul, and the Sanhedrin
(Student)Is that part of how we justify or determine that Paul was an apostle,that he was brought before…?
Except that does not work for Stephen does it?Stephen was not an apostle.
(Student) Brought before the tribunal and executed…
Who was Stephen?
(Student)People that came…he wascalled to beover the widows…
Not only called, but what else?Set apart by what method?Laying on of hands.Everybody knows that.Acts 6 verse6.Back in chapter1, we only could assume that the apostles ordained Matthias by the laying on of hands.They do not say that.
(Student) They had Greek names.
Stephanos?It means crown or a wreath, yes.However, he is the first one mentioned of the seven who are called to be in charge of the widows— the welfare plan, right?As the first one on the list, we might say he is the President of the First Quorum of Seventy, or the Seven Presidents of Seventy—there are seven of them there and so he is not an apostle, but almost, and there may be some precedents being set in the Book of Acts. Stephen may show that it is not just the apostles who are going to be called upon to testify and appear before judges and so on.“This can happen to all of you. What is good for the apostles will be good for everyone.”
Stephen’s Vision.(Student)As he is stoned of course, he seems to have seen Christ on the right hand of God and this is an important scripture for us.
Yes, yes.Why is it important?
(Student) Because they are two separate persons.
Right.Two people, two personages. That is right.Why is it significant that he sees Jesus standing at that time?I mean, as Jesus ascended—go back and remember what we learned in Acts chapter 1.What happened?There is a cloud, right, and where does Jesus go?He goes up into the cloud.In 3Nephi, there is a cloud that comes over the people and then Jesus ascends.In any event, we have the cloud obscuring where it is that Jesus has gone.A lot of people today do not believe that Jesus still has a resurrected body.What do they assume about his ascension?When he ascended, he left his body behind.Why would he need his body in heaven?His body has to do with this earth.However, as Latter-day Saints we see great significance in the fact that he is still there with his body now in heaven.
(Student) With a glorified body
Yes, a glorified body, and standing -
(Student) They are in the flesh, and they are welcoming him.
They are welcoming him.What else might they be doing?Who else saw?
(Student) They watch over and help us.
Helping us, okay!Do you think Paul saw him?Paul is there, but the members of the Sanhedrin do not seem to have this vision.You know visions are… even though a person might be in the same room, a vision can happen. Joseph Smith’s brothers were sleeping in the same room that Joseph was in, and Moroni was there all night long and they slept through it.You have to have eyes that open those windows to see, but Stephen testified what he saw and you might wonder who heard him testify? How do we know that these are the words that he spoke?Somebody was there.Who?Paul was there.Paul is a star student of Gamaliel, Paul is the editor in chief of the Law Review of the Jerusalem Law School; Paul is a really smartperson; he knows the importance of words and he knows the legal significance of things.
When someone sits in the Jewish culture, you sit to teach, and you might sit as a judge to hear a case.You sit on the judgment seat.That is,you sit in the seats in the gate. Trials did not last as long as our trials do, but still long enough that you did not want to stand up through the whole trial. When it came time to judge, to pronounce a verdict, the Hebrew expression was always that you stand to judge, and we have this in several texts. So it may be significant, that when Jesus is standing, he is judging this situation.He is vindicating Stephen, receiving him, but also saying to those who hear him that God has stood against them as the second witness of what is going on.
(Student)Their scriptures say quite a bit about him being on the right hand, so here they are, using David, and then it happened!
Yes, they certainly know their Old Testament don’t they?Use it a lot.
(Student) Is it a euphemism when it says that he fell asleep?Is that the common euphemism?That he died.
That he died, yes.
(Student) Because I was wondering if he just said “I am going to go to sleep now.”
We know he is dead because in verses 1 to 4 of chapter 8, pious men will go and bury him to give him a proper burial.
(Student) Here is something to help Acts a little bit by saying that in order for this information to be in here, Paul had to have been converted and report back to Luke so Luke could write that story.So obviously was not written up at the time Paul had apretty lengthy process both internally and externally.
We do not know how much Paul was involved in some of these accounts.At least we know that Paul was there.When we read in Acts chapter 4 about what happened with Peter and John before the Sanhedrin, Peter and John were certainly there.Paul may also have been there because Gamaliel, his teacher is there.But it is -
(Student) He may have once again been on the wrong side of it.
Peter never says to Paul, I remember you.You were a kid but you were there, soI do not know, we do not have that, but there are enough people around and Luke will become Paul’s traveling companion.He will travel with Paul for several years, so there is plenty of opportunity to talk.
(Student) Taking care of funerals.
Yes, or riding on a ship from Samos to Miletus and what do they do all day long?Luke says, “Tell me another story.What happened with…”
(Student) That would be one of the hardest stories to tell. Paul had probably to reach very deep to discuss this with Luke being a physician.
That is right. We think of that career as being very honorable, and Brother Kepas is a very honorable physician, but in the ancient world, physicians were not highly thought of.I am sorry, Rick, it was considered one of the disreputable trades, and that is because it dealt with blood so much and bloodcaused contamination.It was only someone who was really committed to helping the sick and the needy that would be a doctor, so they are not in it for the money, I assure you, or for the social status.I think Luke is that way.I think Luke is, of all of the four gospel writers, very concerned about the poor and the widows. He is the one who tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus with the rich man in hell looking up to Lazarus, the poor man that he did not give any money to, “Will you please just give me a drink of water?” That is Luke.