By Tokistar (Template:The artist)

The prophet Jonah (at least as his story is told in the book that bears his name) is perhaps the most orthodox if perhaps the most heteropractic¹ prophet in the Bible!

Yet this book perhaps better than any other in the Old Testament encapsulates the essential truths of Scripture.

[For more on the "Perspicuity of Scripture" see The Perspicuity of Scripture or see the podcasts listed here.]

The next podcast on Jonah should return to a detailed look at a small chunk of the book, this one is big-picture stuff, just to keep you interested

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1. The prefix “ortho-” straight or right and “hetero-” different or wrong are used as opposites. The endings “-dox” to do with worship or theology and “-praxis” to do with action. So orthodox is right-thinking and heteropractic is wrong-doing.

Street conversation photo by Ed Yourdon

In the legal manouvreing at the start of this reading Paul quotes Isaiah:

“Listen and listen but not understand
look and look but not see!”

But if the Bible is perspicuous (listen to The Perspicuity of Scripture) so is creation: we can’t miss evidence of God, but sometimes we don’t want to hear…

And what a frustrating ending! How does Paul’s story end? Luke presumably knew if Acts was written about AD 70 because these events had happened some 8 years earlier. But Acts is not Paul’s story! Acts 1:8 as program for the book:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.“
The book is over, go into the world in peace

They have witnessed to great effect in Jerusalem, beyond in the Jewish world, and beyond that to the heart of the empire the ends of the earth are just a matter of time… the story of Acts is over – whatever happened to Paul. Once again the Bible is not about US (human beings) it’s about God and the divine plan for the world. The story is over, before Paul reached Rome there were Christians there. The story is still not over we are still writing it as we witness to Christ wherever we are from one end of the earth to the other. Acts is a book of witnesses empowered by the Spirit are you one of its still being written heroes?

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Igorot Beggar photo by martiniko

Peter gets some powerful lines in these two great chapters Since I was a child I’ve loved his: “I don’t have silver and gold, but what I do have I’ll give you. Get up and walk!” So different from what we usually hear… And then when faced by the authorities he talks about his Master as the “Stone the builders rejected” quoting Ps 118:22. This superb Psalm all through contrasts human power and “protection” with God’s steadfast love that endures forever…

So in these chapters, two powerful reminders from Peter that Christian faith is NOT about human power, just the opposite. And the challenge of hearing how the first Christians lived. The Bible is perspicuous, we just wish we could remain blind and deaf!

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Photo by Gerardo García Moretti

The last reading last week about the ascension of Jesus to heaven explained that soon the Spirit would come. The disciples might not know all the secrets of God (as religions forever claim to do), but they will experience and share God’s power. Then in the first reading this week we move from the ascension to Pentecost, foreshadowing the spread of the gospel to everyone, each in their own language. God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus bursts free, and reigns!

But it was not the almost magical phenomena, like a bunch of provincial fishermen speaking loads of foreign languages, that kept those first few thousand converts and daily added others. It was their “togetherness in God”! Then in Acts 3-4 two powerful reminders from Peter that Christian faith is NOT about human power, just the opposite. (Despite Peter’s lovely line “I have no silver or gold, but what I have, I’ll give you. Get up and walk!”) And the challenge of hearing how the first Christians lived. The Bible is perspicuous, we just wish we could remain blind and deaf!

Then there’s Stephen, who witnesses to the truth despite everything. (Here you’ll learn another big word Heilsgeschichte) and in doing so notice how human failure, like Israel’s unbelief, is all part of God’s “old old story” that Jesus fulfills. Philip’s preaching of Isaiah also underlines this fulfilling.

And finally in the fifth reading, yet another reminder that we humans are broken, but that God’s gospel is for everyone – especially us broken human beings!

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My tradition (the Baptist part of the Nonconformist or radical Reformation) has stressed the idea that Scripture is perspicuous, that the Bible is easy to understand, and that anyone can understand it – or at least grasp its essentials – without special training or equipment. Yet there are for sure some difficult passages. There are also passages that seem to flat out contradict other parts of the Bible. How can you call a book like that “perspicuous”?

In this post I’ll argue that one key mistake we make is to think of the Bible as if all its parts were also “Bible”, they aren’t they are merely fragments!

Right-click here to save the podcast for this audio

Some other posts dealing with related topics include:

• What DOES “fulfil” mean?
• Jesus as fulfilment of Scripture: Slavery and Spanking
• Ezra and the foreign wives

Or you could explore the menu on the right…