Ben Gladd on the Use of the Old Testament in Acts (Season 2, Episode 5)

July 31, 2024 by: Nancy Guthrie

This article is part of the Conversations on the Bible with Nancy Guthrie series.

Allusions to the OT in the Book of Acts

Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with professor and author Ben Gladd about the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament—both direct quotations and more subtle allusions.

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Nancy Guthrie

Saved, by bestselling author Nancy Guthrie, gives individuals and small groups a friendly, theologically reliable, and robust guide to understanding the book of Acts.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:51 - Quoting the Old Testament vs. Alluding to the Old Testament

Nancy Guthrie
Welcome to season two of Conversations on the Bible with Nancy Guthrie. I’m Nancy Guthrie, author of Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts. In the book of Acts, we see the enthroned Lord Jesus at work by his Spirit through his apostles. They are taking the message that salvation is available to all who will call upon the name of the Lord to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And it is accomplishing its intended purpose—people are being saved. On this podcast i’m having conversations with people who can help us to see more clearly the ways in which we see God working out his salvation purposes in the world, particularly in the pages of the book of Acts. My guest today is Dr. Benjamin Gladd. Ben Glad has served as professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and is preparing to transition into a new role as the inaugural executive director of the Carson Center for Theological Renewal. Dr. Gladd, thank you so much for having this conversation with us, and congratulations on this new role.

Ben Gladd
Oh, thank you so much.

Nancy Guthrie
We have a mutual love for biblical theology, and I know that’s going to be at the center of it, right?

Ben Gladd
The Carson Center exists for two purposes, at least in my mind: to impart Bible knowledge to the global church. Not just North America, but to the global church. Number two, to train pastors in how to teach and preach. In other words, how to formulate sermons, and even for women, how they prepare Bible studies. So I want this how-to component. It’s not simply the passing on of biblical data or theology. I also want a strong component of teaching, preparing, hermeneutics, learning how to study the Bible, learning how to exegete. So it’s really a both/and. The second one is much harder. It’s much harder to train somebody in how to read well than it is just to learn theology.

Nancy Guthrie
But that’s the aim.

Ben Gladd
That is the aim.

Nancy Guthrie
That is the aim. Well, Dr. Gladd and I are in front of an audience at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, Alabama, so you’ll probably hear them a little bit out there. Dr. Gladd has written a number of books. One of his books is a biblical theology in the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology series with InterVarsity Press. He’s the editor over the series, but his title in that is From Adam and Israel to the Church. One of my favorite books that I have recommended all over the country and I think has helped a lot of people is The Story Retold, written with Greg Beale, which works its way through the New Testament books, giving us a sense of what themes are important in that book as we look through it. And then I have in my hands what I assume is the newest release. It’s called The Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. He didn’t work on this on his own. The coauthor is G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, and Andrew David Naselli. Now, I think a lot of us are familiar with perhaps the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, so I’ve been anxious to look through this to see what’s the difference. Because maybe a lot of us already have the Commentary on New Testament Use of the Old Testament on our shelves, why do we want this one too?

Ben Gladd
So this is behind the scenes. The Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament is a commentary. From Matthew through Revelation it’s a commentary, and it just goes book by book and then you can see their discussion of allusions and quotations. This one is more thematically arranged. There are about fifty-five or sixty biblical theology or biblical theological essays on topics like kingdom, messiah, exile, enemies of God, these sorts of things. That’s about a third of the book. The other third is a survey of every single book of the Bible—Old Testament and New Testament—to see how even Old Testament authors cite and allude to previous Old Testament authors. So it’s the Old and the Old. So we have Old Testament essays, and then we have New Testament essays, there are surveys, there are summaries. And then the third piece of the dictionary is just more of a complex explanation of how it works theologically and exegetically. That would be more difficult for some of us, but for the most part, the other two pieces are great. And it’s a million words. I’ve read it twice, and I still have a headache, but it really came together very well. We’re very proud of that piece.

Nancy Guthrie
You’ve also just been named the editor of the New Studies in Biblical Theology from InterVarsity Press. The only way I know how to describe those is as "that silver series."

Ben Gladd
"The silverbacks."

Nancy Guthrie
Is that what you call them? The silverbacks of biblical theology. How many are there?

Ben Gladd
Sixty-two is out.

Nancy Guthrie
Sixty-two of those are out.

Ben Gladd
Yes. I just read sixty-three about a month ago, and I’m reading sixty-four right now. It’s a lot.

Nancy Guthrie
That’s a great series. Let’s dive in to talking about the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. And in our conversation, we especially want to focus on the use of the Old Testament in Acts. And if we're working our way in Acts from the very beginning, we have to start figuring out how to get to the intended purpose for which Peter, and later Paul, and Luke, as the author of this book, are using the Old Testament. So before we talk specifically about the way it’s used in Acts, let’s talk just more generally about the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. As we look at the book of Acts, just immediately as we look at the text, we see some parts of the chapter set out, and that signals to us it’s a quote from the Old Testament. And oftentimes it’s introduced, telling us where that quote is from. But when we read the New Testament, we don’t just read quotes; we find allusions. But maybe that term is new to some of us. So talk to us a moment about what’s the difference between a quote and an allusion to the Old Testament?

Ben Gladd
Growing up, even through college, I had no sense of this. "What do you mean about Old Testament quotations in the New? What is that? What do you mean by that?" And then as I kept on studying, I realized this is a really big deal that New Testament authors, the apostles, most of the time are commenting on an Old Testament conception or a particular text. And they’re associating it, most of the time, with Christ and the church. Sometimes they do other things with it, but most of the time they’re bringing it together. So we’ve to to study and ask, Wait a minute. How are they reading the Old Testament? We can learn—it’s fascinating—we can discover how Jesus himself read the Old Testament. Isn’t that amazing? To see if we’re reading it the way that he did. If we’re supposed to live like him, shouldn’t we read like him too? It just makes sense to me. When we start to study this connection between the Old and the New, we use two terms to have this conversation. Quotation and allusion. So a quotation is a direct citation. The words are almost exact to the Old Testament. In the book of Acts, there are about thirty-five or thirty-six quotations to the Old Testament. Not bad. Guess how many allusions, because I’ve been counting this, guess how many allusions there are? Just throw out a number. What do you think?

Nancy Guthrie
Eighty-five. 156. 201.

Ben Gladd
This is a good game show. I think we can make money here.

Nancy Guthrie
Three hundred and fifty-six.

Ben Gladd
It’s just under 400. It’s around 390. Isn’t that amazing? In fact, in the New Testament, there are about 350, give or take (it’s hard to count sometimes), about 350 quotations. Now, that represents only about 10 percent of the entire New Testament. So there are about 4,000 to 5,000 allusions in the New Testament to the Old. Is that a lot? That’s a ton. The book of Revelation has over 500 allusions.

Nancy Guthrie
Define allusion.

Ben Gladd
Okay, let’s talk about that. An allusion can be a single word, a unique word. Or an allusion can be a couple unique words that we only find in that particular passage in the Old Testament. Let me give you an example. As I was listening to you teach earlier, I was like, "Oh, this would be a good example of an allusion." In Acts 4:11, we have a Psalm 118 quotation. You pointed this out. "The stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone." Now, that Old Testament text is cited throughout the Gospels and applied to Christ. Christ himself even cites it. But go to verse 8, just three verses before, and I’ll read the text here. I’m reading out the NIV, "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers and elders of the people.’" Do you see that word "rulers" there? That’s an allusion to Psalm 118:9. So keep your finger here, and turn with me to Psalm 118:9. Psalm 118 9 reads this: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes." Now, our quotation that we saw in verse 11 is a citation of verse 22, but this allusion is to verse 9, an earlier reference in that same psalm. Do you see what Peter’s doing here? He throws out this allusion, so he’s starting to bring Psalm 118 into view. And then a couple verses later, he’s then going to bring in the formal citation. It also underscores the point, and in fact, this is a pretty remarkable thing, that here in Psalm 118:9, when the psalmist says, "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes," and that’s precisely Israel’s problem. Because when they crucified Jesus, the nation trusted in the princes. They trusted in their rulers. And so by slipping this allusion in, Peter’s really setting up the climax of the Psalm 118:22 quotation. So here’s the big deal: allusions tend to be, not always, but they tend to be far more powerful. Did you watch Top Gun 2?

Nancy Guthrie
Was that the most recent?

Ben Gladd
Yes.

Nancy Guthrie
Yes. Maverick?

Ben Gladd
Yes! Okay. In Top Gun 2, if you watch that at all closely to the first Top Gun—we watched the first Top Gun, and then we watched Top Gun 2 just like a week later. And as I was watching Top Gun 2, I was noticing all these allusions. Because there were times in the cockpit when Tom Cruise would say the exact same word. Now, he doesn’t say, Oh, I’m quoting ’Top Gun 1.’ He’ll just say the word. And if you’re attuned, then it hits you. See, it’s this visceral reaction; it hits us. And it has a more powerful effect upon the reader or the listener. Allusions actually do more than quotations. Here’s a really fun one. In Top Gun 1, Tom Cruise is wearing this special watch in the first one. It’s this special aviator’s watch. And in Top Gun 2, they found, and it’s Jerry Bruckheimer’s, the [producer], that’s actually his watch that he kept. And so when they made the second one, Tom Cruise wore that same watch. But there are only a couple scenes with the watch, and you have to look for it. But they placed it on purpose to connect the storyline. Do you see? And this is why. Think about it. So if the New Testament alludes to the Old Testament 4 or 5,000 times but only quotes it 350 times, they prefer to allude to it. Do you see? They prefer to allude. Why? Because the way that it hits you is very powerful. You’ve got to think, Wait a minute. I’ve heard that before. I know what it is! And then you make the connection itself, and then now all of a sudden you’re enlightened. Now you can start to see the pieces fall into place. So quotations: powerful; allusions: even more powerful.

Nancy Guthrie
I’m going to speak for myself and everyone in the room and probably everyone listening to the podcast. We love the sound of that. And we think, "Oh man, I would like to see those!" But we’re thinking, "How am I ever going to see those?" We’re a little afraid that maybe only someone like you, Ben Gladd, can see those. Is that a skill that can be developed? it? Is it simply exposure to the whole of the Bible? How do we develop that so we can see that?

Ben Gladd
There’s a way to do it naturally, and then there’s a way to cheat, as it were.

Nancy Guthrie
We love to cheat.

Ben Gladd
We like to do the latter. We should do both. One is just to develop really good reading habits. Personally, when I read my Bible every day, I actually listen to it on my AirPods. I think it annoys my wife because I’m shaving and I’m listening to the Bible and it’s amazing and I’m thinking about it. She’s trying to talk to me, and I’m like, "I got to go. Look, it’s Jeremiah 24 today. What can I do?" In other words, I listen to the Bible, I read the Bible, I think about it, and the more I do that, the better it gets. The more that I can start to pick up on these allusions myself. When we cheat, on the other hand, we need helps because we don’t know the Bible like we should. I think all of us here would agree that no matter how we slice it, even if we’ve been a student of Scripture our entire lives, we don’t know it like we should. Well, that’s when we need to use cross references. And those little pesky cross references in your bible show you the allusions. And not all cross references are the same. It depends on what translation you have, and it’s very uneven. Sometimes ESV is good in a passage, whereas the NIV may be better in the next passage. It’s just very uneven. So you have to use cross references, some commentaries. Even in that dictionary we tried to point out some of the allusions. The commentary that Beale and Carson did, that’s really good.

Nancy Guthrie
So let’s say we’re doing our daily Bible reading. Should we stop every time we see a cross reference and look it up in the Old Testament?

Ben Gladd
In a perfect world, it depends on how young our kids are at that point, yes. The answer is yes, but that’s just hard.

Nancy Guthrie
If we’re studying to really get that passage. So maybe other times we’re just reading.

Ben Gladd
This is where electronic sources are amazing. With electronic sources, I just hover my mouse over. Oh yeah. Honestly, I really don’t look up allusions all that much in my hardback because I don’t have time for that. Flipping back and forth is a hassle. I’m not doing that. I just use my mouse click. Bang. Your Bible apps have cross references on there. Just click punch it. That’s probably how I would go about it.

Nancy Guthrie
Excellent. So we’re reading along, and we come upon a quote from the Old Testament. What should that immediately say to us, no matter what the quote is? What’s being signaled to us?

Ben Gladd
If we clearly see, like the Psalm 118:22 quotation, our first move is, guess what? We’re going to the Old Testament. You just go there, you read the entire chapter. When we think about quotations, or when we look at those little bits in the New Testament or the Old Testament, we just think that the author only has his mind on that little bit. That’s not how it works. When they cite even a single verse or a single line, most of the time they have the entire chapter in mind. Just as I showed you before, we had a quotation and an allusion to that same chapter, but one allusion was several verses up, which means all of Psalm 118 is standing behind Acts 4. So I’ve got to go back, I’m going to take my time, I’m going to read Acts 4, then I’m going to read Psalm 118. I’m going to read those two chunks.

Nancy Guthrie
And what are you looking for when you read it?

Ben Gladd
I’m looking for resonances, connections, and I’m just taking my time.

Nancy Guthrie
Both with words and situations and audience.

Ben Gladd
Yes. Concepts and words, patterns. Most of the time, you can spot them pretty easily. And then most of the time, I’ll write it in my Bible. I don’t know how you guys are. I write in my Bible. I’m just constantly writing things down, writing things down, seeing connections. Sometimes we have to go back and scribble it, but I’m constantly just being creative. What do I see?

Nancy Guthrie
And I suppose we’re asking ourselves the question, Why did that New Testament writer—we’re trying to get into his head a little bit.

Ben Gladd
So that’s the second question. The first step is, we’re just making observations. We’re just comparing texts. What can we see? What can we bring over? The second one is, Why did Peter bring it over? Why did Paul do this? And then we have to start thinking in terms of, Is there a fulfillment? Most of the time there’s some type of fulfillment, but maybe there’s not fulfillment. Maybe there’s just an ethic that Jesus or Paul put their finger on. It says to honor your parents. Moses said that, and Paul says that, but I don’t see promise fulfillment there. I just think that they should honor their parents. It’s that ethic. Very often we’ll have this. We call this abiding authority. The authority of God’s word. That principle contained in the Old Testament, it just continues so that we get that with ethics. Sometimes it’s just a simple analogy. This person is like that person. We may not have typology, we may not have promise fulfillment; it’s just a comparison. Whether it’s Jesus is like Jonah—an analogy—or maybe Jonah’s a type of Christ. One’s promise fulfillment, the other one’s just an analogy. And you have to look at the text to figure that out.

Nancy Guthrie
Okay, let’s move into Luke’s use of the Old Testament specifically in Acts. But even before that, I wonder if, to prepare us to do that, do we need to have spent some time asking some of those same questions in the Gospel of Luke? Because he uses a lot of Old Testament quotes and allusions in his Gospel too.

Ben Gladd
Let’s turn to Luke 1:1. I think that’s a good starting point. It’s amazing, Nancy, because he sets up this very question. It’s a shame that Luke and Acts are separate in our English Bibles. It’s nice to read them together. In Luke 1:1, we see, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things . . . ." Now, that word "many" is probably a reference to Matthew and Mark. He has at least Mark in mind, maybe Matthew in mind. So in other words, he’s talking about other Gospels. "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things . . . ." But he doesn’t say, "Many have narrated the story of the gospel," or "Many have narrated the person of Christ." Look at how he says it. He says, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us." In other words, he sees the totality of Christ’s ministry and he says that’s fulfillment. He sets up his whole enterprise of talking about the life of Christ in fulfillment of the Old Testament.

Nancy Guthrie
Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised, as we begin working our way through Luke and even in the first and second chapters, we’re seeing things, especially allusions, for example, in Mary’s song.

Ben Gladd
And Anna. Yeah. It’s all over the place. We see themes of the exodus, the birth of Moses, and lots of Isaiah in here. We have hundreds of these things, and it’s fascinating. We can trace them and we can put them together. And what I always walk away with is this: Luke and the other apostles know the Old Testament so well. They love subtlety, and they just bring it in so naturally.

Nancy Guthrie
I think that’s one thing we need, right? Eyes to see the subtlety, because maybe we want it to be really explicit on the page, and it isn’t.

Ben Gladd
Yeah.

22:20 - Jesus’s Use of the Old Testament on the Road to Emmaus

Nancy Guthrie
So we’ve looked at the beginning of Luke. How about if we look at the end of Luke in Luke 24?

Ben Gladd
Luke 24 is a little spicy.

Nancy Guthrie
We’re up for spicy. So he said in the very first verse that he’s going to write about the things that have been fulfilled. And then we get to Luke 24, and it seems like this is a significant foundation for us to get a sense of how Luke and Peter and Paul are going to use the Old Testament in Acts.

Ben Gladd
Right. But what’s so difficult here, Nancy, is if Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, the entirety of it, then why did so many Old Testament scholars not recognize that? If Peter, James, and John, even though they’re not Old Testament scholars, they all know the Old Testament well. If they know it well, why don’t they make the connections to Jesus?

Nancy Guthrie
I mean, Jesus seems to say, with those two followers on the road to Emmaus, he says, “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer before being glorified?” And it’s almost as if he was saying, “You should have known. It was there for you to see.”

Ben Gladd
Yes. But then he says something, and this is verse 25 of chapter 24, “He said to them”—the two followers. We only know one of the names, Cleopas. “How foolish you are and how slow to believe.” That line there, “how slow to believe,” that’s an allusion to Isaiah 6:10, about not having eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart that understands. That’s an allusion right there to Isaiah 6. In other words, these two disciples and the other apostles, the other disciples, they are fulfilling the judgment of Isaiah 6 that they cannot understand, they don’t have eyes to see. He says, “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” It’s a rhetorical question. Yes, of course. Verse 27: “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained”—he’s making these connections for them—“he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures.” So he’s now starting to explicitly make these connections. Now let’s turn to the end of the chapter. And here it is when it’s just all out there for everybody to see. Now Jesus appears to the remaining disciples. In verse 44, “He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms.’” Yet they still didn’t get it. Now what has to happen? Here it is: “Then he [Jesus], opened their mind so they could understand the Scriptures.” Jesus had to reverse the curse of Isaiah 6, that only the Spirit’s work can help us see these connections. And that’s why the majority of Israel did not see the connections, because the Spirit was not at work in them.

Nancy Guthrie
Well, that’s good news for us on this side of Pentecost as people in whom the Spirit dwells.

Ben Gladd
Right. And so now think about this. Now we have the apostles’ testimonies, we have their writings, and now they’re making the connections for us. They’ve done the work. All we have to do is just read them and just make the connections ourselves. They’ve laid it out for us.

25:53 - Acts 2 and Joel 2

Nancy Guthrie
In the time we have left, we probably can’t go through as many of these Acts quotes and allusions as we might like, so can I ask you to pick maybe two or three faves?

Ben Gladd
Juicy bits?

Nancy Guthrie
Juicy bits in the book of Acts that also show us some principles of how we do this.

Ben Gladd
Yeah, let me look here. I’m looking at your list. I like, obviously, the Joel 2 quotation in chapter 2. Here in Acts 2—I want to show you this before we get to the quotation. It’s in verse 3. This is when the 120 is in the upper room there. No, I’m sorry. This is right after that. No, it is, it is. I’m sorry. I’m misguided here. Verse 3: “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” And then verse 4, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” There are a couple words in here that bring us to Numbers 11:25. And if you remember, Nancy, in Numbers 11, that’s when the seventy elders were prophesying, and then two of them kept prophesying, and then Moses was alerted that these two knuckleheads won’t stop prophesying. And then what does Moses say? He says, “Oh, that all God’s people would prophesy!” Well, Joel 2 takes that wish and turns it into a prophecy. But what’s fascinating here is that we can see Luke is very attuned, by alluding to Numbers 11, he sees the connection between Numbers 11 and Joel 2. He’s pulling the two texts together. He wants the reader to blend them and to bring that Numbers 11 event and weave it into Joel 2.

Nancy Guthrie
So go on and talk to us more about this Joel passage.

Ben Gladd
Yeah, we could keep going. So that line, “in the last days,” that’s Isaiah 2:2. So let’s keep our finger here in Acts 2, and let’s turn to Isaiah 2:2. Some of you are probably familiar with this text. This is a temple text. Isaiah 2:2: “In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains. It will be exalted above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it.” This is the conversion of the nations, how they’re bringing gifts and they’re coming into the presence of God. And they have converted to the Israelite faith. They are bowing the knee, they are rejoicing in him, they are in God’s presence. But look at how he starts it: “In the last days.” And so Peter wants you to bring the conversion of the nations into the presence of God, and he’s going to wed it to the Joel 2 quotation. You see? So he wants you to bring both of those texts together.

Nancy Guthrie
It seems to me one thing about this quotation is that you have the sense of he’s saying this is what’s happening here today. But we get to the end of this quote, let’s say in Acts 2:20: “the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, that great and magnificent day.” And we think, “Well, I’m not sure that happened on Pentecost.” What do we do with that?

Ben Gladd
This is spicy. This is a good text. It doesn’t have to happen physically. I even think that this text here, whatever we get this language about the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood, the fancy word here is cosmic conflagration. How many of you guys have used that word recently? That’s how we describe it. It’s cosmic language. It’s the heavens are melting. We get that language in warfare throughout the Old Testament when two nations clash. The events on earth are reflected in the heavens. And so you have then the heavens are melting, they’re going away. It’s dissolution language. And it’s because one kingdom falls and another rises. What we have here in Joel 2 is the establishment of the church, one kingdom rising, and then the fall of the nation of Israel, as I would argue. So it’s both restoration and judgment. I don’t read Acts 2 in just simply positive terms. It’s positive if you believe in Jesus and you confess his name; it’s negative if you don’t. So I do see fulfillment here. I do think that happened, but figuratively and spiritually, not physically.

Nancy Guthrie
Well, I think one thing you’re training us for here is that we read something like this, and maybe our instincts say, and we’ve been trained our whole lives, to take it very literally, and we start reading about blood moons, and we’re like, “Oh boy.” But I think you’re actually showing us a skill and a benefit of looking for these allusions and where these are coming from. Because then when we get to the Old Testament and we see what was happening here in terms of these clashes of kingdom, it then helps that to make proper sense to us.

Ben Gladd
That’s right. It’s mostly Isaiah, some an Ezekiel, but it’s mostly in Isaiah where they use this cosmic language to refer to past events, like with the fall of Babylon or the fall of Egypt. Those are past events, but they’re not describing a literal or physical melting. It’s a political melting.

31:28 - Acts 7 and Amos 5

Nancy Guthrie
Let’s go to Act 7. This is Stephen. He’s being challenged by the temple leaders, and there’s a sense in which he gives them a geography lesson of where the presence of the Lord has been. It was with Abraham in Mesopotamia, and it was with Joseph in Egypt, and so why are they thinking it can only be in the most holy place of the temple? And as we look at our page, we see clearly a couple that are clearly quotations. I think we’ve got a quotation from Amos and one from Isaiah. So can you walk us through those two and teach us some skills on why Stephen drew those?

Ben Gladd
The Amos 5 quotation is in Acts 7:42–43. This is during Stephen’s speech: “but God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. This agrees with what was written in the book of the prophets.” That’s interesting because that tells us he’s prefacing that he’s likely not simply drawing from one text. It’s an amalgam of texts. “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel? You have taken up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god, Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.” I think this one’s somewhat straightforward. He’s tapping a text from Amos 5, where Israel is being very idolatrous, and Stephen’s just saying, “Yeah, that’s continuing today.” So what is true in the Old Testament—there may be a little promise fulfillment, maybe abiding authority that what is true of Amos 5 is true here.

Nancy Guthrie
But I think it does help us to slow down a little bit and say, “Okay, this was in Amos.” And then we go to Amos and ask, To whom was Amos writing? At what point in Israel’s history was this? And even just that basic work helps us get this text and his purpose in using it.

Ben Gladd
That’s exactly right. In fact, we can see that, Nancy. The last word in the quotation says “beyond Babylon.” In Amos 5 it’s Damascus. I think it’s Damascus. Here, it’s Babylon. So he’s tweaking it because he’s doubling down on the exile piece. In other words, what’s happening is their idolatry eventually led to their exile in Babylon, and Stephen is underscoring that and it is basically saying, “You all are in spiritual Babylonian exile, and you’re going to continue to do so if you keep going.”

Nancy Guthrie
And in this passage there’s a sense in which he’s suggesting they’ve made the temple itself into an idol. Is that right?

Ben Gladd
That’s exactly right. They’re committing the same type of idolatry; they just worship something different.

34:37 - Acts 7 and Exodus 32

Nancy Guthrie
For this next one, he begins introducing it in Acts 7:48: “Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands”—there’s an interesting phrase you can talk about—“as the prophet says, ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’”

Ben Gladd
This is a great text. This is one of the clearest texts in the Old Testament that tell us the physical temple is not the ultimate dwelling place of God. God is supposed to dwell with people, not with metal and rock. He’s supposed to dwell in our hearts, in a community, in all of creation. And that’s what this text is about. I love the rhetorical question, “What kind of house will you build for me?” It’s not like, well maybe we should have used clay. The answer is none. There’s no kind of house.

Nancy Guthrie
How could you ever be contained, God?

Ben Gladd
That’s exactly right. So it’s just saying here to stop worshiping the temple because God did not design the temple for him to stay there ultimately and fully. So stop worshiping it. Now, this is amazing. Verse 51, Nancy: “You stiff-necked people. Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors. You always resist the Holy Spirit.” He stacks like three or four allusions on top of each other. The stiff-necked—that’s Exodus 32, when Israel commits idolatry with the golden calf. Because they worship the calf, they become calf-like, so their necks are stiff. That’s right out of Exodus. In other words, these Jewish leaders are committing the same sin that happened 1,400 years before. It’s happening again. Secondly, “your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised.” Those words seem to be from Jeremiah and Leviticus. And then finally, “Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?” They always did. They persecuted all of them. Then here it is: “They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One.” That “Righteous One” is from Isaiah 63. He’s pulling in all these passages from the Old Testament, and he’s weaving them together in an indictment against the Jewish leaders. He’s basically saying, “You’re bowing down the same way that your ancestors bowed down, which resulted in judgment, and then now it’s even going to be more so in light of Christ’s coming.”

37:22 - Acts 8 and Isaiah 53

Nancy Guthrie
In the Acts 8, it’s the beautiful passage of Philip coming upon this Ethiopian eunuch. And he just happens to be reading the scroll of Isaiah and he just happens to be in Isaiah 53. And he gives us this quote from Isaiah 53. And then what’s so amazing is the eunuch says in verse 34, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” When I read that I think about how that is an evangelist’s dream, isn’t it? He’s already reading the Scriptures, and he’s asking, “Who is this about?”

Ben Gladd
“Do you know someone that can forgive my sins?”

Nancy Guthrie
So when we read this, it just has a few lines from Isaiah 53. You said earlier we should probably consider he’s reading—

Ben Gladd
The whole thing.

Nancy Guthrie
The whole thing.

Ben Gladd
So think about this Nancy. Printing the Bible is very expensive. The books had to be copied by scribes. Today when we print, we just copy and paste, hit the print button, boom. There you go. Five thousand copies. Writing is very expensive in the ancient world. So Luke and Acts together make up about a third of the New Testament. So this production that he did is very costly. And one of the ways they can save money or cut corners, as it were, is that they only cite a portion of the text. Because they can’t quote all of Isaiah 53, they’ll just quote a portion of it, expecting the reader to then pull the entire chapter back. So that’s probably what’s going on here. He cites just a blip, just a couple of key verses, but he really wants the reader to read all of Isaiah 53 together. This is a home run right here. Verse 35: “Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” Sometimes it’s like, Man, I wonder what Philip said. No, no, no. Luke has told us that in his Gospel. We know what he said. He is going to point to those same events in Jesus’s life and explain them to Philip. We already have that information. I don’t think we need to speculate.

Nancy Guthrie
He’s going to be connecting it all the way to that passage in Isaiah 53.

Ben Gladd
So he’s talking about Jesus in light of Isaiah 53. And again, notice the misreading here. The eunuch is saying, “Who is this? What does this refer to?” It’s the Messiah. But a lot of Old Testament readers would not have read Isaiah 53 messianically. Most of them were not expecting a suffering Messiah, whereas it’s right there!

Nancy Guthrie
And for anyone who even today is skeptical and maybe thinking we oversee Jesus in the Old Testament, this is one of those passages that just shows us how it’s done.

Ben Gladd
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.

Nancy Guthrie
It gives us permission, in a sense, to do that.

Ben Gladd
Like when Jesus says in Mark 10:45, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” That’s a partial quotation from Isaiah 53, and he’s talking about himself. It’s one of the few times that we actually have Jesus’s words explicitly connecting his mission with Isaiah 53.

40:48 - Acts 28 and Isaiah 6

Nancy Guthrie
Thank you. Let’s close this way; let’s jump to the end of Acts. We know that the way a writer both begins and ends his book is going to be significant, especially in helping us understand the central point of his message. And in this last chapter of Acts, Paul is in Rome. He does what he always does, which is he goes first to the Jews who are in that city. We read in verse verse 23, “From morning until evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God, trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.” And we read that some are convinced and others disbelieve. And it says that they departed after Paul had made one statement. He says, “The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, ‘Go to this people and say, “You will indeed hear, but never understand. You will indeed see, but never perceive.” For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’ Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” So talk to us about his use of Isaiah 6 here at the very end of the book of Acts.

Ben Gladd
This is a very sad text, isn’t it? In Isaiah 6, God commanded, commissioned the prophet Isaiah and said, “Isaiah, your job is you’re going to go to Israel and you’re just going to proclaim judgment. And nobody’s going to listen to you.” And he’s like, “How long is that going to last?” Do you remember that? And then God’s like, “Forever.” All the Gospels quote Isaiah 6. Jesus himself quotes it on a number of occasions. It’s alluded to throughout the Gospels. Even Paul quotes it and alludes to it in his epistles. It is one of the key texts in the Old Testament. Here we see this text applied in a staggering way, and that is what God commissioned Isaiah to proclaim—judgment to idolaters—is continuing in the first century. It’s been 800 years, and that judgment text is still working itself out. God is still condemning people and judging people because their hearts are hardened and they are worshiping things that are not God. And because of that, they are paying a very dear price. But watch this in verse 28: “Therefore, I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” So they will hear. Do you see? He’s still talking about Isaiah 6. So, a portion of the Jews, they will fulfill Isaiah 6. Guess who will not fulfill Isaiah 6? The Gentiles. He’s still invoking Isaiah 6 there—“They will hear” or “They will listen.” So he’s still alluding to it. And then I love verse 30. Verse 30 is fantastic. “For two whole years, Paul stayed there in his own rented house.” Again, we think Paul was in prison. No, this was like Martha Stewart. Remember when she was under house arrest? Can I say that? Can I say that?

Nancy Guthrie
I don’t think it was exactly like Martha Stewart. But I think we get your gist.

Ben Gladd
Maybe not precisely. But he’s in his own rented house.

Nancy Guthrie
I don’t think he ate as well as Martha.

Ben Gladd
I don’t think so. I don’t think he was creating his own culinary division. What is he doing there? And we can date this to the early 60s, maybe 60–62. He’s proclaiming the kingdom of God. And this is exactly what Jesus does in Acts 1. Remember that Acts 1 opens, and what is Jesus doing? Proclaiming the kingdom of God. And what is Paul doing roughly thirty years later? Proclaiming the kingdom of God. But look how far it’s come. In Acts 1 it opens there at the Mount of Olives. Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom of God there in Jerusalem. Now it’s gone all the way to Rome. In thirty years the gospel has grown and thousands upon thousands of people have been brought in. And here it is in the belly of the beast, in Rome itself, and what does Paul say in verse 31? “And taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.” He’s got an eye on Caesar in some way, saying, “The true King has ascended to the throne, he is ruling over Rome itself, and there’s nothing that Nero or any other Caesar can do about it. The gospel conquers.”

Nancy Guthrie
Thank you so much, Ben, for giving us a taste of the richness that awaits us as we develop our skills in seeing the Old Testament in the New Testament. Thank you.

Ben Gladd
Thanks so much for having me on.

Nancy Guthrie

Nancy Guthrie teaches the Bible at her home church, Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee, as well as at conferences around the country and internationally, including her Biblical Theology Workshop for Women. She is the author of numerous books and the host of the Help Me Teach the Bible podcast with the Gospel Coalition. She and her husband founded Respite Retreats for couples who have faced the death of a child, and they are cohosts of the GriefShare video series. 

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May 04, 2022

In this new podcast, Nancy Guthrie—author, Bible teacher, and podcast host—leads listeners to a deeper understanding of the book of Revelation through conversations with respected Bible scholars, pastors, and other Bible teachers.

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