Nate Shurden on Opportunities and Challenges in Teaching Acts (Season 2, Episode 11)
This article is part of the Conversations on the Bible with Nancy Guthrie series.
Faithful to the Text
Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with pastor Nate Shurden about what should be considered when endeavoring to teach through the book of Acts.
Saved
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.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS
Topics Addressed in This Interview:
- What Does “You Will Be My Witnesses” Actually Mean?
- Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
- Applying the Book of Acts
00:37 - What Does “You Will Be My Witnesses” Actually Mean?
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 the 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’ve been 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. And my guest today is my own pastor, Nate Shurden. Nate, thank you for being willing to have this conversation with me about the book of Acts.
Nate Shurden
Nancy, thank you for inviting me. This is a real privilege.
Nancy Guthrie
Well, it is for me. Nate is the pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He’s a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, currently working on your PhD. I forget what your PhD is going to be in, Nate. What is it?
Nate Shurden
Well, it is a Doctor of Ministry, a DMin degree. I’m just finishing the course work on this degree, so they’re telling me I’ve got to come up with a formal proposal by this summer. So I’m mixing up a couple of ideas, but we hope to crystallize that pretty soon.
Nancy Guthrie
All right, good. Well, it’s a thrill to me to have a conversation with my pastor, whom I love dearly. I do have to say that there was a time you really annoyed me.
Nate Shurden
Oh, really? True confessions.
Nancy Guthrie
Yes. I walked by the room one time where you were doing a new members class, and I overheard something you said.
Nate Shurden
Oh no.
Nancy Guthrie
You gave the year that you were born, and it was the year I graduated from high school.
Nate Shurden
Oh yeah. There’s that.
Nancy Guthrie
And so I did find it just a little bit bothersome. But honestly, no, what I’m grateful for is it’s good to have a pastor who’s eighteen years younger than I am, especially one who’s so wise. I’m really grateful for that. I mean that. It is an incredible blessing to have a pastor that I respect and admire and enjoy as much as I respect, admire, and enjoy you. But I was thinking on the way down here to have this conversation, the other good thing about it is that you’ll probably still be around to be able to do my funeral. And so that’s the good thing about having a younger pastor.
Nate Shurden
Maybe there’s a positive side to that.
Nancy Guthrie
I see a total positive.
Nate Shurden
Well, you’re very kind. Those are too kind words. And I would just say it is a joy to be your pastor—both the honor that you give to me to be able to listen to the word of God and sit under my ministry, and then the opportunity that I get to sit at your feet so often and say, “Nancy, help me with this. What do you think about this?”
Nancy Guthrie
Oh, come on. That’s not true.
Nate Shurden
Oh, come on. You know it is. No, I’m grateful for you.
Nancy Guthrie
One thing that has been fun is that over the past year, I started last summer—I do a summer Bible study at our church—and I taught through the first half of the book of Acts. I’m getting ready to teach through the second half of it coming up. And this spring you’ve been teaching through the book of Acts to the men at our church. So you regularly work through books of the Bible, certainly from the pulpit and I suppose also in some men’s Bible study, but you also do some topical things. So what prompted you this spring to say, “Okay, we’re going to do a study of the book of Acts”?
Nate Shurden
That’s a great question. Last fall we had actually done the book of Joshua—a historical narrative section in the Old Testament. And depending on how you’re looking from Old Testament to New Testament, there are some parallels.
Nancy Guthrie
Oh, I had never thought of that, but there totally is. Taking possession of the land, right?
Nate Shurden
There you go! You’re anticipating me. So you finish the Law of the Old Testament, and now we’re seeing the historical narrative unfold. The promises and the covenants that have been made have taken place in the Old Testament, and now Joshua is really giving to us the historical narrative of the conquering of the land, the operating on the promises of God, his covenant, his exodus, and his faithfulness through the wilderness is now being shown forth in Joshua. And in a very real sense, in the Gospels you have the law, the promises, the fulfillment that has come in Christ Jesus. And now you have the risen and ascended Lord who is now on his throne pouring out the Holy Spirit and conquering the land—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world. And so as I was teaching in the fall on the book of Joshua and I began to wrestle with the men about this connection canonically between these two books, there were several men who just suggested, “Hey, what do you think about the book of Acts? It’s been a while since we’ve done anything in Acts.” I said, “That’d be really great.” So that was one reason we jumped into the book of Acts. Another reason was as a local congregation we’re always thinking about being on mission for Christ, and we’re thinking about church planting, we’re thinking about the growth the Lord has given to this local congregation. I wanted the men to be encouraged in what it meant to be renewed in the power of the gospel, and there is no book richer in the Scriptures than to look at the book of Acts for that to happen. And to equip them to be on mission for Christ in the world, to see examples throughout the book of Acts of how to share the gospel in the different ways that Stephen or Peter or Paul do in these different contexts that they’re in. And I thought this will equip and train the men for the work of ministry, what it means to testify to the truth of the gospel in a public square in the context in which they’re in. So there were some ministerial reasons, there were some textual reasons, some mission reasons here at the church. Those are some of the things that motivated our study.
Nancy Guthrie
Well, I imagine some of the people listening to this podcast are doing so because they’re considering, or they are actively preparing, to lead a study through the book of Acts. So I thought we might just have a conversation about some of the opportunities in teaching the book of Acts and some of the challenges as well. So I just wonder as you considered teaching through the book of Acts, what are some of the things you thought of that you thought, “Okay, this might be a challenge in teaching through this book”?
Nate Shurden
I think there are several things that come to mind, and one is grasping some of the main emphases of the book of Acts and how they have sometimes been weighted, burdened, or applied in ways that maybe aren’t as consistent with the book of Acts as we tend to think that they are.
Nancy Guthrie
What do you mean?
Nate Shurden
For instance, the book starts in Acts 1 with the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says to his disciples—his final words; these are the last words they hear out of the Savior’s mouth before he ascends into the heavenly places—“You will be my witnesses.” He uses that language. “You will receive power when my Spirit comes upon you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.” When we think of that text, very often what jumps off the page for the modern reader is the church is to be the witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world. That’s kind of the main focus. We’ve all been to the missions conference that has told us we are God’s witnesses in the world, and your neighborhood is your Jerusalem. Your state is your Judea and Samaria. And then there’s the nations. Now, I don’t want to rob everybody of all of that because there’s some really good application to be gained from that. But that’s not exactly what Jesus means, nor what Luke means as he’s writing the book of Acts here. This word witness is a really key word in the book of Acts. It’s a word that has legal import. When Luke is giving us that word and Jesus is speaking that word, he’s saying, “You have seen something with your very eyes—the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are an authoritative witness, and I want you now to go say—I want you to be empowered with my Holy Spirit—to go say what it is that you’ve seen.” That’s really what a witness does.
Nancy Guthrie
Testify like in a courtroom. “Here’s what I saw.”
Nate Shurden
That’s right. Courtroom language is all the way through the book of Acts. As we’re looking at it, everybody is under attack or on trial. Every main moment, whether we’re looking at Stephen’s martyrdom, it’s set in the context of a court case. Whether we’re looking at Ananias and Sapphira, which is actually a testimony of false witnesses and why judgment falls there. Whether we’re looking at Paul as he is before King Agrippa or Festus, or when we see him on these various trials throughout the book of Acts. In each of these cases, he is bearing faithful and true witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these servants are bearing that faithful and true witness. What’s actually being built here is an authoritative foundation. The apostles are the foundation stones, the apostle Paul refers to them as, for the building of the church. And this foundation, from the prophets and the apostles and Jesus Christ being the cornerstone, is what the book of Acts is actually laying out for us. The apostles are those witnesses. And that leaves an opportunity for us as we teach the book of Acts to say, “Hey, this is actually not primarily about you as the witness, but the witness that Jesus Christ is through the power of the Holy Spirit in the apostles to lay the foundation for the church.” And so there’s a challenge in interpreting it that way, but there’s an opportunity in interpreting it that way. And I think interestingly with Luke here, Luke is saying that “be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world,” that that mission has actually been accomplished. That’s what’s really remarkable. We think of that as something that needs to be accomplished, that we are the ones who are the witnesses who are accomplishing it. Luke is actually writing this book saying the gospel starts in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit falls in Acts 2 and Peter is preaching and Pentecost happens. And we end the book of Rome, which is the uttermost parts of the world, the very center of the empire, and the gospel goes through the rest of the book of Acts, to Judea and to Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the world. By the end of the book of Acts, Luke is telling us the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth. And so it’s really a testimony of fulfillment of all of what Jesus said what happened and called them to do in Acts 1. And so that’s a beautiful opportunity as a teacher when you’re communicating through the book of Acts to say. “Hey, this is not primarily about you. It’s about what King Jesus is doing through the power of his Spirit through the apostles. It’s a legal account of the witness of what really took place.”
Nancy Guthrie
As I looked at that, Nate, in teaching it, one thing I did was to try to become a little bit of a broken record, especially week by week. I kept coming back to Acts 1:8 because it’s so foundational. It sets up the trajectory for the rest of the book. Geographically, it’s like an outline of the rest of the book. But I would come back to the point that you are making. But I think it does have a couple of helpful implications for people. So if the apostles are the witnesses, then what are we? If we’re not going to be witnesses because we didn’t see the resurrected Jesus with our eyes, then what are we? And what I would just say again and again that they were witnesses, and we are proclaimers of the apostolic witness. We’re proclaimers of the apostolic witness. And I think the other opportunity that gives us is to say these are apostolic witnesses. They’re faithful. We can depend on what they recorded in this book that we have—what they recorded about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the Gospels and what we have in the epistles. And so their being faithful witnesses has provided to us actually the content of what we are to proclaim. This talk about witnesses. I think about how that term was used mostly when I grew up and probably similar to you. To be a witness was to talk about what Jesus has done in my life or in my experience.
Nate Shurden
Your personal testimony.
Nancy Guthrie
But instead we realize, no, the content of our proclamation is what the apostolic witnesses have recorded.
Nate Shurden
I think this really points to such an important element of Luke’s intention in writing the book of Acts and the role that Acts plays in the canon, especially even here in the New Testament, is it is a historical retelling. It is a historical account. These things happened. It’s not someone’s subjective or internal feelings or thoughts or someone’s mere perspective. The way that this is written is like a document that you can base it on because it happened in time and space in history. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is emphasized so much in the book of Acts. That’s one of the shocking things that sort of jumped off at me again when reading this time around is how little the cross is actually emphasized and how prominently the resurrection is emphasized. And the focus of the resurrection being that our greatest enemy has been overcome, which is death. The ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ has happened. The throne is occupied. The fulfillment of the promise to David, that a Son will be on the throne forever, has happened in Christ. And all these people saw it happen. There are all these witnesses of the resurrection. There are all these witnesses of this ascension—the disciples themselves here. They’re able to give historical account that this is what took place. And it’s that proclamation that we’ve been entrusted with and that we’ve been given. And so it’s an important piece to realize that our faith is not actually founded upon our internal operating but upon the external actions of what actually took place by a Savior and a King who is a Lord. It’s not that that’s unimportant, what’s taken place in our personal lives and testimony; that’s critical. But what we proclaim is actually something outside of us. It is a Savior and a Lord of what historically happened in time and space and history.
15:47 - Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
Nancy Guthrie
So that aspect of the true history of the book of Acts, you’re presenting that as an opportunity in teaching the book. I wonder, though, if sometimes there’s a bit of challenge to it because oftentimes people will read something in the book of Acts, and we want to try to figure out what its implications are for us. And so perhaps sometimes we can go very direct. “Well, that’s what they did in the book of Acts!” And so maybe we assume that that’s what we’re supposed to do. So it gets to this aspect that I think is challenging to the person who’s going to teach through the book of Acts is to try to determine what is descriptive of what happened in Acts and what is prescriptive for what should happen in our local churches. For you and I, that’s Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tennessee. What’s prescriptive for our church? Did you come upon that in some places, and how did you deal with that?
Nate Shurden
I would say that is probably, Nancy, one of the more difficult realities for the leader/teacher/facilitator of a study of the book of Acts. When we read something descriptively in the book—it happened, this is the history, and Luke’s giving us this accurate account—are we then to take that which has happened and see it as a pattern, a model, an instructive formula for the way in which we ought to live and move and have our being as the church or as individual Christians? So that’s a huge interpretive question that we run into when we address historical narrative and maybe even in a particular way in the book of Acts because it’s a transitional book. Does that make sense? We’re moving from the old covenant to the new covenant, and so there are things that are literally changing on the spot in the book of Acts. So think Acts 10 for a minute. There’s dietary laws in the Old Testament that have been binding. And of course Jesus spoke to it in the gospel. He makes it very clear, but it didn’t really register with his disciples. And so Peter has to have this vision in Acts chapter 10 of this sheet of animals. And now he’s going to be able to eat. What was once unclean is now clean. So those laws are being abrogated. We’re literally moving from old covenant to new covenant, to a fuller expression of God’s redemptive plan post the fulfillment of Christ, his resurrection and ascension. We’re now coming into this vision, this expression of the new covenant. And so things are passing away and new things are coming. The sign of circumcision.
Nancy Guthrie
A big deal in the book of Acts.
Nate Shurden
A massive deal. This question, if we could relate it to that, circumcision no longer has the spiritual significance that it once had as marking God’s covenant people. And now we have the sign of baptism. It is replacing the sign of circumcision from Old Testament to New Testament. And this massive question from the Jerusalem council in Acts 15: Do you have to become a Jew in order to become a Christian if you’re a Gentile? Do I have to take up all of the Jewish markers and take up the customs and the traditions to essentially have to become a cultural Jew and all of what it meant to be a Jew in the Old Testament in order to become a Christian? So in many ways, those are questions related to this question: Is what we have descriptively for us in the book of Acts—every jot and tittle of it—should it be prescriptive for the New Testament church? And the answer is no. There are aspects of this reading, as we’re looking at it, that are meant to simply account to us and give us an expression of what happened, not meant to be instructive as a pattern for all of the way in which it’s to be in the body of Christ as the church. Let me give an example of that. In Acts 19 we have Paul stumbling upon believers in Ephesus who only know about John’s baptism. Remember this text?
Nancy Guthrie
Yes. And it says they’re disciples. We’re not really even sure what that means. Disciples of who?
Nate Shurden
You’re right. It just kind of leaves it without qualification. So we have that here in Acts 19, and they have not received the Holy Spirit. And Paul seems himself, and I think this is really helpful for the reader and interpreter of Acts 19, Paul seems to be a little confused by this. So he comes across these disciples. We learn that they know that they’ve been baptized with the baptism of John, which he refers to as a baptism of repentance. We all know that from the earlier testament in the gospel of Luke. And he says to them, “With what name were you baptized?” They said, “The baptism of John.” He asks, “Did you not receive the Holy Spirit?” They answer, “We’ve not heard of the Holy Spirit.” And it seems as if Paul himself is discovering this is a bit of an unusual case here, and then he tells them about the Holy Spirit, and he baptizes them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’re told that the Holy Spirit then comes, almost like a little mini Pentecost, which we see several times through the book of Acts. In fact, each time the gospel breaks into a new region, each time it breaks into a new place—Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the world—and the knowledge of the fullness of who Christ is comes to those people, something like a breaking in of the Spirit happens. Signs and wonders are displayed as the gospel is preached. And in that context, as the apostle Paul tells them about the fulfillment of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see those signs and wonders and we see the Holy Spirit come there in power. Now, is that something that should be normative for the life of the church? Some would say yes, Nancy. There’s a whole movement—second blessing movements—that we’ve seen throughout church history that have been very, very popular in the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries, that you could be saved and be a disciple of Christ and yet you’ve not received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is going to come on a second blessing, and we’ll know the Spirit has come if you start speaking in tongues and you start prophesying. The text of Acts 19 does not give us that pattern in such a way that it says, “Thus should be the case for every true believer or for the church of Jesus Christ going forward.” It is simply describing for us what the in-breaking of the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom looked like in the first century when it came. And interestingly, Nancy, what we see is that it came sometimes in ways that caused confusion that took a little time to get clarity. Very often, whether it’s a sign of circumcision moving to baptism, meat sacrificed to idols (Can we eat it or not?), what do we do with Jewish customs?
Nancy Guthrie
Like taking vows. Paul takes a vow.
Nate Shurden
He takes a vow. Remarkably so. We see these unique things happening in the book of Acts. And I think what Luke is trying to give us is what he told Theophilus at the beginning of his Gospel: “I want to give you an orderly account so that you can be certain that the things that you have heard are true, that you can have confidence in them.” He’s not saying just because it happened this way means that the church ought to be doing these things hither yon. And part of what we need to look at is not look at the book of Acts but look at the whole of the Bible’s teaching on these subjects to be sure that we’re not building our theology from one text or from one episode. But we’re looking at Paul’s letters, we’re looking from Old Testament to New Testament. We’re balancing it with the teaching of the gospel and saying, “What should be the normative practice of the church based upon the whole of the teaching of the Bible, not just one particular historical narrative text?”
Nancy Guthrie
I think a good biblical interpretation, foundational thing to understand about the whole of the Bible, and particularly here in the book of Acts, is that a lot of times when we are reading about how God works at a particular time and through a particular person in Scripture, that many Bible interpreters just want to assume that’s how God always works with all people in all eras of redemptive history. But that’s not the case. A lot of times what we read in the Bible, we have to look at and ask ourselves the question, Is there something unique here about this person and their role in redemptive history and this period of time in redemptive history that prompts me then to not necessarily read this as something I should expect to experience or that all people of all times should experience?
Nate Shurden
That’s so true.
25:03 - Applying the Book of Acts
Nancy Guthrie
Well, let’s move on to application. I know that as I was considering teaching through the book of Acts at our church and then that becoming a book, I think one of my fears about it was I’m not sure that this book just serves up to me, as a Bible teacher, a lot of welcomed penetrate-the-heart kinds of application. I don’t think that was my experience necessarily. So I’ve got a number of applications that I just found really coming through strong through the book of Acts. But I wonder if you could tell me yours. As you worked through it with the men, are there two or three applications that you found either repeatedly coming through or that you found that as you were teaching them at our church those applications really resonated with the men?
Nate Shurden
That’s a great question, and I think this may get at least towards it. I’ll say there were some truths, specifically, that we came back to just over and over. And one of those truths that I found and was just so heartened by constantly when reading the book of Acts was to recognize and remember that Christ is on the throne, and the Holy Spirit is his means and power through which the church is actually built. That’s our confidence. Throughout the book of Acts, you see such prominence of the Holy Spirit. He’s just on every story that’s in the text. And it’s very easy for us to think that the work of the church, my life, the things that I’m called to do and commanded to do (those are very important and must be done) are really up to me. And the book of Acts was constantly a course corrective for the men as they studied it. They saw it was the Holy Spirit that was leading everything that happened. From the beginning, it’s almost as if Jesus is cautioning the disciples, “Hey, don’t go out there and start doing any ministry. Let’s wait. The Holy Spirit needs to come. You will receive dunamis. You will receive power when the Spirit comes.” And that was an application that just continued to ring true throughout. Even the apostle Paul has plans that we see throughout the book of Acts. He’s going to go here. He’s going to go there. And then the Holy Spirit would stop him. He wouldn’t go there. Or the Holy Spirit has told me this. This is where I’m going to go. And other people are saying, “Paul, don’t go there!” And he’s going, “Nope, I’ve got to go there. The Spirit is sending me there.” It was the work of the Holy Spirit that was throughout the book of Acts, just constantly registering into the life and the hearts of these men. We think so much about what it is we got to do and get prepared to do. And that’s important, but it’s really God who builds this church in and through the Holy Spirit. That was a massive application throughout. Another key piece was the importance of the local church and the body of Christ in that work. This is a narrative of the building of the church. That’s really the focal point. The church is God’s plan A. And that’s the work that the Holy Spirit is establishing, and he’s using the apostles as the means by which to do that. The apostle Paul’s work, actually, was when he went to a location or went to a particular region to preach the gospel, he went to the synagogue. He went among the Jews. And then he was rejected, usually, at some point along the way. And then he goes to the Gentiles. He preaches the gospel there. And he’s raising up a body of believers and seeking to establish elders in that local congregation, seeking to establish this outpost of the kingdom that’s going to be in this region in order that he might move on in mission and leave that work continuing. The goal was to establish the church. That was the goal. And so the prominence of the local church and the significance of this being the means through which the kingdom of God is really compelled forward, that was assumed throughout the book of Acts. So the Holy Spirit’s work, that the prominence and centrality of the work of the church was significant in our study. I think another thing that really stood out is that opposition is normative to the work of the gospel. Opposition is normative to the work of the gospel. And it will actually be in the face of opposition that the gospel will advance and the church will be founded. That’s huge for us to hear that, Nancy, because we tend to think things are not going well if people are opposing the gospel. The book of Acts tells us that the gospel was moving and advancing forward actually on the heels of persecution. It’s the old Tertullian quote: “The blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the church.” And you see that in the spirit of the book of Acts. And I think that was course corrective for a North American today studying the book of Acts and going, “Well, the church is not being respected and the gospel’s falling on hard times. What are we going to do? How do we approach that?” Well, as you look through the book of Acts, we see that it’s often under attack that the gospel actually moves forward in more power. We actually see that happening here. So I think those were some of the testimonies of the men as we were coming through and really correcting what tends to be our heart’s default into thinking where the gospel will really be powerful, where the work really is going to be accomplished. Counterintuitive when you begin to read the account of Luke.
Nancy Guthrie
I think two of the key applications that kept coming through in my teaching through this are closely related to that one. One would simply be that the gospel is unstoppable.
Nate Shurden
That’s great.
Nancy Guthrie
I love it, and that actually gets articulated by Gamaliel. Remember when a couple of disciples were before the council, and he just says to the council, “If this is from God, nothing can stop this. We might even find ourselves being in opposition to the plans and purposes of God.” So that’s pretty stunning. Just from the very beginning of this, the progression of this is interesting. You’ve got John and Peter, they’re threatened and told to stay silent. The next step is they’re beaten. They still won’t stay silent. “We cannot help but to speak.” And then we’ve got Stephen. And so now it’s become murderous. And so that progresses. But no matter what, it’s unstoppable. But along with the gospel being unstoppable, and you said there’s always going to be opposition to it, and I would connect that to the fact that numerous times Luke seems to want to present the apostles and others in the book of Acts, that their lives and their ministries are conforming to that of the Master. And it makes me think about Jesus saying, “A servant is not above his master. If they persecuted me, they’re going to persecute you.”
Nate Shurden
That’s so true.
Nancy Guthrie
And so we see the apostles throughout the book of Acts doing signs and wonders like Jesus. And in that way they are connected. They get his credibility, his authority, but they’re not escaping suffering like Jesus. Peter and John early on before the religious leaders, and then we get to Stephen. And I really think, especially in the account of Stephen, that Luke seems to take care to note the similarities. Some of the things he’s being charged with are the exact things Jesus was charged with. And this is just, I don’t know, a pretty short time after Jesus stood in front of this same crew—even the way it comes to a close. First of all, he’s asking God to forgive these people, which we’ve heard that on someone’s lips before.
Nate Shurden
Yes, we have.
Nancy Guthrie
And he sees into heaven and sees the glory of God.
Nate Shurden
“Lord, receive my spirit.”
Nancy Guthrie
So it’s like Luke’s taking care that we see it. But the same thing in Paul. I think about Paul’s ministry and him standing before these religious leaders. But I also think about how Paul is told, “Don’t go to Jerusalem because you’re going to suffer there.”
Nate Shurden
That’s right.
Nancy Guthrie
It reminds us of the way Luke records Jesus’s ministry. I’m thinking of Luke 9:51, where it says that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. And when Luke says that, he’s not just giving us a travel log; he is communicating something to us about Jesus’s intention to accomplish the work that God has given to him, knowing that going to Jerusalem is going to the cross. And similarly, here is Paul going to Jerusalem. He knows the opposition he’s going to face. God has already revealed it to him that he’s going to suffer significantly there. But God has revealed something else to him. God has revealed to him, “You are going to testify for me in Rome.” And it’s such a beautiful thing to just see him hold onto that confidence. God has promised it. “You can put me in a jail in Caesarea for two years. Okay. You can put me on a ship that’s going to fall apart in the middle of the Mediterranean. A viper can latch a hold of me and fill me with poison. You can keep me in house arrest in Rome.” But Paul holds onto what God has promised. “I’m going to testify to him in Rome.” This makes me think of Jesus: “Who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God.” The way Jesus walked toward suffering, confident in the promises of God.
Nate Shurden
Amen. And amen. Luke is just so intentional about that, isn’t he? That they are truly following Christ. “Follow me as I follow Christ.” “Take up your cross daily and follow me.” I mean, that is the story of the book of Acts. And it even gets into recognizing the fact that this is the continuing work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what this is. These are the continuing acts of Christ. The Spirit of Christ now animating the apostles themselves. And when you set it in that context and you think about applying it that way now for the life of the church, when we suffer for the sake of Christ, we are fulfilling exactly what it is Christ said we should expect as followers of him. We, being saved by Christ and now called and charged into the work of ministry, even in the generation in which he’s placed us, not in the same apostolic sense that’s here, but in the same proclamation sense, as we declare these things, the world is going to attack. And boy, we see that. As that comes, we should not be surprised by fiery trial, Peter tells us, because that’s going to be the nature of how it actually works. We will actually “fill up the sufferings of Christ.” That’s what’s happening here. And the Lord is going to use that as a means by which to actually advance his gospel. It’s actually on the heels of that that we see the gospel go forward here. When you see Paul testify before King Agrippa or whatever, here, before the powers that be, the gospel is being made known. It is getting into the highest of the echelons and it’s saving the poorest of the poor. It’s crossing every spectrum. And it’s a foreshadowing of what’s going to happen at the end of time when Christ comes back and consummates this kingdom. Every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation will indeed know him, and every knee will bow and tongue will confess that he is Lord. It’s beautiful.
Nancy Guthrie
Well, let’s close this way, Nate. You’ve now completed Acts, right? You got all the way—all twenty-eight chapters. I’m getting ready to teach it this summer and bring it to a completion for our women. So what do you hope lingers with the men after teaching the book of Acts? What message do you hope has really gripped their heart, or what thoughts of Christ, of the Holy Spirit, of the church do you hope linger?
Nate Shurden
That’s a great question, and one actually posed to the men. We always do a wrap-up session at the end of our book studies or our Bible studies. We’ll usually cook breakfast together and we’ll sit around the tables and we’ll ask questions about what the Lord taught us. What sticks out to you about this study? And so we actually did that wrap up a week or so ago, and I took some notes coming out of that study from the men, and so I can actually tell you what actually lingered in the lives and the hearts of these men. One of the things that they said that was the first thing that was actually mentioned when I raised the question is that we can trust the providence of God. I thought that was a great takeaway, that God, from before the foundation of the world, set the plan of redemption into motion (that gets to that unstoppable point), and we can trust the providence of God. He has said it. He has shown himself faithful. He has fulfilled it in Christ. And no matter what it is that may be happening before our watching eyes, the eye of faith can trust the providence of God, that he will unfold his plan. I thought that was a wonderful thing. We, as the church, can rest in the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish that purpose. That came through so strong among the men. They said, “We know that we can trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this end, and that he will do that in and through the work of the church.” And so those lingering lessons were sort of sitting there on the hearts of the men. They’re saying, “Hey, we know that when you look at the church, we’re weak. We’re going to be despised. The world is actually going to look at us and say, ‘Hey, there’s not much to you.’ But the power of the Holy Spirit actually dwells at the very center of the church, and we can trust and rest in his power alone.” Another thing that was mentioned by the men was that they actually have a King on the throne in heaven, and though political rulers are going to come and go, cultural challenges and battles are going to constantly be before us, but Jesus is never up for re-election. He’s always on the throne in heaven. And his kingdom never ends. It never ends. It is unshakable. And that for the brothers, as we were going through, knowing that reality was giving to them a kind of confidence in their faith, a steeliness in the witness that they’re called to bear and to proclaim in the time in which we live. We have a King on the throne of heaven that we can constantly trust. One who’s interceding on our behalf, who knows and cares for us, who’s not distant, but is present with us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. One who is calling the shots. One who holds king’s hearts in his hands and can turn them by the moment. Those promises just really rang true with the men and really lingered in their hearts. One final thing hits me as we’re talking about it now. One of the brothers mentioned just how the Lord has decided to advance his kingship, to show forth his power (obviously through the Spirit), but to do it in ordinary means. That really struck the men that it wasn’t a flashy thing. It wasn’t something smart that we’ve come up with or creative or from our own ingenuity, but it’s opening up our lips to declare what Jesus did. What we sometimes refer to as “the ordinary means of grace”—the word sacrament, prayer, fellowship. These are the means that the Lord uses. Now, let me just tell you that that doesn’t look like much, but the fact that the Lord has chosen those things, even as the book of Acts told us to turn the world upside down, is absolutely remarkable and truly faith giving and bringing ballast to the souls of these brothers as they were studying the book of Acts.
Nancy Guthrie
That’s terrific, Nate. Thank you for having this conversation with me, for engaging with me as we both sought to prepare to teach through this book. Thank you for entrusting to me to teach our women this book. I’m looking forward to that this summer.
Nate Shurden
It’s been a treasure. Thank you, Nancy.
Popular Articles in This Series
View All
Introducing the ‘Blessed’ Podcast with Nancy Guthrie
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.
Blessed: Why Study the Book of Revelation? (Episode 1)
Nancy Guthrie discusses the book of Revelation and how we actually can understand its central message, encouraging us to accept the blessing promised to those who “hear and keep” this book.
Blessed: Time, Symbolism, and Imagery in Revelation with Greg Beale (Episode 10)
Nancy Guthrie is joined by Greg Beale to discuss questions related to the sometimes difficult symbolism and imagery of the book of Revelation.
Blessed: The Apocalyptic Nature of Revelation with Iain Duguid (Episode 2)
Join Nancy Guthrie as she talks with Iain Duguid about how we can understand Revelation in new ways when we read it as a letter, as a promise, and as apocalyptic prophecy.