Theology through Community: Luke’s Portrayal of the Role of the First-Century Community of Believers in Theological Creativity

By Richard A. Pruitt

Since the 1980s, renewal scholars have given considerable attention to the role of the believing community in the interpretive process. A broad consensus has emerged that a triad involving Scripture, the Spirit, and the believing community forms a cooperative relationship resulting in theological development, followed by commensurate action--identified in this research as theological creativity. In the context of this research, to be creative with theology is to take an existing theological assumption and broaden or adapt it to current circumstances, given the Spirit's evidential work and a consensual understanding of Scripture. But how does the community negotiate between Spirit and Scripture without subsuming either into its own predilections? For Luke, the first-century community of believers in Acts functions as an indispensable character in the formation of theological creativity. This work will demonstrate how Luke positions the community as a character in story form, between Spirit and Scripture, functioning as a bridge through which its testimony of the Spirit's evidential work and its application of Scripture interact. In order to illustrate this balancing act, we will use a modified configuration of the triadic notion: Spirit-Community-Scripture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532664038

Richard A. Pruitt

Richard A. Pruitt is an assistant professor in theology and an academic support specialist at North Central University in Minneapolis.

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Theology through Community

Luke’s Portrayal of the Role of the First-Century Community of Believers in Theological Creativity

Richard A. Pruitt

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Theology through Community

Luke’s Portrayal of the Role of the First-Century Community of Believers in Theological Creativity

Copyright © 2019 Richard A. Pruitt. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-6401-4

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-6402-1

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-6403-8

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 11/15/18

All biblical citations, except where otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Greek text, except where otherwise noted, follows Nestle-Aland, 28th edition.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Thesis and Anticipated Conclusions

Characterization in Luke

Review of Literature

Methodology

Chapter 1: Reestablishing the Twelve —Acts 1:12–26

Identifying the Community

The Community in Theological Creativity

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 2: Revealing Jesus as Servant and Son—Acts 4:23–31

Identifying the Community

The Community in Theological Creativity

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 3: Selecting the Seven—Acts 6:1–7

Identifying the Community

The Community in Theological Creativity

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 4: Accepting the Gentiles —Acts 15:1–35

Identifying the Community

The Community in Theological Creativity

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 5: Discerning the Spirit —Acts 11:27–30; 13:1–4; and 21:4, 8–14

Identifying the Community

Summary and Conclusions

Chapter 6: The Community in Theological Creativity

Bringing It All Together: Spirit–Community–Scripture

Engaging Contemporary Issues: Spirit–Community–Scripture

Spirit–Community–Scripture in Lukan Perspective

What Does This All Mean for Us?

Appendix: Thinking Forward in Renewal Hermeneutics

Bibliography

Preface

In this study, we will demonstrate Luke’s portrayal of the role of the first-century community of believers in theological development, or more aptly stated, theological creativity. By approaching Acts as a form of first-century novel and by applying literary conventions of storytelling, we will show that theological creativity for Luke is the act of reformulating formerly held theological concepts as the believing community adjudicates between their understanding of Scripture and their experience of the Spirit’s evidential work. As a result, we will see that Luke’s method of characterization reveals the role of the first-century community of believers in an interpretive process involving Spirit–Community–Scripture.

In order to establish the manner in which Luke characterizes the role of the community in his narrative tale, we will utilize the literary categories of action and conflict as inherent qualities within narrative characters. In so doing, we will see how the community, as a character in Acts, interacts with both Scripture and Spirit in the process of theological creativity. The selected passages, (1) Acts 1:12–26; (2) 4:23–31; (3) 6:1–7; (4) 15:1–35; and (5) 11:27–30; 13:1–4; 21:4, 8–14, feature the community as an active and important character in Luke’s story. In each episode, the community as a character is substantive, identifiable, engaged in the action and conflict, and not passive or merely assumed. As we focus on each passage, we will see how Luke, as a storyteller, uses the community to engage other characters and confirm divine actions.

With special concern for the Renewal Movement’s interest in the community’s function in the interpretive interaction between Spirit–Community–Scripture, this research will demonstrate that Luke’s view of the community in theological creativity offers balance to any concern that the community overshadows either Scripture or Spirit in the interpretive process.

Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this project without the support and love of my wife and family. Thank you, Judy, for never giving up on me. Your timely nudges enabled me to push forward. I am also grateful for the persistence of Dr. Graham Twelftree and the countless hours he spent reading, rereading, and supervising my work. His attention to detail is unwavering and I was fortunate to have him as my advisor. I am also grateful for the seminal works of Dr. Amos Yong and Dr. Kenneth Archer. Their works concerning the interpretive process served as a catalyst for this project. Finally, a word of appreciation is due to all the librarians who came to my aid time and again, especially the ILL staff at Regent University Library. Their efforts in the task of research were invaluable.

List of Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

BA Biblical Archaeologist

BDAG Bauer, Walter, Frederick W. Danker, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Bib Biblica

BMI The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters

BSac Bibliotheca Sacra

BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CurBR Currents in Biblical Research (formerly Currents in Research: Biblical Studies)

DNTB Dictionary of New Testament Background

EBC Expositor’s Bible Commentary

ERT Evangelical Review of Theology

ExpTim Expository Times

HTKNT Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament

HTR Harvard Theological Review

IBS Irish Biblical Studies

IEJ Israel Exploration Journal

IJST International Journal of Systematic Theology

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

JH Jewish History

JJS Journal of Jewish Studies

JLT Journal of Literature and Theology

JPT Journal of Pentecostal Theology

JRH Journal of Religious History

JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (Meyer-Kommentar)

LNTS Library of New Testament Studies

NAE National Association of Evangelicals

NC Narrative Commentaries

NIDPCM The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements

NovT Novum Testamentum

NTS New Testament Studies

PRSt Perspectives in Religious Studies

RB Revue biblique

RevExp Review and Expositor

RevQ Revue de Qumran

SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series

SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

SP Sacra Pagina

ST Studia Theologica

StABH Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics

SymS Symposium Series

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Freidrich, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976)

THKNT Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament

TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: Canon of Greek Authors and Works. Edited by Luci Berkowitz and Karl A. Squitier. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

TR Theological Renewal

TQ Theologische Quartalschrift

WTJ Westminster Theological Journal

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirsch

Principal Manuscripts Cited

LXX Septuagint

SP Samaritan Pentateuch

א01 Codex Sinaiticus

B03 Codex Vaticanus

D05 Codex Bezae (Greek)

d5 Codex Bezae (Latin)

Introduction

Since the 1980s,

¹

renewal scholars² have focused considerable attention on the role of the believing community in the interpretive process.³ A broad consensus has emerged that a triad involving Scripture, the Spirit, and the believing community harmoniously forms a cooperative relationship resulting in theological development followed by commensurate action, what this research identifies as theological creativity.⁴

Various attempts to explain the interplay between these aspects are generally conceived in hierarchical terms with either Scripture or Spirit at the top (or side by side) and the community of believers below (underneath), who are in some manner subject to the directives of Scripture or Spirit.⁵ Such a mental configuration seems adequate enough for those with a high view of Scripture or whose perspective envisions the Holy Spirit leading a community of believers. But a top-down view of the interpretative process in this configuration is inadequate since, in practical terms, a community (or individual) must negotiate or interpret the meaning and function of both Spirit and Scripture.⁶

Efforts to promulgate a harmonious or more balanced interplay between Scripture, the Spirit, and the community of believers have struggled (1) to explain it without relinquishing the primacy of Scripture or Spirit or (2) to demonstrate it in concrete terms. For example, Terry Cross suggests wholly subjective concerns in the hermeneutical process may be mitigated if bolstered by a text, a community and the Spirit. However, he does not elaborate on how this may be accomplished.⁷

In a more recent treatment, Kevin Spawn and Archie Wright concede, Despite the attention paid to the topic . . . biblical interpretation as a task of the community is still a work in progress, while the distinctive contribution of the broader renewal movement remains to be defined.⁸ Consequently, a common argument against emphasizing the role of the community in theological creativity is that it replaces the Spirit or Scripture as the rule of normative Christian experience.⁹ For example, if the community’s role in theological creativity is approached contextually (i.e., from the eye of the beholder) or sociologically (i.e., from a cultural and linguistic point of view), the role of the community inevitably overshadows the role of both Scripture and Spirit.¹⁰ Either position creates difficulty for achieving a balanced view in which the community functions cooperatively and does not overshadow the role of Spirit and Scripture in theological creativity.

Some have endeavored to analyze New Testament and patristic writings concerning the community in decision-making, drawn upon examples of the first-century community of believers engaging in theological creativity.¹¹ Conversely, others have taken a more philosophical approach to the interaction between Spirit, Scripture, and the Community.¹² However, attempts to describe how a community of believers function in the triad of Scripture, Spirit, and the community of believers are less developed and understood.¹³ And none have focused their inquiry on Luke’s characterization of the role of the first-century community of believers engaging in theological creativity.

Given the importance of Luke-Acts in renewal studies, can, therefore, Luke’s portrayal of the function of community in theological creativity offer an acceptable solution to the concern of community overshadowing Scripture or Spirit in the hermeneutical process of interpretation? We will argue that Luke’s portrayal of the first-century community of believers in theological creativity can benefit hermeneutics in general and renewal hermeneutics specifically, particularly since the Pentecostal and Charismatic experience of Spirit-baptism remains essential to its self-understanding and interpretive position.¹⁴

Thesis and Anticipated Conclusions

This study will demonstrate that the first-century community of believers in Luke’s narrative functions as an indispensable character in the formation of theological creativity in Acts.¹⁵ In the context of this research, theological creativity is the act of reformulating formerly held theological interpretations resulting from testimony concerning the Spirit’s evidential work (i.e., divine activity), an emerging understanding of applicable Scripture, and followed by commensurate action.¹⁶ Moreover, theological creativity is the outcome of the interpretive process since it is theology in action, functional in nature, and situationally pragmatic in scope. It involves the process of theological justification and action or reaction to current circumstances. In this sense, to be creative with theology is to take an existing theological assumption and broaden or adapt it to current circumstances in light of the Spirit’s evidential work and a consensus understanding of Scripture.

By approaching Acts as a novel (or novel-like in nature)¹⁷ and by analyzing the community as a character and its actions in the story,¹⁸ we will see Luke’s view of the believing community in theological creativity as it interacts with both Spirit and Scripture. The selected passages include (1) Acts 1:12–26, (2) 4:23–31, (3) 6:1–7, (4) 15:1–35, and (5) 11:27–30, 13:1–4, and 21:4, 8–14 and feature the first-century community of believers as an active and indispensable character in Luke’s narrative tale. In each episode, the community as a narrative character is easily identifiable and integral to the plot.¹⁹ The community of believers, by affirming or rejecting the words or deeds of other characters or by corporately addressing issues impacting the community’s experience, is able to confirm and acknowledge its testimony of the Spirit’s evidential work followed by commensurate action in Acts. Thus, in story-form, Luke portrays the community as an active agent in theological creativity.

Finally, concerning renewal interest in the interpretive process, it will be argued that Luke’s view of the first-century community of believers in theological creativity does not overshadow Spirit or Scripture in the interpretive process. Rather, as we will see, the community in Luke’s story is positioned between Spirit and Scripture and, so to say, balances the equation by functioning as a bridge through which its testimony of the Spirit’s evidential work and its application of Scripture interact. In order to illustrate this balancing act, we will use a modified configuration of the triadic notion: Spirit–Community–Scripture.²⁰

Characterization in Luke

Throughout this study, we will use the word character to identify a persona in a literary work that possesses moral qualities, traits, or aspects attributed to a real or fictive person²¹ or to a group of people²² within the story.²³ Weaving personality traits, actions, and other information together constitutes the warp and weft of character development.²⁴ Such character traits are inferred or discerned through what characters say and what they do, whether directly or indirectly revealed in the story.²⁵ To characterize is to give a narrative character substance (e.g., traits) in a story, which ultimately moves the plot (story) forward in grand and minute ways.²⁶ In order to describe Luke’s development of the community of believers as a character, we must first establish our view of Luke’s characters in general followed by a method for how he characterizes them in particular.

According to Baruch Hochman, the process by which readers and hearers apprehend and identify with characters is, virtually identical in literature and in life.²⁷ Other literary critics, such as John Harvey and Seymour Chatman, also support this view of character in literature. In Character in the Novel, Harvey argues, The process of retrieving character from fiction involves acts of reconstruction on the part of the audience and that reconstruction draws on the reader’s own experience not only on people and language in which we talk about people but of themselves.²⁸

Chatman follows a similar path by insisting that character is retrieved from texts as a cumulative image that is consciously or unconsciously extrapolated and then rationalized as a paradigm of traits belonging to the character.²⁹ Hochman extends this connection to religious communities by stating,

We need only look at the Alexandrian commentaries on Homer or at the rabbinic and patristic commentaries on the Bible to see the extent to which human behavior, as reported in the sacred texts, was seen to invite interpretation and understanding on common-sense as well as theological grounds.³⁰

Consequently, the audience envisions a character from the substance of their own experiences not, as some might suppose, by imposing themselves into the story but by recognizing the characters as sharing something similar to their own experiences.³¹ In this sense, in literature just as in life, the image or conceptualization of the character takes on an existence of its own.³² Since Luke’s characters also invite interpretation and understanding on common-sense as well as theological grounds for his audience, we argue he intends his characters to be mimetic (like real people) rather than semiotic (signs represented as words in the text).³³ By portraying the community as a character in Acts as mimetic, we argue the audience is able to imagine the community engaging in theological creativity as if they too were part of it.

Characterization is the author’s technique of developing characters in a story through a process of showing and telling.³⁴ In the act of showing, the author reports what characters say and do, including what they may think and feel, leaving it to the reader or audience to discern the motives or meaning behind what is said, done, thought, or felt. In the act of telling, the author directly reveals the motives or meaning behind what is said, done, thought, or felt.³⁵ Examples of telling include revealing meaning-laden names and personal information.³⁶ As we will see, Luke’s characterization of the community of believers in theological creativity involves the process of showing and telling.³⁷

Throughout this study, we will see Luke characterize the community in Acts in such a manner so that his audience is able to identify with it as if they were (individually or corporately) part of the first-century community in his story. By shaping and supporting the first-century community of believers as a character within the story, Luke provides his audience a character with which to identify. In so doing, Luke’s story functions as a window for his audience to look through to observe the behavior of community and as a mirror in which they might see themselves functioning in a similar manner.³⁸

We will begin with the assumption that in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is the central character, protagonist, and interpreter for the disciples on issues of theological creativity.³⁹ However, we will maintain that in Acts a major shift in characterization occurs after his ascension in chapter 1. With the community’s return from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem, Luke’s view of the first-century community of believers changes from passive (in the Gospel) to active (in Acts).⁴⁰ As we will see, although Jesus remains an active and important character in Acts, Luke transfers the role of protagonist and interpreter from Jesus to the community of believers.⁴¹

Some argue Jesus remains the central character and protagonist throughout Acts.⁴² However, there are numerous examples in Acts 1–4 to support our claim that the role of protagonist is shifted to the community, both corporately and among individuals within it.⁴³ Apart from the ascension account (Acts 1:1–8) and vision-episodes (7:55–56; 9:3–7), Jesus does not direct action in Acts in the same manner as in Luke’s Gospel. Although the community and its members speak of Jesus and act on behalf of Jesus, he is not present. Peter makes a similar observation when he states in Acts 3:21, "Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration" (emphasis mine). Consequently, we maintain that the community acts on its own behalf and functions as the protagonist in Acts following the ascension story.