Interview 7: Steve Walton on the book of Acts

In this episode, Tony talks to Dr Steve Walton, Professor of New Testament and Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Bristol. Steve is a frequent visitor to us here at Tyndale House as he's been working on his commentary on Acts for the Word Biblical Commentary series. The first volume of the commentary, on Acts 1–9:42 (volume 37A), was published in the USA in October 2024, and will be out in the UK on 2 January 2025. There will be three volumes in total, and Steve is currently working on volume 2. He and Tony discuss the process of writing the commentary and some key things that Steve has discovered about the book of Acts.

Transcript

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So, welcome Steve.

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It's good to have you joining us. S: Thank you, it’s good to be with you.

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And you're joining us from Loughborough, which is where you're based.

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Yes. I'm sitting in my armchair at home.

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Very good.

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Most of the interviews we do are with people here on site, and

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and you're in so often.

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and yet we couldn't,

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you're not going to be in quite soon enough to, to be able to do it in person.

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But we didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk to you

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now, with the publication of your new commentary on Acts, Acts 1— 9,

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which is volume one of two

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or of three in the Word Biblical . . . S: One of three, I'm afraid.

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Yeah.

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And that's in the Word Biblical Commentary series,

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T: Yeah? S: Yes. T: Yeah. So

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where will the break be

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in the other two volumes?

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At the end of 19.

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Okay. Right.

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So just after the riots in Ephesus.

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And Before Paul travels on

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and meets the Ephesian elders in chapter 20.

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Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah.

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That's such a great passage.

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Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to to break it there.

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And of course, the end of nine is a very natural

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T: break in in the narrative, isn't it? S: Yes.

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Although I've split it at 9:42 and 9:43 is going into volume two.

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Now, 9:43 is the verse that says that Peter was staying with Simon

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the Tanner by the sea, and I've taken that with the Cornelius story that followed.

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Okay. Yeah.

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Because it's it's a transitional verse.

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Yeah.

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And you could make a case for belonging with chapter nine,

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but I think it's really there to prepare for

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the angel saying to Cornelius,

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send your guys to go and find Simon Peter

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who's staying with some Simon the tanner in a house by the sea.

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Sure.

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So I think, I think it's there to prepare.

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So I split it at 9:42.

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Yep. Yep.

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I can see that, that makes that makes perfect sense.

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Yeah.

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How long have you been working on this?

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A long time.

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I, I did my doctoral work on the speech to the Ephesian elders.

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Oh, right.

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Acts 20. And that was published with Cambridge University

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Press under the title Leadership and Lifestyle.

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And shortly afterwards,

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I got asked if I'd write this commentary.

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And I, I initially

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said, well, yes, I can do it, but no, I can't do it immediately

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because I was committed to writing two other books first.

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Right.

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So, I have been working on it a long time,

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although not as long as it sounds.

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Ha ha. Okay. Right.

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So tell us about the process of of writing it.

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How how has that been for you?

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Were there surprises along the way?

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What were the the the joys and the frustrations of it?

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The process has been really interesting.

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The Word Biblical Commentary is divided

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into very clear sections that the editors have set.

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So you get for each paragraph of Acts,

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you get, you get a bibliography.

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You get translation and notes.

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You get a form structure setting

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then comment, which is the detailed verse by verse stuff,

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and then at the end ,explanation, which is here's what this passage is saying

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overall. At least that's how I've taken it.

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Now it took me a while to realise

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that I was writing those sections for different audiences.

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I was writing the bibliographies for scholars,

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for doctoral students and people like that.

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I was writing the translation and notes

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with my second year Greek class in mind, and I was saying to myself,

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what would they need to know to make sense of the grammar and the syntax here.

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The comment, the explanation

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I was writing with my wife in mind as a preacher.

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Right.

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So and I've actually tried out those explanation sections

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on, on a number of folks who preach regularly.

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Because my advice to preachers with the Word Biblical

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Commentary is always start with the explanation.

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T: Right. S: And then go back to the detail.

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Okay.

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So get the big picture first,

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and then go back and and look at the detail if you need to,

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because otherwise you will drown in the detail.

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I’ve got 80 pages on Acts 2: 1–41.

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Okay. Yep. You could drown in that detail.

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And that’s why I say, start there.

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And and again with the with with the comment

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I've got second, third year students and pastors in mind.

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Trying to guide them through the nitty gritty of the discussion

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to explain why I've taken things the way I have

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filling in cultural, social

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background, theological background,

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narrative connections with other parts of, of,

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of Acts and Luke, of course.

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So, so that's where the nitty gritty of the work has gone.

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And, and that was really fun to do.

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Now I did the translation and notes first.

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So I worked through the whole of 1 to 14

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because I, at that stage I was planning two volumes.

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Right.

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Did the translation right through

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because I wanted to try and translate as consistently as possible.

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Whereas if you translate something and then six months later you get around

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to a bit later on that actually uses some of the same vocabulary.

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You might fall into the trap of translating words

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very differently in different contexts.

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T: Sure, yeah. S: Now sometimes you do need to translate them differently

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because words have a semantic range.

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But I wanted to try and be as consistent as possible.

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And I did the same sort of thing with 15 to 28.

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Right.

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A good friend of mine, Jeffrey

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Williams, who, alas, is no longer with us,

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but was a very experienced classicist, read through my

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my translation and notes and gave me such helpful feedback.

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He'd been he'd been reading Greek and Latin since he was about ten.

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So he he just had a feel for the language.

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T: Yeah. S: Which was marvelous and wonderfully helpful.

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And as I

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went through doing the translation notes, I jotted down

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anything in the other sections that I thought was going to be important.

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And so just jotted

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my initial personal thoughts.

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And then I work through passage by passage.

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Now in the first volume,

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I didn't start at the very beginning

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which as we know from Julie Andrews, is a very good place to start.

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I, I actually dived into Acts 3 because there's a complex of stories

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of the healing of the man at the beautiful gate.

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The sermon Peter preaches

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to the crowd gathered in the temple, the arrest,

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the hearing before the Sanhedrin, and then the believer's prayer.

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Which takes you through to 4:31.

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So I tackled that complex because I thought this would be a good way

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to get myself under the skin of how, how Luke's thinking and writing.

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Right.

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It’s that you started with your favorite things?

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Well, kind of, yeah. Yeah, that's very Julie

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Andrews too, isn't it?

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So so that was that was really interesting to do.

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And I found that the, the explanation section,

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S: which comes last, I actually do write last T: Right

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although I'm, I'm by nature a big picture person.

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I find I have to really grovel through all the detail.

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Before I can step back and say, ‘okay, what's the big picture here?’

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‘What's this section saying?’

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‘How does it contribute to the message

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of the whole book?’

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And that that's been, that's been really helpful to, to work through it that way.

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So it took me two years

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to figure out how to write a Word Biblical Commentary.

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And now I’ve done the first volume

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I'm really confident about how to write a Word Biblical Commentary,

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which is good news because I've got two more volumes to go.

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But it took me a it was a big learning process.

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I'd never written a commentary before, let alone a big commentary.

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Right

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I’ve written daily Bible reading notes for people like the Bible Reading Fellowship,

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through all of Acts, where you've got 380 words

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T: for every passage, which is really challenging. S: Yes.

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But I'd never done a sort of medium size commentary

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or any commentary before.

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So this is, it's been a really challenging process.

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It's been the hardest piece of writing I've ever done.

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I've written a Gospels and Acts textbook with David Wenham, and that was child's

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play by comparison, because it was stuff I taught and I knew reasonably well.

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So that, that's been really interesting.

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Now for a couple of examples of things I've discovered.

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One is working on Acts 2:33.

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Let me let me read that.

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Oh, that'd be great.

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Peter speaking.

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This is part of the Pentecost speech.

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And this is this is the updated NRSV

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‘Being exalted, therefore, at the right hand of God,

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and having received from the father the promise of the Holy Spirit,

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he [that’s Jesus] has poured out what you see and hear.

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Now that's a

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really interesting three stage process going on there.

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One is Jesus is exalted to the right side of the father.

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That's the ascension we’ve about in chapter 1.

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Two is that he receives from the father the promised Holy Spirit.

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So the father donates the Spirit to Jesus.

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And then three, Jesus pours out what you see and hear,

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which of course, all the phenomena that are going on at Pentecost,

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the wind, the flames, the strange languages.

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And that's really interesting because if you ask the question,

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who pours out the Holy Spirit in second temple

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Judaism, there is one and only one answer

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and that is Yahweh.

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Right.

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So this verse is hugely Christologically significant.

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Wow.

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There's no example of Yahweh delegating the Holy Spirit to anybody else.

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There's no example of the, of Yahweh

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giving the spirit to somebody who can then give it to others.

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There's absolutely no example of that.

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Now, I owe that to my colleague, my colleague at LST, Max Turner,

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who is, is one of the top

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five in the world pneumatology scholars, I would say.

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Right.

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And and that verse,

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I think, was just incredibly significant in realising

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that you don't have a sort of gradual Christological evolution.

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You get a Christological big bang.

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Yeah. Right. The day of Pentecost.

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Yeah.

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That's why Stephen prays to Jesus

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and says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit now again in second temple

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Judaism, you pray to one and one alone and that's Yahweh.

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So, so the Christology is sky high.

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Quite literally.

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Yeah.

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Such things are easy for, for the average reader to, to miss.

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Aren’t they? I mean I'm including myself in that.

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Because I've, I've just not stopped to reflect on what's going on there.

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And we're used to praying to Jesus.

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So even Stephen praying to Jesus is

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is not something we necessarily remark on.

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But as you say, those two things, particularly put together,

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that that's huge.

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It's very, very remarkable.

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A second example also in chapter 2,

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the there's this really interesting phrasing

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in verse 46.

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Now this is the NRSV and I'll tell you why I think it's

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wrong, ‘Day by day as they spent much time together in the temple.

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They broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.’

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Now the structure of the Greek is not as the NRSV translates it.

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The structure of the Greek is ‘Day by day

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Sharing together as one in the temple,

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breaking bread in homes.

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They ate food together.’

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The sharing and the breaking

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are both qualifying the eating food together.

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Right.

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Now this implies that they're eating

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in the temple,

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in Greek, there are two participles.

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And the main verb is they ate.

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They ate food.

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with glad and grateful hearts.

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So the the structure of the sentence

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make, builds the clause about meeting together

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in the temple, and the clause about breaking bread in homes.

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As qualifiers of the

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they ate food together.

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Now that implies

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that they're having evangelistic meals in the temple.

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T: Wow. S: Which explains I think

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why you get at the end of verse

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47, the Lord adding to their number

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daily, those who are being saved

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because people were overhearing

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the teaching the apostles were giving, because they met, as we know

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from chapter five in Solomon's Portico, which is part of the temple area.

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Yeah.

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And, and

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quite possibly joining in the meals that they had.

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That's very interesting.

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So that's, this

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eating meals in public is really interesting.

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And and hooks into a couple of other things in the New Testament.

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Do you remember in 1 Corinthians 14 there's this

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what are people what's going to happen if people wander into your gathering

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and people are speaking in tongues, won't they

00:15:34:20 - 00:15:36:23
think you’re bonkers

00:15:36:23 - 00:15:39:14
now in our minds,

00:15:39:14 - 00:15:43:06
when we think of a Christian gathering, we think of it meeting in a building.

00:15:43:21 - 00:15:45:01
Sure. Yeah.

00:15:45:01 - 00:15:47:00
T: In a formal church service. S: Yeah.

00:15:47:00 - 00:15:49:01
But in Corinth, you know

00:15:49:01 - 00:15:52:01
which has a lovely, nice temperate climate.

00:15:52:05 - 00:15:56:07
They might well be meeting outdoors, or they might well

00:15:56:07 - 00:16:00:16
be meeting in the square in the middle of someone's home.

00:16:00:16 - 00:16:03:13
S: One of the wealthier members of the church. T: Yep.

00:16:03:13 - 00:16:08:18
And people could and did wander into each other's houses just at random in Corinth.

00:16:09:22 - 00:16:10:14
Right.

00:16:10:14 - 00:16:15:18
So this idea of an attractional form of evangelism

00:16:16:02 - 00:16:21:01
through the shared eating and the shared teaching, I think is just

00:16:21:10 - 00:16:24:10
it changed the picture I had

00:16:24:16 - 00:16:27:16
of how the early church functioned

00:16:28:07 - 00:16:31:06
because I, I tend to think as

00:16:31:06 - 00:16:35:00
a lot of modern Westerners do, of church in the form

00:16:35:00 - 00:16:36:19
S: we have it. T: Yes.

00:16:36:19 - 00:16:40:03
But church wasn't in that form in those days.

00:16:40:09 - 00:16:42:00
T: Yeah, right. S: It was

00:16:42:00 - 00:16:45:00
It was a collection of Messianic Jews

00:16:45:07 - 00:16:48:07
meeting in their temple.

00:16:49:03 - 00:16:53:02
Gathered around the teaching and the meal that they were having together

00:16:53:08 - 00:16:57:23
and sharing their possessions and distributing to, to those in need.

00:16:58:15 - 00:17:01:15
So those were just two examples of things.

00:17:01:17 - 00:17:06:00
Now again I, I owe that to to a German scholar

00:17:06:08 - 00:17:09:16
who, who writes in actually very clear German,

00:17:09:20 - 00:17:12:19
which isn't always true in the way German scholars write.

00:17:13:18 - 00:17:14:09
But but

00:17:14:09 - 00:17:17:23
that that, again, was just a really interesting discovery.

00:17:18:09 - 00:17:22:12
And that's what's happened to me, because as I've written, the

00:17:23:01 - 00:17:26:01
form, structure, setting and the comment sections,

00:17:26:01 - 00:17:29:11
that's where I've been interacting with the scholarly literature.

00:17:29:23 - 00:17:34:18
T: Sure S: And that's frankly, that's the thing that takes most time. T: Yes.

00:17:35:14 - 00:17:39:12
Because it's, it's sifting through the literature and saying

00:17:39:19 - 00:17:42:19
what's most important here.

00:17:43:17 - 00:17:46:11
And what do I need to say something about,

00:17:46:11 - 00:17:49:11
even if it's because I disagree.

00:17:49:15 - 00:17:54:05
Because this is a significant view and I need to say why

00:17:54:05 - 00:17:56:14
S: I don't think it. T: Yeah.

00:17:56:14 - 00:18:00:21
So one of the changes the Word Biblical Commentary made in moving

00:18:01:04 - 00:18:05:17
from Thomas Nelson to Zondervan as a publisher is to have increased footnotes.

00:18:05:23 - 00:18:08:18
And I think that is wonderful

00:18:08:18 - 00:18:13:04
because it means you get a main text that is far less cluttered.

00:18:13:18 - 00:18:14:07
Right.

00:18:14:07 - 00:18:17:03
Because in the old style World Biblical Commentary,

00:18:17:03 - 00:18:20:07
the references were all in brackets in the main text.

00:18:20:21 - 00:18:21:04
Yeah.

00:18:21:04 - 00:18:26:08
And and that could make the the text very dense and quite difficult to read.

00:18:27:06 - 00:18:30:13
So it's been great to be able to use footnotes. Now

00:18:31:00 - 00:18:33:17
actually I had written about eight chapters

00:18:33:17 - 00:18:35:16
before the footnotes were introduced.

00:18:35:16 - 00:18:38:02
So it did involve a bit of rewriting.

00:18:39:12 - 00:18:41:05
But it's, it's brilliant.

00:18:41:05 - 00:18:42:19
And I think they've done,

00:18:42:19 - 00:18:46:11
I think they've done a really fine job in deciding to do that.

00:18:47:16 - 00:18:53:13
So that's and, and that's allowed me then to put all the detailed

00:18:53:14 - 00:18:58:14
S: scholarly stuff in the footnotes for those who want to know about it. T: Yes.

00:18:58:20 - 00:19:01:20
Pastor who's working on the text for a sermon

00:19:03:00 - 00:19:05:20
probably doesn't need to know that stuff

00:19:05:20 - 00:19:09:07
and can just read the main text and and deal with the main text.

00:19:09:07 - 00:19:12:05
So I'm pleased with that change.

00:19:12:05 - 00:19:15:06
That’s a very good primer on how to use a Word Biblical Commentary.

00:19:15:21 - 00:19:17:07
Yes. Yes.

00:19:17:07 - 00:19:18:08
Yes it is.

00:19:18:08 - 00:19:20:17
I wish I’d known that 20 years ago.

00:19:20:17 - 00:19:21:03
Yeah.

00:19:21:03 - 00:19:24:03
I mean, it's true, it's true of the newer ones.

00:19:24:08 - 00:19:24:22
Right. Okay.

00:19:24:22 - 00:19:30:12
So Seyoon Kim, for instance, has updated F. F. Bruce’s Thessalonians,

00:19:30:16 - 00:19:33:13
which was one of the very, very first ones.

00:19:33:13 - 00:19:37:05
And Bruce was just such an economical writer.

00:19:37:11 - 00:19:41:13
So, so, Bruce’s volume was kind of this thick

00:19:42:07 - 00:19:45:07
S: and Kim's volume is this thick T: right

00:19:45:11 - 00:19:48:21
It's really changed dramatically in size. Now

00:19:48:21 - 00:19:52:05
that's partly the sheer volume of literature

00:19:52:14 - 00:19:53:01
Right.

00:19:53:01 - 00:19:57:18
that’s appeared since the late 70s when Bruce did his,

00:19:59:14 - 00:20:01:05
it's it's also that

00:20:01:05 - 00:20:04:05
Seyoon is a bit more of a boast than F. F. B

00:20:05:10 - 00:20:06:21
but that's okay.

00:20:06:21 - 00:20:08:02
Yes, absolutely.

00:20:08:02 - 00:20:11:02
T: Yeah. S: But it's, it's, it's really interesting.

00:20:11:02 - 00:20:16:08
And, similarly, if you look at dear old F. F. Bruce's

00:20:16:08 - 00:20:20:05
commentary on the Greek text of Acts, which is one volume,

00:20:20:20 - 00:20:23:20
the 1990 edition, which was the third

00:20:23:20 - 00:20:26:20
edition is is kind of so thick.

00:20:26:23 - 00:20:30:21
S: And each of my volumes is going to be that thick T: right

00:20:31:02 - 00:20:36:12
Because because I'm dealing much more with the secondary literature than he was.

00:20:36:14 - 00:20:37:02
Yes. Right.

00:20:37:02 - 00:20:40:02
And I'm trying to write theology.

00:20:41:01 - 00:20:45:16
One of the things I'm bringing to it is a commitment to,

00:20:45:17 - 00:20:48:17
to reading Acts as a book about God.

00:20:49:11 - 00:20:51:24
T: Excellent S: And so I'm trying to draw that out

00:20:51:24 - 00:20:55:08
particularly in the comment and the explanation sections,

00:20:56:07 - 00:20:58:00
because we, we tend

00:20:58:00 - 00:21:01:19
to read Acts with the human characters in mind.

00:21:01:23 - 00:21:02:18
Right.

00:21:02:18 - 00:21:05:18
At one level that's, that's thoroughly appropriate to

00:21:05:18 - 00:21:08:18
because Acts is full of really interesting human characters.

00:21:09:06 - 00:21:16:02
But the, the movement of the book of Acts from Jerusalem

00:21:16:02 - 00:21:20:08
to the end of the earth is driven by God and God's action.

00:21:21:03 - 00:21:26:11
And that, discovering that in the process of working on the commentary

00:21:26:19 - 00:21:30:12
was one of the thing, one of the great, great discoveries I've made.

00:21:30:24 - 00:21:34:02
So, so I'm trying consciously to do that.

00:21:34:10 - 00:21:38:00
And the nice thing about writing a commentary

00:21:38:07 - 00:21:42:12
is that from time to time, people who are editing books on something say to me,

00:21:42:24 - 00:21:46:16
do you think you'd like to write something on Acts or on Luke Acts for this volume?

00:21:46:20 - 00:21:50:13
So I've written essays, for instance, on the cosmology of Luke

00:21:50:13 - 00:21:51:23
S: Acts. T: Right.

00:21:51:23 - 00:21:54:15
I've written an essay on the anthropology of Luke

00:21:54:15 - 00:21:55:12
Acts.

00:21:55:12 - 00:21:59:12
I've written an essay on the place of the Ascension in Luke Acts.

00:21:59:22 - 00:22:04:20
And on the Christology of Luke Acts, particularly of Acts.

00:22:05:04 - 00:22:05:14
Right.

00:22:05:14 - 00:22:09:06
Because there's a question of Is Jesus present or absent?

00:22:09:15 - 00:22:11:21
T: Right, right. S: After his ascension.

00:22:11:21 - 00:22:13:20
And and that's been really helpful.

00:22:13:20 - 00:22:17:02
So I published a bunch of those,

00:22:17:02 - 00:22:20:18
couple of years ago in a book called Reading Acts Theologically.

00:22:21:05 - 00:22:24:06
T: Oh yes. S: Which came out in hardback couple of years ago

00:22:24:07 - 00:22:27:07
and then in paperback in January of this year.

00:22:27:11 - 00:22:32:16
So it’s now, ordinary human beings can get close to affording it this year.

00:22:33:00 - 00:22:33:10
Yeah.

00:22:33:10 - 00:22:34:13
Right.

00:22:34:13 - 00:22:37:11
Writing those essays has

00:22:37:11 - 00:22:40:20
has focused my mind on particular issues.

00:22:41:09 - 00:22:45:08
T: Yes. S: That have then fed into the detail of the commentary. So

00:22:45:10 - 00:22:48:17
So it's not that I've been writing, trying to write the commentary

00:22:48:17 - 00:22:50:06
and do nothing else whatsoever.

00:22:50:06 - 00:22:53:20
I've been thinking hard about Acts for a long time.

00:22:54:08 - 00:22:59:01
And there have been occasions where writing an essay is

00:22:59:16 - 00:23:02:16
is really helpful because there's nothing like

00:23:02:16 - 00:23:05:16
writing something down to explain it to others.

00:23:05:21 - 00:23:08:17
To force you to be clear about it yourself.

00:23:08:17 - 00:23:10:22
Oh, absolutely. Yes.

00:23:10:22 - 00:23:13:16
And has writing those theological essays,

00:23:13:16 - 00:23:17:11
I mean, as you say, it's fed

00:23:17:11 - 00:23:21:14
into what you're doing in writing the the verse by verse commentary.

00:23:21:20 - 00:23:27:05
But does it also free you in writing the commentary from having to, to get

00:23:28:04 - 00:23:30:24
to deal with those issues in great depth?

00:23:30:24 - 00:23:34:14
It can, does it mean you can you can touch on them

00:23:34:23 - 00:23:38:19
in passing and recognise their importance, but without having to get

00:23:38:22 - 00:23:40:21
T: bogged down into the detail? S: Yeah.

00:23:40:21 - 00:23:45:06
Because I can footnote and say for further discussion see this essay.

00:23:45:14 - 00:23:48:18
Which has been incredibly helpful.

00:23:49:01 - 00:23:51:02
T: Yeah. S: Because a commentary,

00:23:51:02 - 00:23:54:02
you need to say something about everything.

00:23:54:15 - 00:23:55:01
Yeah.

00:23:55:01 - 00:23:57:15
But you don't need to say everything about everything.

00:23:57:15 - 00:23:58:15
Yeah. Right.

00:23:58:15 - 00:24:02:01
And, and, because if you do, you'll you'll

00:24:02:01 - 00:24:06:03
it'll be A. way too long and B. you'll never finish.

00:24:07:07 - 00:24:07:20
Yeah.

00:24:07:20 - 00:24:09:18
And it gets in the way of

00:24:09:18 - 00:24:12:21
of somebody who's trying to figure out what does the text actually say.

00:24:13:09 - 00:24:15:08
Because it's not necessarily

00:24:15:08 - 00:24:17:17
S: Yeah. T: the issue that they, they need at that point.

00:24:17:17 - 00:24:18:22
Yeah I think that's very helpful.

00:24:18:22 - 00:24:20:13
I see my job as being

00:24:20:13 - 00:24:24:03
kind of like a guide walking a group of people round a cathedral.

00:24:24:14 - 00:24:28:17
T: It's a good image S: where, where we walk around and I stop every once

00:24:28:17 - 00:24:31:22
in a while and say, now look at this bit of the cathedral.

00:24:31:22 - 00:24:34:13
Look at this window, look at this tomb.

00:24:34:13 - 00:24:35:13
Look at this aisle.

00:24:35:13 - 00:24:37:14
look at this communion table.

00:24:37:14 - 00:24:39:08
Look at this choir stall.

00:24:39:08 - 00:24:42:15
And, and I can tease out what's in there in detail.

00:24:42:21 - 00:24:45:18
But then there'll come a point where I have to go back

00:24:45:18 - 00:24:48:18
to the foot of the nave and say, now

00:24:48:18 - 00:24:52:06
S: look at these huge scene. T: Yes.

00:24:52:17 - 00:24:55:17
I've stood in York minster, for instance,

00:24:56:01 - 00:25:00:24
in between the end of the Christmas

00:25:00:24 - 00:25:04:20
season at epiphany and the and the beginning of lent

00:25:05:09 - 00:25:07:08
They take all the chairs out.

00:25:07:08 - 00:25:11:13
If you've never been to York at that time of year, it's absolutely

00:25:11:13 - 00:25:16:03
worth going, because you get a sense of the hugeness of the place.

00:25:16:04 - 00:25:17:03
Right.

00:25:17:03 - 00:25:20:04
At that time of year, because there are no chairs there.

00:25:20:22 - 00:25:21:14
Yeah.

00:25:21:14 - 00:25:25:02
And I see myself as kind of bouncing

00:25:25:02 - 00:25:28:13
between the nitty gritty.

00:25:28:21 - 00:25:31:02
Here's a particular thing to look at.

00:25:31:02 - 00:25:34:20
And then the wow just look at this big picture.

00:25:34:20 - 00:25:38:20
See how this detail contributes to the big picture

00:25:38:20 - 00:25:42:21
and how the big picture helps you see this detail in a different light.

00:25:42:24 - 00:25:44:08
Yeah.

00:25:44:08 - 00:25:47:00
I sometimes hear people say to use your analogy

00:25:47:00 - 00:25:49:01
why do we need so many guides to the cathedral?

00:25:49:01 - 00:25:51:23
Why can't we just have one? Or you know, with the commentaries

00:25:51:23 - 00:25:54:23
Do we really need more commentaries?

00:25:55:02 - 00:25:56:13
Haven't we got enough?

00:25:56:13 - 00:26:00:13
But of course, every commentator does something distinctive with the text.

00:26:00:13 - 00:26:02:00
They see things in different ways

00:26:02:00 - 00:26:05:22
and so in what ways is your commentary distinctive?

00:26:05:22 - 00:26:10:21
What's the particular contribution that you think, that you're making?

00:26:12:01 - 00:26:15:15
I think I think the focus on God is one

00:26:15:15 - 00:26:18:15
key that’s coming through.

00:26:18:21 - 00:26:21:21
I think the other is the,

00:26:24:09 - 00:26:27:09
the the coverage of the secondary literature.

00:26:29:01 - 00:26:31:22
My, my friend Dick France, who's written

00:26:31:22 - 00:26:35:15
wonderful commentaries and, of course, was warden at Tyndale House at one time.

00:26:35:15 - 00:26:36:06
Yeah.

00:26:36:06 - 00:26:40:20
wrote in his commentary on Mark, which is wonderful,

00:26:41:07 - 00:26:46:11
has a sentence in the introduction where he says, this is by intention,

00:26:46:18 - 00:26:51:15
a commentary on Mark, not a commentary on the commentaries on Mark.

00:26:52:14 - 00:26:57:15
And that's my intention too, I’m trying to guide people through Acts.

00:26:57:17 - 00:26:58:05
Yeah.

00:26:58:05 - 00:27:01:05
So the picture I've got in my head

00:27:01:17 - 00:27:06:15
is of me sitting around a table with C.K. Barrett, Howard Marshall

00:27:06:23 - 00:27:10:14
Hans Conzelmann, Ernst Haenchen and so on.

00:27:10:23 - 00:27:13:20
And in the middle of the table, we've got the Greek New Testament,

00:27:13:20 - 00:27:16:15
and that's what we're talking about.

00:27:16:15 - 00:27:19:07
S: Not about them. T: Yeah.

00:27:19:07 - 00:27:22:07
So I'm having a conversation with the text

00:27:22:21 - 00:27:26:09
S: which they are helping me with T: right S: now.

00:27:26:10 - 00:27:30:00
In fact I, I don't read the commentaries

00:27:32:20 - 00:27:34:18
exhaustively at all.

00:27:34:18 - 00:27:37:06
I dip into them.

00:27:37:06 - 00:27:40:13
But I'm much more interested in what the journal articles,

00:27:40:20 - 00:27:44:19
the monographs and the essays in edited volumes are doing

00:27:45:00 - 00:27:47:24
because anybody can pick up the commentaries.

00:27:47:24 - 00:27:48:22
Sure.

00:27:48:22 - 00:27:53:05
But I'm trying to show people what scholarship has done

00:27:53:13 - 00:27:56:15
and and to harvest, as it were,

00:27:57:05 - 00:28:00:00
the work that others have done.

00:28:00:00 - 00:28:05:09
And and I find myself sometimes changing my mind about things

00:28:05:09 - 00:28:10:03
because of what I read or thinking differently or thinking

00:28:10:04 - 00:28:12:15
no, I actually think I was right in the first place.

00:28:12:15 - 00:28:16:02
But I do need to take this key piece of evidence into account.

00:28:16:05 - 00:28:18:17
T: Yeah, right S: that this article's raised.

00:28:18:17 - 00:28:21:18
So, so what you'll find in my sectional

00:28:21:18 - 00:28:26:02
bibliographies and my footnotes is not a ton of references

00:28:26:02 - 00:28:30:02
to the commentaries with particular exceptions of C.K.

00:28:30:02 - 00:28:35:17
Barrett and F. F. Bruce, which are the two best commentaries on the Greek 

00:28:36:22 - 00:28:40:02
They they really do wrestle with the Greek very well.

00:28:40:06 - 00:28:45:23
So do Marty Culy and Mike Parsons in their Baylor handbook.

00:28:46:14 - 00:28:50:22
And that's sat at my elbow as I've been working through the text.

00:28:51:06 - 00:28:53:02
And it's been very, very helpful.

00:28:53:02 - 00:28:57:00
Again, sometimes I disagree with those three authorities.

00:28:57:12 - 00:29:01:10
Because I take the grammar or the syntax differently to them.

00:29:01:15 - 00:29:04:08
T: Sure S: but

00:29:04:08 - 00:29:06:24
I'm, I'm trying to,

00:29:06:24 - 00:29:09:02
to draw out what, what

00:29:09:02 - 00:29:12:11
scholarships contributed to our understanding of Acts

00:29:12:24 - 00:29:15:24
with a view to informing people

00:29:16:11 - 00:29:19:20
and, I’m trying to inform fellow scholars.

00:29:20:10 - 00:29:23:10
I'm trying to inform students,

00:29:23:10 - 00:29:27:04
and I'm trying to inform pastors who want to preach from this stuff.

00:29:28:00 - 00:29:30:04
So I, I, I've got this

00:29:30:04 - 00:29:33:04
quite broad audience in mind,

00:29:33:04 - 00:29:36:13
and there’ll be points where I'm saying something and I'm conscious that

00:29:37:04 - 00:29:40:12
another scholar will look at it and think, oh, that's really interesting.

00:29:40:17 - 00:29:44:10
And a pastor will think, why on earth is he telling me this stuff?

00:29:45:22 - 00:29:49:04
Yeah, it's great to to keep those audiences in mind,

00:29:49:04 - 00:29:52:12
but it's very it's very challenging to to write for multiple audiences.

00:29:52:18 - 00:29:53:16
But I guess what you were saying

00:29:53:16 - 00:29:56:16
at the beginning about the structure enables you to do that in a

00:29:56:19 - 00:29:59:09
in, in a very real way.

00:29:59:09 - 00:29:59:17
Yeah.

00:29:59:17 - 00:30:01:07
You can very consciously

00:30:01:07 - 00:30:04:07
think about those different audiences and provide what they need.

00:30:04:16 - 00:30:06:15
S: Yes, indeed. T: Yeah. Excellent.

00:30:06:15 - 00:30:08:07
Well, this is wonderful.

00:30:08:07 - 00:30:10:18
And I'm delighted that this is now published.

00:30:10:18 - 00:30:15:24
So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited that it's going to appear and,

00:30:15:24 - 00:30:18:16
and I'm, I'm in chapter

00:30:18:16 - 00:30:20:05
16 in volume two.

00:30:20:05 - 00:30:20:23
Okay.

00:30:20:23 - 00:30:25:15
in Philippi and and making substantial progress.

00:30:26:09 - 00:30:27:09
Great.

00:30:27:09 - 00:30:32:06
Well, I won't take any more of your time, because you need to get that finished.

00:30:32:08 - 00:30:33:22
So. Great.

00:30:33:22 - 00:30:37:10
Steve, thank you so much for chatting to us today.

00:30:37:10 - 00:30:37:24
That’s okay

00:30:37:24 - 00:30:40:08
Yeah, looking forward to seeing this out.

00:30:40:08 - 00:30:43:20
And, further conversations when you're back at Tyndale House.

00:30:43:20 - 00:30:44:08
Thank you.