The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles form two parts of the same story, both authored by Luke. Just as in his Gospel, Luke shows Jesus journeying towards Jerusalem in a true return from Exile, so in Acts, Luke describes the Gospel going out from Jerusalem, bringing the good news of what Jesus has done to the nations.

In this critical scene, Jesus’ promise that he will send the Holy Spirit is fulfilled. Peter and the other disciples are praying together in Jerusalem, tongues of fire hover over them, and they are all filled with the Spirit. We are supposed to remember the Spirit of God hovering in Genesis 1, the pillar of fire in the Exodus, and the sound of rushing wind as God entered Solomon’s Temple. As they spill out into the streets proclaiming Jesus, the curse of Babel is lifted, and people from many nations hear the Gospel, fulfilling the promise to Abraham.

Paul’s great discourse to the Corinthians climaxes with 1 Corinthians 12 – 13. The Corinthians are all given gifts, but these are to be used on behalf of the people of God – one body with many members – and the best way to express this is through the language of love. Paul is here using not Jewish imagery, but common metaphors from the Greco-Roman culture to which he is writing. The Corinthians would have been familiar with the idea of gifts, but these were understood to be for the benefit of the gifted person. Similarly, the metaphor of the body was common throughout the Roman world, but always to emphasise that some body parts were honourable and indispensable, and some not.

Peter’s vision challenged all the important categories of his Jewish cultural upbringing. Clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile, were immutable categories for contemporary Jews, yet the Holy Spirit filled unclean Gentiles, demonstrating clearly that the good news of Jesus was good news for all humanity.

The picture of the Christian life presented in the New Testament is not one of unremitting happiness. On the contrary, this is a story that has a dying and rising King at the heart of it. It is a story where the joy of Exodus is in tension with the death of Exile, and Paul expresses this sense that weakness, suffering, and even death, are all now part of living in the tension between two Creations.

Therefore, the Church is called to model a new way of life, one where everything – self, ethnicity, marriage, family, emloyment, and speech – are to be changed to a new pattern.

This new pattern of life is to be so radically different from that in the world around the Church that it challenges even the most basic institutions. In Philemon, Paul writes to a slave-owner, asking him to take back his escaped slave, as a free brother. This radical re-ordering of human relationships is a glimpse of the kind of freedom and life that the Church is supposed to live out.

The early Church was not without confusion. In Acts 15, we are told of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem writing a letter to the emerging Gentile churches, celebrating their shared faith in Christ, and giving instructions for how the Gentiles might live, not as Jews, but rather in their own cultures as people being transformed by Christ.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.