The Gospel of the Forty Days: Appointing Bishops and Deacons       Imagine you are one of the Twelve – well, eleven now – and you are with the other followers of Jesus – 120 of you together – praying for the coming of Holy Spirit (Ac 1:15). Peter now stands up and you see he has a new air of authority, or maybe it’s new confidence. So you have a hunch about what’s coming. You remember during one of Jesus’ talks after His resurrection (Ac 1:2-3) that Peter had asked Him about His saying that they would sit on twelve thrones (Lk 22:29-30) – but now there were only eleven and – (no one wanted to think, let alone speak, of Judas, that traitor). (Remember, this is just your imagination now....)       Jesus had replied, “Elect the twelfth. It is your duty, Peter, to do so.”       “Mine? Not mine, Lord! I ask You to choose him.”       “I elected My Twelve once and I formed them. Then I appointed t...

The Gospel of the Forty Days:  The Church as the Restored Kingdom       Last week we developed the theme of the Messianic expectation of the restoration of the Kingdom of David, and asserted that in Jesus’s teaching about the “kingdom of God” during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension (Ac 1:3), He would have taught that this kingdom is now the Church. Let’s explore that a bit more.       David’s kingdom was based on covenant with God (2 Sam 7:1-29), which included God’s promise to establish an eternal kingdom with a descendant of David, and “I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son.” Luke’s Gospel makes it clear that Jesus, in the flesh, is a descendant of David (Lk 2:4-7, 3:31); and in previous articles we have discussed some of the Bible’s evidence that Jesus is, at the same time, in His Divinity, the Son of God.       Now at the Last Supper, Jesus says to the Twelve, “As My Father appoin...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: The Church Is the Kingdom        Two weeks ago we looked at the disciples’ Messianic expectation of a restoration of the kingdom to Israel as they had asked just before Jesus’ ascension into Heaven (Ac 1:6), and that Jesus’ speaking about the “kingdom of God” during those forty days (Ac 1:3) must have spoken of that expectation, and we asserted that the kingdom is the Church.       By “Church” (capital C), we are referring to the whole universal assembly of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, and are known by Him as His. Catholics believe the Church subsists in the Catholic Church, but the full universal (“catholic”) Church is certainly broader.       What might Jesus have said about prophecies of the restoration of the Kingdom being the Church He was forming?       First, we already know from the four Gospels that Jesus’ entire message of repentance, ne...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: Giving is Blessed, Not Receiving        We are continuing to identify what commands (Ac 1:2) and teachings (Ac 1:3) the resurrected Lord Jesus gave, or might have given, during the forty days before His ascension – what Jaroslav Pelikan called the “Gospel of the Forty Days.”       In St. Paul’s last farewell address to the elders (presbyters) of Ephesus (around 58 AD), the Acts of the Apostles ends with this sentence: “In all things I have shown you that by so toiling [as Paul had], one must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Ac 20:35.) Paul’s word to “help the weak” is reminiscent of Gal. 2:9-10 where he reports of the earlier meeting he and Barnabas had with the “pillars” of the Church in Jerusalem (Acts 15) who had sent him and Barnabas to the Gentiles, admonishing them only to “remember the poor, which very thing I was eage...

The Gospel of the Forty Days: A Suffering Messiah       We are continuing to identify what commands (Ac 1:2) and teachings (Ac 1:3) the resurrected Lord Jesus gave, or might have given, during the forty days before His ascension. Last week we looked at First Century Jewish messianic expectations in general, and one thing is immediately clear: no one expected a suffering Messiah.       As Christians, we think of the “Suffering Servant” prophecies of Isaiah (42:1-7; 49:1-9; 50; 53), but these were not applied to the Messiah in the First Century. Usually they were understood to refer to the sufferings of the people of Israel as a whole. Yet, a few of the “servant” references in Isaiah clearly indicate an individual. The “servant” in Isaiah 52:13, the Targum (later Jewish rabbinical writing reflecting First Century traditions) has inserted the term “Messiah” in place of the term “servant.” But this oracle refers to a King Messiah prospering and be...