I Challenge Jesus To A Wrestling Match

This is my 1 minute interview with Dr. Luke at the More Than Cake Cafe. Luke is the author of a two volume history of Jesus and the early Christian Church. In our time together we explore facts, faith and God’s promises fulfilled in Jesus.

The video is inspired by Ben Witherington’s book, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. He emphasizes the historic of Jesus’ life and ascension as follows:

This material also shows the wide scope of the Scripture citations used by Luke and/or his sources to make christological and other sorts of points. This arises out of the profound conviction that the early Christians were living in the age when God was fulfilling the OT promises, and filling out the larger meaning or significance of various portions of the OT that did not specifically speak prophetically about the future.

The further conclusion drawn by Fitzmyer and others, that Luke’s use of the OT indicates that Luke saw himself as writing biblical history, is somewhat more questionable if by that is meant he thought he was simply writing a continuation of the same sort of history as we find in the OT (and the Maccabean literature). The problem with this conclusion is that Luke sees a disjunction between the time before John the Baptist (cf. Luke 16:16) and the time of John and Jesus. Luke’s concern is with salvation history, the story of the age inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah on the stage of human history, especially beginning with his baptism (cf. on Acts 1:22 below), a history which reaches a further stage of development after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus because the Spirit which brings about salvation is only sent after Jesus leaves the earth.

It would be better, then, to speak of a continuation of and new development in the people of God, but not simply a continuation of biblical history, for Luke believes that since the coming of Jesus, and even more since Pentecost, God’s people are living in the eschatological age when God’s word will spread across the earth, and many different peoples will respond to it. There is perhaps more to be said for the view of J. Jervell that Luke saw himself as writing Scripture, modeling his work to some extent on the style and tenor of the LXX, but if so it is a new sort of Scripture, a Scripture that focuses on fulfillment and the completion of God’s providential salvation plan. It is not simply more of the same of what is found in the LXX. In any case, all of the above reminds us that Luke’s use of the OT, like his use of speech material, is a complex matter not easily deciphered or explained with simplistic formulae.

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