CHAPTER 20

Acts of Obedience

Steven C. Hawthorne

Steven C. Hawthorne leads a mission and prayer mobilization ministry called WayMakers. After co-editing the Perspectives course and book in 1981, he launched a series of research expeditions among unreached peoples in Asia and the Middle East.

Were the apostles quick to obey the Great Commission? A better question would be to ask if they were obedient to Jesus. If obedience to the Great Commission means they should have packed up and moved to Siberia within a month or two of hearing Jesus’s mandate to disciple the nations—as Matthew records it—then perhaps they were slow. But the way Luke describes Christ’s mandate and their subsequent obedience, I hope to be as obedient as they were.¹ It might appear from a blended reading of Matthew and Acts that the apostles were foot-dragging slow in getting on with launching the global mission of Matthew 28. Luke’s account in itself is powerfully instructive for us, though. Let’s be sure to understand Luke’s point before we conclude that the apostles failed to fulfill something that Matthew wrote.

Looking closely at Luke’s story, I see three ways that the apostolic leaders in Acts were obedient. First, the vision of God accomplishing a great work among all nations kept them persistently pursuing the fulfillment of His purpose. Second, harsh persecution did not turn them from boldly and publicly giving witness. Third, they were faithful to the simplicity of the gospel, helping people of different cultures to follow Christ unhindered by cultural nonessentials.

Persistence to Fulfill God’s Global Purpose

Before Jesus left, He had “by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles” (Acts 1:2). How did Jesus give orders by the Spirit?

On the day of His rising, Jesus met two of His followers on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). They were of the inner circle of believers, but not part of the twelve apostles. They were probably heading toward a safe place away from Jerusalem. The enemies of Jesus had murdered Him even with crowds of adoring people in the city. Hostile authorities would have little difficulty tracking down and annihilating the remaining leaders of the entire movement. For all they knew, they were being hunted at that very hour.

They could only listen in amazement as an apparent stranger (actually Jesus) spoke to them in what may have seemed to be a very rude fashion: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” He went on to say, “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” And with that basic outline—sufferings followed by glory—He walked through the entire story of Scripture (24:26–27). The story made sense with a Messiah at the center of it all and at the end of it all. Everything culminated in God’s appointed Messiah entering “His glory.” This expression “His glory” was a vision of the Messiah entering a time of lasting honor and peace for all the nations.² The story of Scripture had a coherence and a culmination in the Messiah.

With such ferocious hope freshly kindled (they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”), they hurried back into the danger zone of Jerusalem, reentering the barricaded room where the grieving apostles were hiding (John 20:19; Luke 24:32–33). Suddenly, Jesus Himself was in the room. He repeated the same unfolding saga of Scripture. Jesus gave even more detail to how He would enter His glory: His name would be honored the world over as forgiveness of sins was declared to all peoples. Then He added a significant item for their strategic obedience: The global expansion of His glory would all be launched “from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:45–47).

As Luke goes on to tell it in Acts, during the next thirty-nine days Jesus went over the story of the kingdom of God many times. During one of these encounters, Jesus gave them firm orders “not to leave Jerusalem” (Acts 1:4). Telling people not to leave town may seem like a strange way to launch a missionary movement. But one fact, often overlooked, will help: Jerusalem was not their home! These men were from Galilee. Message-bearing angels, who certainly knew their geography well, addressed them as “Men of Galilee” (Acts 1:11).³ The Jerusalem elite could pick out their Galilean accents in the dark (Matt 26:73; Luke 22:59). Jerusalem was the most dangerous place on the planet for them. Avowed enemies, with power great enough to murder with impunity, had sought to arrest them in the garden days before (Mark 14:50–52; John 18:8–9) and would likely try again. No wonder Luke records that He told them to stay in Jerusalem. If He hadn’t, they might have drifted back into the comfort zone of their homes in Galilee.

But, these men and women followed Jesus’s orders explicitly. They stayed in the city. You have to admire their courage. They stayed and they prayed in an upper room. When the promised outpouring of power came upon them, they immediately went public. From that point they remained in the public eye, perhaps risking their lives to do so.

Jesus’s instruction to remain in Jerusalem focused on the fulfillment of God’s promise, both what the Father had promised and what Jesus had told them. “He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me’” (Acts 1:4–5). Was the Father’s promise limited to the out-pouring of the Spirit? It might appear so because of the emphasis on the moment of the coming of the Spirit “not many days from now.” A reading of the entire text makes it clear, though, that their assignment was to bear witness in Jerusalem, not merely waiting for the outpouring of the Spirit. Their work of bearing witness was far more, as we shall see, than preaching one message on Pentecost.

When persecution arose, the apostles did not scatter. Their witness in Jerusalem was not yet complete. They remained where it was most strategic—and yet most dangerous. They were arrested, shamed, censured, and beaten more than once (Acts 4:1–21; 5:17–41). Still they continued. Eventually, James was killed (12:2). Even then, they remained in Jerusalem, refusing to flee. Any of the opposing powers could have found them, and that’s exactly what happened. Peter was arrested. It took an angelic deliverance to eventually convince him to seek a safer place out of town (12:17). There is no indication that any of the rest of the twelve went with him. These were stubbornly obedient people. It seemed that no amount of threat could intimidate them.

The Lesson for Obedience Today

As He did on the Emmaus road, we should look for Christ Himself to come alongside us, even in our foolish and self-absorbed moments, and refresh our vision of all that God has been doing throughout history. As He did in the event on the road to Emmaus, Christ desires to open our “minds to understand the Scriptures” to help us grasp a purpose larger than ourselves (Luke 24:45). We can expect that Christ is able and willing to give us orders today “by the Holy Spirit” so that specific guidance will mesh with the greater vision of God’s people fulfilling His global purpose for Christ’s glory.

Boldness in Costly Public Witness

Were they faithful to the mandate Christ had given them? As Luke records it, they were to take a public stand as witnesses (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8). To act as a “witness” in Luke’s way of speaking had very little to do with personal one-on-one communication of the gospel to friends and family. Only in recent times has the term “witness” been equated with general gospel communication. Reading Luke’s use of the term “witness” reveals that almost every time someone acted as a witness, they did so in a public setting.⁴

Why was a public declaration in courts or in the streets so important? God wanted something more significant than a widespread awareness of Christ’s resurrection. God was establishing an unshakable church. A witness not only asserted the facts of Jesus, but they also established the profound value of following Jesus by their readiness to suffer.

The ordeal of public trial served to distinguish the movement of Christ followers, placing the entire church in public view. Ordinary men and women went on public display, along with their Christlike character. Even their enemies recognized them “as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Their lives became an expression of the highest ideals of their people (5:13). The function of witnessing could not be reduced to a brief communicative action—it was a process. Their obedience as witnesses transpired over weeks or months or longer.

Witnessing has to do with the paradox of shame and glory. After one courtroom appearance, Peter and his fellow witnesses rejoiced that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name (5:41). Jesus relays word to Paul by Ananias that Paul was a chosen instrument “to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.” It sounds like a regal duty, but the cost is severe—a testimony comprised of suffering. The very next phrase the Lord gives Paul is this: “For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake” (9:15–16). Their shame brought Christ’s glory.

The Lesson for Obedience Today

Witnessing is not so much personal sharing of the gospel as it is the public establishment of the church. It will take more than slick communication to plant churches where there are none. The drama of Acts may be a portrait of the way any new church is planted. There may be exceptions but for the most part, the record shows that thriving movements for Jesus must emerge into the public view. Secret movements grow weak and often disappear entirely. Movements that endure bear Christ’s name boldly and at the same time display much that is recognized as the finest ideals of their people. How does this happen? It is by men and women (usually ordinary local people rather than missionaries), who are falsely accused and are brought into a setting of open testimony. At that moment, the value of following Christ is established.

RETURN TO LESSON 5: Unleashing the Gospel

Faithfulness to Accelerate Gospel Breakthrough

Even while in Jerusalem, the apostles acted in ways that showed they were consciously serving the advance of the word of God (Acts 6:4). They did not stay camped in Jerusalem; they watched the expansion of the gospel with vigilant eagerness. When they heard of the gospel advancing, they moved immediately to validate, bless, and support it (8:14–25; 11:22). When it became clear that churches had multiplied throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, Peter himself toured the entire region, “traveling through all those parts” and helping the church to increase (9:31–32).

It was during that same venture that Peter received further orders by the Holy Spirit Himself: “The Spirit said to him, ‘Behold, three men are looking for you. But arise, go downstairs, and accompany them without misgivings; for I have sent them Myself’” (10:19–20).

Peter has been characterized as a racist on the doorstep of Cornelius, as if he growled something like, “I shouldn’t even be here. What do you want anyway?” Read his words to Cornelius for yourself. To me, they sound more like the words of someone apologizing for former attitudes. They certainly reflect a quickness to obey.

You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean. That is why I came without even raising any objection when I was sent for. (Acts 10:28–29)

Within hours of hearing the Holy Spirit give directions to go to the gentiles with the gospel, Peter went. He went through the doors of Cornelius’s house that the Holy Spirit had dramatically opened, but another door opened that day. Peter and the other apostles were the ones God used to keep it open. It was not a door for missionaries to go to people. It was rather the door of faith for all the nations to follow Jesus without divorcing themselves from their culture.

Because the apostles had been faithful to remain in Jerusalem, they were in a position to hold open the door that God had opened for the nations. The “beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47) was to be the launching of a global movement. God drew the apostles together in body, heart, and mind for one of the most important moments of history—the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15. At that point, the nascent movement was precariously close to becoming just another splinter group in the Judaic tradition. Instead, the gathered apostles were able to affirm that God “had opened a door of faith to the peoples” (Acts 14:27).

Some of the early Christians thought that God wanted all the gentiles who were to be saved to join all the cultural and religious traditions of the people of Israel. They were insisting that gentile believers become circumcised, essentially becoming proselytes of the Jewish religious culture rather than simply following Jesus. This would mean that gentiles would, in effect, leave their own people in order to know God. God made it clear, though, during the events of the book of Acts that although gentiles were to enjoy spiritual unity with Israel, a gentile did not need to become a cultural Jew, leaving his family, culture, roots, and name in order to become a disciple of Christ.

Peter reminded the apostles that they had earlier recognized that God wanted the message of life to go to the nations. They had “glorified God, saying, ‘Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life’” (Acts 11:18). In order to convince everyone, Peter recounted his story, Paul told what God was doing in the present hour, and James declared that the promises of God in Scripture were now being fulfilled. The decision was to present no hindrance or blockade in the open door that God had thrown open for the nations (Acts 15:1–31). No works of the law (“law” meaning religious, cultural traditions) were required for salvation.⁷ Men and women of any people were to be saved by faith and to follow Christ in what Paul would later call “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5).

As large-scale movements can be observed, it’s rare that people have been as swift or as faithful to follow a course of action that so thoroughly transcended the religious prejudices of their day. Few movements in history have been as swift or as decisive in enabling other peoples to follow God in ways that were culturally different from their own. They saw God open the door of faith for the gentile peoples. They were determined to allow no hindrance to arise that would block the way of any people from following Christ in simple freedom of faith.

The Lesson for Obedience Today

We have not been so bold to hold open the door of faith in our day. Thousands of people groups are now hindered from following Christ. Millions of people today are being turned away from the gospel, not by Christ, or by the repentance that He calls for. They are turning away because well-meaning zealots for Christian traditions have demanded adherence to so-called “Christian” cultural traditions. Superficial matters such as diet, dress, music, family names, or any number of other peripheral matters are not what the gospel is all about. If we insist that these kinds of things are essential, we may have to recognize that we are pressing for a “Christian circumcision” that God has not really required. God has opened the door of faith. We could not have done it ourselves. The courageous obedience of the Acts 15 council is ours to continue. Today, we must do all that we can to welcome people to Christ through that door of faith, helping them follow Christ without carrying a “greater burden” (Acts 15:28) of other biblically founded traditions that are not the essentials of obeying Christ in faith. Only then will the gospel be declared and the nations be able to follow Christ “unhindered” (Acts 28:31).

RETURN TO LESSON 5: Unleashing the Gospel

Notes

1. What we have of Mark’s account says that they were powerfully obedient with no mention of being slow at all (Mark 16:20). Matthew mentions nothing beyond the commission. John only prophetically tells of Peter’s final act of obedience (John 21:18).

2. The phrase “His glory” does not refer to Christ’s exaltation alone into the heavenly realms. The fullness of the Messiah’s glory, as reflected in the Scriptures Jesus was recounting, has to do with being obeyed within history (Isa 2:2–4; Ezek 37:24–28; Pss 2; 22; 89; 110, and many others).

3. The fact that Jerusalem was NOT their home exposes the wrongness of interpreting Acts 1:8 as it is commonly understood: as a progressive succession of evangelism from home to distant lands. This common view likens anyone’s hometown to the singular city of Jerusalem with the phrase “our own Jerusalem.” This breathtakingly ethnocentric notion serves to detach present-day evangelism efforts from the very historic unfolding that Jesus was trying to emphasize. The reality is that there was only one beginning of the gospel. In God’s history there will never be another subsequent Pentecost point. Every later initiative is a downline fruition of that outpouring and obedience. We are now in “the uttermost parts,” not repeating the scenario reaching of “our own Jerusalem.” Acts 1:8 is a geographical reference as much as it is a historic one.

4. References to witnesses or witnessing in Acts are all in a public arena (1:8, 22; 2:32; 3:15; 4:33; 5:32; 10:39, 41, 43; 13:31; 14:3; 15:8; 16:2; 20:26; 22:15, 18, 20; 23:11; 26:16, 22).

5. The “E-Scale” is a way of comparing cultural distances between communicators and the intended receptors. The “P-Scale” is a way of comparing the social, religious, and ethnic distances between a people group and existing churches. See page 385 of this volume for a fuller discussion.

6. The expressions “Become Like” and “Remain Like” are tandem ideas discussed by Harley Talman and David Anthony in chapter 22 of this volume.

7. They determined that there would be no requirement except what God had given. There were four biblical prohibitions (Acts 15:19–20, 28–29, 21:25). These four rules have been seen in two ways: Some see them as being sourced in the prohibitions given to Noah (Gen 9:1–17) and therefore applicable to all humankind. But others see the prohibitions as coming from the Levitical code, which allowed non-Jewish people to associate with the Jewish people, but four practices were prohibited: idolatry (Lev 17:8), ingesting blood of animals (Lev 17:10–14), various acts of sexual perversity (18:6–18), and animals not slaughtered properly (17:15). Either way, gentiles could join the worshiping people of God without renouncing their family or people.