Acts for Everyone Part 2
A biblical commentary providing accessible exposition and reflection on the Acts of the Apostles for contemporary readers.
Give a church a rule and you guide them for a day; teach a church to think and you guide them for life.
God wants the world to be governed, because he wants people to live in peace and justice, and if you don’t have structures of justice then the bullies, the extortioners and the rest will always win. The problem, of course, is when those structures become structures of injustice; but the present passage meets that question head on. The fact that you must respect the structures does not rule out, but rather actually includes, the duty to remind the people currently operating the structures what it is that they ought to be doing, and for that matter not doing. This is not the first, and it will not be the last, time when Paul provides some object lessons in basic political theology.
The storms do not mean that the journey is futile. They merely mean that Jesus is claiming the world as his own, and that the powers of the world will do their best to resist. Those who are caught up in the middle of it all must recognize the mark of the cross for what it is, and claim the victory already won in the unique events of Calvary.