New Acts Commentary

I got a new Acts commentary last week. It looks really useful. David Peterson in the Pillar commentary series. From my brief reading so far it seems thorough, and up-to-date with the latest scholarship (just published last year). It has, what is in my opinion the most helpful format for commentaries, a brief overview of each section of the text followed by more detailed verse by verse comments.

The only disappointment so far is that it doesn't deal with the theory that Luke-Acts is a legal brief for Paul's defense before Ceasar. Not sure I agree with this theory, but I would have liked Peterson to interact with it. If you are going to preach Acts, this would be one of the first commentaries I would buy.

Swype touchscreen keyboard

I have to mention this amazing new keyboard I have on my phone. It's called swype, and it makes typing stuff on a touchscreen phone so much faster.

Unlike a normal keyboard where you have to touch the keys one by one, with swype you slide your finger from letter to letter to make each word. It does take a little while to get used to, but once you've got the idea it is much less sensitive to slight miss-hits on the keys, and much better at predicting what you really want to write.

As an example, I found this post quite comfortable to type using swype, but I would really have struggled to do something this long with a normal touchscreen keyboard.

It will be interesting to see if phone manufacturers start including a swype keyboard as a standard feature.

Acts 15

I'm preaching on Acts 15 this week, which is the big discussion the early church had about wether Gentile christians were required too follow the law of Moses in order to be saved.

The tricky part of the passage is that although the apostles and elders say no, the gentiles don't have to follow the law of Moses, they do ask the gentiles to do four things - don't eat meat offered to idols, don't eat strangled meat, don't eat blood, and don't engage in sexual immorality.

The big question is, why are these four commands given? I had always thought that this was a matter of not offending the Jewish Christians, and that's why we no longer have to keep these commands today - most Christians just aren't in contact with any Jews. The problem with this reading is sexual immorality. It isn't just a ceremonial concession to maintain fellowship with Jewish brothers and sisters, it is wrong under any circumstances.

Fortunately, Kutz our student did assignment on this recently. His suggestion (which follows Ben Witherington), is that the four issues addressed are a kind of shorthand for worship at idol temples, and what the apostles are saying is "you don't have to follow the law of Moses, but don't go back to living the life of an idol worshipper.

I think I'm convinced - so Kutz has more than earned his pay this week (not that you have to do much to earn a student minister pay!!).

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