A Year in Luke/ActsSample

The resurrection is the part of the gospel that tells of what is to come. It reveals that the world is a different place, a place heading towards new creation (of course with pain and death still existing for now). For some, the idea is laughable. For others, though, the resurrection provides the beginning of a framework for giving life the meaning they have always hoped for. It is at the mention of the real, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus that a response is required.

Paul lands his speech with the resurrection of Jesus and there is a mixed reaction. Some are intrigued by the message and some scoff. Interestingly, Paul’s ending claim was in contrast to Apollo, a god in the Greek Olympian who famously denied the possibility of resurrection in the story of Orestes, which tells of how the Areopagus was founded.

So although Paul starts from a point of contact with Athenian culture, he ends by contradicting the very founding of the court he is standing in by claiming that God, in Jesus, has been resurrected. By doing this: “he is offering the Judean and biblical vision of God’s ultimate justice, in order to outflank the Athenian claim that their high court was the last word in justice and mercy.” (Wright, p120, The Challenge of Acts)

The resurrection becomes the assurance that this unknown God who Paul is claiming has created the whole world, has released a force into the world that is working to bring about a new creation and make every wrong right.