The sermons in the book of Acts are short, certainly summaries of the actual sermons he summarizes. But it’s also clear that Luke was not simply generically summarizing what was said at these speeches or simply spitting out what he thought they probably said. How do we know this? Luke himself tells us (Lk. 1:1-4) that he put together a careful, orderly account from eyewitnesses, and we know that he was an eyewitness to much of what took place in the book of Acts. And the book bears out his record. The language, style and content of the speeches match the other works written by the speakers. Peter’s speeches are like his letters. William Ramsay, a New Testament researcher in the nineteenth century, reversed his belief that Luke was not a reliable reporter by studying this very subject. Roger Wagner asks

How could Luke have made such accurate summary transcripts? Shorthand! It should be remembered that a rather sophisticated method of shorthand was in use during the first century. It was developed for the very purpose of taking down speeches by Cicero. In later times it was used in the church, and by physicians. Luke, a physician, may well have had a mastery of this skill which would have facilitated his ability to record the sermons while they were being delivered, and later to draw characteristic excerpts from those transcripts when including sermonic material in his narrative. (Tongues Aflame, 22)

This is especially interesting, as Wagner points out, because it means that the sermons are not only filled with apostolic content, but reflect original arrangement and style.

Christians sometimes have great difficulty understanding how to appropriate the “fear of the Lord” urged upon us by the biblical writers and of course God himself. If God is loving, how could one fear him? If God is love, how could he command fear?

The answer is bigger and longer than this, but meet Shiphrah and Puah: “But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live” (Ex. 1:17). Pharaoh instructed them to execute the male Israelite babies, but instead they feared God. They would rather displease a human tyrant and almost certainly endanger their own lives than disobey Yahweh. In this instance, fear means obeying God and not man. It’s never if you obey, but whom, and one obeyed is the one feared.

When asked why they spared the Hebrew boys, they showed not only their fear of God, but their cunning as well: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” And how does God feel about this lie? “So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew strong. And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families” (Ex. 1:20-21). I wouldn’t coin the slogan (though maybe I ought to) “Fear God, lie to tyrants, and have a family”, but pietism shouldn’t define the fear of God. Holy fear made these women saviors of babies. It put a slow and eventually a stop to genocide. And it caused them to righteously deceive one of if not the most powerful men in the world.

Leithart continues, a gives a humbling question for fathers:

Some of it is certainly distorted doctrine and teaching in the church. Some of it is a failure to embody the gospel in the Lord’s Table. Much of it, I suspect, has to do with our conduct as parents. What kind of portrait of God does our parenting portray before our children? Fathers, ask yourself: if your children’s first notion of fatherhood comes from you, what connotations will come to mind when you call God “Father”? In any case, this service–this abject fear, this fear of punishment–is precisely what John says the gospel removes. God loves us, he’s demonstrated his love to us in his Son.  And the more this gospel grips our hearts, the more that love will be visible in our love for one another.

I’m working through Peter Leithart’s new commentary on 1 John, From Behind the Veil. This is choice.

John Stott notes that 1 John 4:19 indicates that the church’s great characteristic is love, not fear. That is it should be. Is it? Hardly. Read the next piece of direct mail you get from some Christian advocacy group. Look at the listings in a Christian book catalog or bookstore. Analyze the rhetoric of your favorite Christan political figure. Read some of the web punditry about Barack Obama. Think of the conspiracy-mongering that gets mixed up with Christianity in many circles. How many dozens of Christian ministries contiune to exist only because of the fear they are able to generate? As Jesus didn’t say: you can tell a Christian by his fear.

Commenting on Colossians 1, NT Wright says

‘The gospel’, for Paul, is an announcement, a proclamation, whose importance lies in the truth of its content. It is not, primarily, either an invitation or a technique for changing people’s lives. It is a command to be obeyed and a power let loose in the world (cf. Rom. 1:16-17), which cannot be reduced to terms of the persuasiveness or even the conviction of the messenger. It works of itself to overthrow falsehood.

This is so refreshing. Of course the gospel does change lives–it changes everything–but it is not an impotent invitation. It is a clarion call to a world alienated from God to come home.

In his fascinating new book on hermeneutics, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart pushes back on those who would limit the interpretation of words to their immediate context.

Or, we may ask, what if a word begins to keep new company? We all know that bad company corrupts good morals, and words that keep company with new companions are likely to be changed in the process. Many uses of language–the most interesting ones–are strictly inappropriate.  … They are surprising because they they do not conform to normal expectations. Why say anything if we just say what everyone expects? Who says that we cannot use worlds metaphorically?

Few besides Austen would have conceived “apparatus of happiness,” and we should all be grateful that she was perfectly willing to violate every modern notion of meaning.

The biblical writers unfold a story that builds on what has gone on in the past, and because they are truly building, we see new things in the upper stories. New words take on new meanings, and old words take on more meaning as antitypes reveal the fullness of types.

This whole way of reading the Bible stands against the curator approach to texts whether they be biblical or confessional. If Jesus is maturing his church, shouldn’t we expect to gain a richer understanding of justification by faith with every century if not half millennium that goes by? To some, any development is  not maturation but retardation. It’s as if you can’t build on the foundation but have to veer off. Coming off the liberalism of the last two centuries, this is understandable. But certainly a frozen conservatism creates boredom and encourages if not spawns liberalism. Liberalism really does build and interpret the Bible without regard for the foundation, which is not what the writers of the New Testament did (infallibly) or the church doctors have done (fallibly) throughout the centuries as the Spirit has led them.