Abstract
This essay offers insight into Luke’s concept of God by analysing three sections in which God is explicitly a topic of discussion. These sections are Stephen’s apology (Acts 7:2–53), the account of Paul’s and Barnabas’ mission in Lystra (Acts 14:8–18), and the Areopagus speech (Acts 17:22–31). Because these texts share similar motifs, they can be said to constitute an argumentative series. In these sections, Luke provides a coherent concept of God comprised of many motifs from Luke-Acts. The central motif is that God created the world, which results in God’s self-sufficiency. Therefore, a worship with neither sacrifices nor temple is the appropriate response to God as a selfsufficient, transcendent, spiritual, and perfect being that is completely different from every mortal being on earth.
Highlights
Luke draws a number of conclusions from the assertion that God created the world: he is the living God in opposition to idols, and he is a being without human “feelings”, 29 This is the case in the statement parallel to Acts 14:15 in the Areopagus speech (Acts 17:24), and it occurs elsewhere implicitly: the reference to Adam in the genealogy in Luke 3:23–38, for example, refers to the Biblical creation story in Gen 2:4b– 25
This essay argued that Acts 7:2–53; 14:8–18; 17:22–31 comprise an argumentative series, because these sections are linked by the same set of motifs, albeit with different wording
Luke provides a coherent summary of his concept of God, as many motifs connected to God from Luke-Acts are recapitulated here
Summary
Jantsch STJ 2018, Vol 4, No 2, 197–222 has changed during the last three decades, during which the concept of God in both Paul’s letters[3] and the Gospel of Mark[4] has increasingly received attention from scholars, resulting in a number of monographs. Such scholarly attention to the concept of God has not extended to LukeActs, though statistics indicate that God plays a decisive role in Luke’s narratives. In Luke-Acts, the noun θεός refers to the God of Israel 280 times[5] and joins numerous other references to God such as “father” (πατήρ),6 “the most high” (ὁ ὕψιστος),[7] and “lord” (κύριος,[8] δεσπότης).[9]
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