Life and Faith 3.2
lanny.wilson
3.2LifeFaithinLuke.docxGetting Started
You have probably already caught on to the fact that Luke tends to describe God’s gift to us in terms of “salvation.” He also uses a lot of other supporting terms like righteousness, release, hope, and so on. Luke also speaks of faith or belief quite often, so you have a lot to go on with just those specific words. However, remember that narratives work through stories and not just keywords. Look for those stories where Life and Faith appear in implicit but powerful ways.
Upon successful completion of the course material, you will be able to:
· Explain aspects of God’s gifts and our response in Luke-Acts.
Resources
· Bible
Background Information
Biblical narratives can be very powerful and very confusing. The stories move and shape us, but we are not always sure how to respond to them. Furthermore, sometimes stories are simply descriptive—this is what happened—and sometimes they are prescriptive—this is what you should do. Acts 2:42-47 is a great example. This passage depicts the intense and generous community of the early church. It says that people sold their possessions and donated the proceeds to those in need. Well, is this a report of what happened or a lesson about what we should do? The story does not make this clear, but we find hints in the larger context of Luke-Acts. We run into a rich ruler whom Jesus tells to go and sell everything he has (Luke 18:18-23). We meet Zacchaeus who gives away half his possessions to the poor (Luke 19:5-7). We get to know Barnabas who sold fields and donated the money (Acts 4:36-37). We hear of Cornelius who gave alms (“charity”) regularly (Acts 10:1-2). Thus, it seems that there is no one formula for generous giving. It is not the precise percentage or object of the gift. Rather, it is simply giving generously and sacrificially without thinking too much about the exact amount. Thus, a helpful way to get a better sense of the applicability of a passage like Acts 2:42-47 is to see how it fits into the context of the book and the rest of the canon of Scripture.
Instructions
1. Review the assessment criteria in the rubric for this assignment.
2. Read Chapters 1-4 and 22-24 in the Gospel of Luke.
3. Read Chapters 1-20 from the Book of Acts.
4. Identify two passages from Luke-Acts that exemplify the topics of Life and Faith. At least one of these must be from Acts.
5. Compose an initial post of 200-250 words that identifies your passages and explains where and how you see the themes of Life and Faith at work in each of them. You do not need to quote the entire passage, but you should use specific pieces of each passage in your explanation. Post this by day four of the workshop.
