EMQ » Oct – Dec 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 4
First Mission
Summary: After the birth of the church, the first mission begins in Jerusalem with the healing of a man with a disability at the temple gates. This should not be surprising because people with disabilities appear throughout the Scripture narrative and especially in Jesus’s earthly ministry.
By Dave Deuel
On the day that the church was born, the Lord of heaven and earth opened a floodgate of firsts. The day of Pentecost marked the dawning of a new chapter in the history of redemption. Including Israel, God began forming a new people through the gentile ingathering consistent with his promises.[i]
As in the Old Testament, the mighty acts of God, the very content of the multilingual message on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:11), positioned the events of early Acts within God’s redemption plan.[ii] The gospel writer Luke, continuing his salvation historical account by also writing Acts, wants his readers to understand (1) the church’s birth as a continuation of Israel’s history and message, and (2) the church’s infant growth in Jerusalem before it moves out to Judea, Samaria, and the four corners of the earth.[iii]
To the early church, Luke-Acts recorded what God was doing and how people were responding to him and living out their faith.[iv] Within hours of the church’s first infant breath, it witnessed a new mighty act of God – the healing of a man whose disability left him begging beside the path leading into the Jerusalem temple gates.[v] Crucially, it all began at the temple at the time for prayer.[vi]
But why the temple? It is amazing that a book of the Bible narrating the church’s inception has so much to say about the temple. The spiritual center of Israel, the temple, was a theater for God’s mission to his people, Jews and Gentiles. What is more, Luke’s first book in the two-part story, the Gospel of Luke, begins and ends at the temple.Considering that important events happen at the temple, should we not be surprised that Luke’s account of healing the lame man should also take place there?[vii] The stage was set.
