Reading the Speeches in Acts

As we work through the book of Acts, we should pay attention to the speeches.  We should pay attention to the speeches because there are a lot of them.  And we should pay attention to the speeches because they matter.  My professor David Balch who is now at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary had a lot to say about the speeches in Acts.  He also had a lot to say about boundary crossing.  Balch sees Luke 1:3 as a key to understanding the Gospel of Luke and its sequel, the book of Acts, "I propose that Luke 1:3 be translated: 'I too, having mentally followed all things from the beginning with respect to cause and effect, decided to write you in a full and orderly manner, most excellent Theophilus,' meaning that unlike his predecessors (perhaps, unlike Mark) who wrote briefly, Luke would include rhetorical speeches that indicate the causes and consequences of the events of salvation history."  He wrote this in an essay for the International Society of Biblical Literature.  I don't know where you'd find the published copy, I've got a paper manuscript in my files. 

I'll cut to the chase, if we accept Acts as a meeting ground for our understanding of the church, then we need to take seriously Acts claim about the messages that get delivered.  It is the spoken message that initiates the action in Acts.  Let me say that again, it is the spoken message that initiates actions in Acts.  I think we may have gotten side-tracked by three issues: (1) our near-dogmatic belief that actions of service speak for themselves and that our good works inherently point to the good news; (2) arguments about style and channels we use to convey the message and inattention to the message itself, (3) our tendency to replace Christ himself with the church.  Perhaps it is time that we focus in a new way about what it is we are actually trying to say before we try to think about how we say it.