Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible)

by Willie James Jennings

The past, though important, is never the point for the life of faith. The point is the present moment with the living God who is with us, beckoning us to communion. The God who speaks to us now calls us into the risk of hearing a new word, a word that orients us toward the unanticipated and the unprecedented where the reconciling God is active. Peter found himself in the midst of such a word in Acts 11, where what God was doing in and through him among the Gentiles pressed him body and soul up against the word God had spoken to his own people, Israel. The key for us, seen in this moment for Peter, is to refuse the binary of naming the past word false and the present word true or the present word false and the past word true, and to discern through the Spirit the line of continuity between past and present. We may do this because such discernment is not a burden but is the joy we have in participation with the ongoing life of Jesus, who has claimed this space between past and present word as his own and invites us to join him in it. “You have heard that it was said, . . . but I say to you”—Jesus’ words—point to the present and intimate speaking of the living God made flesh and one with us in the challenging task of hearing God’s new words pressed against the old ones.