A Spirit-Led Justice Movement
Examples of the Holy Spirit's work in Luke-Acts
Hello Reader!
Today’s article is the second part of a larger essay I wrote recently for a class with Dr. Matthew Bates at Northern Seminary. I really enjoyed digging into this exploration of how Luke foregrounds marginalized people in the gospel according to Luke and Acts. I hope you find it helpful for imaging how God wants us to draw in those that society often sees as “outsiders”.
Quite strikingly, the narrative of Luke-Acts attends to the needs of marginalized people in the midst of a world consumed with patriarchy, power and religious purity. In his narrative, Luke shows concern for these marginalized peoples by emphasizing the movement of the Spirit upon Jesus and the disciples to bring relief. Not just a spiritual relief but rather, a relief from real-world afflictions.
One could even say that a justice movement is at work in Luke-Acts explicitly directed on the Holy Spirit’s terms. The following will explore this claim by noting Luke-Acts’ treatment of women, the poor, and with the Ethiopian eunuch.
Women’s Agency in an Age of Patriarchy
Across the broader Greco-Roman world to which Luke writes, existed a relatively patriarchal society. In some places women held rights or agency similar to men. In other quarters of the Mediterranean world however, a woman’s authority was restricted to whatever her father or husband dictated.[1] Jewish culture in Palestine during the first century was perhaps one of the most patriarchal societies in which to live.
The agency of wives and daughters, as members of the Jewish religious community was severely limited, with most things decided for them.[2] This lack of agency for women in many places throughout the Roman world, and especially in Palestine makes Luke’s writings stand out. While all of the gospels highlight a new equality between women with men, Luke’s is the most overt about this agenda, with the gospel often pairing stories of men and women being healed, discipled, or in parables to make this point.[3]
Luke not only goes out of his way to demonstrate equality between men and women but goes further to demonstrate women’s agency in the new world of the Kingdom of God. Ben Witherington notes five instances in Acts where Luke portrays women as the leaders and initiators of the church on mission. Namely, “a woman as a prophetess (Acts 21:9), a religious teacher of a notable male Christian leader (Acts 18:1–3, 24–26), a hostess for a house church (Acts 12:12–17), the first convert in a new region (Acts 16:12–40), and as assuming the roles deaconesses were later to have (Acts 9:32–42).”[4]
Perhaps the most famous account of a woman given agency in Luke’s writings, and the most obvious that demonstrates the Holy Spirit’s involvement, is that of Mary conceiving Jesus. Typical accounts of divine impregnation of women in the Greco-Roman world involved the god in male form typically, though not always, engaging in intercourse with the woman in and act violating her agency and will.[5] What one sees in Luke’s account of divine conception is starkly different as the text stresses Mary’s virginity (Lk 1:27, 34). C. K. Barrett rightly recognizes that it is the “Spirit” that will come upon Mary, not the Angel of the Lord or another personified figured.
Further, “spirit” is neuter in the Greek language and feminine in either Hebrew or Aramaic which Barrett stresses “is not insignificant.”[6] Luke’s story of Jesus’ conception, is not a story of an obviously male inspired god having his way with a woman, but of God demonstrating God’s unique partnership with humanity, women included, in which their agency is honored and asked for in the process of bringing about God’s will.
To take this to its logical conclusion, Jesus himself demonstrates to us the value of women by being born from a woman’s womb. That this was perfectly acceptable is a profound testament to how Luke sees God liberating women into co-equal agency alongside men.
Care For The Poor in a World Made for the Rich
When Jesus proclaimed that he had come to bring “good news to the poor” (Lk 4:18), he would have had in mind, not just an economically or spiritually impoverished group of people, but a demographic which included a whole host of socio-economic-religious outcasts at the margins of Jewish society.[7]
These poor would have been cast out of the righteous religious community, kept from leadership, or meant to fend for themselves in one way or another without the support of the broader society. Yet with Jesus’ proclamation in Luke, we see that the Spirit was present with Jesus to provide the ostracized poor with good news. In more specifically economic terms, Luke’s gospel provides no less than ten references to caring for poor beggars, while Matthew and Mark each contain only five, highlighting his special concern for this marginalized group in the narrative.[8]
Thomas D. Hanks observes that the first half of Acts takes a great deal of time to emphasize that caring for the poor, among other things, is central to the nature of the new Christian community.[9] Pointing to the unity of Luke-Acts on this matter, Amos Yong highlights the Holy Spirit’s consistent work to empower both Jesus and the early disciples as they invite the poor to share equally in the community of believers as their needs are provided.
Yong compares the Messianic mission of Luke 4:18-21 with the early church community of Acts 2:42-47 where the, “socioeconomic system was radically restructured in the apostolic community precisely in order to provide relief for the needy."[10] Thus, Luke helps us see how the empowerment of the Holy Spirit on Jesus and the early church consistently led them to cross socio-economic barriers to provide tangible relief for the needs of those around them. In doing so, they made space for these very same poor as part of the community of God instead of remaining social outsiders.
Inclusion of the Eunuch Amidst Religious Marginalization
Finally, Luke-Acts demonstrates a Spirit empowered attentiveness to religiously marginalized people as witnessed in the account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. There is no question that the Ethiopian man was faithfully following the Jewish faith.[11] But how far was he permitted to be involved?
This question requires an understanding of what exactly is meant by the word “eunuch,” which could refer to a court official or a castrated man.[12] Part of the problem with this question, according to Craig Keener, is that “if it means merely ‘high official’ rather than “castrated man,” then the man could indeed be a full proselyte.”[13] Keener settles on this man being a castrated royal official, meaning he would have been a God-fearer but not completely embraced by the Jewish faith community[14] since Jewish law did not allow a eunuch to participate in worship (Dt 23:1[AM1] ).
This man would have been simply a devout outsider, restricted from full acceptance into the religious community. Yet here again the Holy Spirit empowers a disciple towards someone on the margins, not casually, but by compelling them to run (Acts 8:29-30). As Willie James Jennings puts it, “God is chasing this eunuch.”[15] Typically on the margins of Jewish religious life, this eunuch would now believe in Jesus, be baptized, and be welcomed in as a full and complete member of God’s family no longer, “in the shadows or at the margins of the people of God, but at [the] center.”[16]
These three examples in the Luke-Acts narrative demonstrate the authors intentionality to show how Jesus and the disciples provided relief to people on the margins of society. By providing equal agency for women, economic support for the poor, and full inclusion in the community of faith for the “impure”, Luke encourages God’s people to partake in a Spirit-led justice movement that truly proclaims good news to all who are oppressed.
[1] Ben III. Witherington, “Women: New Testament,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 658.
[2] Witherington, “Women: New Testament,” 957.
[3] Witherington, “Women: New Testament,” 959.
[4] Witherington, “Women: New Testament,” 959.
[5] C.K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit and The Gospel Tradition (London: S.P.C.K., 1966), 7.
[6] Barrett, The Holy Spirit and The Gospel Tradition, 7.
[7] Green, The Gospel of Luke, 210–211.
[8] Thomas D. Hanks, “Poor, Poverty: New Testament,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 417.
[9] Hanks, “Poor, Poverty: New Testament,” 417.
[10] Amos Yong, Who Is the Holy Spirit? A Walk with the Apostles, A Paraclete guide (Brewster, Mass: Paraclete Press, 2011), 35.
[11] Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary : 3:1-14:28 (Grand Rapids, UNITED STATES: Baker Publishing Group, 2013), 1565–1566, accessed November 22, 2024, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=3117405.
[12] F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts, Rev. ed., [Repr.]., The new international commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1988), 175.
[13] Keener, Acts, 570.
[14] Keener, Acts, 1567.
[15] Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing, 2017), 82.
[16] Jennings, Acts, 85.