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The Great Books
Episode 369: 'Acts of the Apostles'
00:38:58
John J. Miller is joined by Jeff Cavins of Ascension Press to discuss the Acts of the Apostles.
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Jeff Cavins
Foreign.
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John J. Miller
Welcome to the Great Books Podcast. Today we'll talk about Acts of the Apostles from the Bible. I'm your host, John J. Miller of National Review, and you're listening to a production of National Review. Our guest is Jeff Cavins, the creator of the Great Adventure Bible, as well as the Great Adventure Bible Timeline Study series. He's the author of many books, including the Bible Timeline and Unlocking the Mystery of the. His podcast is the Jeff Cavan show, and for six years he hosted Life on the Rock on ewtn. He joins us by Zoom as we record from Hillsdale College's campus radio station, WRFH in Michigan. Jeff, welcome to the Great Books Podcast.
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Jeff Cavins
Good to be with you, John. Gonna be a wonderful conversation.
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John J. Miller
Why is Acts of the Apostles a great book?
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Jeff Cavins
That's a good question. You know that when we look at the Bible, of course, it's not a book, it's a library. And in that library there are books, a number of really, really great books. Acts is one of them. Acts of the Apostles. And I'd say that the Acts of the Apostles is the record of the body of Christ responding to all that Jesus taught. And as the household of God, that church becomes really the institutional form. And I say that in a positive way, it becomes the institutional form of peace, mercy, grace, love and justice in the world. And, and the Acts of the Apostles is the first look that we have at transformed people imitating God after the entire Old Testament and the three years of Jesus public ministry. And Paul sums that up, of course, in Ephesians 5, 1 be imitators of God. But then finally, I would say it is a look at the first time that the teaching of Jesus collides with the ideology of. Of the world. And what we see is something spectacular. We see the church overcoming and paying a price for it. But ultimately that fortitude, that tenacity, changed the world.
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John J. Miller
We will talk about all that. Where this book fits in the Bible, who wrote it? Who are its major figures? Peter and Paul, of course. Also, this book is partly an adventure story of miracles, travel, persecution, shipwreck, imprisonment and. And more. But Jeff, let's just start with something you said a moment ago. You mentioned the ideology of the world. Give us some context here. What was the political world of the Jews and the Romans like at the time of Acts of the Apostles?
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Jeff Cavins
Well, I think that John is a very good question because the Bible is not out of context. It is in context. And the book of Acts is in context. And that context is, is the Roman Empire and of Course, prior to Jesus, we have this rise of the Roman Republic. We have Julius Caesar from 100 to 44 BC. And in 60 BC there was a triumvirate that was really, really developed, you know, a leadership of three. We have Julius Caesar along with two others. And of course, when he, when he proclaims that he is God, well, you know the story, you two, Brutus, he is assassinated in the Senate. You can go to Rome, you can see the exact place where he was assassinated there in Rome. But something happened after that that is really interesting. And that is he left a last will and testament. Inside of that last will and testament was a surprise for the world. And that was he adopted a young man by the name of Octavian. And Octavian was part of the second Triumvirate. He joined forces with Mark Anthony and Marcus Lepidus in a military dictatorship, and that was known as the second Triumvirate. Well, there was a lot of moving and a lot of pushing and vying for power there. Lepidus was exiled, but Mark Anthony and Octavian, they went at it for power. And Octavian knew that he couldn't take Mark Anthony on land, so he brought it to the sea. The Battle of Actium. And it was there that Octavian defeated Mark Anthony. Then Octavian comes in, he makes his great grand entrance into Rome. And we go from a Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, where he is given the senatorial name Caesar Augustus. And Caesar Augustus, he lived to be 80 years old and he's known for several things. Here, I'll just make this quick, but this sets the stage for the super apostles Peter and Paul, as well as the life of Jesus. Now, what did Caesar Augustus do? Well, he brought peace to Rome, Pax Romana. He was called the son of God, the son of Julius Caesar. And he ushered in what was called the Euangelion. And that's the good news for the world. But one other thing that he did, John, was he created what was called the Acts of Caesar Augustus. And it was his life, his acts. And so it's in the context of this, in fact, at Corinth, they have archeological findings where it says, not before, not during or after will anyone eclipse the glory of Caesar Augustus, who is the Prince of Peace, who is the son of God, the one that ushered in the Euangelion for the world. And in the context of that, a baby boy is born in. In Bethlehem, Jesus. But after Jesus ministry and we move into the Book of Acts, this is the empire that will collapse in 235 A.D. but this is the empire that Peter and Paul are facing, and that is Caesar worship, worshiping the Son of God, worshiping the one who brought in the good News, the one who publishes the Acts of Caesar. And so we have a complete collision here of ideologies. And that really speaks of the courage of both Peter and Paul.
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John J. Miller
So Acts of the Apostles comes in the Bible right after the Gospels. We get Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then we get Acts of the Apostles. It's the fifth book in the New Testament. It begins this way in the first book, Theophilus, he's addressing the author's addressing this to a person called Theophilus. I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven, unquote. That sounds kind of like a sequel.
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Jeff Cavins
It is. You know, Luke wrote more in the New Testament than anyone, including Paul, because he's credited with the Gospel of Luke, but also the Acts of the Apostles. And you're right, it is a sequel. And the prequel is the Gospel that we could call the Acts of Jesus, if you will. The entire life of Jesus, all the way through his death, burial, and his rising from the dead, and then the Ascension in the Book of Acts. But he writes to this individual in the Book of Acts, Theophilus, and he's going to say some things to him. And I think the preface to Luke's Gospel is a clue to who Theophilus is, his identity. Luke tells his friends that the Gospel account is given so that Theophilus may know the certainty of those things in which you have been informed. And in that Greek word for informed is catechesis. And it is where we get the words catechumen, catechesis. And I believe that Theophilus was a catechumen or a formal student of the Christian faith, preparing for his baptism in receiving catechetical instruction. So Luke wanted Theophilus to understand not only all that Jesus did and taught, but also all that he continued to do in and through the church. He desired this lover of God, which is what the name means, to experience all that Christ desires to do in his life. But then I would also say that I think that the name lover of God is also an invitation to each of us to become Theophilus as we read the Acts of the Apostles. It's for us. It's for us as well. But you know that there's really an interesting point about this that a lot of people don't think about. For those who are familiar with the Bible, in Luke's Gospel, he's the only one who talks about the Emmaus Road experience in Luke 24. This is after Jesus was crucified, put into the tomb. It looks like everything is falling apart. The dreams are dashed. And we have these two individuals who are walking away from Jerusalem on the Emmaus Road, away from the action, away from where Jesus did all of these wonderful works. They're moving away. And the Acts 24 says it's clopas and one other. Now, the norm in the Gospels, like we see in John, is that the author doesn't name themselves. They refer to themselves as the one Jesus loved. In this case, Clopas and another. Now, the Eastern Rite, this is interesting. The Eastern Rite, in their liturgy, they name that other as none other than Luke. And so if that's the case, that means that Luke got a really good Bible study that day about why Jesus had to come and suffer and be crucified and rise from the dead. That makes Luke and Acts now even more exciting, more insightful. So I, along with a number of other Bible teachers and many scholars, do hold that position, that that other individual may very well have been Luke, which.
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John J. Miller
Of course would make him a witness to many of these events. And Luke is commonly said to have not been a witness. He was a friend of witnesses, or he heard their stories. But maybe he actually is a witness.
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Jeff Cavins
Possibly, yeah.
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John J. Miller
In Acts of the Apostles, then it begins with this opening, this opening to Theophilus. But then in chapter one of Acts, we get our first really big event with Jesus lifted into the clouds. This is the Ascension. It's a fantastic episode. What is the Ascension? What does it mean?
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Jeff Cavins
Right, that's good. You have these major moments in the life of Jesus, in the life of the church. And in the book of Acts, we have at the very beginning the promise of the Holy Spirit. And to them he presented himself alive after his passion by many, many proofs appearing in them during 40 days days. And speaking of the kingdom of God, we call this the period of the. The mystagogy, where Jesus is going over the basic teachings. And in the church calendar, after Easter, in the Easter vigil, all of the readings will change in the church, and they will reflect these teachings about the kingdom or this mystiogy. The. And it's for the. It's for the neophytes. But after that, we have Jesus. And he is telling his followers in Jerusalem, he says, listen. So when they had come together, they asked him, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, into the ends of the earth. And then he was lifted up at that point. And so the ascension is Jesus rising from the earth and taking his place at the right hand of the Father. There is this transition that we see where Jesus gave the keys to the kingdom to Peter in Matthew's Gospel, which is very interesting because the keys represent the authority to bind and loose and the authority to lead the church. And so with the keys firmly in Peter's hand, Jesus announces that the power is coming. It's going to start in Jerusalem, it's going to go to Judea and Samaria, and then all the way to the uttermost parts of the earth. And so Jesus takes his seat at the right hand of the Father. In the modern vernacular, I could say game on. Now it's time that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus will rule and reign in his followers and his mission, every aspect of it will continue. And he will. He will be with us. So this is that transition point where he takes his seat at the right hand of the Father.
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John J. Miller
And then the next chapter, Acts 2, should say there are 28 chapters in Acts of the Apostles. In Acts 2, we get the arrival of the Holy Spirit. You haven't used the word Pentecost yet, Jeff. What. What happens in Acts 2? How does the Holy Spirit arrive? What is Pentecost?
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Jeff Cavins
Yes, good question. Well, Pentecost is one of the three pilgrim feasts for the Jewish people every year that they required adult men in Israel to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And you can find that cited in Deuteronomy 16:16. It's a harvest festival and is celebrated through 50 days after Passover. So it's 50 days after Passover. The first loaves of bread from the spring wheat crop were dedicated as first fruits offering to the Lord. And the significance attached to Pentecost for the Jews was the giving of the Torah. That's the main focus, the giving of Torah on Mount Sinai. Now, for Christians, Pentecostal, 50 days after Passover celebrates the new law of the Spirit, as Paul calls it in Romans 8:2, written on the hearts of the believers. And so we have an echo of or a repeating of what happened on Mount Sinai with the sound of the wind and the fire, and speaks of the coming of the Spirit. And this is a parallel event to Sinai. So the Holy Spirit is the soul really that animates the body of the Christian community. And the Holy Spirit is going to direct the Church now, guide the magisterium, which that is the pope, along with the cardinals, the bishops, and then sanctifying the church. And this becomes a very important point for the Christian community throughout history, because this is where the Catholic Church, for example, celebrates confirmation, which is the giving of the Holy Spirit. And that's what we celebrate on Pentecost. And that giving of the Holy Spirit makes the Church authentic, powerful, courageous witnesses, and this is what they were waiting for. And it also speaks of the universality of the Church because there were people coming from all over the world for the celebration. And when the Holy Spirit fell on them, we see them speaking in, you know, various languages and speaking of the universality of the Church. But this is really the beginning, I think, you know, of the movement of his kingdom.
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John J. Miller
And this is a real key turning point then, right? It's a message that Christianity now will spread from Israel to the wider world, to Rome and to the Gentiles. This is the moment a tiny sect in Jerusalem and neighboring areas becomes actually an organized religion.
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Jeff Cavins
Yeah, yeah. This is the real deal. One way to remember this, Jona, that I was taught long ago is, you know, as children, many of us are taught by our parents to count the seconds between lightning and then the thunder during, you know, a summer storm. Well, the first chapter of Acts is the account of what happened between the lightning of the resurrection and the thunder of Pentecost. And this time is crucial. It's a crucial time to prepare the disciples for the gift of the Holy Spirit and their mission to carry on the Gospel. Because you have to remember that when Jesus was at the Jordan river, he came to the Jordan river in Matthew 3. 4. He submitted to baptism. He came up out of the water, and the Spirit came down upon him. And then he went out for 40 days into the wilderness. And he was tempted. Now, that's important, those three things. Baptism, confirmation, or the giving of the Holy spirit in the 40 days. Because Jesus later said, as the Father sent me, so I send you. And that is in the power of baptism, the power of the Holy Spirit, Confirmation, the sacrament of confirmation. And then we're starting, of course, with these, you know, 40 days prior to that. So there's a lot of parallels there.
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John J. Miller
Let's turn now to Peter, who is one of the stars of Acts of the Apostles. We met him in the Gospels, of course. He's the rock on which I will build my church in Matthew 16:18. Here he's a miracle worker. He also seems like a different guy from the Gospels and the Gospels. Well, he denies Christ, right? I don't want to call him cowardly, but here he's heroic. He seems like something's changed in the. This guy.
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Jeff Cavins
Yes. And you're right. And it becomes obvious when you read that prior to the resurrection, the Ascension and the day of Pentecost, he seems a bit impetuous. You know, he speaks first. He gets out above his. Over his skis sometimes. And he did deny the Lord three times. And the Lord predicted it. But it was the transformation of the day of Pentecost that really made him a new man. Because at the end of the Gospel of John, it appears that he's giving up. You know, when a rabbi would call prospective disciples, they would say to them a formulaic come, follow me. Come follow me. Take on my worldview, take on my yoke. And in addition to that, he gives him the keys to the kingdom, which the keys to the kingdom represent, literally the prime minister in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 22. And so he had great responsibility, but it all collapsed. And we see that after this, he said, I'm going to go back fishing. I'm going to go up north. And some of the disciples went with him. But the Lord went up there and. And confronted him around a charcoal fire, same type of charcoal fire at Caiaphas House, where he denied the Lord. And he said, do you love me? You know I love you. Do you love me? You know I love you. Do you love me? Lord, you know all things. You know I love youe. Then feed my sheep. And so there's a renewal in his relationship with the Lord after a tragedy, you know, in. In the relationship of denying the Lord three times. And he becomes a new man, a bold man, which is a witness to all of us in what Jesus can do. And so he's the first in the Book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, the first of two super apostles, Paul being the second.
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John J. Miller
What is an apostle? What's a brief definition of. Of. Of that word apostle? What does it mean?
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Jeff Cavins
Yeah, that's a good question. It's simply a one who is sent. And the 12 apostles were those men who were sent. We are apostles today in the sense that we're sent, but we're not apostles in the sense that Peter and Paul, in that nucleus that Jesus brought together at the beginning, the positions they had, there is a distinction there, but we still consider ourselves apostles of the Lord. But that's what it means.
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John J. Miller
You mentioned Paul. He of course, is our second star of Acts of the Apostles. We first meet him. His name isn't even Paul, it's Saul. S A U L. He, Saul the. The sinner, I suppose you could say. Who is this guy when we first meet him?
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Jeff Cavins
Oh, he's a superstar. You know, Peter was a fisherman and then became a superstar. Paul was a superstar. Paul was taught by a rabbi called Gamliel. Now, Gamaliel is a superstar, and he's the grandson of the great Hillel. And so Paul, he describes himself as a Pharisee of Pharisees, concerning the law, blameless. He was very well known, and he was very good at theology. And he believed, as the Pharisees did, that if the Messiah was going to come, we needed to get the whole world to honor the Sabbath on the same day. And that looked like that was coming to an end. And so found the crossroads up in Damascus, where this Gospel, these Nazarenes, were spreading in his ideas, this false religion. And he got permission to go up there and start arresting people. And he had a very unusual pedigree. He was a Jew, but he was also a Roman citizen. So he was perfectly set up to be the one who's going to bring the gospel to the world. So he went up to Damascus.
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John J. Miller
So this is where Saul the sinner becomes Paul the saint. What happens on the road to Damascus?
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Jeff Cavins
Yes, he's on his way to arrest the Christians. To arrest them, These people who are called the Way, the Nazarenes. And suddenly the Spirit of God fell upon him. He fell to the ground. He was blinded. And there was an individual, Ananias, in Damascus, who was told by the Lord to go, there's going to be a man by the name of Saul. And of course, he knows who this Saul is. His reputation spread far and wide. And you are going to be the instrument. To be the instrument where he begins to see again. Because he's blinded. The scales will fall from his eyes. What happened in that moment was like an instant transformation. He said, lord, who are you? And Jesus said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. That became the changing point in Paul. And, you know, he knew so much about the Torah and the Tanakh, the Jewish, what we call the Old Testament, that things had to have come together very quickly. And of course, he spent some good time out in Arabia just with the Lord before he really launched his public ministry.
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John J. Miller
And then he starts to travel the world, travel much of the known world. He goes so many places. Yeah. And I want to talk about Athens. This is one of my. We're skipping so much, of course, but I. His. His appearance in Athens is critical. He has the sermon on the Areopagus sermon. Jeff, briefly describe that. What. What happens here? What does he say? Why is this such an important moment?
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Jeff Cavins
Well, it is, and it's one of my favorite parts of the Acts of the Apostles, because this is a look at Paul Saul with a direct confrontation with the philosophy of the world, and Athens was the center of it. Here's what he does. He goes into the Areopagus area. He notices that there is a tomb to an unknown God. Now, truth be known, there were hundreds and hundreds of tombs and hundreds and hundreds of these shrines to gods, you know, in Athens. But the one caught his attention, the one to the unknown God. Now, knowing a little bit about the history of that in Athens will make this story just come alive. In the 6th century BC, a plague broke out in Athens. And it was a horrific plague similar to Eboli, with bodies bleeding out in the streets. And it was said that the plague was the result of disrespecting an unknown God. They didn't know which one it was. This unknown God was offended. Now, it's bad enough to offend someone, you know, but to offend someone or. Or a God that you don't know, that's. That's tough. Now, in Athens at that time, There were about 30,000 shrines and altars to many, many gods. And people made offerings to these many gods, hoping to break the plague's hold on the city in the 6th century BC, but to no avail. And so it was in that setting that Epimenides, a philosopher from Crete, came to Athens. Epimenides is quoted twice in the Bible. Paul told Titus something that Epimenides said, and that is all Cretans are liars. But Epimenides, like many other wise men, didn't have a solution for the plague. But he did have a dream. And in his dream, he was told to go to the Agora where he would find a flock of sheep. And he was to follow the sheep. And when the sheep stopped, he was to sacrifice one of them to an unknown God. He did. And shortly after, the plague subsided. And that was the altar that was built to the unknown God. So when Paul went to Athens, he entered into a discussion with the Epicureans and the Stoics, and they were fascinated with him. They called him a babbler and brought him over to Mars Hill to share his strange ideas. So in Acts 17, it says now all the Athenians and The foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something knew. And Paul speaks to them in the midst of this, he stands in the middle of the Areopagus and said, men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. And then he said that as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown. This I proclaim to you. Now, this is interesting. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life, breath, and everything. And they were familiar with the story of the sheep that were sacrificed for the people of Athens, removing the dreaded plague. And now Paul is telling them who the Lamb of God is, is the one who died to take away the greatest plague of all time, sin and death. So when he said he talks about Jesus as a lamb of God, this made total sense. This is the God that you called the unknown God who took away the plague.
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John J. Miller
And this is really an invitation to pagans to say, come join me in Christian faith.
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Jeff Cavins
Right?
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John J. Miller
You guys were onto something way back when. You know, it's not that you need to abandon everything you believe. It's. You guys were onto something. Now, let's. Let's come with me.
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Jeff Cavins
Yeah, that's a good. That's a good point. I think that's a good way to approach a lot of these. A lot of these issues back in Greece, in Rome. Is that all along? Yeah, I think you were onto something, you know, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, the creation of the world. I think you're onto something. You know, the Tanakh or the Hebrew scriptures would not put it like that. But all along, I think you see little breadcrumbs, you know, of. Of truth. And Paul, he shines a light on it completely.
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John J. Miller
Now, we got to wrap up here. Unfortunately, there's so much going on in Acts of the Apostles, but I want to go to the very end of it. We're now with Paul. He's traveling around. There's a shipwreck. He winds up in Rome, and the book ends with him in Rome, preaching. Next we get a bunch of letters in the Bible, but take us to the end of Acts. What happens in Acts and then what comes next in the Bible?
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Jeff Cavins
Well, it does have a strange ending, doesn't it? It doesn't end with, and they lived happily ever after. It's almost an abrupt cutoff. And so it begs the question, well, what next? Well, Paul, like Peter, did die in Rome. He was under house arrest during that time. He wrote what are called the prison epistles, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. And the question is, why Rome? Why didn't things stay in Jerusalem, for example, or Antioch, up in Syria? Why Rome? I think there's an answer to that, John. And I think that answer goes all the way back to the book of Daniel. You see, in Daniel, Daniel met Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian leader. He had a dream, and he could not interpret the dream. And the dream was about a statue with the head of gold. You have the. The breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, then legs of iron and feet with iron mixed with clay. He doesn't know what this means. And so they bring in Daniel. And God gives Daniel the interpretation. He says, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, you are the head of gold. Babylon. But after you will come another kingdom. That's Persia. That's the silver, the breast and arms. And after that kingdom, another one. The belly and thighs of bronze. That's Greece. But after that one, the fourth one, the legs of iron and the feet, partly of iron and partly of clay, Rome. So you have this succession of four major kingdoms. Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. But then Daniel says, in those days, the God of heaven will set up another kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. It's in Rome that we see this really coming to life. And of course, that fifth kingdom is the kingdom of Jesus. And so I would see Rome as the continuation of the kingdom of God, a movement from an empire to the Church. And what we see in Peter and Paul is what the early church saw. You can see it on, written on the walls and painted. They are the new Remus and Romulus, the original founders of Rome, Peter and Paul. In fact, there's artwork of two of them looking at each other, just as the artwork about Remus and Romulus was depicted. They are the founders of the new Rome. And that is where this ends. And of course, what happens after that? Well, the baton is passed to you and me, and it's our turn now to walk. And I'll just leave you with this. What Jesus did in the Gospels, you will see Peter and Paul do the same things exactly. There is a corollary here. And they're imitating Jesus in the book of Acts. And now for us, we continue on with the Acts of Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles in the day that we're living in today.
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John J. Miller
Jeff, I got two more questions before we go. The baton indeed passes onto us. We should read these books, study them, think about them, listen to sermons about them and more. You are the creator of something called the Great Adventure Bible, which is a tool for helping us understand the Bible. What is the Great Adventure Bible? Give us an elevator pitch. How can our listeners learn more about it?
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Jeff Cavins
Sure. When I was raised Catholic and I left the Catholic Church when I was about 21 and I went back to Bible College and I became a Protestant pastor for 12 years. And it was during that time that I was a little frustrated that I knew so much about the stories of the Bible, but I didn't know the story. In other words, I couldn't stitch it all together very easily and make sense out of it. And part of the reason for that is that it's not written as a book, it's a library. And you have, you have, you have poetry and wisdom literature together and you have prophets together and so needs to have someone order it and teach it as complete story. So I did that when I was 25, I spent literally 48 hours putting together that timeline chart. And at that time I was being tutored by Dr. Marvin Wilson out at Gordon College, one of the translators of the niv. And I was so excited that I had this idea to put together the story on a chart where I could tell the whole story that became the Bible timeline chart. And then later I taught 24 weeks through the entire Bible as a story so that people could get ahold of it. And John, I gotta tell you, it's like a revival taking place now. And it became the basis for Father Mike Schmitz and myself to do Bible in a year. And that took off like wildfire. And I think the reason, one of the reasons was that people felt a sense of certitude that I can read this, I can understand this, this is exciting. So we ended up putting together the Great Adventure Bible with all of that baked right in so that you can learn to read it as a complete narrative. And, and that's the starting point, isn't it? That's really the beginning of, you know, if we're, if we're going to do studies on ruby slippers and how to kill a witch with water and yellow brick roads and Tin man, it would behoove us to see the movie. And if we're going to talk about Peter and Paul and Jesus and all the things that took place in the Bible, it would behoove us to see the movie. And that's what I'm endeavoring to do over the last 45 years, is to help people discover it. And I guess that's my contribution.
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John J. Miller
Jeff, one more question then. One of the problems or challenges with reading the Bible is that it's so intimidating to a lot of people. It's long. That's a big book. The Great Adventure Bible is such a helpful tool, but there comes this question about where do you start? If you just want to dive into the Bible, where do you begin? Genesis is kind of an obvious answer. You know, start at the beginning, but you know, the Gospels, that's a great entry point. I once heard Bishop Barron, I think he wrote somewhere that he often recommends Acts of the Apostles to readers who are approaching the Bible for the first time. Do you agree with that? I don't know that you start with Acts of the Apostles, but it's something you should read very early on.
- [36:23]
Jeff Cavins
Yeah, well, I do think that the Acts of the Apostles are really important in your. To begin with, there's two ways of looking at this. One is devotional reading. Devotional reading. I would encourage people to read Luke and Acts or one of the Gospels and Acts in a devotional way, perhaps using lectio divina, a four step method of hearing God speak to you in a personal way. But there's also the, the hard work of rolling up your sleeves and trying to understand the entire canon. That's what the Great Adventure does. And you can do that because what we did in the Great Adventure Bible is we divided the entire Bible into 12 periods, color coded periods, and then chose 14 narrative books that take you through the entire Bible. And in the Catholic Bible with 73 books, that leaves 59. We need to show you where those fit in the 12 periods and the 14 books. So I would encourage people to, if they can, to read those 14 books. And don't be discouraged if you're not getting everything. It's just the, it's the beginning, it's the beginning. And Saint Ephrem once said, and it was beautiful, he said that reading the Bible is like drinking from a drinking fountain. Don't be discouraged by what falls to the ground, but be encouraged by what you receive. For the fountain, you do not exhaust the fountain. The fountain exhausts you. So I would recommend two kinds of reading. One is a more of a devotional. You could read Luke in Acts or John in Acts. Matthew is for Jews. And so there's language there that you're going to have to do a little bit of study, but then also prepare to go through the narrative and read those 14 books. And it's not hard to do at all. And those 14 books are laid out in the in the Bible timeline chart and in the Great Adventure Bible.
- [38:27]
John J. Miller
Jeff Cavins, thanks so much for joining us and telling us all about Acts of the Apostles.
- [38:32]
Jeff Cavins
You bet. It's been wonderful. It's great to talk to you and blessings on all who are listening.
- [38:37]
John J. Miller
You've just listened to the Great Books Podcast, a production of National Review. Please subscribe to the Great Books Podcast and leave reviews of the show that helps us keep this podcast going. Send me your ideas for future episodes. You can reach me through our website@heymiller.com on Twitter. My handle is hey Miller. And last of all, special thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week, the new episode of the Great Books Podcast.