Reading Luke/Acts Together #52 – A Pause Before Pentecost

We’ve begun our reading of Acts going fairly slowly. You have likely heard me say that God likes us to read the Bible slowly, very slowly, making time to ponder, wonder, reflect, question, and perhaps to hear more in the quiet rests between words and sentences – as in the old hymn’s line, “Beyond the sacred page, I seek thee, Lord.” Not besides the sacred page or without the sacred page, but beyond, through the sacred page – as if the pages of Scripture are corrective lenses, or a kind of telescope, enabling us to see correctly, and further. This takes time.

I love the Ents in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – treelike creatures who speak so very slowly. They explain to the hobbits that their language, Entish, “is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.”

So let’s pause so you can catch up, or think more slowly – and even hit reply and tell me: What reflections stand out for you from reading and thinking about Luke? What have you learned? Any surprises or fresh realizations? Any disappointments? Anything confusing to you?

If you have the urge to review where we’ve been so far, all my posts on Luke and Acts (thus far) can be found – in reverse order! – at https://test.myersparkumc.org/reflections/ . And I’m happy to email you a Word document with them in the right order!

Thank you for reading. I love sharing and conversing about the Bible – and I literally couldn’t do that without you, my beloved reader! How good of God to give us these virtual times together!