[00:00:00] Scott Canion: that's what Acts is doing, it's showing Christ's Grand Strategy and how that initially unfolded, and it's giving us the framework for how that continues to unfold.

[00:00:11] Matt Andersen: Welcome to Guarding the Good Deposit, where we're contending for the faith in a time when Christendom is fading. We're your hosts, Matt Andersen and Scott Canion, and today we're diving into the patterns of Acts and the Epistles to imagine what a renewed Church could look like today. In this opening episode, we introduce the heart behind Guarding the Good Deposit and explore what it means to faithfully steward the apostolic pattern entrusted to the Church.

[00:00:55] We kick off our discussion in the Book of Acts as the continuation of [00:01:00] all that Jesus began to do and teach. We examine Luke's intent and why Acts functions as a strategic framework for understanding Christ's ongoing work through the Church today. This conversation lays the foundation for the series, inviting us to move beyond our modern assumptions and recover the first principles that shape churches, houses, and communities around the way of Christ.

[00:01:32] In each episode, we'll be highlighting some key Scripture passages to set the foundation for our discussion. For today, our Scripture passages come from Luke 1:1-4, and from Acts 1:1-8. We'd encourage you to take a few minutes, pause the podcast, and read and reflect on these passages on your own before continuing on with the [00:02:00] episode.

[00:02:01] With that said, let's jump into today's discussion

[00:02:09] Hey everyone. Matt Andersen here. I am here with my co-host Scott Canion. We're glad that you've chosen to join us as we dive into the patterns of the New Testament and starting today we're gonna be looking specifically at the Book of Acts.

[00:02:23] So, hey Scott. Good to be here with you. And, before we get started, we do want to take a minute to introduce ourselves. So I'm here with Scott Canion. We are coworkers here in the Greater New York area, but also involved, with some global and national teams, with the network of churches that we're connected to.

[00:02:44] So we are both apostolic type leaders and we'll get into, at some point what that means in a future episode. But for now, suffice it to say that we are you might consider us Paul types. We tend to be [00:03:00] enterprising, entrepreneurial. We're expansion, oriented, and we're very passionate about seeing churches well established in the New Testament patterns of Acts and the Epistles.

[00:03:12] So for me personally, I'm born and raised in New Jersey, and the last 15 years or so of life and ministry has been centered mostly around the Paterson area in North Jersey. I have three children. One wife, I have a teaching background, worked in the family business and also worked as a pastor and church planter.

[00:03:33] Very importantly, this is important for everyone to know, but I'm a basketball fan. I love riding my motorcycle, and I am a Lakers fan and a Yankees fan. So, one area I do want to mention, if you wanna check out any of the things I've been writing, I have a substack called Patterns and Paradigms.

[00:03:52] And you can just go to www.patternsandparadigms.com to check out that Substack if you want. So Scott, welcome to our very [00:04:00] first inaugural episode. This is exciting. We've been, wanting to do this for quite some time, and we're finally getting around to recording here and launching this podcast.

[00:04:09] So Scott, if you wanna just take a second, introduce yourself, tell us who you are, and then we'll start getting into what this podcast is about.

[00:04:16] Scott Canion: Wow. That's quite an introduction, Matt. key point there it's really helpful to know that you only have one wife. That's,

[00:04:24] Matt Andersen: Yes, yes. That, that, that was important to.

[00:04:27] Scott Canion: So I only have one wife as well, and one son, 18-year-old son. So, I've been, working in the Northern New Jersey, New York City area with a specific church for about 25 years, and have been making some transitions from traditional ways of gathering to what we orient ourselves around, which is what we believe the first century churches gathered. Not just because we wanna go back to the first century, [00:05:00] but because we think those patterns are important for making churches that can actually multiply. So we've spent a long time doing that, and we're in a place where I think we're probably getting close to being ready to start multiplying some churches.

[00:05:14] So that's my situation. I'm not gonna go into all of my sports affinities but I'll skip that part.

[00:05:21] Matt Andersen: That's okay. That's okay. We love you, Scott. No matter who you root for.

[00:05:25] 

[00:05:27] Scott Canion: We'll avoid that controversy on the first episode.

[00:05:29] Matt Andersen: Yeah, that's right. So let's talk a little bit about where we wanna go with this podcast, Scott, and, one of the first questions that somebody might ask is why do we call it "guarding the good deposit?"

[00:05:40] And some of that really gets to the heart of what we're trying to do here. And that phrase "guarding the good deposit" it comes from when Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:14, he urged Timothy to, "Guard the good deposit" that's been entrusted to him. And I think what's [00:06:00] important for us to say right up front is that this wasn't just kind of trite advice for a young leader in the first century.

[00:06:07] I think it's, it's something that we have to be doing in every generation as church leaders including ours. So part of the question is what exactly is that deposit and how do we faithfully steward that deposit today. So Scott, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that phrase good deposit and what that might, mean 'cause it is a, a little bit of a rich term. There's a lot of meaning behind it there.

[00:06:31] Scott Canion: Yeah I think another term that Paul uses to describe that is sound doctrine.

[00:06:36] Matt Andersen: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:37] Scott Canion: If we hear guarding, guarding doctrine, it can make it sound like, uh, you know, Timothy was supposed to get into a bunch of theological arguments with, other scholars of the time, but that's not what he did.

[00:06:49] And that's not what was happening. And so it's easy for us to take our own situation or the tradition that we've grown up in and lay it over the top of those terms and think of those [00:07:00] terms in light of our tradition. And I think part of what we're trying to do in this conversation is get back to what was in Paul's head when he said that to Timothy? And it wasn't about a theological argument, in some seminary or some theological school. It was about building mature churches. 

[00:07:19] Matt Andersen: Yeah, and I think it's important that you brought up that idea of, doctrine, right? And sometimes in our world today, we think of that and we think of a church tradition and all of the doctrinal stances that they may take. You sometimes see that front and center on a church webpage or something like that.

[00:07:37] But many of these are really based on secondary type traditions. When we talk about tradition or the apostolic tradition, we're not trying to be, I don't know. There's this idea, I guess, that, the New Testament is laying down a tradition, an apostolic tradition, that is to be guarded and protected, and it's that, that sound [00:08:00] doctrine. Because we can get all caught up in all sorts of arguments in our day to day, and the theological arguments will never be answered if we're only arguing from our secondary tradition perspective, whether it's Baptist or Pentecostal or Presbyterian or whatever tradition you might come from, there's tens of thousands of them in our world today, so I think that, for us to be able to go back to the New Testament and say, Hey, what was important for Paul to tell Timothy to guard? That's part of what we want to be able to get at, over the course of these episodes. So, he's, he's not just talking about preferences, right?

[00:08:39] He's not talking about preferences or programs or, or different styles of ministry. He's talking about some apostolic patterns or the apostolic tradition. Scott, one, one of the terms we've used before too, to describe that, is this idea of the first principles of the faith, like he wrote about in Colossians, and we hear the writer of [00:09:00] Hebrews using that term. Can you, can you maybe just talk about that for a second and how that kind of fits into this idea?

[00:09:06] Scott Canion: Yeah, I mean the idea that there are basics that have to be understood and mastered, you know, when we think about sound, back to the sound doctrine idea, like you said, we tend to think about that as something you believe, something you can put into a statement of faith or a statement of belief, and then something you can distinguish yourself from other Christian traditions and decide how closely you're gonna relate to those Christian traditions when what was actually going on there with those elementary principles, those basic first principles, was a way of shaping churches that were built around a set of patterns, around a set of practices, around a set of principles that shape who they are and every aspect of their lives together from their own individual personal [00:10:00] development to how they shape their households, to how those households make up and live together in a community. That's what those principles were meant to define. That's not how we use doctrine in our conversation today, we, we use it as a way of separating ourselves rather than a way of unifying ourselves around a set of patterns.

[00:10:22] So I think those elementary principles are the things that were first given to the churches in order to help them orient their lives together around this set of patterns. And I know that we're moving in that direction because we're moving toward where do we find those patterns, that these principles are meant to help shape churches around. So I know that's upcoming in our conversation.

[00:10:47] Matt Andersen: You know, as we move forward in this podcast series, each conversation is really gonna end up being, getting back to those elementary principles, those foundational principles, to recover this [00:11:00] New Testament paradigm that unfortunately looks very different from what we see in most churches today, right? So we really, this is an invitation for church leaders, for church members, whoever it might be that's listening to say, Hey, we want to get back to those New Testament patterns, and start, like you mentioned, it's not just a theological stance, it's a way of life, that we're talking about here. It's principles that really shape everything that we do from our home life to our work, to our church life and how we relate to those in our church communities as family. And it's an important call for us to get back to, and we believe that this is where if the church can get back to these patterns that we can see some, really, exciting things. We are seeing some really exciting things happening, throughout the world today. That's why it's important that we explore these ideas together. So we, just want to invite people to be a part of that conversation, and that's really what we mean by guarding the good deposit.

[00:11:57] All of these ideas, these patterns, the [00:12:00] paradigm, the sound doctrine that Paul imparted to Timothy, we want to be able to identify that and say Hey, we need to shape everything around that. So with that said, before we start getting into some conversation around the Book of Acts, I do wanna point out that there's a few things we're gonna be doing in the process of these conversations every episode, every time we look through the scriptures. And we're gonna be starting in the first step of this process today, but there's a few things that we want to be looking at as we go through the book of Acts.

[00:12:32] And we're gonna be looking very heavily at the author's intent. We'll talk about in a second, what that means, the literary design of the book. How is this document structured? The biblical theology around it. So that's really looking at how does this fit into the entire story of the Bible? And allowing the scripture, instead of taking the scripture and trying to fit it into our own pre-made categories, actually looking at and allowing the scripture to create its [00:13:00] own categories as it's part of God's unfolding plan. And then the last thing is doing theology in culture, and this is where we look at our world, our culture, our situation today, and we begin to apply these ideas, right?

[00:13:14] Once, once we understand the author's intent, the literary design, we've done the biblical theology work, we understand how this fits into God's story for all creation, now we can easily compare and contrast things. So every series that we go through, you know, six or so episodes on the Book of Acts, we're gonna be walking through these four things.

[00:13:35] We're gonna be walking through the author's intent, the literary design, biblical theology, and theology in culture. And today we're gonna talk about the author's intent from the book of Acts. But Scott, let's just talk first about what is the author's intent and, why is that even important for us today? In general, not even getting into Acts yet.

[00:13:56] Scott Canion: Yeah, I mean the, I would say it's a misunderstood concept, but I don't even [00:14:00] think it's a concept for, um, most churches today. The idea that the scriptures are accessible, for every single person, and that the way we access them is to go in with asking the question, what does this mean for me?

[00:14:18] Or what does this mean to me? Is a backward way of approaching the scriptures. It's starting even beyond the theology and culture piece that you just mentioned. It's going all the way down to the individual and trying to take a snippet of a verse or a few verses and make them work for some specific thing in my life without ever considering that those verses are part of a whole document that was carefully crafted by someone to address a specific situation and without ever thinking about why that person wrote that and what was the situation they were addressing and what did they hope to accomplish by [00:15:00] writing it. And then there's also the idea that there are collections of these writings in the scriptures, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that were put together and crafted in a certain way to address a community of people around a set of thinking and living. And so we've gotta figure out what was going on? Why were those authors writing those things? How did those collections come to be? And how were they being used? If we're understanding that the Spirit has had a role, that human beings have had a role and that the Spirit has had a role in coming up with what we call the Bible today, then we have to address the work of the Spirit and the work of those human beings who wrote it and understand what was going on. And then after we've done those things, this is just what you were talking about, authors intent, literary design, biblical theology, then we can think about our own situation, and we can think about our own [00:16:00] churches and our own lives and bring those ideas to bear in the situation that we find ourselves.

[00:16:06] Matt Andersen: One of the key words you use there is like we're gonna talk about with the Book of Acts, there's a specific situation that Luke was embedded in and that he was writing for a specific purpose. And sometimes we forget that, or if we bypass that, we run the risk of potentially drastically misinterpreting the scriptures. And it's the idea that, the scripture was written and preserved for us, but not necessarily written to us. And we have to really be, understanding and, and there's, there's definite clues from the scripture that can let us know, what was the purpose? What was the intent? What was the intended meaning of the book of Acts or any book of the Bible as we go through and we study those things. So we really, really have to be able to understand that author's intent. And, you know, some of these ideas [00:17:00] were, developed over the years through some, biblical hermeneutical work by guys like Walt Kaiser and Elliot Johnson. And a lot of these guys really argue for the fact that before we can discover the significance of the text in our own cultural situation, we must discover the author's intended meaning as expressed in the biblical text of a specific book and the intent of collections of books.

[00:17:25] That's another interesting thing of this too, is it's not even today, we're gonna be talking about not just Acts, but Luke-Acts as two volumes that are connected together as a collection of books. So, um, so yeah, this is, this is a really, really key idea for us to be able to understand this idea of the author's intent. 

[00:17:45] And ultimately the goal is not for us to just have better information, right? But the goal is for us to have lives and church families that are shaped around these biblical patterns that we see throughout the scripture. [00:18:00] So, Scott, any final thoughts on, on this idea of author's intent before we start to dig in a little bit?

[00:18:05] Scott Canion: No, that was, about it for how I was thinking about it. I mean, again, it's just, making sure that our approach is consistent with the history of the work of God in his people.

[00:18:18] Matt Andersen: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:18] Scott Canion: so if we skip over all of that, then we run the risk of only just trying to be right.

[00:18:24] We don't actually become transformed communities.

[00:18:27] Matt Andersen: Yeah.

[00:18:27] Scott Canion: That's the goal.

[00:18:28] Matt Andersen: Yeah, that's right. So, this is part of that process that we're gonna be walking through, like we said, author's intent, literary design, biblical theology, theology in culture. That's part of the goal of this podcast in general, is we want to try to be faithful to that process and having a conversation based around that framework. So that's some of the foundation. Before we go any further, we're actually gonna take a short break and when we return, we're going to start to dig into the book of Acts directly, so we will be [00:19:00] right back.

[00:19:02] If you're serious about understanding New Testament patterns of church life, the Antioch School of Church Planting and Leadership Development will help you build a framework from the scriptures, not through lectures from academics, but through real-time Socratic discussion with a cohort of like-minded leaders.

[00:19:30] Every instructor at the Antioch School is an active church planter or ministry leader, someone still in the field wrestling with the same challenges you face. Programs are competency-based, so you can earn a degree that reflects your actual development in life and ministry. Their programs are accredited, globally connected, and designed to work inside your ministry context, not pull [00:20:00] you out of it.

[00:20:01] To learn more, visit antiochschool.edu.

[00:20:09] If you've been encouraged or challenged by what you're hearing on Guarding the Good Deposit, there are a couple of simple ways you can help us keep this conversation going. First, take a moment to follow, like, and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening on. That really helps us get this content in front of more people who are wrestling with these same questions.

[00:20:35] And if you'd like to support the work more directly, you can give a gift at buymeacoffee.com/gooddeposit. Your support helps us continue producing conversations like this and making them available to others

[00:21:00] All right, everybody, welcome back. We are ready to dig into the Book of Acts, but, let me just mention this because we can't really talk about Acts without also looking at part one which is the Book of Luke. So we're gonna get into a little bit of discussion around Luke and Acts but now we wanna start to dig into this directly. It's really not just a standalone book, right? It's volume two of a two part work, written by Luke. Who was a coworker of Paul, he was part of Paul's apostolic team. So volume one, the Gospel of Luke, it tells us, and I love this because it tells us what Jesus began to do and teach.

[00:21:41] And now we start to get into the Book of Acts and it's showing us what Jesus continued to do and teach through the Spirit and through his followers. So I want to just point everybody's attention first to two key passages that we'd encourage you to take a look at.

[00:21:59] One [00:22:00] from the book of Luke. Luke one, one through four. Where Luke says specifically, he's writing these things that you may have certainty or confidence concerning the things you have been taught. And this is so key because Luke is writing to Theophilus, to affirm and confirm the things that Theophilus has already been taught.

[00:22:25] He's wanting to make sure that Theophilus has confidence of the things that he's been taught and, that he would have certainty around these things. So that's Luke one, one through four. Also acts one, one through eight, Luke says, in my former account I told you about all of the things that Jesus began to do and teach.

[00:22:45] So according to Luke Acts would be all of the things that Jesus is continuing to do and teach through, not His physical presence, but through the presence of his Holy Spirit among his people. So, [00:23:00] Scott, any thoughts or comments on these ideas from Luke 1, Acts 1, as we start to get into, writer's intent.

[00:23:06] Scott Canion: Yeah. Two, two questions or maybe a two part question comes to mind right away. If Luke-Acts is a collection of two documents that Luke put together and if there were already, if Luke is saying in Luke one, one to four, there's already things that you've been taught and these things are meant to reinforce that, then why are we starting with Acts and not Luke and then Acts, and why are we starting with Acts and not the things they'd already been taught?

[00:23:40] Matt Andersen: Hmm.

[00:23:40] Scott Canion: So what, that's just a question that I'd like to know your answer to.

[00:23:45] Matt Andersen: Yeah, that's a very good question. I think part of it is, because what we're seeing unfolding in the book of Acts is ultimately the great commission being unfolded, and it's, the situation that we find [00:24:00] ourselves in, in this progress of the gospel and the unfolding of the Great Commission that really serves as a pattern or a model for us today. And I think that's part of the reason for me wanting to dig into the book of Acts first is because it's like, hey, this is, the part of the story as we look at the Biblical story, this is the part of the story that we're living in in our world today. And we have to understand how God's plan is unfolding, not just in the first century, but how God's plan is intended to unfold for us today. So I think most people don't have a full understanding of how their church family or their life at home or their work life fits into God's plan, and Acts can start to show us how the mission is unfolding there. 

[00:24:50] Scott Canion: I think this is what you were already saying, but the idea that Acts functions as a set of keys for really [00:25:00] unlocking Christ's plan, and then it sets the framework for the entire New Testament. So It functions as a framework piece for everything that's going on in the New Testament. So I know it's one of those documents that was written late in the first century, but Luke has intentionally gone back, like you mentioned in Luke one, one to four, where he says, I, I've really researched this well, you can have strong confidence that not only is this how things unfolded, but this was all Christ's plan this is what He's doing, and this is what He intends to continue to happen as He builds this global family movement that He initiated that is just a continuation of what God's been doing in the world since the beginning.

[00:25:47] Matt Andersen: Yeah.

[00:25:48] Scott Canion: I think Acts does kind of function in that way of unlocking that so that then we're able to see it all. 'cause we didn't live through the first [00:26:00] century like Luke's audience did. We live centuries later. So it gives us an orientation to everything that unfolded, that then gives us the framework to interact with the rest of the New Testament.

[00:26:14] Matt Andersen: When you use that word framework right, it sets the framework so that we can understand. One of the key characters in Acts is Paul, right? Pretty much the second half of the book is Paul, and his work of the expansion of the gospel.

[00:26:28] It gives us a framework to really understand all of his writings, all of his letters are embedded in that framework of the book of Acts, and we can better understand all of his writings because we understand what he is doing and what he's trying to accomplish in the Book of Acts. And so I think it is that key framework. And the same is true for, for the gospels. The same is true for Peter's writings, John's writings. If we understand that framework, that situation of how this is all happening, it can really help us understand [00:27:00] what the authors are trying to accomplish through their writings.

[00:27:04] So let's talk a little bit about some of the things, and I just wanna, bring this up because I think it's important for us to understand what Luke is trying to do and what he's not trying to do, in the Book of Acts. So I'm just gonna list a couple of things here because there's some important things that we need to understand Luke is not trying to do, and sometimes I think we run the risk in our world today of actually trying to interpret Acts, trying to understand Acts based on things that he's not even trying to do.

[00:27:32] So for instance, Luke is not necessarily trying to give us a comprehensive church history. There's too many details left out. And let me just mention too, there's a really great writing, by Gordon Fee, it's called The Problem of Historical Precedent, he talks about some of these ideas, in that paper.

[00:27:50] But, there's too many details left out about what Luke is, you know, he's not doing a comprehensive history. It's primarily [00:28:00] about Peter in the first half of the book. Paul's ministry in the second half of the book, but what about all of the other stuff going on?

[00:28:08] What about all the other apostles? What about all the different areas that the gospel expanded? Not just through Paul's ministry, but through, John is mentioned very little. James is mentioned very little, like, all, all of these guys. He's not trying to be comprehensive from a historical standpoint.

[00:28:26] He's also not interested in biographies necessarily. you know, we see early on we see Peter as very prominent and then all of a sudden he's not very prominent, right?

[00:28:35] So he's not trying to give us a full biography of Peter or a full biography of Paul or any of these guys. There's lots of holes, really. I think that's one of the things that we have to be careful of is sometimes we make assumptions about things but there's things that are missing here, right? We're making assumptions about things that Luke intentionally does not address. So, he's also not trying to set a stage for [00:29:00] church polity. He doesn't say a lot about how churches were organized in terms of polity or leadership other than to say that elders were appointed in certain places, right?

[00:29:11] Paul gets into a lot of this later on in his letters, but that's not, Luke's primary purpose here. The last thing I'll say too is that he's not trying to address all of the areas where the church grew. Primarily he's talking about the progress of the gospel. We'll see it traced from Jerusalem, through Antioch and through Asia Minor, and ultimately to Rome, kind of the center of the world at that time.

[00:29:38] But there were other regions where the church grew significantly. He doesn't say anything about Crete, where Titus was, Ilyricum, which is mentioned in Romans 15. Pontus, Cappadocia, Bythinia in First Peter one those are mentioned. Not to mention everything in the east towards Mesopotamia or to the [00:30:00] south, towards Egypt and Africa and those regions.

[00:30:02] So there's a lot that Luke is not trying to do. That's really the point of what I'm talking about here. What he is trying to do is tracing the progress of this movement from Jerusalem to Rome.

[00:30:13] And he's highlighting the work of the Spirit in the progress of the gospel and how the Spirit is strategically working. Not really random, right? Also tracing this movement from a largely Jewish sect to ultimately being a movement of Jews and Gentiles as one united family. Which is really, really key, and I believe he's intending for this to be a model. Not necessarily of the specifics, but for us to understand that overall framework. So, Scott, I know I just threw a lot out there about what he's not trying to do or what he is trying to do, but, tell me what I missed. Tell me what I'm right or wrong on, what do you think?

[00:30:55] Scott Canion: No, I just, I'll reinforce the things you were saying it, it's as much a [00:31:00] clue to us we're clued into his intent as much by what's not there as what is there? Like you said, if he were writing for historical or anthropological purposes, we'd see a lot more detail about the people in their lives or details of in between all, all the pieces or, there, there's none of that there. Things skip around. Things jump ahead. Things slow down at a certain point and focus in on specific things and then speed up and skip past a lot of the details to another piece. And so getting the sense of why Luke is doing this, that he's putting together this document that's gonna establish a framework that can be used for understanding how the Spirit works through small communities and these apostolic type leaders and their teams to shape churches. I think the next piece, and I know you, I think you've mentioned this already, the [00:32:00] idea that there, that Acts has a, a shape to it. Luke wrote this for a specific purpose, but he also shaped it that way. And so you've kind of, you've mentioned the trajectory of from you know, a small Jewish movement to a global Gentile plus Jew movement. and some of the trajectory of being really kind of, random and spontaneous in the beginning and, and then moving toward an idea of that there's a, there's some framework and structure to both how that spontaneity, is, is managed and, and given structure, but also how that ongoing pattern of structure actually creates more spontaneity. Um, so it, it's worth thinking about both the overall intent of Luke in writing this and how he put it together gives us a, I think, a clearer sense of what he's doing as [00:33:00] well.

[00:33:00] Matt Andersen: Yeah, and you know, some of this is really the idea as you're talking there, Scott, it's Luke is being strategic, right? He's not just recording history, he's teaching Theophilus. He's helping him to be confident in what he's already been taught and he's being very strategic in, the accounts that he includes and also the ones that he, doesn't include.

[00:33:24] Gordon Fee, said at one point, you know, we tend to all approach the book of Acts with our own interests in mind. However, we really need to approach Acts with Luke's interest in mind, and that's one of the tricky things for us as modern readers. We often come to it with our own interests, we try to come and affirm our own solutions rather than actually looking for how Christ's plan is working itself out. So as we talk about this idea of the author's intent. There's an author that I appreciate that has been helpful to me, and he [00:34:00] tells this story.

[00:34:00] He says, imagine reading an old document that was written in the year 1720, and the writer describes playing a game with a ball and a stick organized into innings involving running, and he uses the words umpire and outfield and pitch. We would naturally conclude in our day today, well, he's probably writing about baseball.

[00:34:23] But the problem is baseball wasn't invented until over a hundred years later in 1846. So the document that he's writing in 1720, it describes cricket, a game that predates baseball by more than 200 years. So the author could have spared us all the confusion by clearly stating, I'm writing about cricket and not baseball.

[00:34:46] But it's unfair for us to say, Hey, this author should have told us, right? We should have put on this author, to write about something that did not even exist for more than a hundred years. So to the original [00:35:00] audience in 1720, there wouldn't have been any confusion at all. And I think this kind of illustrates how we get confused about author's intent today is because we take our modern assumptions, we take our modern church systems, we take our modern situations, and we try to overlay them on a book like Acts.

[00:35:20] And if we neglect the author's situation, and what he's actually trying to say. We can be making assumptions or getting confused about things like baseball and cricket. When Luke, he knew nothing of our modern assumptions. He's just operating within that ancient first century, situation that he has been involved in.

[00:35:40] So, you know, just like the 1720 audience wouldn't have been confused. Theophilus wasn't confused by this book either. He would understand what Luke was trying to do. And for us, if we read acts through a modern lens, we can get ourselves into some trouble, or we can really risk [00:36:00] misunderstanding what Luke is, uh, is trying to do.

[00:36:02] So I, I think that kind of gives us a little idea too, of how we ought to approach this book with understanding the author's intent here. Any response to that Scott?

[00:36:11] Scott Canion: Yeah, I mean, it's why we think of Acts as history, or at the most as some sort of character lesson, because when we read backwards from our situation onto the text, a lot of it doesn't make sense for us. And so we end up finding the pieces that we can do something with in our own systems and kind of either discarding the others or just making them history, when in fact Luke is really clear that he's carefully put these two documents together in order to teach us something. And he was part of Paul's team, Luke's traveling with Paul for part of the book of Acts. You can see the pronouns change when he's traveling with Paul and how it's [00:37:00] "we." So there's something going on there that Luke wants us to understand that is more than just a good history lesson. He's trying to help us orient our lives around a set of teachings. And so we've gotta get to the bottom of that. What are the teachings there? And I think it does connect to some of the things we're talking about, about how Acts is organized because there is the trajectory of moving from Jew to Gentile and there is also this, at least in the second half of Acts, this sort of travel log, and so we have to be clear in our thinking of how is Acts put together, what are the pieces there, and what are each of those pieces doing? Because we've already talked about two ways of thinking about how to organize Acts. One is around the gospel going from Jerusalem to Judea and then to the, the rest of the world. Um, and there's also this kind of travel log idea, well, maybe it's organized around these travels [00:38:00] that, that Paul is, is doing. I think that's typically how people think about Acts being organized because those both fit easily into the historical narrative thing. But if Acts is something else, if Acts is actually meant to teach leaders and churches how to shape themselves a framework that they're meant to follow and that all churches are meant to follow and a trajectory of work that's meant to be accomplished, then we've gotta figure out how has Luke organized the book of Acts in order to accomplish that, in order to teach us those things.

[00:38:34] Matt Andersen: Yeah. And some of what you're talking about with how the book is organized, we're gonna get into more in episode two as well. We're gonna get a lot more detailed on that, as we talk about the literary design of the entire book too. But all of that is, is so key for us to understand.

[00:38:51] So let me just, let me make this, this statement here, Scott, and let's, let's maybe, you know, we can, we can shift or refine or, [00:39:00] or whatever, with this statement. But, if we're looking at Luke and Acts and Luke is writing to Theophilus. He wants him to be confident about the things that he's been taught. He's showing the unfolding of the great commission and the establishment of the church according to Christ's plan. This is, this is all that Christ continued to do and teach. I guess my question is, is it safe to say that Luke is showing us a strategy, right? A Spirit led strategy or a Spirit led framework for how we can live out the great commission today.

[00:39:37] And the second part I would say is understanding Luke as being catechetical. So when he talks about that word teach right, for Theophilus to have confidence in the things that he has been taught, it's that word catechesis, the things that you have been catechized in. And sometimes we hear that word catechesis and we, push back against it or it seems [00:40:00] like too, like high church or religious or whatever, but it's this idea of being taught patterns, and to be taught in an intentional ordered way. If we start to understand Acts as being part of that catechesis, we're not just asking what happened back then, we're asking what was entrusted to the church and how can we fulfill that in our day today. So I don't know, Scott, your thoughts on Acts being strategic and acts being catechetical when we talk about the author's intent.

[00:40:36] Scott Canion: Yeah. The way you described it, and this is how I grew up thinking about catechism, is it's something you do, early years as a Catholic, where you're learning kind of rote information or It's, I think in the Protestant world it's probably Sunday school. You know, it's, it's the, it's the stuff you do when you're young, where you kind of wrote [00:41:00] memorize facts about the Bible and, about your particular tradition. And, so it's just, a way of laying in. Facts. you know, and, and that's all it is. That's, that's what, that's what catechism is, but that's not what we're talking about when we say catechetical.

[00:41:20] That's a specific use of the word. It's got a more general meaning, which is what you're talking about, which is just instruction. It's meant to instruct us and help us learn. And we talked to, when we talked earlier about, the intent of Luke for Acts. Um, I think the way I talked about it was that Acts helps us recognize the keys and patterns that then unlock Christ's plan. And you use the word, a few minutes ago of strategy, and when I say Christ's plan, I'm talking about the same thing. I'm talking about what was Jesus' grand strategy for what He, the plan that He wanted to [00:42:00] accomplish, and how was he planning to use the church accomplish that. So if that's what Acts is doing, it's showing Christ's Grand Strategy and how that initially unfolded, and it's giving us the framework for how that continues to unfold. And so we need to pay careful attention to it because there are lots of ways that, that we tend to think about what it means to see the church grow and expand today. But I don't think many of them have considered that actually Jesus has a strategy that that strategy has been recorded for us in a way that is meant to teach us. And so we need to understand and be able to look at it, not that it's down to every nuanced detail, but that it gives us patterns to follow that we have to understand and move forward in.

[00:42:53] Matt Andersen: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, as you're talking about that too, Scott, I know you and I have had [00:43:00] conversations with others around this idea of the strategic Spirit as well. Right. And how the Spirit works strategically. And I think that's something that, many people don't think of the work of the Spirit as something that the Spirit is operating strategically and laying out a strategy for it. They think of it as the, the work of the Spirit as a very individualized thing, rather than a community-wide thing. And they think of the Spirit as just like a in the moment type thing. But the reality is. Christ's Spirit has like, it's so beautiful to think that Christ's Spirit as he's working in and through these communities throughout the Book of Acts, is actually laying out that strategic plan for us all as his followers.

[00:43:46] To be able to approach the book of Acts in that way where it's like, oh, this was not just, it was not just the Spirit operating, through a dream with Peter and Cornelius and a vision, right? It was not just [00:44:00] one individual instance of the Spirit working in that way, but it was the Spirit's plan completely unfolding and developing this whole framework for us that I think is really beautiful when you start to see that it's, it, it, it's a beautiful thing.

[00:44:16] I don't know. I don't know how else to.

[00:44:17] Scott Canion: yeah. If this is Christ's plan so it's his plan for all time, and so his Spirit is continuing to do the work to bring about that plan, then as we align ourselves with that plan, we're more in cooperation with the Spirit and it, unleashes the Spirit to work in ways that otherwise require a lot of maneuvering.

[00:44:39] Matt Andersen: Yeah. So, we've talked about how, we're gonna be approaching the book of Acts that it is intended to be strategic, it's intended to be catechetical. It's supposed to be patterns that we are intended to follow, and I just wanna read a quote from our friend Jeff Reed, real quick just to kind of summarize some of this.

[00:44:59] I think it's a good [00:45:00] summary quote. He says this, he says. This is intended to be all that we need to fully understand the plan of Christ, which encases and is woven together with the teaching that the Christians received. Thus, the essentials of Christ's plan when woven with the teaching gave them the keys to the successful establishment and expansion of the early church. It is this foundational plan and teaching woven together that we are to build our ministries upon for all subsequent generations. 

[00:45:37] Scott Canion: Yeah, I mean, Acts has the plan. And the teaching is the stuff that Luke says they had already been taught in, so when you combine those, that Luke had this special role of laying out the plan in a very clear way, combined with the fact that the things they had been taught, we now have preserved in Paul's letters in the epistles. We can now put those two things [00:46:00] together and move forward with confidence.

[00:46:02] Matt Andersen: Yeah, that's right. So, so far we have set the stage for the podcast. We've laid the foundation for the book of Acts, I think, where if we can understand Luke's intention for Acts, that it's intended to be catechetical, it allows us to see the book of Acts in a whole new light. And so Scott, I think that's it for today.

[00:46:25] Um, So next episode we're gonna be looking at some of the patterns like we talked about from Acts that begin to reveal themselves once we understand what Luke is trying to do. We're gonna get into the literary design of the book, specifically looking at six different sections of Acts.

[00:46:43] So I'd encourage people even before, you dive into episode two, if you're listening along read the whole book. See if you can find those, six different literary sections. There's specific markers that actually outline those six sections of the book of [00:47:00] Acts. So again, Scott, thanks for taking the time to have this conversation, I look forward to continuing the conversation over the coming weeks and months. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. I feel like we're just getting started. This is the very tip of the iceberg, of some of this conversation. But, thanks for joining us for our inaugural episode of Guarding the Good Deposit.

[00:47:23] Scott Canion: Thanks, Matt.​

[00:47:24] Matt Andersen: Thanks everyone for listening. We're grateful you joined us for this conversation, and we hope it's helping you reflect more deeply on the foundations of our faith. It's super helpful to us if you could follow, like, and subscribe to our podcast on whatever platform you may be using. It really goes a long way towards getting our content out to more listeners.

[00:47:50] To learn more, visit us at guardingthegooddeposit.com. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, questions, and [00:48:00] comments. Feel free to message us directly on the podcast feed, on social media, or you can send us an email at hello@guardingthegooddeposit.com. You can also follow us on Substack. Scott's Substack can be found at afterchristendom.com, and Matt's Substack is patternsandparadigms.com.

[00:48:28] If you'd like to support the work we're doing, you can give a gift at buymeacoffee.com/gooddeposit. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time. Guarding the Good Deposit is a Majikisme production. Music by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors