Justo L. Gonzalez, a United Methodist minister, professor, and scholar of church history, once renamed The Acts of the Apostles. For anyone who bristles at that notion, consider the disagreement between two academic heavyweights. Religious historian Bret Nongbri argues that “titles,” which were subscript at the ends of the manuscripts, were likely original. Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman argues that New Testament Gospels were originally untitled, and that the early church later added titles for practical and theological reasons related to the process of canonization. Either way, what we can say is that ancient writers did not “title” their writings like modern writers title ours. If Ehrman is right, there were no “titles” until later readers and scholars added them in. Even if Nongbri is right, the “titles” of the writers of the NT Gospels were not titles but subscripts at the end of the work. Either way, I’m with the Vedanta teacher Swami Chetanananda: “The older I get, the less I know. It’s wonderful—it makes the world so spacious.”

I very much like Justo Gonzalez calling The Acts of the Apostles “The Gospel of the Spirit” in the title of his biblical commentary. His point in doing so is not to get titles in Bibles changed, but to say: The Holy Spirit, not Peter or Paul, is the main character of this unique NT book. Reading Gonzalez’s commentary for a seminary course persuaded me. I have read Acts with an eye for what the Holy Spirit is up to in every story, ever since.

This coming Sunday is the Day of Pentecost. For all that the word and its derivative “Pentecostal” have come to mean since the early 20th century, “Pentecost” simply means “fiftieth.” It is the 50th day after Easter. We get this word from Acts 2, where the Spirit Jesus promised shows up. The Bible is full of theophanies in which God reveals Godself. The Burning Bush and the thunder and lightning on Sinai count. The transfiguration of Jesus counts. And, the Spirit appearing “like the rush of a violent wind” and filling “the entire house” with “divided tongues, as of fire” is another one. 

This coming Pentecost Sunday, the tongue of the sermon will be divided. I will share the pulpit with another able preacher: Rev. Kristy Bay. She and I will preach Pentecost together. Kristy and I have done this before. I dreamed up this idea in my pastoral study years back while pondering Fred Craddock’s teaching that a sermon on a biblical text should be as faithful to the form of the text as it is to the content of it. One way to get at that on Pentecost Sunday is to have

a polyphonic sermon, I thought.

This Sunday, Kristy and I will bring a word in worship together. The sermon will focus on The Gospel…the “good news”…of the Spirit. Contrary to common readings, Acts is not a rulebook by which we decide how faithful we are to God by how closely we imitate “the early church.” Rather, Acts is another wild and wondrous story about “God with us” —in every breeze, in every breath— “always, to the end of the age. Amen.”

~ Rev. Zach Bay