As long as I'm giving unconventional tips from the blogs I'd like to introduce you to a site from Montreal that provides excellent commentary for church bulletins, introductions to the readings for churches that use them, and what I find most enjoyable - clippings of interesting things found that didn't make it into either of the others. The site is Comments: Commentaries on the Revised Common Lectionary a ministry of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal by Christ Haslam. I am consistently impressed with his ability to make issues clear to the average church goer without talking down to them or over-simplifying. He work is well worth reading even if you have no interest in using a lectionary.
This sample is for the first reading for The Ascension of our Lord (May 5, 2016):
Acts 1:1-11
Verses 1-2: In Luke 1:2-4, Luke writes: “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed”. [ NOAB]
Verse 2: “the apostles whom he had chosen”: This parallels Luke 6:13, the selection of the Twelve, yet it also looks back to Luke 24:44-49, Jesus’ followers receive the risen Lord’s final instructions. [ NJBC]
Verse 3: “many convincing proofs”: Some are in Luke 24:13-53. [ NOAB]
Verse 3: “forty days”: The Septuagint translation furnishes precedents for such a rounded period of preparation, e.g. Exodus 24:18; 34:28 (Moses); 1 Kings 19:8 (Elijah); Numbers 13:25; 14:34 (preparation for crossing into the Promised Land) – and closer at hand, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, an event that precedes his first preaching. So the number represents sufficient time for the witnesses’ preparation. Fifty, as forty plus the “not many days from now” (v. 5) is the number of days from Passover to Jewish Pentecost and from Easter to Christian Pentecost. [ NJBC]
Verse 3: “speaking about the kingdom of God”: A constant theme of Jesus’ teaching. See, for example, Luke 4:43; 8:1; 9:11. It also a theme of the first missionaries, the Seventy, in Luke 10:1-9. [ NJBC]
Verse 4: “staying”: NJBC points out that the Greek word can also be translated as eating. He says that this meaning is more probable, given Luke 24:43 and Acts 10:41.
Verse 4: “not to leave Jerusalem”: Jesus also commands this in Luke 24:49. Jerusalem is the spiritual symbol of continuity between the times of Jesus and that of the Church. [ NJBC]
Verse 4: “the promise of the Father”: This fills out, and varies, the reprise of Luke 24:49. The promise will be announced in 2:33; it is mentioned as fulfilled in Galatians 3:14 and Ephesians 1:13. [ NJBC]
Verse 5: For John the Baptizer’s prediction that the Messiah would baptise people with the Holy Spirit, see Mark 1:8; Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16; John 1:33. The notion is also found in the Qumran literature. The conjunction of water baptism and outpouring of the Spirit (see Ezekiel 36:25-26 and John 7:37-39) will recur in 2:38; 8:14-16; 10:47-48; 19:5-6. [ NJBC]
Verses 6-11: These verses follow Luke 24:50-51. [ NOAB]
Verse 6: “they”: This is probably more than the Eleven.
Verse 6: “restore the kingdom”: Comments quotes Luke 1:32. Prophecies are found in Jeremiah 33:7; Psalms 14:7; 85:1; Hosea 6:11; Sirach 48:10. [ NOAB] [ NJBC]
Verse 7: “times or periods”: See also 1 Thessalonians 5:1 (“the times and the seasons”). Acts 3:20-21 expands these words: “so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets”. [ NJBC]
Verse 8: “you will be my witnesses”: Of the restoration of the Kingdom. For the apostles as witnesses, see also Luke 24:46-48; Acts 1:22; 2:32. [ NOAB] [ NJBC]
Verse 8: “in Jerusalem, ... to the ends of the earth”:This is the movement of Acts – to Rome, so Rome is at the end in a religious sense. [ BlkActs]
Verse 8: “to the ends of the earth”: Isaiah 49:6, a verse in the second Servant Song, says “... I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth”. See also Acts 13:47. [ NJBC]
Verses 9-11: For direct verbal echoes, see 2 Kings 2:9-13 (Elijah’s ascension) and Sirach 48:9, 12. While only Luke tells us the story of the Ascension, there are other possible traces of the tradition of the Ascension in Ephesians 4:8-10; 1 Timothy 3:16; John 20:17; Epistle of Barnabas 15:9. [ NJBC]
Verse 9: “a cloud”: See also Exodus 33:7-11 (Moses meets with God) and Mark 9:7 (the Transfiguration).
Verse 10: “two men in white”: See also Luke 9:30, 34 (the Transfiguration, “Moses and Elijah”); 24:4-9 (the empty tomb). Such figures are semi-divine and are especially associated with the Last Days: see also Mark 9:3 and 1 Enoch 62:15ff. [ NJBC]
Verse 11: “will come in the same way”: This suggests that the Ascension and the second coming bound the present era. Jesus says in Luke 21:27: “‘Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory’”. [ NJBC]
Verse 12: “Olivet”: i.e. the Mount of Olives. [ NOAB] It is the site of Yahweh’s victory at the end of time: Zechariah 14:4 says “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward”. [ BlkActs]
Verse 12: “a sabbath day’s journey”: i.e. 1 km (half a mile). [ NOAB]
Verse 13: The list of disciples is the same as in Luke 6:14-16 (less Judas), but in a different order. [ NOAB] The first three (Peter, John and James) are those about whom we hear more in Acts: see 3:1-11; 4:13, 19; 8:14; 12:2. [ NJBC]
Verse 13: “the room upstairs”: This may be the one in which the Last Supper was held. 12:12 tells us that the house of Mark’s mother was “where many had gathered and were praying”, so perhaps this house was where Jesus’ followers gathered. [ BlkActs]
Verse 14: This is the first of the summaries in Acts, and probably idealizes, as do the others. It seems that the NRSV translates homothymadon as together , but it really means with one accord. REB offers All these with one accord were constantly at prayer, together with a group of women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. Homothymadon is also found in other summaries: at 2:46; 4:24; 5:12. [ NJBC]
Verse 14: “All”: The wider group around the Eleven harks back to Luke. After Jesus dies, Luke tells us that “all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things” (Luke 23:49). It is to “the eleven and to all the rest” that Mary Magdalene and other women tell the news about the empty tomb (Luke 24:9). When Cleopas and the other two followers return to Jerusalem, they find “the eleven and their companions gathered together” (Luke 24:33). [ NJBC]
Verse 14: “Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers”: They have been mentioned in Luke 8:19-21. This is the only mention of them in Acts except for Jesus’ brother James (who is not identified as such) in Acts 15:13 (the Council of Jerusalem). We know that this James is Jesus’ brother from Paul, in Galatians 1:19; 2:1-12. [ NJBC] [ HBD]
Verse 14: “his brothers”: Matthew 13:55 tells us that, when Jesus taught in the synagogue in Nazareth, one of the questions people asked was: And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”. [ NOAB] Jesus’ brothers had not believed in him during his earthly ministry but are now members of the Church. [ BlkActs]
