All That We Know

Scripture — Acts 2:37-41 (NRSV)

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

Devotion

This coming Sunday is the Third Sunday of Easter. (If you’re interested in why the lectionary provides readings from Acts during the Easter season instead of Old Testament readings, check out my devotionals from 2021 and 2023). The Easter season is, if you remember, fifty days long, and at this point for you the initial excitement of Easter Sunday may have worn off and the coming excitement of Pentecost may not yet have descended. Instead, here you are and here I am smack-dab in the middle of what is supposed to be 50 days of joy. Y’all (as they say here in Kentucky), fifty days of joy is hard. In fact, almost ten years ago I started a practice of taking a picture of a sign of new life every day of the Easter season to sustain me on those days when sorrow seemed closer than joy.

On this Sunday, we actually have a teaser for some of those upcoming exciting events in our Acts reading. This passage is part of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. After the tongues fall and the crowd has shared both amazement and derision, Peter delivers a very remarkable sermon from 2:14-36. There are a number of such sermons in Acts, where people are called on to testify to the good news of Christ and where they do so by explaining the background in Jewish or pagan history for Christ’s coming before confronting people with the claims of the Gospel. This, the first of these sermons, sets the paradigm for the others. Since the audience here is Jewish, Peter talks at length about how Jesus’s coming was prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures—he concludes right before our assigned passage with the words “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (2:36).

The crowd is deeply affected by his preaching and wish to become part of this movement, and so he gives them the very basic—but also profoundly difficult—charge: “Repent and be baptized.” And they take him up on it; three thousand people join the Way that day. But, as the rest of Acts will make clear, this is the beginning and not the end of the story. Some early followers will fall away (5:1-11). Some will suffer greatly (7:54-60). Some people will be incorporated completely unexpectedly (chapters 9-10). Debates and divisions will arise (there are two in chapter 15 alone).

We can choose to follow Jesus in an instant. But continuing to choose to follow Jesus is a lifelong journey. Recently, I had occasion to read through the writings of  my grandfather, who I’ve talked about here before, for an academic project. I discovered a wonderful passage in his writings about how he himself had lived out this journey, and I leave it here with you to ponder as you repent—now, daily, and always:

I knelt as a high school sophomore at an altar rail in a small Methodist Church in southern New Jersey. I was seeking the fullness of the Spirit. That evening, actually in my mind, I laid two bundles upon the altar rail. I can see them now. One was a small bundle and it bore the label “all that I know.” Even though a sophomore in high school, I really did not know much. The other bundle was labeled “all that I do not know.” It was so big that I wondered if it would fit in under the ceiling of the church sanctuary. I realized that night that I was giving God my all— “all that I know” and “all that I do not know.” I could not give Him any more.
Were I to kneel at an altar rail today and consecrate myself to God all over again, the bundles would be vastly different in size from the original ones. The big bundle now is marked “all that I know.” Many times since that night in my boyhood church, the divine hand has reached into the bundle which was then marked “all that I do not know,” and pulled out something, now to be known. Then I have been confronted with the soul-penetrating question: “Did you really mean what you said that night? Are you willing to consecrate this also? Can this now be placed in the other bundle ‘all that I know’?” I believe that each time I have been able to say “Yes, Lord,” I have endeavored to live in a continuing covenant of obedience to Christ.
—Frank Bateman Stanger, “Gift, Gifts, Fruit,” The Asbury Seminarian 33, no. 2 (1978), p. 17

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: A Christian Identity as God’s Kingdom Witnesses in Daily Life (Acts 2:1-41).