Matthew L. Skinner > Quotes

“waiting period trains them to be available and attentive so they might respond as followers when the time comes.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“More generally, the Gospel of Luke roots the coming of Jesus in the larger story of God’s reliability. When people in Luke 1–2 recognized the significance of John the Baptizer and Jesus, when the two were conceived and born, they extolled God as a promise keeper. Mary (Luke 1:46–55) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67–79) described God as remembering mercy and covenantal pledges. Simeon and Anna had similar responses (Luke 2:25–38). Jesus launched his ministry in Nazareth with a statement about scriptural promises finding their fulfillment in his work (Luke 4:16–21). Why should people be concerned with the question of whether God keeps promises? The point is not to box God into a strict set of definitions and expectations to make God utterly predictable. Nor is it about trying to prove Christianity is true. Rather, confidence in God’s dependability makes a key statement about who God is; it reaffirms God as a legitimate focus of our faith. Why should anyone put hope in a God who lacks the power or resolve to deliver on promises? Why trust a God who might terminate agreements or change the terms when the going gets rough? God’s reliability makes the good news about God’s disruptive activity good.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“Why the delay? For one thing, waiting often proves wise when people try to make sense of where and how God is accompanying them. Waiting reminds us of our dependence on God and the limitations of our ability to see and know God. By waiting, Jesus’s followers begin to learn that they need to be a responsive community, a community that waits upon God to initiate.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“A God who heals, restores, and delivers must be merciful and generous. A God who can save must be stronger than the forces that endanger. A God who establishes a people and dwells among them must be faithful to keep promises and also powerful enough to see them through.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“We learn about prophesying by watching Peter do it. His interpretation of the day’s events in light of Joel’s words offers an example of prophecy. More follows later in the chapter when he will explain to the crowd that the Holy Spirit comes from Jesus, the same One who was crucified, resurrected, and exalted. The coming of the Spirit announces Jesus’s ongoing presence within his followers, in their speech and activity. Peter’s brand of prophecy is truth telling. It is interpretation: naming the ways and places where God’s salvation is realized, where God’s presence and influence can be encountered. It is insisting that humanity’s existence and the life of God do not exist in separate planes; rather, they are intertwined, each a part of the other.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“When Acts speaks about God’s plan, we should understand this as referring to what God is determined to do, not what God has to do to follow some preordained cosmic blueprint.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“The first great act in the Acts of the Apostles is to walk back to Jerusalem and let time pass.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“For many people I know, waiting to make a decision or to put a plan into action proves a frustrating thing to do, because it feels like indecision, weakness, or wasted time. Once you start waiting, how do you know when it’s time to stop? The beginning of Acts seems to suggest that you’ll know, as long as you remain attentive and anticipant as you wait. Waiting isn’t always the best course of action, but in the beginning of Acts, there’s nothing else these people can do. For them, it’s part of learning to be a disciple.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“If Jesus’s connection to his followers exists today in ways similar to what Acts suggests, then Acts encourages me to see churches (the people, not the buildings) as vital communities, crucial for the gospel of God’s salvation to remain known and attractive for generations to come. This connection also raises cautionary red flags, given that many people have long catalogs of instances in which churches (the institutions and their members) have been abusive, selfish, or apathetic. Or simply boring. When Acts ties Jesus and his people together in such tight knots, its theological vision can spawn idealism or cynicism, depending on my perspective and how motivated I am to get out of bed on a given Sunday morning.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts

“Learning about ancient realities challenges the common tendency to assume that ancient people’s lives and experiences were essentially the same as modern people’s, only without electricity.”
― Matthew L. Skinner, A Companion to the New Testament: The Gospels and Acts