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Hearing and Doing: The Speeches in Acts and the Essence of Christianity
In reading Scripture, we encounter not only the living God, but an invitation to the mysteries of the text itself. As readers dig through the soil of the text, they eventually discover living water―a wellspring of life. The speeches of Acts offer an accessible entry point into this life, eloquently demonstrating what Calvin calls the sum total of Christian faith. In Hearing and Doing , Christopher Holmes invites us to feast upon the speeches of Paul and Peter. As a work of constructive theological exegesis, he engages Aquinas and Calvin and some of the most important theologians of our day, notably Rowan Williams and Katherine Sonderegger. At the heart, Holmes aims to draw us to the speeches themselves so that we might become encompassed in their divine beauty. By the same token, he treats the doctrine of God and that of the church, articulating something of what the speeches urge us to say regarding God and the shape of life in relation to God. In sum, Holmes argues that the speeches provide a window into the faith’s essentials, inspiring reverence and obedience toward God. Hearing and Doing submits to divine tutoring via the speeches, passing on the fruits of that contemplation to the reader with nuance and clarity, unfolding in an exegetically charged fashion the Christian faith’s horizon.
214 pages, Hardcover
Published October 15, 2022
11 people want to read
About the author
Christopher R.J. Holmes
9 books8 followersChristopher R. J. Holmes (ThD, Wycliffe College and University of Toronto) is associate professor in systematic theology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He is an Anglican priest, and he is the author of The Holy Spirit, Ethics in the Presence of Christ, and Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes: In Dialogue with Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Wolf Krötke.
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October 13, 2025
I really struggled with this book. I knew, when I bought it, that Holmes is a systematic theologian, and not an exegete, but good systematicians can also be good exegetes, so I was hoping for a careful interpretive work that drew on analysis to enter into to theological discussion. I was further encouraged in this direction because the endorsement on the book from Matthew Levering said that Holmes wrote a book in the spirit of John Webster, and Webster was known for putting exegesis before theological exploration - one must precede the other. I was also encouraged because I've enjoyed the work of Holmes' main interlocutors (Aquinas, Calvin, Rowan Williams, Katherine Sonderegger, etc.), and I was interested to see how he'd engage them.
Then, in the introduction, already a bad sign. Holmes admits he has no interest in "technical work." He claims he's after the "plain sense" of the speeches in Acts, as if such a thing exists without doing the careful, "technical" work of exegesis. It Doesn't. As the old adage goes, the past is a foreign country. The so-called "technical work" is the only way to access the so-called "plain sense" of the text. The text can certainly contain hidden gems of Spirit-led truth, but the only responsible way to get at the truth is to start with what these speeches meant to the original audience. That's the only way to responsibly judge that we are using the words and phrases of the speeches responsibly. Holmes held true to his disinterest in this work, and at no point sought to clarify how the words and phrases in the speeches in Acts functioned in their own historic context.
In fact, the entire context of the speeches was of little interest to Holmes. He seemed only to use them as a jumping off point to talk about wider ideas. If a speech mentioned mercy, he then wrote about wider ideas regarding a theology of mercy. If a speech mentioned foreknowledge, he used that as a jumping off point to talk about the meaning of God's foreknowledge. The actual context of the speeches, and the ways that these terms were interanimated by the fuller context of the speech, are mostly irrelevant to the things Holmes writes about the individual ideas. In fact, if Holmes simply chose to write about mercy, and foreknowledge, etc., and never mentioned that he chose these words because they were found in speeches in Acts, it would not have much changed the things that Holmes said about them.
I love theology, but, in my view, theology can only be done responsibly if it is constructed from the conclusions of close and careful exegetical work. This is the only way that theology can be grounded in truths actually communicated by the text. I did not need Holmes to get into the weeds here, but merely to indicate that the context of the speeches drove what he said about them, and I did not get the sense that the context mattered to Holmes. He seemed to be following the "general impression" of the terminology rather than the specific use of the terminology within the context of the people who spoke the words. If someone is interested in constructive theology, I'm sure they'll really enjoy this book. If someone wants to learn more about the actual speeches in Acts, I don't think this book will be all that helpful.
Then, in the introduction, already a bad sign. Holmes admits he has no interest in "technical work." He claims he's after the "plain sense" of the speeches in Acts, as if such a thing exists without doing the careful, "technical" work of exegesis. It Doesn't. As the old adage goes, the past is a foreign country. The so-called "technical work" is the only way to access the so-called "plain sense" of the text. The text can certainly contain hidden gems of Spirit-led truth, but the only responsible way to get at the truth is to start with what these speeches meant to the original audience. That's the only way to responsibly judge that we are using the words and phrases of the speeches responsibly. Holmes held true to his disinterest in this work, and at no point sought to clarify how the words and phrases in the speeches in Acts functioned in their own historic context.
In fact, the entire context of the speeches was of little interest to Holmes. He seemed only to use them as a jumping off point to talk about wider ideas. If a speech mentioned mercy, he then wrote about wider ideas regarding a theology of mercy. If a speech mentioned foreknowledge, he used that as a jumping off point to talk about the meaning of God's foreknowledge. The actual context of the speeches, and the ways that these terms were interanimated by the fuller context of the speech, are mostly irrelevant to the things Holmes writes about the individual ideas. In fact, if Holmes simply chose to write about mercy, and foreknowledge, etc., and never mentioned that he chose these words because they were found in speeches in Acts, it would not have much changed the things that Holmes said about them.
I love theology, but, in my view, theology can only be done responsibly if it is constructed from the conclusions of close and careful exegetical work. This is the only way that theology can be grounded in truths actually communicated by the text. I did not need Holmes to get into the weeds here, but merely to indicate that the context of the speeches drove what he said about them, and I did not get the sense that the context mattered to Holmes. He seemed to be following the "general impression" of the terminology rather than the specific use of the terminology within the context of the people who spoke the words. If someone is interested in constructive theology, I'm sure they'll really enjoy this book. If someone wants to learn more about the actual speeches in Acts, I don't think this book will be all that helpful.
Displaying 1 of 1 review