Scripture Text: Ephesians 1:17-23 and Acts 1:1-11

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone

In the world of the first century, when someone was enthroned as king, that new authority would take effect through heralds going off throughout the territory in question with the news, ‘We have a king!’ That was always proclaimed as good news, because everyone in the ancient world (unlike many in the modern world) knew that anarchy is always worse than authorized government. Governments may be bad, but chaos is worse. So the heralds, the messengers, would go off to the far reaches of the kingdom (imagine, for instance, a new Roman emperor coming to the throne, and heralds going off as far as Spain to the west, Britain to the north, and Egypt to the southeast),  ...