10
"translations" as "To hell with you and your money" (8:20). Both narratives disclose that
it is not merely the misuse of money that is involved, but it is interesting to note, in
keeping with Luke's redactional emphases, that a covetous desire for money proves a key
part of the deceit in each episode.
26
In Acts 12, we find the first recorded New Testament example of God's judgment
on someone who makes no pretense of being a follower of Christ--Herod Agrippa accepts
acclamation as a god and is smitten by an angel with worms so that he dies (vv. 21-23).
The final miracle of judgment in the book of Acts also targets an unbeliever, "a Jewish
sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus" (13:6). He is only blinded, not killed, and
that only "for a time" (v. 11). But both narratives clearly point out the seriousness of
dabbling with the most blasphemous beliefs and practices of pagan religion. Tellingly,
both men claimed to be Jewish, having the advantage of knowing what theologians today
call God's "special revelation," which in turn made their behavior that much more
inexcusable.
27
Acts 15 of course narrates a watershed in the first generation of Christianity, with
its presentation of the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem. The most serious doctrinal issue
that threatened to blow the early church "sky high" was whether Gentiles coming to
Christ had to keep the Jewish Law, with circumcision as its initiation rite, in order to be
saved (v. 1). Here appears the first explicit reference to what Paul in his epistles will
term "Judaizing" (see Gal. 2:14)--Jewish Christians employing classic legalism, probably
followed up with covenantal nomism. As J. Louis Martyn has suggested, in light of
Israel's deteriorating relations with Rome and the growing emergence of a "proto-Zealot"
26
Cf. further Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches, 165-67, 169-70.