In The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is (Zondervan Academic, 2024), N.T. Wright offers a clear, accessible, and expansive look at Luke’s account of the early Church. Wright’s goal is to give his readers eyes to see Christ’s present rule and reign at the right hand of the Father (beginning at the Ascension) and his continued presence among his people through the Holy Spirit (beginning at Pentecost).
Wright traces a variety of themes throughout the book of Acts, including temple motifs and the manner in which the Spirit makes the people of the Risen Lord a living, breathing temple. He details how the people of the Ascension and Pentecost, via the Spirit, make God present to humanity and become a meeting place for Creator and creation: a temple. Wright also picks up on various social issues with his signature attentiveness to the detail of the text and context of Acts. Throughout The Challenge of Acts, Wright vehemently refuses historical binaries, never allowing for a nuanced historial-ecclessial issue to divulge into a black/white issue. The circumcision party is not minimized to the typical villainous legalists, nor are the gentile Christian communities ever painted as a standard of perfect grace-oriented Gospel community. No one gets off the hook for N.T. Wright. In The Challenge of Acts “…nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light” (Luke 8:17).
Wright systematically works through the book of Acts a few chapters at a time. While not academically dense or theologically intricate, he covers each section with careful attention to all matters of nuance. N.T. Wright shines here in his element: as a skilled historian and careful student of the Biblical narrative. The Lukan story is illuminated greatly by Wright’s close analysis and insightful commentary. Wright lights up, so to speak, the multifaceted angles of Acts. A particular motif covered is these Jesus-following-communities acting as small working models of new creation.
“Nor should we understand Jesus’ promises about his kingdom to refer to ‘the end of the world’, as many have thought. They are about God’s good world now under new management” (Page 8, italics mine). Time and time again, Wright reminds us of the present nature of Acts. The book of Acts is about the way in which God is present and active among His people, constantly helping, teaching, guiding, and saving with the same fervor as ever. Wright won’t allow Acts to be regarded as ancient history without contemporary consequence. For Wright, the Church is still living in the neverending story of Acts.
Wright is consistently political as well: “But then, in verses 35-40, we have a classic picture of Paul dealing with the authorities. Obeying God, not humans, also means reminding the human authorities of their job” (Page 82). Wright affirms that Christians have an obligation to regard firstly their God, while also being prophetic witnesses to the local authorities God has appointed. Human authorities, while appointed in God’s world under His allowance, are not off the hook. And the Church, in at least one way, should be that very hook of accountability.
Wright takes one detour in his formatting to devote a chapter to Paul’s famous speech in Acts 17 regarding the case of the unknown God. Some of Wright’s best work in The Challenge of Acts is displayed throughout this chapter. Consistently he removes all unhelpful historical presuppositions held in typical studies. Often the setting in which Paul gives this speech, Areopagus, is seen as an ivory-tower style, WWE throwdown arena for philosophical and religious debate. This is plain wrong. Areopagus was a legal society, and Paul is symbolically standing trial for his Christian faith, arguing as the attorney for the Christian faith of others.
Wright once again goes to bat with platonically informed soteriology in The Challenge of Acts as he has spent much of his public intellectual career doing: “Western Christianity of all varieties has normally assumed that the point of the story is for people to go to heaven when they die, but that is the view, not of Jesus or Paul, but of Plato and his followers. For Paul, as in this speech, the point of the biblical story is for God to come and dwell with us. And that requires – as the Bible insists, and as Paul declares starkly here – that God will in the end put all things right” (Page 118). For Wright, Acts is most clearly an account of how God has come and tabernacled among us by way of His Spirit and that the Church is the perpetual witness to and participant in the Spirit
What I would have loved from The Challenge of Acts was a more inter-Biblical analysis. While the historical work and social implications worked out in The Challenge of Acts were top tier, I was left wishing Wright had integrated the narrative of Acts within its canonical context. A narrative (or horizontal) typological focus would have added a hermeneutical layer to the book. Expanding beyond just the historical-grammatical into the typological would’ve been much appreciated, and I fully believe Wright would have done it with excellence.
In summary, The Challenge of Acts gave a sharp historical and contextual lens much needed for a mature reading of Acts in the Christian faith. From Wright’s personal anecdotes regarding the contemporary relevance of ancient situations to the minute details of Paul’s missionary journey and speeches to the ever present rejection of a platonic meta-narrative in service of the Biblical one, The Challenge of Acts lights up Acts in a multivalent way. This book would be an excellent introduction for any Christian fascinated by the story of salvation, the role of the local church, and how Acts ties it all together. Once again, Wright has left the Church with a gift.
Editor’s Note: This title was received by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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