Page 58 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

A History of the Church in Africa

statement about the Spirit’s power than what we find in a verse
most believers learn early in their Christian life. It’s a promise
Jesus gave His disciples just before He ascended to heaven. He
told them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come
upon you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). Jesus was
saying, “You’ll indeed bear witness of Me”—but only when you
get the power…which comes from…the Holy Spirit. Now these
disciples had spent three years listening to Jesus—three years of
going to “seminary,” three years of being taught by the eternal
Son of God. They were not lacking a good Bible teacher. They
were not lacking instruction on what God wanted them to do. But
Jesus knew the one thing they were lacking—power.… He told
them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them…and they
did wait. (89–90)

The Interpretive Key
Acts 1:8 is the key to understanding the beginning of the first Pentecostal
church. Denzil R. Miller calls Acts 1:8 “the interpretive key to Acts, [which]
helps to ‘unlock’ our understanding of the entire book” (2007, 12).

As I have pointed out, God had a specific plan in mind for His church.
It was born at the right time, in the right place, for divinely established
purposes. As we begin our journey through the centuries of African
church history, it is essential for us to understand two key concepts of
the book of Acts that are introduced in Acts 1:8. Miller states these two
concepts succinctly:

Empowerment-witness motif. The first and most important concept
is found in the first half of the verse (Acts 1:8), which reads, “But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you
will be my witnesses.…” We call this Luke’s empowerment-witness
motif. A motif is a pattern of words, concepts, or events repeated
throughout a work. As we progress through Acts, we will observe
this pattern being repeated again and again.… The empowering of
the Holy Spirit results in missional witness.

This pattern reveals Luke’s primary intent in writing the book. He
wrote to call the church of his day, and ultimately the church of
every day, back to its pentecostal and missionary roots.

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