The Recovery of Luke-Acts as 'Grand Narrative' for the Church's Evangelistic and Edification Tasks in the Postmodern Age

Abstract

"One of the marks of postmodernism is the awareness of the loss of modernity’s meta-narrative which gave western culture its coherence and sense of purpose. One of the marks of classic evangelical hermeneutics is the loss of Biblical narrative as the source of normative teaching. One of the marks of evangelical revisioning of the Biblical grand narrative is to concentrate on the sweep of salvation history from creation to Jesus’ resurrection–ascension–session and then skip to the consummation at his return. Yet a key component in Biblical narrative, namely Acts, is more often than not overlooked. Since Jesus’ ministry and teaching are usually viewed synthetically, the distinctive contributions of the individual Gospel narratives are lost, in our case the Gospel of Luke. Yet, Luke-Acts’ genre, occasion, and purpose, and content and themes reveal that it is eminently quali˜ed to aid the church in its edi˜cation, and particularly its evangelistic tasks, in the postmodern age. This paper will overview the postmodern approach to meta-narrative, assess the current evangelical hermeneutical approach to normativity in narrative, and note Luke-Acts’ role, or lack thereof, in evangelicals’ proposals of Biblical meta-narrative to the postmodern. In the light of the current state of the discussion in each of these arenas, this article will argue for Luke-Acts as a “grand narrative” which the church should use, not only for its own edi˜cation, but also for evangelism in the postmodern context"