Christian Year

The Christian Year gives Acts a recurring place in worship, especially on Pentecost and the Sundays after Easter, making the book a resource for proclaiming the Spirit’s work and the church’s witness. But the Revised Common Lectionary’s pattern is not neutral: it limits exposure to Acts, subordinates its voice to the Gospels, and during Easter removes readings from Israel’s Scriptures. The book therefore treats the calendar both as an opportunity for interpretation and as a practice that preachers may need to question.

Acts in the Annual Cycle

The Revised Common Lectionary assigns readings from Acts each year on the Baptism of Jesus, on the Sundays after Easter, and on Pentecost. These placements give Acts a prominent role at moments when Christian worship attends to Jesus’ baptism, resurrection, and the Spirit’s activity. At Pentecost, Acts 2:1–21 can be read in Years A, B, and C. Its span encompasses the event itself, the varied responses of those present, and the beginning of Peter’s sermon.

The Pentecost reading also illustrates how a liturgical selection can shape the congregation’s encounter with a biblical narrative. Ending at verse 21 interrupts Peter’s sermon before its argument reaches the response in Acts 2:37–39. The book recommends summarizing verses 22–36 and reading 37–39 as well: together, these passages present the listeners as an eschatological community, prepared by repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to witness to the Realm.

The Lectionary’s Limits

Despite these important appointments, the Revised Common Lectionary includes only twenty-four passages from Acts across its three-year cycle. Congregations do not hear the whole narrative continuously, as they commonly do with much of the Gospels and Epistles. The final assigned reading comes from Acts 19, leaving Acts 20–28 unheard in the lectionary. That omitted final stretch follows Paul’s arrest and arraignment and his journey to Rome, episodes that disclose the book’s concluding purpose.

The arrangement also tends to make Acts secondary. Its readings are subordinated to Gospel readings, so Acts speaks in its own voice only when a preacher chooses to make it the sermon’s lead text. The calendar thus offers regular access to the book while restricting the continuity and interpretive weight of that access.

Easter and Israel’s Scriptures

The book identifies a more serious theological consequence in the readings for the seven Sundays after Easter. On those Sundays, the lectionary replaces the principal reading from the Torah, Prophets, and Writings with a passage from Acts. Because Easter is the climactic season for contemplating the Realm’s demonstration through resurrection, this substitution can lean in an anti-Jewish direction: it may suggest that Israel’s Scriptures are unnecessary to the church’s identity and witness.

The proposed response is not to set Acts aside, but to restore its scriptural context. Preachers and worship planners are encouraged to add a coordinated reading from the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. If another lesson must be omitted, the book argues, it should be the Letter or the Gospel rather than Israel’s Scriptures. The recommendation reflects the conviction that the church’s witness to the Realm should not be framed as though it had displaced the traditions from which it emerges.

Worship, Teaching, and Choice

The lectionary is meant to serve the church’s witness to the Realm; the church is not meant to serve the lectionary. When the assigned readings fail to create a meaningful, mutual, and critical correlation with a congregation’s circumstances, ministers may depart from the schedule and preach from a relevant passage in Acts. The book also proposes sermon series outside the lectionary, organized around key passages, leading characters, or themes.

Teaching need not be confined to the pulpit. A minister or Bible teacher can lead a study through the whole narrative of Acts, or focus on part of it, such as Paul’s missionary journeys. Using the study’s passages in Sunday preaching can connect congregational learning during the week with worship. In this account, the Christian Year remains a useful framework, but faithful use of it requires judgment about what the calendar includes, what it leaves unheard, and which scriptural relationships its choices make visible.