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THE GENTILES AND THE GENTILE MISSION IN LUKE-ACTS S G WILSON, B AThe
ABSTRACTThe aim of this thesis is twofold First, to make a detailed study of the theme of the Gentiles and the Gentile mission in LukeActs And second, to use these results as an avenue of approach to broader problems in the teaching of both Jesus and Luke As regards Jesus, how his teaching on the Gentiles is related to his eschatology As regards Luke, both how he sees the relationship between Jesus' view of the Gentile mission and eschatology and how far his account of this mission in Acts squares up with the actual course of events, so far as they can be deduced from the illogicalities and tensions within Acts itself and from the first-hand accounts of Paul Jesus' attitude to the Gentiles is studied and used as a key to understanding his eschatology Luke's presentation of Jesus' attitude to the Gentiles is then examined, to see how far it differs from the views both of Mark and of Jesus himself Luke's presentation of Jesus' eschatology is then considered, to see if and how he alters Jesus' eschatology to fit his presentation of Jesus' attitude to the ^entiles The mam sections in Acts which relate to Luke's presentation of the Gentile mission are then examined, in order to discover both Luke's view of the Gentile mission and how close his account is to the historical facts The main conclusions are that Jesus did not foresee a Gentile mission such as occurred after his death, a fact which is explained by hiB eschatology and which explains many of the problems which arose in the early stages of the Gentile mission, that Luke's presentation of the Gentile mission and Jesus' eschatology shows him to be a pastor and a historian rather than a theologian, a point which is emphasized by a comparison with Paul, and that while Luke's account in Acts is often misleading, he has left enough loose ends to make it a valuable historical source for the careful and critical reader can see, correct conclusions on this subject A brief outline of these conclusions will, therefore, sufficeThe most important distinction to be made at this point is that between mission and universalism The latter notion asserts that God isLord of all the earth, including all the nations other than Israel, but i t does not imply that Israel has any responsibility for evangelis...