Talk to Explore 'The Servant' in Luke-Acts

Holly Beers, assistant professor of religious studies, examines the ways the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles appropriate Isaiah’s servant imagery to characterize Jesus and the disciples on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. in Founders Dining Room, inside the Kerr Student Center at Westmont. The Paul C. Wilt Phi Kappa Phi Lecture, “Participating in God’s Mission: The Servant and the Conclusions of Acts and Isaiah,” is free and open to the public.

Bruce Fisk, professor of religious studies, and Rachel Winslow, assistant professor of history, will respond to the lecture.

Beers says the author of Luke-Acts builds aspects of his portrayal both of Jesus and the disciples on the servant, who is the human agent of God’s restoration envisioned in Isaiah 40-66. “Luke is sensitive to the Isaianic co-text of the servant’s mission, often called the New Exodus, and he demonstrates his awareness at least partly by concluding Acts with the same notes of triumph and tragedy that end Isaiah,” she says. “The implication is, then, that faithfulness for the people of God (both then and now?) involves human participation in God’s mission, a mission that embraces elements not just of hope and acceptance but of rejection and suffering.”

Holly Beers, who began teaching at Westmont in 2012, graduated from North Central University in Minneapolis, earned a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and a doctorate at London School of Theology in London. She teaches New Testament courses as well as biblical Greek at Westmont.

The Phi Kappa Phi Lectures showcase outstanding faculty research and provide a platform for interdisciplinary discussion of our colleagues' work.