Banished from the City

Mark Jeong examines those scenes in Acts where members of the church are banished, exiled, or displaced from the city. He argues that Luke-Acts presents the church as a community of political exiles who have been exiled or banished from the cities of the Roman Empire. This narrative displacement prompts a response or solution that in Luke-Acts is found in the community itself. Unlike other early Christian texts, which spoke of the church in exile from heaven or awaiting a city to come, Luke-Acts portrays the church itself as this "new city" that becomes a refuge for the displaced believers. Furthermore, exile or homelessness in Luke-Acts is not a problem requiring an otherworldly solution, but a part of the new way of life engendered by the proclamation of the Gospel; it is a core part of following the way of Jesus, who himself is exiled from Nazareth in the Gospel of Luke.