rusalem
In Acts 3 and 4, Luke records that Peter gave speeches to the people of Jerusalem, and then to the Sanhedrin. Again, most scholars believe that Luke is relying on preexisting source material to reconstruct Peter's speech. Factors which support this position are 1) the grammatical awkwardness of several verses, 2) references to particular knowledge best explained by proximity to the speech, 3) the nonLukan christological terms, and 4) the eschatology of verse 20. Witherington, op. cit., page 165, fn. 2. Additionally, throughout Acts 3 and 4, but seldom elsewhere, Acts includes references to "servant Christology." Such Christology portrays Jesus as the suffering servant of God and humanity. It was through the position of servant that Jesus accomplished his redemptive work. This view stresses how far Jesus lowered Himself and His obedience by becoming a "suffering servant." For example, in Acts 3:18 "But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. " Notably, the suffering servant Jesus is also found in the First Epistle of Peter. Even if we assume that the letter was written by someone merely of the Petrine tradition, the similarities are probative. This is most clearly demonstrated in 1 Peter 2:22-25:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
As Witherington states, "I therefore doubt that it is an accident that Peter is presented here, as in 1 Peter 2, as the first, and perhaps only truly major, Christian expositor of a servant Christology. This Christology was in any case primitive and does not appear to have became a major way of viewing Jesus, at least in the Pauline communities." Witherington, op. cit., page 180.
Furthermore, in Acts 2:25-33, Peter explicitly discusses how Jesus fulfilled the Davidic prophecies concerning resurrection. The same is true in Acts 3:18, where Peter preaches that Christ had fulfilled "the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets." Such blatant reference to prophecy fulfillment is not Luke's style. "He, at all events, does not turn aside to tell us that 'Then was fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.'" J.R. Harris, Ii>Testimonies, II, page 80. Indeed, this is one area where Matthew and Luke differ strongly. Throughout Matthew turns aside to let us know certain prophecies had been fulfilled. Not so with Luke. Yet Peter's speeches have this as one of their key elements.
3.     James' Speech and Letter Regarding the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15)
Yet another major speech in Acts reveals contact with its purported author. The speech and letter of James in Acts 15 reveals similarities to the Epistle of James. Acts 15 is the famous Jerusalem Council where the leaders of Christianity decided that Gentiles did not have to follow the full Mosaic Law. James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, gave a speech and then, apparently, helped draft a letter to the Gentile Christians informing them of the Council's decision. There are "striking similarities between the Greek of the Epistle of James and that of the speech attributed to James in Acts 15:13-21." D. A. Carson, et al., An Introduction to the New Testament, page 410 (citing J.B. Mayor's The Epistle of St. James, pages iii-iv). Additionally, there are some impressive similarities between the speech and letter of James in Acts, and the Epistle of James in the New Testament. First, both the opening words in James 1:1 and the letter in Acts 15:23 are a distinct Greek phrase for Greeting--"chairo." No other New Testament au