Five-minute study · Day 174 · Acts 1
Acts 1:8
A word worth stopping on: power δύναμις dynamis
Forty days after the resurrection. Jesus is about to ascend, and the disciples are still asking the wrong question: 'Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' They want a political timetable. Jesus gives them something else entirely. 'But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.' The word for power is dynamis. You will receive dynamis. The English word 'dynamite' comes from this Greek root, and that etymology has been repeated in a thousand sermons. The comparison is misleading. Dynamite destroys. Dynamis sustains.
Word study: power
- Greek
- δύναμις
- Pronounced
- dynamis
- Strong's
- G1411
- Definition
- Power, ability, capability, strength. Inherent operative power, the ability to carry out an action. Used for miracles, for God's enabling force, and for the capacity to accomplish what would otherwise be impossible.
Dynamis appears 120 times in the New Testament. BDAG defines it as 'potential for functioning in some way, power, might, strength, force, capability.' The word describes inherent capacity. A seed has dynamis to become a tree. A river has dynamis to turn a millstone. The emphasis is on what something is able to do because of what it contains.
The popular comparison to dynamite, traced back to a 1945 sermon, misses the word's texture. Alfred Nobel coined 'dynamite' from dynamis in 1867, borrowing the Greek word for his explosive. The borrowing went in one direction: Nobel took a word that meant sustained capability and attached it to a single destructive blast. The original word carries no connotation of explosion. It describes ongoing, renewable, operational power.
In Acts 1:8, Jesus promises dynamis for witness. The construction matters. He does not say 'you will do powerful things.' He says 'you will receive power.' The dynamis is given, deposited, made available as an ongoing resource. F.F. Bruce notes in his commentary on Acts that the power is specifically connected to witness (martyria), the capacity to testify about what they have seen and heard. The dynamis enables sustained testimony across geography: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth.
Luke uses dynamis throughout Acts to describe what happens when ordinary people carry this capacity. Peter speaks dynamis at the temple gate (Acts 3:12). Stephen performs signs and wonders with great dynamis (Acts 6:8). Paul exercises dynamis in Ephesus (Acts 19:11). In every case, the power is operative, ongoing, and connected to witness. It does not detonate and disappear. It sustains the person carrying it.
Historical context · First century AD, circa 30 AD
The Question They Could Not Stop Asking
The disciples' question about restoring the kingdom to Israel was politically charged. For five centuries, Israel had been under foreign occupation: Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome. The Maccabean revolt in 167 BC had produced a brief window of independence, but Rome swallowed that in 63 BC when Pompey marched into Jerusalem and entered the Holy of Holies. By the time of Acts 1, the memory of national sovereignty was a living wound.
First-century messianic expectation centered on political liberation. The Psalms of Solomon, a Jewish text from around 50 BC, describes the expected Messiah as a warrior king who will 'purge Jerusalem from Gentiles who trample her to destruction' (17:22). The Dead Sea Scrolls contain a War Scroll detailing the final battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. The Messiah was supposed to drive out Rome.
Jesus had just spent forty days teaching about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). The disciples heard 'kingdom' and defaulted to their categories: armies, borders, a throne in Jerusalem, Rome defeated. Jesus redirects entirely. The kingdom will advance through dynamis-empowered witness, not military conquest. The geographic program in Acts 1:8, Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth, maps the rest of the book of Acts. Luke structured his entire narrative around this single verse.
The mention of Samaria would have stung. Samaritans were the ancient enemies, the half-breed descendants of mixed marriages after the Assyrian conquest of 722 BC. Including Samaria in the mission statement meant the kingdom of God would cross the ethnic boundary the disciples found most offensive.
For reflection
The disciples wanted a timetable for political victory. Jesus gave them sustained capacity for testimony. Think about a situation where you keep asking God for a dramatic intervention. What would it look like if the answer is daily, sustained, operational power to keep showing up?
Dynamis is a resource you carry into every room.
Sources: BDAG; Bruce, 'The Book of the Acts' (NICNT); Psalms of Solomon 17; Keener, 'Acts'