One of the most controversial questions concerning the book of Acts is whether it is prescriptive or descriptive. The two options are clear enough. The prescriptive view says that the practices of the early church in the book of Acts are normative. In other words, they should be practiced today. For some this extends to experiences as well. They argue that believers today should be experiencing displays of power like speaking in tongues and healing. The descriptive view argues that Acts simply describes what happened. For this view, there is therefore no requirement to imitate exactly what the early church experienced or did.
It isn’t hard to discern that there is truth in both positions. The difficulty is one of extent. The book of Acts very obviously prescribes things like believers meeting with regularity, prayer, meeting each other’s needs, and appointing leaders (both Jews and gentiles). But are we to presume the leadership of the church has apostolic authority? Should we meet in house churches on a daily basis (Acts 5:42)? Should we expect to perform signs and wonders, and if so, are they only to be performed by apostles and those upon whom they have laid hands (Acts 2:43; 6:8; 8:6, 13; 14:3)? In modern times, when wealth is held in ways outside tangible goods, how can we truly have all things in common (Acts 2:44)? It seems clear that these things are, at least to some extent, only descriptive.
This question is directly related to apostolic authority. While the book of Acts clearly shows the apostles appointing servant leaders in the church (Acts 6), there is no evidence that the office of apostle has continued. There were several kinds of apostles in the New Testament. The Greek word (apostolos) simply means “sent one,” so it generally refers to individuals sent to help other churches. In cases like these, modern translations at times render the term as “messenger” (2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 2:25). One specific group of “sent ones” were the Twelve (John 20:24; Acts 6:2; 1 Cor 15:5), those who had been taught by Jesus “beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up” (Acts 1:22). Paul directly encountered Jesus (Acts 9) and was taught by him personally (Gal. 1:12; 1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3), so he rightly belongs to a second group of people selected by God to minister to gentiles (1 Cor. 15:7–9; Gal. 1:19; 2:9; Acts 13:2–3; 14:4, 14; 15:40; 1 Cor. 9:6; 1 Thess. 2:6). So far as we can see in the New Testament, it was apostles in these two groups that laid hands on people to gift them for service in the power of the Holy Spirit. That gifting included the power to do signs and wonders, which was critical for the early church, whose new message (repeatedly called a “mystery” in the New Testament; e.g., Eph. 3:3–6; Col. 1:26–27) had to be validated as actually coming from God.
Consequently, to argue that everything in Acts is prescriptive requires the continuation of the second group. This group did not continue for the obvious reason that the original apostles were all dead by the end of the first century. While the apostles appointed leaders in the early church (including gentile churches founded by Paul), their status could not be duplicated.