Acts
Spirit-Empowered Witnesses to the World
Central Teaching
Acts tells the story of how God’s Spirit worked through the apostles and other early Christians to spread the good news of Christ from Jerusalem to the whole world.
Memory Verse
Setting
Luke, the well-educated Gentile, physician, and missionary coworker of the apostle Paul, wrote both Luke and Acts. Both volumes are addressed to “most excellent Theophilus,” a recent convert who needed to be instructed and encouraged in his faith (Luke 1:3; Acts 1:1).
Most scholars date the book of Acts between AD 70 and 90. The abrupt ending of the book reflects Luke’s literary purpose of showing Paul’s arrival in Rome. Traditionally, most evangelicals date the book to around AD 62–64, concluding that Luke finished the book while Paul was still in prison awaiting the outcome of his appeal to Caesar.
A Roman road near the ancient city of Gerasa, now the Jordanian city of Jerash
Message
Luke’s purpose in Acts coincides with his purpose in the Gospel of Luke: to show that God’s redemptive work that began in Jesus continues through the Spirit-filled church (Acts 1:1–2). More specifically, Luke provides in Acts a “theological history” of the early church. He tells the story of the early church accurately but selectively for theological purposes (i.e., to show what God is doing). Acts 1:8 reflects the expansion of the gospel, first in Jerusalem and Judea (Acts 1–7), then to surrounding areas (8–12), and finally to the ends of the earth (13–28). Acts is a unique window into the world of the first Christians. The real hero is not Peter or Paul but the Holy Spirit, who works through flawed but committed people to accomplish the mission. The final words of Acts reflect the success of the gospel even while its messengers remain in prison: Paul “proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28:31).
Outline
Interesting Features
- Acts describes the first Christian generation—the period between Jesus’s crucifixion (about AD 30) and Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome (mid-60s).
- The two main human characters in Acts are Peter (Acts 1–12) and Paul (Acts 13–28). Peter ministers mostly in a Jewish setting while Paul ministers predominantly in a Gentile setting.
- The “speeches” of Peter, Paul, and others make up nearly one-third of the book.
“When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could” (Acts 27:39). St. Paul’s Bay on Malta is a possible location of the shipwreck on Paul’s journey to Rome.
Connections
We obviously don’t want to duplicate every early-church pattern we find in Acts (e.g., casting lots or experiencing the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira), but we do want to embrace everything in Acts that should be normative for Christians today. The best way to determine what is normative is to look for those themes in the book that are repeated: the work of the Holy Spirit, the importance of the church, God’s sovereignty, persisting in prayer, being a faithful witness, carrying the gospel to all nations, and enduring trials in the cause of Christ. As a result of considering repeated themes in Acts, we learn to follow the Spirit, trust in God’s sovereignty, join with God’s people, pray, give witness to what God has done in Christ, and be willing to suffer in order to take the message to all people.