Inter-Varsity Press

Introduction

Acts is a great book! It describes the most exciting phase in the history of the church, with wonderful pioneering work being done by courageous men and women, under the direct inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Miracles and healing combine with powerful preaching and an intensity of relationships that makes us think that we would love to be in such a church. Thinking more soberly, we realize that the miracles were often accompanied by martyrdom and the preaching, although powerful, was not always persuasive. But, that aside, there are a freshness and vitality running through Acts that make it a favourite book for churches to study together as they long to be the kind of people God wants them to be.

There is, of course, a downside: many or most (or even all) of our churches are nothing like the church we read about in Acts. The life and growth, passionate prayers and obvious love for Jesus do not seem to be the reality of what happens week by week. That wistfulness is fuelled by books reporting what God is apparently doing elsewhere in the world in ways that sound very similar to Acts - or at least the successful parts of it - and the gnawing feeling grows of guilt and doubts. Pastors, leaders and preachers wonder why the congregations they serve are not up to the Acts standard. Church members wonder why their leaders do not match the Acts standard. Acts seems to set the bar for vitality impossibly high and leaves us feeling disappointment with what God has provided.

Which is not what God intended. Acts does contain stories of intense excitement, it is true, but it also shows us church members who lie to their leaders; leaders who have major rows with each other; unfair legal processes; murder; persecution; and death. It would be a mistake to see the story of Acts, heroic and successful as it is, as one of unchallenged heroism and unbroken success. We should also be clear that the reason for the success lies not in the heroism, but in the promises of God. He is the one who plans and guides the route the gospel takes from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, and if Acts has a hero at all, it is God.

So Acts is a great book for churches to study together, because it will encourage us to be passionate about God and his gospel and also realistic about the nature of the task we face. But Acts is also a long book, and that creates a problem for getting to grips with it. Not only that; because commentaries on books tend to be longer than the books they comment on, many commentaries on Acts are quite lengthy works. Because they are also committed to getting the details of the text right, it is very easy to become lost in a forest of detail.

This book is designed to be different and to supplement the normal kinds of commentaries. From the outset, in Part I, it takes the big picture of Acts and tries to make sense of it theologically, as a whole: a coherent and purposefully written narrative. From there it moves into Part II, which looks at the book in smaller sections as Luke seems to have arranged them, although all of these smaller sections are themselves several chapters long. But, just as walkers take out a compass to orient a map properly to the North Pole (the big picture) so that they can make sense of paths and villages (the small picture), so this guide is designed to orient each smaller part first of all within the larger picture. Then comes the time to ask the small-detail questions for which the normal commentaries are needed.

Because it is designed for those who preach or teach and who want guidance in communicating the relevance of Acts, the third section of the book contains some sample sermons. I have added these tentatively, because I am not holding them up as ideals to attain or as gold standards. Rather, they are examples of how the process of understanding the big picture first - what I have called here the architecture of Acts - turns into a normal Sunday sermon.

You will need a good modern translation: the NIV is the one used throughout this book because of its widespread use. You will also need time. To read Acts attentively takes a couple of hours at least; to understand it properly, it needs to be read a number of times through, prayerfully and with pencil in hand. There is no substitute for that extensive, first-hand encounter with the book. Start working and enjoy this wonderful part of Scripture. As Paul said, it contains ‘the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified’ (20:32).

Extracts

Eight principles for reading and teaching from Acts

1. Look for the author’s stated purpose
Luke makes it easier for us by stating from the outset what he intends to do.

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
(1:1-2)

So, obviously, we expect a continuation of Luke’s story of Jesus, in that what he began he will now continue. To put it starkly, Luke claims to be writing not the Acts of the Apostles, nor even the Acts of the Holy Spirit, but volume two of the Acts of Jesus.

So Luke’s first stated purpose drives us back to the opening of his Gospel, where he writes an extended introduction to his work. ...

2. Look for the author’s repeated themes
Luke’s purposes have already given us one way of breaking the book into logical sections, but in fact there are several, and one of the most useful comes from seeing how a particular repeated theme or phrase occurs. The most obvious in Acts is the pattern of variations on the theme of growth: ...

3. Look for the unique events
Some of the events in Acts have a particular significance because they happen in a very particular place, with a highlight on them. This is a variation of degree, of course - every event is unique - but some seem to have a special role. The election of Matthias as replacement apostle falls into this category (1:12-26) ...

4. Look for the principal characters
The first human character who claims attention is Peter, who is the dominating figure during chapters 1-15. These chapters are particularly concerned with how the gospel spread from Jew to Gentile, and in various ways Peter’s rôle answers the question ‘Who may become a Christian?’ He was the preacher when the first Jews were converted ...

5. Look for God’s activities
First of all, the Bible is a book about God. That is obvious but needs stating, because we naturally tend to think that everything revolves around us. So when we read any Bible passage we should ask what it says about God and his character, activity, promises and warnings. It can be a shock to read from that perspective, especially when we discover that one Bible book does not mention God at all. ...

6. Look for the stressed teaching
For a book that is simply called ‘Acts’, it is surprising to discover how much of it is about words rather than actions. Something like twenty per cent of the book’s total length is given over to reporting nineteen speeches, sermons and defences. When those nineteen are analysed, though, a pattern begins to emerge which should not now come as a complete shock: ...

7. Look for the biblical setting
The biblical setting of Acts is so obvious that it is easy to underestimate. But, just as we always read the Old Testament with the knowledge that our understanding of it is incomplete and distorted unless we place Jesus at its centre, so we must read Acts as the continuing work of the risen and ascended Jesus who was crucified. ...

8. Look for the positional context
Many of the principles hover around the issue of context. As we understand Luke’s story as a whole as it develops, we can see how each story plays its part; and just as we understand God’s grand plan through the whole of the Bible, we can see how Acts plays its part.

That principle applies on the level of the developing nature of Luke’s story as he gradually unfolds and explains his teaching over several successive and carefully positioned stories. ...