Acts of the Apostles

"... the title [i.e. "The Acts of the Apostles"] raises expectations that are not fulfilled, since the apostles as a body appear only in the early part of the book and their labors are not traced on an individual basis except for Peter and later for Paul. Nothing is said about the planting of the faith in Egypt, where a strong church developed."

"The themes of the Acts – the establishing of a primitive church, the centrality of preaching, persecution, faith, growth – have an obvious appeal to Calvin. The application of this material to the Reformation was obvious – the need for direct, Christ-centered preaching, simplicity of life, firm faith in the face of persecution by Rome, churchly unity and fellowship."

"Immediately following the Gospels, ... comes a vividly written account of the beginnings of the community in Jerusalem and of those phases of its spread that are connected with Paul, the man who took Christianity to Europe. ... Acts is simply a continuation of the narrative begun in Luke. It is written in excellent Greek, and provides our only source of knowledge about the earliest stage in the expansion of Christianity. We can, however, check its information against the letters of Paul, where parallel accounts of certain key events appear. Acts also gives us valuable summaries of the apostolic preaching ... Although these are obviously not verbatim reports of the speakers' words, they appear to reflect the themes and emphases of the original Christian preachers."

"In trying to determine where the Book of Acts was written, we find some evidence that its author (or the author of one of its sources) was from Macedonia. ... but just as strong a case can be made out for Rome, where, according to the Pastorals, Luke was aiding Paul during Paul's imprisonment (II Tim. 4:11). A third possibility ... is Antioch, which features so prominently in the narrative of Acts, and which was the home town of Luke, according to some of the early church fathers."

"What then is the aim of this book, the sequel of the third gospel? As the title is human, one may draw from its own contents that we have in it the working of the Holy Spirit, rather than of the Twelve of whom we hear little save of Peter, and of Paul called extraordinarily, but of others too who were not apostles."

"The ninth chapter shows us the new step of sovereign grace in the conversion of Saul to be the witness of an ascended Christ, Who owns the saints as part of Himself, and calls the persecutor to be His chosen vessel to bear His name before Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel, the deepest in truth, the largest in heart, the most abundant in labour of all the apostles. No wonder the gospel of Christ's glory marked him, who first saw and heard the Lord thus; yet a simple disciple baptised him who forthwith, in the synagogues, preached Jesus as the Son of God."

"Arrived at the great city Paul was suffered to abide by himself with the soldier that guarded him, and after three days called together the chief of the Jews, and explained the strange fact that for the hope of Israel he was a prisoner through Jewish accusation. ... So that Paul could but show them now the sentence finally of the Holy Spirit, as of the Son of the earth (John xii.) and of Jehovah of old (Isa. vi.). But if Israel cut themselves off, save a remnant (the pledge of future restoration), the salvation of God is sent to Gentiles who hear. Such is the bearing of this book first and last. Only it is well to add that the apostle's charge in chapter xx. is no less clear that after his departure evil would prevail in the church, as previously in Israel. And we know from Romans xi. that the Gentile, if not continuing in God's goodness (as he surely has not), must also be cut off, and thus make way for the recall of Israel to the universal joy and blessing of the world under the Redeemer."

"Luke's Gospel ends with the Lord's ascension into heaven, and his Acts begins with it. His Gospel is a narrative of the ministry of the incarnated Jesus on earth; his Acts is a record of the succeeding ministry of the resurrected and ascended Christ in heaven carried out through His believers on earth. In the Gospels, His ministry on earth, carried out by Himself, only sowed Himself as the seed of the kingdom of God into His believers, with no church built up yet. In the Acts, His ministry in heaven, carried out through believers in His resurrection and ascension, spreads Him as the development of the kingdom of God for the building up of the church throughout the entire world to constitute His Body, His fullness, to express Him, moreover, even the fullness of God for God's expression."

"In the Gospels Christ was the seed of the kingdom; in the book of Acts we have the propagation of this seed to produce the churches as the kingdom of God."

"[Luke's authorship] is clear from the book's introduction where [he] says: "I produced my first volume (that is the gospel) about all the things that Jesus began to do and to teach." Now Luke is giving a clue here as to what this book of Acts will be about. Volume one was about what Jesus began to do and to teach, volume two will then be about what Jesus continued to do and teach, which leads to a really interesting point about the book's traditional but not original name, The Acts of the Apostles. While different apostles do appear in most of these stories, the only single character who unifies the whole story from beginning to end is Jesus himself, acting directly or through the Spirit, and so the book would more accurately be named The Acts of Jesus and the Spirit."

"The main themes and the design of the Book of Acts flow right out of [the] opening chapter. This is a story about Jesus leading his people by the Spirit, to go out into the world and invite all nations to live under his reign. And so the story [begins] with that message spreading in Jerusalem, and then into the neighboring regions of Judea and Samaria, full of non-Jewish people, and then from there out to all of the nations, into the ends of the earth."

"I have never heard any thing about the resolutions of the disciples, but a great deal about the Acts of the Apostles."

"The traditional name for this book is “Acts of the Apostles,” but a more accurate name might be “A Few Acts of a Few of the Apostles.” ... The book describes some developments in detail, but sometimes skips several years at a time. ... The historian must select the facts that are most important and the events that played critical roles in the development of later situations."

"The first part of this book is about Peter, and the second part is about Paul. This two-fold division is one of the simplest ways to divide the book of Acts, ..."

"You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian's, and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment, provided always that the critic knows the subject and does not go beyond the limits of science and justice."

"It was the Roman custom to govern the provinces of their far-flung empire by continuing as far as they safely could the local system of administration, and consequently the authorities in different districts went by many different names. No one, unless he were either an observant traveller or a painstaking student of records, could possibly give all these gentry their correct denomination. It is one of the most searching tests of Luke’s historical sense that he always manages to achieve perfect accuracy. In several cases it is only the evidence of a coin, or an inscription, that has given us the necessary information to check him; the recognized Roman historians do not adventure themselves on such a difficult terrain. Thus Luke calls Herod and Lysanias tetrarchs; so does Josephus. Herod Agrippa, who slew James with the sword and cast Peter into prison, is called a king; Josephus tells us how he became friendly at Rome with Gaius Cæsar (Caligula) and was rewarded with a royal title when Caligula came to be emperor. The governor of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, is called proconsul. … Not long before, Cyprus had been an imperial province, and governed by a proprætor or legatus, but in Paul’s time, as is shown by Cyprian coins, both in Greek and Latin, the correct title was proconsul. A Greek inscription found at Soloi on the north coast of Cyprus is dated ‘in the proconsulship of Paulus’ … At Thessalonica the city magnates took the quite unusual title of politarchs, a name unknown to classical literature. It would be quite unfamiliar to us, except from Luke’s use of it, if it were not for the fact that it appears in inscriptions. … Achaia under Augustus was a senatorial province, under Tiberius it was directly under the emperor, but under Claudius, as Tacitus tells us, it reverted to the senate, and therefore Gallio’s correct title [Acts 18:12] was proconsul. … Luke is equally happy, equally accurate, in his geography and his travel experiences."

"The Christian Bible very frequently steps on its own toe. We are told ... in Acts 5 that when Peter is brought before Gamliel, who we are told was the teacher of Paul, –Paul never makes this claim, but the author of Acts does– Gamliel in the Christian Bible, a book that will be very hostile to[wards] a Pharisee, one of the greatest rabbis of the time, period, ... the key point is that when asked what should be done with him, "Should he be punished?", Gamliel says "Send him away. If what he is teaching is of God, you killing him will do nothing, and if he is not of God it will fall away by itself." And it did. Peter's version of Christianity, his Christology, died a long time ago with the Abionites and so on. ... The key [point] that does come through in the text of the book of Acts –and the book of Acts is not trying to portray religious non-Christian Jews as pious– [and yet it comes through that] the Pharisees do not want to persecute Christians. The reason why Paul claims to be a former Pharisee, the reason why it is claimed for Paul by the author of Acts that he is a Pharisee, is because it lends credibility to his Christology. ... The book of Acts is not about the apostles but about Paul. It is that Paul's understanding, his Christology, wins, and Peter's version loses. That is why very quickly in the book of Acts ... Peter is taken off the stage and it is all about Paul to the end."

"The ancient vessels were not steered as those in modern times by a single rudder hinged to the stern post, but by two great oars or paddles, one on each side of the stern; hence the mention of them in the plural number by St. Luke. [Acts 27:40] ... We have seen in our examination that every statement as to the movements of this ship, from the time when she left Fair Havens until she was beached at Malta, as set forth by St. Luke has been verified by external and independent evidence of the most exact and satisfying nature; and that his statements as to the time the ship remained at sea correspond with the distance covered; and finally that his description of the place arrived at is in conformity with the place as it is. All of which goes to show that Luke actually made the voyage as described, and has moreover shown himself to be a man whose observations and statements may be taken as reliable and trustworthy in the highest degree."

"The first [outline can be] drawn from Acts 1:8... This [three-part] outline is based upon geographical progression – Jerusalem; Judea and Samaria; the end of the earth. Acts 1–7 documents the progression of the gospel within Jerusalem; Acts 8–12, to Judea and Samaria; Acts 13–28, to the ‘end of the earth’, that is the Gentiles... One virtue of this outline is its emphasis upon concerns that are central to the book – the apostolic witness to Christ, the work of the Spirit of Christ within the church, and the once-for-all redemptive-historical progression of the gospel from Jew to Gentile."

"The ministry of the apostles is a constant of the narrative, from the first chapter to the end of the book and at every point between them. ... Acts is not a biography of the apostles, much less of Peter and Paul. Luke’s purposes lie elsewhere."

"Luke’s account of the ministry of the apostles focuses on two men in particular – Peter and Paul. Their ministries dominate the two halves of Acts (1–12; 13–28), which halves correspond to the Jewish and Gentile missions, respectively. Luke consciously and frequently sets the ministries of Peter and Paul in parallel by showing the similarities between the two men and their ministries. ... Many critical scholars in the nineteenth century viewed Acts as primarily an attempt to reconcile the two forms of Christianity alleged to be represented by the apostles Peter and Paul. This particular approach to Acts has long since been refuted. Even so, it is not unwarranted to see Luke intending to show that ‘Peter and Paul were in essential agreement over the basics of the faith’ in order to help reconcile differences within the church."

"Paul's [apostolic] mission spans much of the latter half of Acts (Acts 13-28, esp. 13-20). In the course of that mission, Paul rises from Barnabas' junior colleague to a senior and veteran missionary. We also see Paul laboring in wider and wider spheres in the Eastern Mediterranean basin. It comes as something of a surprise, then, to see that activity grind to a halt in Acts 21-28[, where] Paul is in captivity, ... But Paul's captivity is not without meaning, ... It is the way in which Jesus accomplishes his sovereign purpose ..."

"The closing verses of Acts 28 serve, in part, to demonstrate [that] Paul's tenure in Rome renders his Gentile mission complete. Paul's Gentile mission is the way in which Christ ensured the fulfillment of the apostolic commission at Acts 1:8. What does it mean that this commission has been fulfilled? It means that the gospel has crossed a redemptive-historical threshold, decisively penetrating not only Jews and Samaritans, but also Gentiles. It means that a once-for-all foundation has been laid."

"Luke’s thesis is this: Jesus remains active, though the manner of his working has changed. Now, no longer in the flesh, he continues ‘to do and to teach’ through his ‘body’ the church…. This is the story of Acts."

"Acts is an Amazing book because literally the early Christians were on trial for their faith and they were literally tried and convicted for their faith! ... Never has a more gripping record been penned. If the amazing events in Acts fail to electrify the imagination and stir the emotions of any serious reader, nothing ever could. Acts is the sequel to the mighty events of the gospels and the gateway to the great teachings of the Epistles. It marks in fact, one of the greatest turning points in history."