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It is given to us in Acts Chapter 1 Verse 8. Jesus told the disciples that you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, (there's your first section), and in all Judaea and Samaria, (your second section), and into the uttermost part of the earth.
That term "uttermost part" or the extremities, or the ends of the earth is an idiom. It means from the nearest city to the farthest village.
Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 11 is the Prologue, the introduction for us. It is actually an overlap to Luke Chapter 24. I don't know of anybody that spends a lot of time reviewing like Luke does. There's a lot of overlap there!
But he wants to bring over that information from Luke Chapter 24 as he begins this second part of his gospel.
And then from there, Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 through Chapter 7 Verse 60, is the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem. All of our focus should be on the ministry in Jerusalem, as the Lord told the disciples in Acts 1:8.
In Chapters 8 through 12, it gives us the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria.
And lastly, in Acts Chapters 13 through 28, we have the proclaiming of the gospel in the uttermost part of the earth.
And again, if you take the apostles that are prominent, you see that after the prologue, the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem, the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria come under Peter's prominence.
And then the proclaiming of the gospel to the uttermost or ends of the earth, Chapters 13 through 28, is when Paul is emphasized and is the most prominent.
Tom, I know this is not very condensed as you asked for, but there is so much material in the book of Acts. It is my hope and prayer that some of what I've shared here with you might be of some help.
May the Lord bless you abundantly through His word!
At first, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were one document on two separate scrolls. Luke and Acts were originally circulated as the gospel of Luke Volumes 1 and 2.
Later the two books were divided. And you can see why Acts would not have a title because it's the second half to the first scroll. The first scroll had a title but the second scroll didn't. Around the second century, they decided to give it a name too, and separate them!
Why it was written:
Luke was written to present what Jesus did and taught through His human body. In Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, it says that this was written to present what Jesus continues to do and to teach through His Spiritual body, the church.
It's still the Lord. One through His human body, and now He has sent His Spirit to continue His work through his Spiritual body the church.
To whom was it written:
It was written specifically to the most excellent Theophilus, probably a Roman governor, and in general to all Gentiles, non Jews, to understand the scriptures.
Now there are actually 2 outlines for the book. There are 2 apostles that are prominent. They aren't the only ones but they are the prominent ones.
From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 all the way to the end of Chapter 12, the prominent apostle is Peter. And from Chapters 13 through 28, the second half of the book, the prominent apostle is Paul.
Peter was the apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles.
It also tells you the timing when Saul of Tarsus was saved and he became known as Paul. He's the one that went on the missionary journeys and took the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Those are the Gentiles.
So the timing all the way through the book is very accurate!
Talk about a lack of faith, I love this one. In Acts Chapter 12, Peter gets thrown in jail. So they get together for a prayer meeting. I would hope that if I got thrown in jail for preaching Christ that my brothers and sisters would get together and pray. You might be praying "please keep him locked up as long as possible!" But at least you'll be praying.
So they were praying "Lord, please deliver Peter." Well, Peter was delivered. He was walking down the streets of Jerusalem and he was looking for the fellowship to meet and he comes and knocks on the door.
And the gal that's in charge of the door, she goes and she says "who is it?" And he says "It's me Peter." She goes back in and she tells the prayer group "Peter's at the door." They said "It can't be. He's in prison. Lord, please deliver him." He can't be at the door, he's in prison!
Look at the faith they had. They had no faith at all! They didn't believe it was Peter. And in spite of what they believed or didn't believe, in spite of what they were aware of or not aware of, God's Spirit just used them! In fact, they were so clueless, that they didn't get in the way! Why did I even bring that up?
The title to the book as I'm relaying it to you, should be, and is according to Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, the theme is the ministry of the Lord, what He continues to do and to teach. The apostles are just vessels. It's not what they do. It is the ministry that the Lord continues to do and teach.
If you look at it from that perspective, you realize that as you read through, there are things that happened through the apostles that they didn't plan or weren't even expecting. God just did it! There's no formula.
This is very interesting. If you take the title, in most English bibles, it will say "The Acts of the Apostles." Originally, this letter had no title whatsoever. So whatever title you have in your English bibles, it is not inspired. It had no title.
But the word Acts comes from the Greek word Praxeis that means practices. They added the word apostles from Acts Chapter 1 Verse 13 because they said this is all about the apostles. So they called it the Acts, or the Practices of the Apostles.
But this is very misleading. If I had any influential weight to change the title of the book of Acts, I would try to do it. And I think that a lot of people in their approach to the book of Acts, and in their approach to the teachings in the book of Acts, they do so because they say here are the Acts of the apostles.
It's not the Acts of the apostles. It doesn't record what the apostle did. It records what Jesus did through the apostles. There's a difference. Many people will look at the book of Acts and they'll say "Well, now that Jesus is gone, look at all the stuff they did for Him!"
No! As a matter of fact, if you take my challenge, as we go through this, just in your leisure time, start reading through the chapters that we study and you will find out that they did not have a clue as to what to do.
They had no "committee meetings," nothing! Even when they were waiting in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, they didn't know when He was coming.
The Lord had a specific day and a specific time. They didn't know that! After His ascension, they waited for 10 days before the Holy Spirit came upon the believers.
I say all of this because everything that's done in the book of Acts is the Acts of Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, through the apostles.
Luke and Acts express the highest level of Greek in the New Testament. Again, from a very educated man! In fact, point number 2, many scholars, not bible scholars, but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!
Putting Luke and Acts together with all the literature that they have found, it's the highest quality of Greek.
There are 312 Greek words in Luke that are not in the rest of the New Testament. There are 478 Greek words in Acts that are not in the rest of the New Testament. So he's got a big vocabulary!
Now some think that Luke and Acts are actually trial documents. Paul was on his way to Rome and it was required, to make an appeal to Caesar, you had to have documents that explain yourself, preceding any appeal before you stand before him.
Theophilus was thought of putting this together for Paul and Luke was doing this for him. So Paul was in Rome, and Luke's there, and he contacts Theophilus and he says if I write up some documents on the ministry of Christ, and the life of Paul, will you use these in your court appeal that goes before Caesar before Paul can stand before Caesar?
Now there are two things by way of characteristics of the gospel and the book of Acts that support the trial document theory. All uprisings recorded in Luke and Acts were caused by Jewish leaders.
At no time does Luke make anybody who's Roman the fault. The Roman soldiers are always good guys in the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.
They're not the bad guys! It's the Jewish leaders who are the bad guys. So it helps throw weight into this view that these were court documents because it would be favorably received by the Romans.
Some piece of information. You have written about the Book of Acts "but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!". Sorry but this is not true really, not at all. The Greek language that people were speaking during Jesus' time was very simple and poor in many aspects compared to the rhetoric Greek of classical Athens, that is 4-5 centuaries earlier. Most of the masterpieces of ancient Greek literature come from that period, even earlier on like Homer's "Iliad and Odyssey" from the 8th centuary BC. But Luke's Greek is perfect that is why many scholars consider that he was probably a Greek himself. But his gospel is not written as a literature text (like the KJV translation is). It is written in everyday's language of people at that time. But his greek is perfect and also show a well educated man. The writtings of the other 3 evangelists who were Hebrew, and Greek was not their native language, show a limited vocabularly (lke mine in English!), and are simpler in the structure of the language compared to that of Luke. They contain many Hebraisms, that is Hebrew expressions that are not said in Greek (or in English) and may sometimes confuse people, like "son of man" which simply means "man", and "son of God" which simple means "God", or call as a "father" any ancestor, or as a "son" any decendant and so on. They also contain linguistic errors, like e.g. the "sea of Galilee" (or Gennesaret or Tiberias). Which is not a sea, but it is a lake. Luke is the only one who calls it a lake. Why? Because in Hebrew all waters are sea, the Hebrew language (at that time) does not distinguish between sea and lake. Everything is called "sea", whether a sea or a lake. So the other 3 evangelists just said in Greek what they would have said in Hebrew, but it is not right. And some other as well...
We are told that the man's name to whom it is written is Theophilus, which literally means "Lover of God," THEOS for God, and PHILEO for love. He's a God lover.
It's either his name or his title. Theophilus was a common name at that time. Some people believe it might have been used as a title in order to hide his identity.
But in Luke Chapter 1, he's called "the most excellent Theophilus." The title "most excellent" is either a title of an officer in the Roman military or the title of an official in the Roman government, especially a governor.
The title is used three times in Acts, once it's for "most excellent" governor Felix, "most noble" Felix, and "most noble" Festus, addressing the governors of the Roman government.
So Theophilus was a Roman official. Tradition says that he was from Antioch of Syria. Apparently Luke and Theophilus knew each other. Luke and Acts, both of them were written to Theophilus.
We're told in Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 and 2, and Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 4, they were written to the same person.
Here is what I can share with you and any others interested in an outline of the book of Acts:
Part 1:
Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke also wrote the book of Acts. He's only mentioned three times in the New Testament.
Colossians 4:14 tells us that He is a physician. Historical accounts tell us that he was schooled in Alexandria Egypt.
So we look at that and we see that God chose an educated man to do a very detailed investigation. Luke is a Greek name and therefore many believe that he was a Gentile.
From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1 through Chapter 16 Verse 9, Luke uses "they," third person plural in his writings.
Starting with Acts Chapter 16 Verse 10 all the way to the end, he changes it to "we." So at Acts Chapter 16 Verse 9 is where Luke joined up with Paul.
He joined up with Paul in Troas. He was probably converted in Troas by Paul. He becomes Paul's personal physician. In Acts Chapter 27, he's right there in the shipwreck with Paul, right before Paul reaches Rome, which will be his last destination before he dies.
Here is a general statement for you. The record of the Lord's ministry, from Luke Chapter 1, all the way through to the end of Acts Chapter 28, if you put those two books together, it is the most detailed account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Again, Luke is an educated man. Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 to 4 tells us that he gathered in manuscripts. He gathered in all the writings that he could find about Jesus Christ. He interviewed eyewitnesses.
And being an educated man, he used a lot of detailed words. He wanted to be accurate and detailed about his presentation.
Tom, a few years ago, I put together and presented a bible study on the book of Acts. I gave an introduction to Acts which laid out the entire book. I can share that with you but there is no way I can do so in one post. Would you like me to share it with you?
Thank you my dear brother and sister in Christ. It has been a while since I've been able to come on here and I have also missed all of you. This year has been a tough one but the Lord is good.
Anyways, I will share what I put together a few years back on the book of Acts. I gave an entire study of the entire New Testament. I put together introductions to each book that I presented and shared them online with a group of about 25.
I kept all my materials and this is what I am going to use to share what I presented on Acts. I'll start it in another post.
Here is a section outline of the book of Acts:
It is given to us in Acts Chapter 1 Verse 8. Jesus told the disciples that you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, (there's your first section), and in all Judaea and Samaria, (your second section), and into the uttermost part of the earth.
That term "uttermost part" or the extremities, or the ends of the earth is an idiom. It means from the nearest city to the farthest village.
Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 11 is the Prologue, the introduction for us. It is actually an overlap to Luke Chapter 24. I don't know of anybody that spends a lot of time reviewing like Luke does. There's a lot of overlap there!
But he wants to bring over that information from Luke Chapter 24 as he begins this second part of his gospel.
And then from there, Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 through Chapter 7 Verse 60, is the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem. All of our focus should be on the ministry in Jerusalem, as the Lord told the disciples in Acts 1:8.
In Chapters 8 through 12, it gives us the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria.
And lastly, in Acts Chapters 13 through 28, we have the proclaiming of the gospel in the uttermost part of the earth.
And again, if you take the apostles that are prominent, you see that after the prologue, the proclaiming of the gospel in Jerusalem, the proclaiming of the gospel in Judaea and Samaria come under Peter's prominence.
And then the proclaiming of the gospel to the uttermost or ends of the earth, Chapters 13 through 28, is when Paul is emphasized and is the most prominent.
Tom, I know this is not very condensed as you asked for, but there is so much material in the book of Acts. It is my hope and prayer that some of what I've shared here with you might be of some help.
May the Lord bless you abundantly through His word!
God bless you.
The relationship to other books:
At first, the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were one document on two separate scrolls. Luke and Acts were originally circulated as the gospel of Luke Volumes 1 and 2.
Later the two books were divided. And you can see why Acts would not have a title because it's the second half to the first scroll. The first scroll had a title but the second scroll didn't. Around the second century, they decided to give it a name too, and separate them!
Why it was written:
Luke was written to present what Jesus did and taught through His human body. In Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, it says that this was written to present what Jesus continues to do and to teach through His Spiritual body, the church.
It's still the Lord. One through His human body, and now He has sent His Spirit to continue His work through his Spiritual body the church.
To whom was it written:
It was written specifically to the most excellent Theophilus, probably a Roman governor, and in general to all Gentiles, non Jews, to understand the scriptures.
Now there are actually 2 outlines for the book. There are 2 apostles that are prominent. They aren't the only ones but they are the prominent ones.
From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 12 all the way to the end of Chapter 12, the prominent apostle is Peter. And from Chapters 13 through 28, the second half of the book, the prominent apostle is Paul.
Peter was the apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles.
It also tells you the timing when Saul of Tarsus was saved and he became known as Paul. He's the one that went on the missionary journeys and took the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Those are the Gentiles.
So the timing all the way through the book is very accurate!
Talk about a lack of faith, I love this one. In Acts Chapter 12, Peter gets thrown in jail. So they get together for a prayer meeting. I would hope that if I got thrown in jail for preaching Christ that my brothers and sisters would get together and pray. You might be praying "please keep him locked up as long as possible!" But at least you'll be praying.
So they were praying "Lord, please deliver Peter." Well, Peter was delivered. He was walking down the streets of Jerusalem and he was looking for the fellowship to meet and he comes and knocks on the door.
And the gal that's in charge of the door, she goes and she says "who is it?" And he says "It's me Peter." She goes back in and she tells the prayer group "Peter's at the door." They said "It can't be. He's in prison. Lord, please deliver him." He can't be at the door, he's in prison!
Look at the faith they had. They had no faith at all! They didn't believe it was Peter. And in spite of what they believed or didn't believe, in spite of what they were aware of or not aware of, God's Spirit just used them! In fact, they were so clueless, that they didn't get in the way! Why did I even bring that up?
The title to the book as I'm relaying it to you, should be, and is according to Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1, the theme is the ministry of the Lord, what He continues to do and to teach. The apostles are just vessels. It's not what they do. It is the ministry that the Lord continues to do and teach.
If you look at it from that perspective, you realize that as you read through, there are things that happened through the apostles that they didn't plan or weren't even expecting. God just did it! There's no formula.
Now about the theme of the book:
This is very interesting. If you take the title, in most English bibles, it will say "The Acts of the Apostles." Originally, this letter had no title whatsoever. So whatever title you have in your English bibles, it is not inspired. It had no title.
But the word Acts comes from the Greek word Praxeis that means practices. They added the word apostles from Acts Chapter 1 Verse 13 because they said this is all about the apostles. So they called it the Acts, or the Practices of the Apostles.
But this is very misleading. If I had any influential weight to change the title of the book of Acts, I would try to do it. And I think that a lot of people in their approach to the book of Acts, and in their approach to the teachings in the book of Acts, they do so because they say here are the Acts of the apostles.
It's not the Acts of the apostles. It doesn't record what the apostle did. It records what Jesus did through the apostles. There's a difference. Many people will look at the book of Acts and they'll say "Well, now that Jesus is gone, look at all the stuff they did for Him!"
No! As a matter of fact, if you take my challenge, as we go through this, just in your leisure time, start reading through the chapters that we study and you will find out that they did not have a clue as to what to do.
They had no "committee meetings," nothing! Even when they were waiting in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, they didn't know when He was coming.
The Lord had a specific day and a specific time. They didn't know that! After His ascension, they waited for 10 days before the Holy Spirit came upon the believers.
I say all of this because everything that's done in the book of Acts is the Acts of Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, through the apostles.
I will continue part 4!
Now about the book of Acts itself:
Luke and Acts express the highest level of Greek in the New Testament. Again, from a very educated man! In fact, point number 2, many scholars, not bible scholars, but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!
Putting Luke and Acts together with all the literature that they have found, it's the highest quality of Greek.
There are 312 Greek words in Luke that are not in the rest of the New Testament. There are 478 Greek words in Acts that are not in the rest of the New Testament. So he's got a big vocabulary!
Now some think that Luke and Acts are actually trial documents. Paul was on his way to Rome and it was required, to make an appeal to Caesar, you had to have documents that explain yourself, preceding any appeal before you stand before him.
Theophilus was thought of putting this together for Paul and Luke was doing this for him. So Paul was in Rome, and Luke's there, and he contacts Theophilus and he says if I write up some documents on the ministry of Christ, and the life of Paul, will you use these in your court appeal that goes before Caesar before Paul can stand before Caesar?
Now there are two things by way of characteristics of the gospel and the book of Acts that support the trial document theory. All uprisings recorded in Luke and Acts were caused by Jewish leaders.
At no time does Luke make anybody who's Roman the fault. The Roman soldiers are always good guys in the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.
They're not the bad guys! It's the Jewish leaders who are the bad guys. So it helps throw weight into this view that these were court documents because it would be favorably received by the Romans.
Some piece of information. You have written about the Book of Acts "but many Greek scholars hold that Luke and Acts are the highest quality of Greek in all ancient literature!". Sorry but this is not true really, not at all. The Greek language that people were speaking during Jesus' time was very simple and poor in many aspects compared to the rhetoric Greek of classical Athens, that is 4-5 centuaries earlier. Most of the masterpieces of ancient Greek literature come from that period, even earlier on like Homer's "Iliad and Odyssey" from the 8th centuary BC. But Luke's Greek is perfect that is why many scholars consider that he was probably a Greek himself. But his gospel is not written as a literature text (like the KJV translation is). It is written in everyday's language of people at that time. But his greek is perfect and also show a well educated man. The writtings of the other 3 evangelists who were Hebrew, and Greek was not their native language, show a limited vocabularly (lke mine in English!), and are simpler in the structure of the language compared to that of Luke. They contain many Hebraisms, that is Hebrew expressions that are not said in Greek (or in English) and may sometimes confuse people, like "son of man" which simply means "man", and "son of God" which simple means "God", or call as a "father" any ancestor, or as a "son" any decendant and so on. They also contain linguistic errors, like e.g. the "sea of Galilee" (or Gennesaret or Tiberias). Which is not a sea, but it is a lake. Luke is the only one who calls it a lake. Why? Because in Hebrew all waters are sea, the Hebrew language (at that time) does not distinguish between sea and lake. Everything is called "sea", whether a sea or a lake. So the other 3 evangelists just said in Greek what they would have said in Hebrew, but it is not right. And some other as well...
Have a blessed weekend. GBU
The recipient to the book of Acts:
We are told that the man's name to whom it is written is Theophilus, which literally means "Lover of God," THEOS for God, and PHILEO for love. He's a God lover.
It's either his name or his title. Theophilus was a common name at that time. Some people believe it might have been used as a title in order to hide his identity.
But in Luke Chapter 1, he's called "the most excellent Theophilus." The title "most excellent" is either a title of an officer in the Roman military or the title of an official in the Roman government, especially a governor.
The title is used three times in Acts, once it's for "most excellent" governor Felix, "most noble" Felix, and "most noble" Festus, addressing the governors of the Roman government.
So Theophilus was a Roman official. Tradition says that he was from Antioch of Syria. Apparently Luke and Theophilus knew each other. Luke and Acts, both of them were written to Theophilus.
We're told in Acts Chapter 1 Verses 1 and 2, and Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 through 4, they were written to the same person.
Here is what I can share with you and any others interested in an outline of the book of Acts:
Part 1:
Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke also wrote the book of Acts. He's only mentioned three times in the New Testament.
Colossians 4:14 tells us that He is a physician. Historical accounts tell us that he was schooled in Alexandria Egypt.
So we look at that and we see that God chose an educated man to do a very detailed investigation. Luke is a Greek name and therefore many believe that he was a Gentile.
From Acts Chapter 1 Verse 1 through Chapter 16 Verse 9, Luke uses "they," third person plural in his writings.
Starting with Acts Chapter 16 Verse 10 all the way to the end, he changes it to "we." So at Acts Chapter 16 Verse 9 is where Luke joined up with Paul.
He joined up with Paul in Troas. He was probably converted in Troas by Paul. He becomes Paul's personal physician. In Acts Chapter 27, he's right there in the shipwreck with Paul, right before Paul reaches Rome, which will be his last destination before he dies.
Here is a general statement for you. The record of the Lord's ministry, from Luke Chapter 1, all the way through to the end of Acts Chapter 28, if you put those two books together, it is the most detailed account of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
Again, Luke is an educated man. Luke Chapter 1 Verses 1 to 4 tells us that he gathered in manuscripts. He gathered in all the writings that he could find about Jesus Christ. He interviewed eyewitnesses.
And being an educated man, he used a lot of detailed words. He wanted to be accurate and detailed about his presentation.
Thank you for sharing this, it was the Acts of Jesus and is today, as John recorded what Jesus told them would happen, John 16:7-15.
God bless,
RLW
I'd love for you to post it!
It's nice to see you post again!
you and others were being asked about and missed.
Brother Chris said you would pop up and here you go.
This reminds me of last year Chris went on a month vacation and you returned to the site and refreshed us.
I hope all is well.
God bless.
Anyways, I will share what I put together a few years back on the book of Acts. I gave an entire study of the entire New Testament. I put together introductions to each book that I presented and shared them online with a group of about 25.
I kept all my materials and this is what I am going to use to share what I presented on Acts. I'll start it in another post.
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