12 How to Read Acts Download

Luke wrote Acts.

• Acts 1:1-2
• Acts is the second volume.
• Luke is about the life of Christ.
• Acts is about the early expansion of the church.

Major events of Acts

1. 1:1-11 Jesus commissions and ascends.
2. 1:12-27 Peter initiates replacing Judas.
3. 2:1-47 Spirit is poured out, and Peter preaches.
4. 3:1-26 Peter heals lame man and preaches.
5. 4:1-6:7 Communal living in Jerusalem
6. 6:8-7:60 Stephen’s martyrdom
7. 8:1-40 Philip’s expansion to Samaria, Ethiopia
8. 9:1-31 Paul’s conversion, expansion to Damascus
9. 9:32-9:43 Peter’s mission to Lydda and Joppa
10. 10:1-11:18 Peter converts Cornelius in Caesarea.
11. 11:19-30 Barnabas brings Paul to Antioch.
12. 12:1-24 Peter’s arrest and miraculous escape
13. 12:25-16:5 Paul’s 1st missionary journey
14. 16:6-19:20 Paul’s 2nd missionary journey
15. 19:21-21:17 Paul’s 3rd missionary journey
16. 21:18-28:31 Paul’s arrest and trip to Rome

Organization of the book

• The first half is about Peter (1-12).
• The second half is about Paul (13-28).
• Acts 1:8 outlines the book: they expanded from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

Leading and experience of God’s spirit

• Baptized with the spirit, filled with the spirit, pour out the spirit, receive the spirit, spirit fell upon: 1:5, 8; 2:4, 17; 4:31; 8:17; 9:17; 10:44-45; 11:15-16; 13:52
• Speaking in tongues; prophecy: 2:4, 17-18; 10:46; 11:28; 19:6; 20:22-23; 27:21-22
• Exorcisms: 5:16; 8:7; 16:18; 19:12-16
• Healing and miracles: 3:6-7; 5:12, 15-16; 8:39; 9:17-18, 34-35; 12:7-10; 13:11; 14:10; 19:11; 20:9-10; 28:3-6, 8-9
• Supernatural direction: 1:16, 26; 8:26, 29; 9:10-16; 13:2; 15:28; 16:7; 18:9-10; 20:28; 21:11; 23:11; 27:23-24

Rapid expansion through conversion

• Convert 3,000 on day of Pentecost (2:41)
• 5,000 after healing lame man at the temple (4:4)
• Conversions of whole towns: Samaria (8), Lydda, and Joppa (9)
• Conversions of key people: Ethiopian treasurer (8); Paul of Tarsus (9); Cornelius the centurion (10); Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, (13); Lydia, a wealthy Philippian merchant, (16); Crispus, a synagogue leader in Corinth, (18); Publius of Malta (28)

Perseverance through persecution

• Sadducees arrest Peter and John (4).
• Sadducees arrest apostles (5).
• A mob stones Stephen (7).
• Paul leads persecution in Jerusalem (8).
• King Herod executes James (12).
• King Herod imprisons Peter (12).
• Jewish leaders expel Paul and Barnabas from Pisidian Antioch (13).
• Jewish leaders stone Paul at Lystra (14).
• City magistrates arrest Paul and Silas at Philippi (16).
• Jewish mob attacks Jason at Thessalonica (17).
• Jewish leaders accuse Paul before Proconsul Gallio at Corinth (18).
• Demetrius instigates riot against Paul at Ephesus (19).
• Jewish mob attacks Paul at Jerusalem (21).
• Plot of Jewish leaders to murder Paul (23)
• Paul’s trial before Felix (24)
• Paul’s trial before Festus (25)
• Paul’s defense before King Agrippa (26)
• Paul’s shipwreck (27)
• Paul’s house arrest at Rome (28)

Respectful of Roman authorities

• Paul is respectful to his arresting officer, Claudius, (21:33, 37-40).
• He asserts his Roman citizenship (22:24-29).
• He cordially converses with Felix, Roman governor of Judea, (24).
• Paul appeals to have a trial before Caesar in Rome b/c he’s afraid he won’t get a fair hearing in Judea.
• Paul interacts respectfully with Festus and King Agrippa.
• King Agrippa says Paul should’ve been set free (26:31-32).
• Paul complies on the whole journey while under arrest.

Including the Gentiles

• Originally, Christianity was 100% Jewish.
• Gentiles (non-Jews) began believing in Jesus, and God demonstrated his acceptance through his spirit (see Acts 10:44-45).
• Both Peter and Paul preached to Gentiles and accepted them as part of God’s family.
• After a disagreement broke out over the Gentiles (Acts 15:1-2), the disciples decided Gentiles could be part of the church without keeping the law.

Acts is the historical spine of the NT

• Acts tells you about how Christianity came to many places mentioned in other parts of the NT.
• On Paul’s second missionary journey, he visited Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Ephesus. These are all places to which he wrote Epistles.

Prescriptive vs. descriptive

• Does Acts prescribe how we should live or describe what they did?
• Acts 2:44-46 talks about sharing all our possessions. Is this normative for all Christians for all time?
• Fee & Stuart: “Unless Scripture explicitly tells us we must do something, what is only narrated or described does not function in a normative (i.e. obligatory) way—unless it can be demonstrated on other grounds that the author intended it to function in this way.”1

Review

• Acts is a history of the church that Luke wrote to follow his biography of Christ.
• Acts describes the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth (i.e. the Mediterranean world).
• In Acts, Luke is interested in the activity of God’s spirit, missionary activity resulting in conversions, and how Christians are respectful to Roman authorities.
• The inclusion of Gentiles into the early Christian movement caused a significant controversy, resulting in the decision that they did not need to keep the law.
• Acts provides the historical backbone into which fit many of the Epistles of the NT.
• Luke tells of Paul’s three missionary journeys, as well as his final treacherous journey to Rome under arrest.
• Although Acts shows us what is possible as we walk with God, it does not prescribe that Christians today must do everything the way they did it (descriptive not prescriptive).
• Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 124.

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