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. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
AUTHOR
So, Acts begins with these words, “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach…” You may remember that the Gospel of Luke was also addressed to Theophilus. Thus, it appears that Luke and Acts together form a two-volume work by the same author.
Now, when we read through Acts, we find there are many “we” passages, indicating that the author is a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. By a process of elimination, scholars have concluded that Luke was the author of both books. The universal testimony of the early church agrees with this conclusion.
When we count the words in Luke and Acts together, we come up with a total of 38,022 words. That’s more words than any other single author wrote in the New Testament. That makes Luke the dominant author of the New Testament.
DATE
When was this book written? Some scholars think that the book of Acts was written as a sort of legal defense of Paul when he was brought to trial before Caesar in AD 64. In his Gospel, Luke calls the recipient of the book, “most excellent Theophilus”. That is the way high officials in the Roman government would be addressed. If this is true, then Acts was compiled sometime shortly before AD 64, the year of the persecution under Nero in which Paul died.
Other scholars date the book later, and some scholars who do that say that Luke, the companion of Paul, was not the author of the Gospel of Luke or Acts. If that is the case, I find it hard, if not impossible, to explain the intricacy of the “we” passages in this volume. Personally, I find it easier to believe that Luke was indeed the author of this book and that perhaps it was written as early as AD 64, though parts of it may have been written later.
THEMES
What are some of the themes in this book? J. B. Philips, a pastor in England in the mid twentieth century who wrote a rather popular translation of the New Testament, once said that as he was translating the Scriptures, he felt like an electrician re-wiring an old house with the electricity on. I feel something similar every time I study Acts. It is an electric book.
The major theme I see in the book of Acts is that of growth. Every living thing or person requires certain ingredients to grow. And if a thing or person is not growing, it is dying. What is true in the physical realm is also true in the spiritual realm. To grow spiritually, individual Christians, and the whole Church in fact needs certain fundamental ingredients. In at least ten places in the book of Acts growth is specifically mentioned or inferred:
- “In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty).” Acts 1:15
- “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” Acts 2:4
- “But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand.” Acts 4:4
- “Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.” Acts 5:14
- “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” Acts 6:7
- “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord.” Acts 9:31
- “But the word of God continued to increase and spread.” Acts 12:24
- “So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.” Acts 16:5
- “In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” Acts 19:20
- “Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.” Acts 28:31
We see from these verses that the spiritual growth of individual Christians and of the Church manifested itself in physical ways.
STRUCTURE
Acts 1:8 almost serves as a Table of Contents for the book of Acts. It is the verse where Jesus says, “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Thus, the structure of the book of Acts works out like this…
- The witness in Jerusalem (Acts 1-7)
- The witness in Judea and Samaria (Acts 8-12)
- The witness to the ends of the earth (Acts 13-28)
KEY CONCEPT: GROWTH
With that introduction in mind, let’s explore a little bit further this whole theme of growth. In the first eleven verses of Acts, Luke introduces us to some of the essential ingredients to Christian growth.
The first key ingredient to Christian growth which Luke reveals to us is, simply, Jesus, reigning in our lives. Luke writes, “In my former book, Theophilus,” which means lover of God, “I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.” This statement implies that Luke’s second volume is going to teach us about all that Jesus continued to do and to teach. Acts shows us all that Jesus continued to do and teach in the Church through the work of the Holy Spirit. By application, I believe this book will teach us what Jesus can continue to do in our lives through the Holy Spirit, how Jesus can help us to grow. Jesus is the “not-so secret” ingredient to growth in the Christian life.
Now, if we want Jesus to help us grow in our Christian lives then there are three pre-requisites mentioned by Luke. First, we must become convinced of Jesus’ resurrection. We read that after Jesus’ suffering, “he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days.”
The bodily resurrection of Jesus is what brought hope to his disciples. It is part of the good news, along with Jesus’ death for our sins, which those same disciples proclaimed to the world. Belief in the resurrection is what helped them to grow in faith. And it will help us grow too.
Secondly, if Jesus is going to help us grow, we must learn about his kingdom plans.Over a period of forty days, between the resurrection and the ascension, Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God to his disciples. Jesus’ teaching raised questions for the disciples. On one occasion they asked him, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” You see, the disciples still had in mind that Jesus was going to establish a political, earthly kingdom for Israel. In answer to their question, Jesus taught his disciples that the kingdom of God is:
· spiritual in character
· international in its membership and
· gradual in its expansion.
The kingdom of God is all about bringing the will of God to bear in our lives on earth just as it is done in heaven.
Thirdly, if we want Jesus to help us grow spiritually, we must wait on him to do his work in his perfect time. Jesus told his disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Waiting for growth is often hard for us to do as human beings.
When he was in middle school, my eldest son, James, brought two pumpkin plants home one day. It was part of a school project. When James brought the plants home, they were small, perhaps an inch or so in height. He planted them in two clay pots with good soil, rich in nutrients, and he placed the pots by the window in our living room. Every day James continued to pay attention to those plants. He checked their soil to see how dry they were. If they needed water, he watered them. When we went away for a few days we left the light on the table where the plants were located so that they would be certain to get plenty of light. It was interesting to watch the pumpkin plants grow. They stretched out toward the window, toward the light, in a dramatic way. Eventually the plants got so big, James stuck a pencil in each pot and attached the pumpkin vines to the pencils to help them grow up straight and strong. Eventually, the plants got too big for the pots and too big to keep indoor. Thus, James cleared out an old, overgrown flower bed, put some good topsoil down in it and planted his pumpkin plants outside. Unfortunately, it was at that point that the plants didn’t survive very well. My son James couldn’t wait to see his pumpkin plants fully grown. Perhaps that is one reason why he didn’t get to see them full-grown. Maybe he tried to rush the growing process.
Children sometimes can’t wait to be grown up. Teenagers often can’t wait to drive a car. College students are often anxious to be done with school. Singles can’t wait to be married. Some married people can’t wait to have kids. Then once they have kids they can’t wait until they are grown up!
Just so, we sometimes have a hard time waiting for the spiritual growth that Jesus wants to bring about in our lives. But we must wait because spiritual growth, like most other types of growth, doesn’t happen instantly.
Orin L. Crain once wrote this wonderful prayer:
Slow me down, Lord.
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, amid the confusion of the day, the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations—of slowing down to look at a flower,
to chat with a friend,
to pat a dog,
to smile at a child,
to read a few lines from a good book.
Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values, that I may grow toward my greater destiny.
Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward to the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.
I believe that Jesus, reigning in and through our lives, is the number one key to spiritual growth. However, to see that growth happen, we must believe in his resurrection, understand his kingdom plan, and wait on his timing.
Luke also tells us in these verses that growth will occur as we continue to be Jesus’ witnesses. In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells us some very important things:
- The power for witness comes from the Holy Spirit living in us.
- Witness is a team effort, the activity of the whole Church working together.
- If you are a Christian, then you are a witness.
- Witness is something you are more than something you do.
Many years ago, Harvard University commissioned a study on communication. They discovered no less than 700,000 different ways of communicating without words. That statistic says to me that if I try to communicate the Gospel by words alone, I am going to be outnumbered by 700,000 to 1.
The following quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi is appropriate in this regard… “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
After H. M. Stanley found David Livingston in Central Africa and had spent some time with him, he said, “If I had been with him any longer, I would have been compelled to be a Christian and he never spoke to me about it at all.” I wonder: is the Christian witness of our life, as well as our words, irresistible?
We must also recognize that we are called to point people to Jesus, not call attention to ourselves. My mother once told me that a short while before my father died, he told her he felt that he had spent too much of his life telling his story to other people, and not enough time telling Jesus’ story. That is important to keep in mind. There is a time for telling people our story, of what Jesus means to us and has done for us. But we must always lead out of our story to draw people’s attention to Jesus as pre-eminent.
We also need to recognize that being a witness will require sacrifice. The word for witness in Greek is the same as the word for “martyr”. It reminds us of the fact that many of the first Christian witnesses laid down their lives for Jesus. We must be willing to do the same, while recognizing that he may call us to lay down our lives daily over a lifetime of seventy years or more, rather than simply laying our physical lives down in one day, though he may call us to do that as well.
A final essential thing Luke tells us about growth in these opening verses of the book of Acts is that growth is assured because Jesus reigns. Jesus’ ascension into heaven means that he is reigning on the throne. Psalm 68:18 says, “When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train.” And Psalm 47:5,8 say, “God has ascended amid shouts of joy . . . God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.” And in Ephesians 2:6 Paul says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.”
Because Jesus is risen and reigning on his throne, we who are believers in Jesus are also reigning with him. We can extend his kingdom reign over the whole earth by acting as his witnesses in the world. And the success of our witness is assured because he reigns. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ.
I think that is the message of the ascension: Jesus is on the throne. He is sovereign. That means our growth, unlike my son’s pumpkin plants, is assured. Our labor for the Lord is never in vain. Our witness for him will be successful if we are trusting in God. Jesus is going to win in the end. And we can win with him.
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