Exploring the Book of Acts

What's up Every Nation Seminary? Pastor Adam Mabry here and we are about to kick off the book of Acts. Now welcome back to my favorite place to do work and ministry and stuff here in my home office. Today we're going to dive into this most important book, the second book that Luke wrote, so that we can see really what it's all about. The goal of this lecture is is to understand some foundational facts about the book of Acts. We'll go through some like big picture stuff, and then we're going to walk through the first of Acts four kind of geographical sections. We'll notice that the book of Acts, like many other books in that we've covered so far, it has a very important geographic outline which we're going to see in in just a moment. But let's talk a little bit about some basic facts. Acts, the authorship, is Luke, Luke the physician, just like we talked about with the Gospel of Luke. Again, from Colossians 4, we understand that he was probably a Gentile and that he journeyed with Paul, which is something that he talks about later on in this very book. Provenance, probably Rome. We can see that from Colossians 4 and Philemon verse 24, but again, it's a probably sort of thing. This would have been written just after the book of Luke, so probably around 62, just a little bit. after the previous book. And again, the audience is primarily this individual named Theophilus. Now, we talked about who Theophilus might be, and that's, you know, who he's writing directly toward. But of course, secondarily, most Gentiles, maybe some Jews, but Luke appears to write for both Christians and non-Christians. Luke is writing an account, a well-researched historical account, and he's looking at his own travelogue and talking about his own journeys with the Apostle Paul later. And so that's what's going on here. The Gospel of Luke was probably sent first to Theophilus. It's probably not the case that Luke and Acts were all kind of set down and composed at the same time. And the reason that we think that is because in the parallel introductions to Luke chapter 1 and then Acts chapter 1, in Acts chapter 1, Luke refers to, you know, in my first book, O Theophilus, you know, I began to summarize all the things that Jesus did and that he taught and all of that good stuff. And so it was... there was a delay before the writing of Acts. So why is that important? That means that the Gospel of Luke was written intentionally without needing Acts, but the book of Acts was written needing the Gospel of Luke. Let me say that again. So if Luke was composed first, which it was, then Luke wrote it without you and I needing to have the book of Acts in our hands to fully understand it, though the book of Acts shed some light on it. But the book of Acts was written having needed. the book of Luke to explain and to form the foundation of the story. The book of Acts is the second part of Luke's major work. So Acts was written assuming Theophilus had read Luke, is basically the idea, because he refers back to this work that he had composed. Now, the primary purpose of this book, the book of Acts, is to confirm or create faith in Theophilus and whomever Theophilus would have written. read this to, by giving a theological interpretation of the history of the early church. Now, let me say that again. It's a theological interpretation of the history of the early church. It is factual history, absolutely. But Luke has an agenda. He wants to fan into flame the faith of this person to whom he is writing, who has underwritten his journey, and thereby to fan our faith into flame too. So what do we do with the book of Acts? Well, okay, there's a whole history of interpretation with this book that we cannot go into right here. But the way we're going to read it is as history, which is, you know, we're in the New Testament histories class, so shocker, I'm going to have you read it as a history. But of course, we're reading it as a history written by Luke with some very specific things in mind. So what are some of those theological interests? Well, it probably won't surprise you to learn that Luke's theological interests in the book of Acts are very similar to his theological interest in his gospel, the book of Luke. So one of the major interests that really comes to the forefront in the book of Acts is, of course, the purpose and person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows up early and often in the book of Acts, and his work is connected to the advancement of the gospel. His work is connected to miracles. His work is showing up in very normal people in the church, and, of course, the apostles and the church's leaders as well. The second thing is a kind of missiology. Now, Missiology, properly understood, is the study of the way the gospel goes into certain cultures. But by missiology here, what I mean is the study of the mission of God, the study of how the gospel spreads from this small group of Jewish kind of nobodies to the entire world. How did that happen? What was the flow? What did God do in redemptive history? And there's that redemptive history word again. And then the third theme, of course, is universality. We talked about this in the Gospel of Luke in those lectures in particular, but here it is also a thing. Jesus is caring for and inviting the nations of the world into his family, and the Gospel of Luke, and later the book of Acts, records that whole story of how from the very quiet, tumble-down stables of Bethlehem to the Roman courts of power, the gospel about Jesus spread around the world. And so the emphasis here is very much on a universality, that the gospel is for the nations. And yet, there's also a particularity that Luke is interested in. He does not at all eject or reject the Jewish origins of the Christian story. In fact, he deals with them head-on because he wants us to see that he is connecting the universal gospel to the particularity of the ancient Jews and show Christianity. to be a continuation of a very Jewish story. So those are some of the theological interests that you will, of course, have already seen, because I'm sure you've already read the book of Luke and the book of Acts, and you've already done your assigned readings. And so a lot of this is just going to be setting the concrete that you've already been studying. Now, what is the structure of this book? The structure of this book, there have been a lot of proposals to the structure of this book. So I'm going to give you a few of them, and then I'll tell you which one that I will be using. using. Probably an old and very popular way to understand the book of Acts was to consider it, you know, the first 12 chapters or so were sort of the work that Peter did, and then the last, you know, 20, I'm sorry, the last 14 chapters or so was going to be the work that Paul did. And so you kind of separated it into the work of Peter and the work of Paul. Now the problem is that's a little bit too simplistic, and it definitely doesn't feel like Luke was intentionally doing that. Now one may conclude, that without giving legitimacy to this sort of outline, that there is an aspect, in fact, of this book that focuses on Peter and his ministry toward the Jews, and then later moves to Paul's ministry toward the Gentiles. That is true, but it's not the operative outline that Luke seemed to have in his mind when he composed this work. However, the continuity of their ministry and the conversation that they have in Acts 15, when thinking about how the non-Jewish world was going to come into this very Jewish... sect called Christianity, what that was going to look like, that is something that Luke wants to show us. He wants to show us the continuity of this community of Jesus followers all the way back to the beginnings of his first book. Now today, a second way to understand it is a more geographical outline, as I mentioned to you earlier. And spoiler alert, this is the one I like the best. This divides this book into four major sections. So there's the Jerusalem section, which is chapters one to seven. And then there's the Judea and Samaria section, which is chapters 8 through 12. And then there's sort of the ends of the earth section, which is chapters 13 through 20. And then we zoom in on Paul and his journey to Rome, or what I like to call his prison tour, from chapters 21 to 28. However, that is not the only way to understand this book. And so I want to give you two more things to look forward to as strands or as themes in this book as we think about it. The first... is the progress of the gospel. There seems to be a focus on this textual repetition. There's a phrase that shows up often that goes like this, the word of the Lord grew mightily. It talks about the word of the Lord growing and expanding, and it really focuses around these two Greek words. The first word is oxano, that this is the word grow, and the word increase, which is the word plithynio. These two words, oxano and plethuno, they're showing up a lot, and they sort of act like buoys, if you've ever been boating. You know, you look for the buoys in a particular inlet or in a particular bay so that you know where the boat should be going so that it can get home. These phrases, the word of the Lord grew, act like reminders. This is where we're going. The word of God is growing. The message of the gospel is growing and going places. And so you can see it in Acts 6-7. You can see it in Acts 9-31. Acts 12, 24, and on and on, which you can see in some of the notes that I will provide for you as well. The book even ends with Paul boldly preaching the kingdom of God. It ends with Paul's talking about the Word and teaching people the Word of God. And so that has been proposed as an outline as well, though I don't like that one as much. And finally, and perhaps most interesting to some of you, is the outline of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows up right at the beginning, and he... He's talked about as being the one who will give us power to be a witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the end of the earth in Acts 1.8. And then the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. That's in Acts 2. And then the Holy Spirit comes to the Samaritans. in Acts chapter 8, and then Paul and Ananias have this connection to the Gentiles in Acts chapter 9. Listen to some of these texts. Okay, Acts 1.8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth. Then we get Acts 2. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. and began to speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. How about Acts chapter 8? It says this, Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter 9, But the Lord said to them, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine. This shows up again with Peter and Cornelius. It shows up again at the Jerusalem Council. It shows up again in Acts chapter 19 when they're confronting the baptism of John and relating it to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. So... We've talked then about four different outlines. We've talked about a geographic outline, which is my preference. We've talked about an older outline, which is sort of a Peter-Paul sort of thing. We've talked about an advancement of the word of the Lord. I gave you those two words that shows up over and over again like buoys. And then we see that there's a thread here of the movement and work of the Holy Spirit. So which one is right? And the answer is yes. They're all important. It's important to see the work of Peter and Paul. It's important to see these four sections. It's important to see the work. of the Holy Spirit and the advancement of the word of the Lord. When we try to understand these things, very often we're imposing a little bit of a structure on a book that might not neatly fit our structure. We don't have Luke's outline notes, but it seems to me and to most other scholars that the geographic outline is the best way to understand it and was maybe more operative in Luke's mind. And so that's the outline that we will be using in this. course, and I think it's the easiest one to understand because it follows the thesis statement of the whole book. The thesis statement of the whole book is this, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. I take that as the thesis statement of this book because that's literally the outward movement of the gospel from right there in Jerusalem at the temple at Pentecost all the way to the courts of Rome when Paul is there. imprisoned. And so let's start by looking at the Jerusalem section. We'll start right now in section one, part one, the Jerusalem section that goes from Acts 1 all the way through to Acts 7. Now, the first chapter seems to be introducing God, the Holy Spirit. Jesus is there with his disciples after his resurrection for 40 days, and he's teaching them about God and his kingdom. Think about that. Jesus, in his resurrected body, is with them for a little over a month, teaching them, and then... he says this, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And they have all sorts of questions. Okay, is the kingdom coming? And Jesus says, no, no, you're missing it. That's not for you to know. What you need to know is that you will receive power from on high to be my witnesses. Now, this is the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophetic hopes. You can see Isaiah 32, Ezekiel 36, Joel 2. The Holy Spirit is coming. The gift of Jesus that God himself would be with us, not just personally in the bodily form of Jesus Christ, but personally in our own selves through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. This is an amazing promise, and it's one that comes true right here. Now, as I mentioned, I think that Acts 1-8 is the thesis for the whole book, and you're welcome to disagree with me. And so if you want to talk about that, of course, we can do that offline when we discuss this stuff as a class. But to me, it really summarizes the movement of this whole text. So after this, Jesus ascends, making way for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would be present with the disciples as they fulfilled this mission. And so the Holy Spirit turns out to be the main character of chapter 1 of the book of Acts. And so then he comes in chapter 2. This is when we get Pentecost, and in every nation we love Acts 2, don't we? We love to talk about the Holy Spirit and him showing up in places, and we love to look at the book of Acts. And so it all happens at Pentecost. So what is Pentecost? Well, the word Pentecost literally means like 50 days. And it's a New Testament name for an Old Testament festival, the Festival of Weeks, when the wheat harvest was celebrated by a big one-day festival. And there were special sacrifices made. You can see that in the book of Exodus chapter 23 and Leviticus chapter 23 as well. But this particular moment was when Jews from all over the nations, as it were, were Jews who were spread out all over. the regions would come together to the temple to celebrate this festival. It was very, very important. And so this was the moment that God chose to give birth to his church. The church was born at Pentecost in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out. And so in Acts chapter 2, we read this very familiar passage, And it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, what I want to do as we look through this text, I want to ask you to become very aware of your own presuppositions about how Spirit ministry goes. Your own presuppositions about the filling of the Holy Spirit, what tongues even means. I want you to set that aside for a second and try to hear this text. Try to see it. as if it were new. Because what he's talking about here might be different than what you have in your mind as a typical every nation pastor or leader. So what is meant by this event? Tongues of fire. We don't see tongues of fire anywhere else in the Old Testament, do we? Do we? See, what is happening here is that God is mashing up two different symbols in this particular event. at Pentecost. And so we're going to think about tongues for a second, and then we'll think about fire and see if we can get some meaning behind this. Now, when we hear the word tongues, this is the Greek word glossolalia. It means, it can mean your like actual tongue, like the thing inside your mouth. And it can also refer to languages. And so what is he referring to? Is he talking about tongues vis-a-vis Paul, you know, 1 Corinthians 12 and 14? Is he talking about that that prayer language that we... all love to use to build up our inner man, as it were? Or is he talking about speaking an actual other language? When the Holy Spirit comes to me and suddenly I can speak Arabic. Or is he talking about tongues as hearing? Because the miracle might have been they were all hearing the word in their own language. Whatever it was, we know that it was clearly an ecstatic experience because the people that watched it thought that they were drunk. But here, Luke's goal is not Pauline precision. Now remember, Luke is doing... historical theology. So he's telling us what happened without taking time necessarily to pause and give us a systematic theological explanation of it. He leaves us to understand what is going on through our own reflection. Luke seems more interested here to give us some connective tissue to important events in the Old Testament. Now think back. When were languages really important in the Old Testament? Well, you can think all the way back to the Tower of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, the nations were separated and our languages were broken because this was a tale of a pagan idolatrous temple that led to judgment. But now the Holy Spirit has come and this event is representing a reversal of Babel. A reversal of the moment when the nations were separated, now they're coming together. A reversal of the moment when pagan worship led to God's judgment, now true worship leads to God's... presence and God's blessing. Pentecost represented a reversal of Babel at the Jerusalem temple by the formation of little spirit temples. That's what humans were. That's why the Holy Spirit came upon each one of them, not just one of them, but each one of them as a tongue right there. Now this led to unified understanding, and the people who were gathered who didn't necessarily speak the language that was spoken there, they could hear the word of the Lord in their own language, which leads us to understand. Pentecost is about bringing the nations in. It's the reversal of the curse of Babel. The second thing that we need to see is that Pentecost is about the triumph of the church. I want to read you this quote from Michael Heiser in his book, The Unseen Realm, which I would recommend to all of you. Here's what he says, As Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the celebration, heard, and embraced the news of Jesus and his resurrection, Jews who embraced Jesus as Messiah would carry that message back to their home countries, the nations. If Babel's disinheritance was going to be rectified by the message of Jesus, the second Yahweh incarnate, and his spirit, the nations would again be his. This is the triumph of Christ over his enemies and the triumph of the church as a part of his victory. Okay, so that's what the tongues piece means. Now, let's think about fire. Why are they tongues of fire? Why weren't they just tongues? Well, that would have been very strange if just little disembodied tongues floated above everyone's head. These were tongues of fire. What? What does that mean? Look at the language. There came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting with these tongues of fire. This kind of language of rushing wind and filling the house and pillars of fire should take your mind back to the book of Exodus. Back to the moment when Moses was leading the people across the desert, there would be a pillar of fire. Back to the moment when the temple was being sanctified and set up. Back to the moment when... The tabernacle was being sanctified and set up. You can read about the role of wind and fire in Exodus chapter 40 and 2 Chronicles 7. Luke is here saying, this is the new temple. This is the new temple. And because of this temple, I'm bringing the nations back. And my presence, God's presence, is showing up in the individual believers. This is the moment when they're baptized in the Holy Spirit. This is the moment when the Spirit of God comes upon the church in a way like the Spirit of God came upon. Jesus the Son. So Luke is here reporting on the combining of these Old Testament symbols to say something new, to say that Jesus' people are the new temple, and to give rise to the expectation and to the hope of international reunification. Again, remember, this is that universal impulse in the book of Luke, in the book of Acts. And you can read about this prophetic hope in Isaiah chapter 11 or Ezekiel chapter 37, which I would recommend that you go and read. Now, when this all happens, Peter stands up and he gives defense. And I love, I really love Peter. I can relate to Peter a lot. I can relate to the Peter of the Gospels who just constantly misses what Jesus is talking about. But here, if there was ever an indication that a man was filled with the Holy Spirit and changed, it's right here because the Peter we have reported here by Luke is different in many ways than the Peter that was reported in Luke's Gospel. Why? The Holy Spirit has come upon him. He spent 40 days with his risen Messiah and his risen rabbi, and now something is different. There's a new power, or as we like to say in more charismatic circles, there was a new anointing upon him. Indeed, there was. It was the anointing of the Holy Spirit. So Peter had to stand up, and he gave a defense of these. And Peter's interpretation of these events is one of an Old Testament fulfillment and an eschatological hope. Let me say that again. Old Testament fulfillment, that is prophetic fulfillment, and eschatological end times hope. He believes that this sign is a sign that we are now in the end of days. And to do this, he uses three Old Testament references, three texts. Remember what I said in a previous lecture about these hyperlinks, as it were? Here's the apostle using one. So the first one that he uses is from Joel chapter 2, verses 28 to 32. He connects the events of Pentecost. to the prophecy of Joel. Now, Joel says, if you go back and read this in Joel, it says this, and it shall come to pass that afterwards I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. But here's something very interesting. When Peter restates this text in his sermon, he says it like this, and in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Did you catch the change? Peter, who presumably would have known this text, changed the text. it shall come to pass afterwards, that was written in Joel, to, and in the last days it shall be. What is he doing? He's saying this thing that's happening, this is the fulfillment of an eschatological hope, the beckoning forward of the kingdom of God into the world. That's what Peter is saying, and he uses this little linguistic change to indicate that he believes that what just happened at Pentecost and the division of tongues of fire and all that was about more than just miracle work. It was about the Messiah coming and bringing his people home and doing this through the presence of the Spirit in his new temple people. Now, the second thing he does is he quotes from Psalm 16. And he argues from this that David could not have been speaking about himself. He says, the Lord says to my Lord, it's one of those, it's that particularly strange Psalm. And in Acts 2.27, it says, you will not abandon my soul to Hades. And so he says, basically, look. David's body is in the grave, but Jesus rose. David wasn't talking about himself as the greatest king. David was prophesying about King Jesus. Jesus rose, therefore Jesus is Messiah. Jesus is the Christ. That's the argument that he's making. And then finally, he quotes Psalm 110, verse 1. He uses this to buttress his argument that Jesus is, in fact, the exalted one, and to further point out that David was referring to someone greater than he was. So in sum, what Peter is saying is this. This is the end time temple that the prophets promised. This is the pouring out of the Spirit. And Jesus is now the exalted, enthroned king that David himself was looking forward to. That's the nature of Peter's sermon at Pentecost. And amazing things happen. Lots of people come to Jesus. Many, many people get saved. And we end chapter 2 with this wonderful passage that we all hope and pray over all of our churches. that says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were being done, and they had everything in common, and they were praising God, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. We all want that, don't we? We all want that in our churches. We all want that as a part of our leadership. Well, according to this, what Luke is communicating to us is that is a feature. That's something that happens when the Holy Spirit shows up powerfully in his new temple people. Now, So if we move on from this particular section, we look at chapters 3 through 5, and this becomes like a tale of two different temples, the new temple people of God and the old temple guard. Okay, new temple people, old temple guard. And so for a while there in Jerusalem, the people of King Jesus are living out these renewed lives, living out this Acts 2 42 thing. And you got to imagine, it must have been kind of awesome, right? You're enjoying it. This is it. We're living in... the days that King Jesus promised, he's our Messiah, the Spirit is here, it had to be a really heady time. And so let's look at the kind of the parallelisms between Temple 1, the people of Jesus, and Temple 2, which is the old guard. In Temple 1, Peter is healing people. He's preaching the gospel. He's arrested, and the people are praying. But meanwhile, they have everything in common, and there's this general shalom, and there's this... Not only are things going great and it's a heady time, but there's a real holiness. You may recall the story of Ananias and Sapphira, where God judged them because they lied and they blasphemed. And so God judged them. And it recalls those moments where God judged people who touched the ark, or God judged the priests who offered unauthorized sacrifices or unauthorized incense before him. The idea here is that the same God who... inhabited the temple in the Old Testament, is inhabiting the temple in the New Testament. His New Testament people and his New Testament people must care deeply about holiness. But in the second temple, that's the old guard, they're resisting Jesus' new people and they're resisting the Spirit's powerful movement. So in the midst of this arrest, Luke tells us that Peter was filled with the Spirit. Even in difficult times, even in the moment where they're coming after him, Peter is noted out by Luke to be filled. with the Holy Spirit. So how do we understand this? How do we understand this? Because wasn't Peter just filled with the Spirit at Pentecost? Why would Luke tell us, think about this, why would Luke tell us that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit if we just heard that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? He was already baptized with the Holy Spirit. What does this mean? I'm asking this question because sometimes, especially us in the more charismatic circles, tend to speak with a great deal of lack of laxity and a lack of specificity when we talk about the Holy Spirit. And it's important that we understand that not only are all people who follow Jesus, not only do all of them have the Holy Spirit, but there appears to be a special kind of filling of the Holy Spirit that equips us for certain tasks at certain times. So we understand this to mean that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit for a particular Now, this is a common expression in Luke-Acts. Luke chapter 1, chapter 4, Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 4. We see this idea of someone being filled with the Holy Spirit, who has previously also participated in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So one commentator notes that the gift of the Spirit here is not given with the fact of being a Christian, but is bestowed on special occasions. So here, what I'm trying to communicate to you is that Luke is giving us textual evidence of a way to speak about the Holy Spirit generally, that all people have the Holy Spirit who follow Jesus, and specifically, that the Holy Spirit seems to come powerfully on people at certain times for certain kingdom tasks. So Acts, therefore, presents a general filling of the Holy Spirit that all Christians get, like Acts 2, 3, 8, and a special filling of the Holy Spirit where one is equipped for a special task. For instance, Acts 4, 8, Acts 7, 55, or Acts 13, 9. So I want you to see that because one of my great hopes in studying the Holy Spirit and doing this with you is that we in every nation can not only experience the blessedness and the presence of the Holy Spirit. but learn how to more faithfully and accurately and specifically speak about his movement so that we can be better understood by other christians and those who aren't yet followers of jesus so this section ends with the first persecution everything's going awesome i mean it looks like things are about to just turn over in jerusalem and then stephen the first persecution in chapter six right here we see a whole chapter luke has given to it. Stephen goes on this massively long speech, and it's amazing how closely related it is both to the teachings of Jesus and the kind of sermon that Peter just gave a few pages earlier. So Stephen's main summary after all that he says is this, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist who? The Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. See, I told you in this section, the main character isn't Peter, isn't the church, it's the Holy Spirit. And right here, this old guard temple, remember this is the tale of two temples, this old guard temple is rejecting the Holy Spirit. And so they drag him out of the city, and they do what they do to those they perceive to be heretics, and they throw stones at him until he dies. And in this moment, Luke decides to describe him this way, that in his suffering and death, as he was dying, Luke says he was full of the Holy Spirit. He acts like Jesus in his suffering and in his death and dies for his enemies, praying for them even while they stone him. This should bring your mind back to Luke's other book there at the end when Jesus was dying and praying for his enemies even as they crucified him. And here we also get an introduction to this shadowy figure named Saul, who we'll meet more a little bit later. So I'm sure that the people who stoned Stephen probably thought, right, we're going to put... these Christians in their place and stamp this movement out. But what happened, the actual outcome of this persecution that broke out and the killing of Stephen was that the Christians in Jerusalem scattered to the four corners and the gospel of Jesus went with them. One of the things that Luke wants us to understand is that even in our suffering, the Holy Spirit isn't just helping us get through it, but he is sovereign over it. And so God is allowing something difficult to come to pass. even ordaining difficult things to come to pass. Why? So that the mission of God can move forward and the word of the Lord can move forward mightily and many can hear. I told you at the beginning that I believe the summary statement of the book of Acts is that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit's gonna empower you to do that. And here, we see the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost and empowering the people of Jesus to talk about him, to live like him, and even to suffer and die like him. Why? so that many people can hear the gospel, and so that the nations can come, and Babel can continue to be reversed as more people are added to this new temple people. So, what happens at the end of this is Philip goes to Samaria. We see the conversion of Saul. We get this vision. We have all these kinds of interesting things that happen as a result, and I want you to see that it is a result of what the Holy Spirit was doing. in this deacon of the church named Stephen. So, to conclude, what did I want you to get from this lecture? I wanted you to get some foundational facts about this book and how it is connected to Luke's first book. And I wanted you to walk through with me the first of Acts' four major sections as I have outlined them to you. And so, having said that, we will end this lecture and prepare for the next one when we see what happens as the gospel of Jesus goes out of Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria.

The goal of this lecture is is to understand some foundational facts about the book of Acts. We'll go through some like big picture stuff, and then we're going to walk through the first of Acts four kind of geographical sections. We'll notice that the book of Acts, like many other books in that we've covered so far, it has a very important geographic outline which we're going to see in in just a moment.

But let's talk a little bit about some basic facts. Acts, the authorship, is Luke, Luke the physician, just like we talked about with the Gospel of Luke. Again, from Colossians 4, we understand that he was probably a Gentile and that he journeyed with Paul, which is something that he talks about later on in this very book.

Provenance, probably Rome. We can see that from Colossians 4 and Philemon verse 24, but again, it's a probably sort of thing. This would have been written just after the book of Luke, so probably around 62, just a little bit. after the previous book. And again, the audience is primarily this individual named Theophilus.

Now, we talked about who Theophilus might be, and that's, you know, who he's writing directly toward. But of course, secondarily, most Gentiles, maybe some Jews, but Luke appears to write for both Christians and non-Christians. Luke is writing an account, a well-researched historical account, and he's looking at his own travelogue and talking about his own journeys with the Apostle Paul later.

And so that's what's going on here. The Gospel of Luke was probably sent first to Theophilus. It's probably not the case that Luke and Acts were all kind of set down and composed at the same time.

And the reason that we think that is because in the parallel introductions to Luke chapter 1 and then Acts chapter 1, in Acts chapter 1, Luke refers to, you know, in my first book, O Theophilus, you know, I began to summarize all the things that Jesus did and that he taught and all of that good stuff. And so it was... there was a delay before the writing of Acts. So why is that important?

That means that the Gospel of Luke was written intentionally without needing Acts, but the book of Acts was written needing the Gospel of Luke. Let me say that again. So if Luke was composed first, which it was, then Luke wrote it without you and I needing to have the book of Acts in our hands to fully understand it, though the book of Acts shed some light on it.

But the book of Acts was written having needed. the book of Luke to explain and to form the foundation of the story. The book of Acts is the second part of Luke's major work.

So Acts was written assuming Theophilus had read Luke, is basically the idea, because he refers back to this work that he had composed. Now, the primary purpose of this book, the book of Acts, is to confirm or create faith in Theophilus and whomever Theophilus would have written. read this to, by giving a theological interpretation of the history of the early church.

Now, let me say that again. It's a theological interpretation of the history of the early church. It is factual history, absolutely.

But Luke has an agenda. He wants to fan into flame the faith of this person to whom he is writing, who has underwritten his journey, and thereby to fan our faith into flame too. So what do we do with the book of Acts? Well, okay, there's a whole history of interpretation with this book that we cannot go into right here. But the way we're going to read it is as history, which is, you know, we're in the New Testament histories class, so shocker, I'm going to have you read it as a history.

But of course, we're reading it as a history written by Luke with some very specific things in mind. So what are some of those theological interests? Well, it probably won't surprise you to learn that Luke's theological interests in the book of Acts are very similar to his theological interest in his gospel, the book of Luke. So one of the major interests that really comes to the forefront in the book of Acts is, of course, the purpose and person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows up early and often in the book of Acts, and his work is connected to the advancement of the gospel.

His work is connected to miracles. His work is showing up in very normal people in the church, and, of course, the apostles and the church's leaders as well. The second thing is a kind of missiology. Now, Missiology, properly understood, is the study of the way the gospel goes into certain cultures. But by missiology here, what I mean is the study of the mission of God, the study of how the gospel spreads from this small group of Jewish kind of nobodies to the entire world.

How did that happen? What was the flow? What did God do in redemptive history?

And there's that redemptive history word again. And then the third theme, of course, is universality. We talked about this in the Gospel of Luke in those lectures in particular, but here it is also a thing.

Jesus is caring for and inviting the nations of the world into his family, and the Gospel of Luke, and later the book of Acts, records that whole story of how from the very quiet, tumble-down stables of Bethlehem to the Roman courts of power, the gospel about Jesus spread around the world. And so the emphasis here is very much on a universality, that the gospel is for the nations. And yet, there's also a particularity that Luke is interested in.

He does not at all eject or reject the Jewish origins of the Christian story. In fact, he deals with them head-on because he wants us to see that he is connecting the universal gospel to the particularity of the ancient Jews and show Christianity. to be a continuation of a very Jewish story. So those are some of the theological interests that you will, of course, have already seen, because I'm sure you've already read the book of Luke and the book of Acts, and you've already done your assigned readings. And so a lot of this is just going to be setting the concrete that you've already been studying.

Now, what is the structure of this book? The structure of this book, there have been a lot of proposals to the structure of this book. So I'm going to give you a few of them, and then I'll tell you which one that I will be using. using.

Probably an old and very popular way to understand the book of Acts was to consider it, you know, the first 12 chapters or so were sort of the work that Peter did, and then the last, you know, 20, I'm sorry, the last 14 chapters or so was going to be the work that Paul did. And so you kind of separated it into the work of Peter and the work of Paul. Now the problem is that's a little bit too simplistic, and it definitely doesn't feel like Luke was intentionally doing that. Now one may conclude, that without giving legitimacy to this sort of outline, that there is an aspect, in fact, of this book that focuses on Peter and his ministry toward the Jews, and then later moves to Paul's ministry toward the Gentiles. That is true, but it's not the operative outline that Luke seemed to have in his mind when he composed this work.

However, the continuity of their ministry and the conversation that they have in Acts 15, when thinking about how the non-Jewish world was going to come into this very Jewish... sect called Christianity, what that was going to look like, that is something that Luke wants to show us. He wants to show us the continuity of this community of Jesus followers all the way back to the beginnings of his first book. Now today, a second way to understand it is a more geographical outline, as I mentioned to you earlier. And spoiler alert, this is the one I like the best.

This divides this book into four major sections. So there's the Jerusalem section, which is chapters one to seven. And then there's the Judea and Samaria section, which is chapters 8 through 12. And then there's sort of the ends of the earth section, which is chapters 13 through 20. And then we zoom in on Paul and his journey to Rome, or what I like to call his prison tour, from chapters 21 to 28. However, that is not the only way to understand this book. And so I want to give you two more things to look forward to as strands or as themes in this book as we think about it. The first...

is the progress of the gospel. There seems to be a focus on this textual repetition. There's a phrase that shows up often that goes like this, the word of the Lord grew mightily.

It talks about the word of the Lord growing and expanding, and it really focuses around these two Greek words. The first word is oxano, that this is the word grow, and the word increase, which is the word plithynio. These two words, oxano and plethuno, they're showing up a lot, and they sort of act like buoys, if you've ever been boating. You know, you look for the buoys in a particular inlet or in a particular bay so that you know where the boat should be going so that it can get home. These phrases, the word of the Lord grew, act like reminders.

This is where we're going. The word of God is growing. The message of the gospel is growing and going places.

And so you can see it in Acts 6-7. You can see it in Acts 9-31. Acts 12, 24, and on and on, which you can see in some of the notes that I will provide for you as well.

The book even ends with Paul boldly preaching the kingdom of God. It ends with Paul's talking about the Word and teaching people the Word of God. And so that has been proposed as an outline as well, though I don't like that one as much. And finally, and perhaps most interesting to some of you, is the outline of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows up right at the beginning, and he...

He's talked about as being the one who will give us power to be a witness in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the end of the earth in Acts 1.8. And then the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. That's in Acts 2. And then the Holy Spirit comes to the Samaritans.

in Acts chapter 8, and then Paul and Ananias have this connection to the Gentiles in Acts chapter 9. Listen to some of these texts. Okay, Acts 1.8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth. Then we get Acts 2. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. and began to speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.

How about Acts chapter 8? It says this, Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Acts chapter 9, But the Lord said to them, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine. This shows up again with Peter and Cornelius. It shows up again at the Jerusalem Council. It shows up again in Acts chapter 19 when they're confronting the baptism of John and relating it to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. So...

We've talked then about four different outlines. We've talked about a geographic outline, which is my preference. We've talked about an older outline, which is sort of a Peter-Paul sort of thing. We've talked about an advancement of the word of the Lord.

I gave you those two words that shows up over and over again like buoys. And then we see that there's a thread here of the movement and work of the Holy Spirit. So which one is right? And the answer is yes.

They're all important. It's important to see the work of Peter and Paul. It's important to see these four sections. It's important to see the work.

of the Holy Spirit and the advancement of the word of the Lord. When we try to understand these things, very often we're imposing a little bit of a structure on a book that might not neatly fit our structure. We don't have Luke's outline notes, but it seems to me and to most other scholars that the geographic outline is the best way to understand it and was maybe more operative in Luke's mind.

And so that's the outline that we will be using in this. course, and I think it's the easiest one to understand because it follows the thesis statement of the whole book. The thesis statement of the whole book is this, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

I take that as the thesis statement of this book because that's literally the outward movement of the gospel from right there in Jerusalem at the temple at Pentecost all the way to the courts of Rome when Paul is there. imprisoned. And so let's start by looking at the Jerusalem section. We'll start right now in section one, part one, the Jerusalem section that goes from Acts 1 all the way through to Acts 7. Now, the first chapter seems to be introducing God, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is there with his disciples after his resurrection for 40 days, and he's teaching them about God and his kingdom. Think about that. Jesus, in his resurrected body, is with them for a little over a month, teaching them, and then...

he says this, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And they have all sorts of questions. Okay, is the kingdom coming?

And Jesus says, no, no, you're missing it. That's not for you to know. What you need to know is that you will receive power from on high to be my witnesses.

Now, this is the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophetic hopes. You can see Isaiah 32, Ezekiel 36, Joel 2. The Holy Spirit is coming. The gift of Jesus that God himself would be with us, not just personally in the bodily form of Jesus Christ, but personally in our own selves through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. This is an amazing promise, and it's one that comes true right here. Now, as I mentioned, I think that Acts 1-8 is the thesis for the whole book, and you're welcome to disagree with me.

And so if you want to talk about that, of course, we can do that offline when we discuss this stuff as a class. But to me, it really summarizes the movement of this whole text. So after this, Jesus ascends, making way for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would be present with the disciples as they fulfilled this mission. And so the Holy Spirit turns out to be the main character of chapter 1 of the book of Acts. And so then he comes in chapter 2. This is when we get Pentecost, and in every nation we love Acts 2, don't we?

We love to talk about the Holy Spirit and him showing up in places, and we love to look at the book of Acts. And so it all happens at Pentecost. So what is Pentecost?

Well, the word Pentecost literally means like 50 days. And it's a New Testament name for an Old Testament festival, the Festival of Weeks, when the wheat harvest was celebrated by a big one-day festival. And there were special sacrifices made.

You can see that in the book of Exodus chapter 23 and Leviticus chapter 23 as well. But this particular moment was when Jews from all over the nations, as it were, were Jews who were spread out all over. the regions would come together to the temple to celebrate this festival.

It was very, very important. And so this was the moment that God chose to give birth to his church. The church was born at Pentecost in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out.

And so in Acts chapter 2, we read this very familiar passage, And it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, what I want to do as we look through this text, I want to ask you to become very aware of your own presuppositions about how Spirit ministry goes.

Your own presuppositions about the filling of the Holy Spirit, what tongues even means. I want you to set that aside for a second and try to hear this text. Try to see it.

as if it were new. Because what he's talking about here might be different than what you have in your mind as a typical every nation pastor or leader. So what is meant by this event?

Tongues of fire. We don't see tongues of fire anywhere else in the Old Testament, do we? Do we? See, what is happening here is that God is mashing up two different symbols in this particular event.

at Pentecost. And so we're going to think about tongues for a second, and then we'll think about fire and see if we can get some meaning behind this. Now, when we hear the word tongues, this is the Greek word glossolalia. It means, it can mean your like actual tongue, like the thing inside your mouth. And it can also refer to languages.

And so what is he referring to? Is he talking about tongues vis-a-vis Paul, you know, 1 Corinthians 12 and 14? Is he talking about that that prayer language that we...

all love to use to build up our inner man, as it were? Or is he talking about speaking an actual other language? When the Holy Spirit comes to me and suddenly I can speak Arabic. Or is he talking about tongues as hearing? Because the miracle might have been they were all hearing the word in their own language.

Whatever it was, we know that it was clearly an ecstatic experience because the people that watched it thought that they were drunk. But here, Luke's goal is not Pauline precision. Now remember, Luke is doing... historical theology.

So he's telling us what happened without taking time necessarily to pause and give us a systematic theological explanation of it. He leaves us to understand what is going on through our own reflection. Luke seems more interested here to give us some connective tissue to important events in the Old Testament.

Now think back. When were languages really important in the Old Testament? Well, you can think all the way back to the Tower of Babel. At the Tower of Babel, the nations were separated and our languages were broken because this was a tale of a pagan idolatrous temple that led to judgment.

But now the Holy Spirit has come and this event is representing a reversal of Babel. A reversal of the moment when the nations were separated, now they're coming together. A reversal of the moment when pagan worship led to God's judgment, now true worship leads to God's...

presence and God's blessing. Pentecost represented a reversal of Babel at the Jerusalem temple by the formation of little spirit temples. That's what humans were.

That's why the Holy Spirit came upon each one of them, not just one of them, but each one of them as a tongue right there. Now this led to unified understanding, and the people who were gathered who didn't necessarily speak the language that was spoken there, they could hear the word of the Lord in their own language, which leads us to understand. Pentecost is about bringing the nations in. It's the reversal of the curse of Babel. The second thing that we need to see is that Pentecost is about the triumph of the church.

I want to read you this quote from Michael Heiser in his book, The Unseen Realm, which I would recommend to all of you. Here's what he says, As Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the celebration, heard, and embraced the news of Jesus and his resurrection, Jews who embraced Jesus as Messiah would carry that message back to their home countries, the nations. If Babel's disinheritance was going to be rectified by the message of Jesus, the second Yahweh incarnate, and his spirit, the nations would again be his. This is the triumph of Christ over his enemies and the triumph of the church as a part of his victory.

Okay, so that's what the tongues piece means. Now, let's think about fire. Why are they tongues of fire?

Why weren't they just tongues? Well, that would have been very strange if just little disembodied tongues floated above everyone's head. These were tongues of fire. What? What does that mean?

Look at the language. There came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting with these tongues of fire. This kind of language of rushing wind and filling the house and pillars of fire should take your mind back to the book of Exodus.

Back to the moment when Moses was leading the people across the desert, there would be a pillar of fire. Back to the moment when the temple was being sanctified and set up. Back to the moment when...

The tabernacle was being sanctified and set up. You can read about the role of wind and fire in Exodus chapter 40 and 2 Chronicles 7. Luke is here saying, this is the new temple. This is the new temple. And because of this temple, I'm bringing the nations back.

And my presence, God's presence, is showing up in the individual believers. This is the moment when they're baptized in the Holy Spirit. This is the moment when the Spirit of God comes upon the church in a way like the Spirit of God came upon. Jesus the Son. So Luke is here reporting on the combining of these Old Testament symbols to say something new, to say that Jesus' people are the new temple, and to give rise to the expectation and to the hope of international reunification.

Again, remember, this is that universal impulse in the book of Luke, in the book of Acts. And you can read about this prophetic hope in Isaiah chapter 11 or Ezekiel chapter 37, which I would recommend that you go and read. Now, when this all happens, Peter stands up and he gives defense.

And I love, I really love Peter. I can relate to Peter a lot. I can relate to the Peter of the Gospels who just constantly misses what Jesus is talking about.

But here, if there was ever an indication that a man was filled with the Holy Spirit and changed, it's right here because the Peter we have reported here by Luke is different in many ways than the Peter that was reported in Luke's Gospel. Why? The Holy Spirit has come upon him. He spent 40 days with his risen Messiah and his risen rabbi, and now something is different.

There's a new power, or as we like to say in more charismatic circles, there was a new anointing upon him. Indeed, there was. It was the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

So Peter had to stand up, and he gave a defense of these. And Peter's interpretation of these events is one of an Old Testament fulfillment and an eschatological hope. Let me say that again.

Old Testament fulfillment, that is prophetic fulfillment, and eschatological end times hope. He believes that this sign is a sign that we are now in the end of days. And to do this, he uses three Old Testament references, three texts.

Remember what I said in a previous lecture about these hyperlinks, as it were? Here's the apostle using one. So the first one that he uses is from Joel chapter 2, verses 28 to 32. He connects the events of Pentecost. to the prophecy of Joel.

Now, Joel says, if you go back and read this in Joel, it says this, and it shall come to pass that afterwards I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. But here's something very interesting. When Peter restates this text in his sermon, he says it like this, and in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Did you catch the change? Peter, who presumably would have known this text, changed the text. it shall come to pass afterwards, that was written in Joel, to, and in the last days it shall be. What is he doing? He's saying this thing that's happening, this is the fulfillment of an eschatological hope, the beckoning forward of the kingdom of God into the world.

That's what Peter is saying, and he uses this little linguistic change to indicate that he believes that what just happened at Pentecost and the division of tongues of fire and all that was about more than just miracle work. It was about the Messiah coming and bringing his people home and doing this through the presence of the Spirit in his new temple people. Now, the second thing he does is he quotes from Psalm 16. And he argues from this that David could not have been speaking about himself. He says, the Lord says to my Lord, it's one of those, it's that particularly strange Psalm.

And in Acts 2.27, it says, you will not abandon my soul to Hades. And so he says, basically, look. David's body is in the grave, but Jesus rose. David wasn't talking about himself as the greatest king.

David was prophesying about King Jesus. Jesus rose, therefore Jesus is Messiah. Jesus is the Christ.

That's the argument that he's making. And then finally, he quotes Psalm 110, verse 1. He uses this to buttress his argument that Jesus is, in fact, the exalted one, and to further point out that David was referring to someone greater than he was. So in sum, what Peter is saying is this.

This is the end time temple that the prophets promised. This is the pouring out of the Spirit. And Jesus is now the exalted, enthroned king that David himself was looking forward to.

That's the nature of Peter's sermon at Pentecost. And amazing things happen. Lots of people come to Jesus. Many, many people get saved. And we end chapter 2 with this wonderful passage that we all hope and pray over all of our churches.

that says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers, and all came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were being done, and they had everything in common, and they were praising God, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. We all want that, don't we? We all want that in our churches. We all want that as a part of our leadership. Well, according to this, what Luke is communicating to us is that is a feature.

That's something that happens when the Holy Spirit shows up powerfully in his new temple people. Now, So if we move on from this particular section, we look at chapters 3 through 5, and this becomes like a tale of two different temples, the new temple people of God and the old temple guard. Okay, new temple people, old temple guard. And so for a while there in Jerusalem, the people of King Jesus are living out these renewed lives, living out this Acts 2 42 thing. And you got to imagine, it must have been kind of awesome, right?

You're enjoying it. This is it. We're living in... the days that King Jesus promised, he's our Messiah, the Spirit is here, it had to be a really heady time.

And so let's look at the kind of the parallelisms between Temple 1, the people of Jesus, and Temple 2, which is the old guard. In Temple 1, Peter is healing people. He's preaching the gospel. He's arrested, and the people are praying.

But meanwhile, they have everything in common, and there's this general shalom, and there's this... Not only are things going great and it's a heady time, but there's a real holiness. You may recall the story of Ananias and Sapphira, where God judged them because they lied and they blasphemed. And so God judged them.

And it recalls those moments where God judged people who touched the ark, or God judged the priests who offered unauthorized sacrifices or unauthorized incense before him. The idea here is that the same God who... inhabited the temple in the Old Testament, is inhabiting the temple in the New Testament.

His New Testament people and his New Testament people must care deeply about holiness. But in the second temple, that's the old guard, they're resisting Jesus' new people and they're resisting the Spirit's powerful movement. So in the midst of this arrest, Luke tells us that Peter was filled with the Spirit.

Even in difficult times, even in the moment where they're coming after him, Peter is noted out by Luke to be filled. with the Holy Spirit. So how do we understand this? How do we understand this? Because wasn't Peter just filled with the Spirit at Pentecost?

Why would Luke tell us, think about this, why would Luke tell us that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit if we just heard that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? He was already baptized with the Holy Spirit. What does this mean?

I'm asking this question because sometimes, especially us in the more charismatic circles, tend to speak with a great deal of lack of laxity and a lack of specificity when we talk about the Holy Spirit. And it's important that we understand that not only are all people who follow Jesus, not only do all of them have the Holy Spirit, but there appears to be a special kind of filling of the Holy Spirit that equips us for certain tasks at certain times. So we understand this to mean that Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit for a particular Now, this is a common expression in Luke-Acts. Luke chapter 1, chapter 4, Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 4. We see this idea of someone being filled with the Holy Spirit, who has previously also participated in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So one commentator notes that the gift of the Spirit here is not given with the fact of being a Christian, but is bestowed on special occasions.

So here, what I'm trying to communicate to you is that Luke is giving us textual evidence of a way to speak about the Holy Spirit generally, that all people have the Holy Spirit who follow Jesus, and specifically, that the Holy Spirit seems to come powerfully on people at certain times for certain kingdom tasks. So Acts, therefore, presents a general filling of the Holy Spirit that all Christians get, like Acts 2, 3, 8, and a special filling of the Holy Spirit where one is equipped for a special task. For instance, Acts 4, 8, Acts 7, 55, or Acts 13, 9. So I want you to see that because one of my great hopes in studying the Holy Spirit and doing this with you is that we in every nation can not only experience the blessedness and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

but learn how to more faithfully and accurately and specifically speak about his movement so that we can be better understood by other christians and those who aren't yet followers of jesus so this section ends with the first persecution everything's going awesome i mean it looks like things are about to just turn over in jerusalem and then stephen the first persecution in chapter six right here we see a whole chapter luke has given to it. Stephen goes on this massively long speech, and it's amazing how closely related it is both to the teachings of Jesus and the kind of sermon that Peter just gave a few pages earlier. So Stephen's main summary after all that he says is this, you stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist who? The Holy Spirit, as your fathers did. See, I told you in this section, the main character isn't Peter, isn't the church, it's the Holy Spirit.

And right here, this old guard temple, remember this is the tale of two temples, this old guard temple is rejecting the Holy Spirit. And so they drag him out of the city, and they do what they do to those they perceive to be heretics, and they throw stones at him until he dies. And in this moment, Luke decides to describe him this way, that in his suffering and death, as he was dying, Luke says he was full of the Holy Spirit.

He acts like Jesus in his suffering and in his death and dies for his enemies, praying for them even while they stone him. This should bring your mind back to Luke's other book there at the end when Jesus was dying and praying for his enemies even as they crucified him. And here we also get an introduction to this shadowy figure named Saul, who we'll meet more a little bit later.

So I'm sure that the people who stoned Stephen probably thought, right, we're going to put... these Christians in their place and stamp this movement out. But what happened, the actual outcome of this persecution that broke out and the killing of Stephen was that the Christians in Jerusalem scattered to the four corners and the gospel of Jesus went with them. One of the things that Luke wants us to understand is that even in our suffering, the Holy Spirit isn't just helping us get through it, but he is sovereign over it. And so God is allowing something difficult to come to pass.

even ordaining difficult things to come to pass. Why? So that the mission of God can move forward and the word of the Lord can move forward mightily and many can hear. I told you at the beginning that I believe the summary statement of the book of Acts is that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit's gonna empower you to do that.

And here, we see the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost and empowering the people of Jesus to talk about him, to live like him, and even to suffer and die like him. Why? so that many people can hear the gospel, and so that the nations can come, and Babel can continue to be reversed as more people are added to this new temple people.

So, what happens at the end of this is Philip goes to Samaria. We see the conversion of Saul. We get this vision.

We have all these kinds of interesting things that happen as a result, and I want you to see that it is a result of what the Holy Spirit was doing. in this deacon of the church named Stephen. So, to conclude, what did I want you to get from this lecture?

I wanted you to get some foundational facts about this book and how it is connected to Luke's first book. And I wanted you to walk through with me the first of Acts' four major sections as I have outlined them to you. And so, having said that, we will end this lecture and prepare for the next one when we see what happens as the gospel of Jesus goes out of Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria.

Transcript for:Exploring the Book of Acts

Transcript for:
Exploring the Book of Acts