BOOK OF ACTS
Chapter 1
Commentary:
The book of Acts begins where the Gospels leave off, reporting on the actions of the apostles and the work of the Holy Spirit. Beginning in Jerusalem, the church is established and grows rapidly, then faces intense persecution, which drives the believers out into the surrounding areas. Through this dispersion, Samaritans and Gentiles hear the Good News and believe.
1:1 The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach,
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
1:1 The book of Acts continues the story Luke began in his Gospel, covering the 30 years after Jesus was taken up into heaven. During that short time the church was established, and the gospel of salvation was taken throughout the world, even to the capital of the Roman Empire. Those preaching the gospel, though ordinary people with human frailties and limitations were empowered by the Holy Spirit to take the Good News “all over the world” (Acts 17:6). Throughout the book of Acts we learn about the nature of the church and how we today are also to go about turning our world upside down.
1:1 Luke’s former book was the Gospel of Luke; that book was also addressed to Theophilus, whose name means “one who loves God.” (See note on § Luke 1:3.)
THEOPHILUS lover of God, a Christian, probably a Roman, to whom Luke dedicated both his Gospel (Luke 1:3) and the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:1). Nothing beyond this is known of him. From the fact that Luke applies to him the title “most excellent”, the same title Paul uses in addressing Felix (Acts 23:26; Acts 24:3) and Festus (Acts 26:25), it has been concluded that Theophilus was a person of rank, perhaps a Roman officer.
1:1 Acts 1:1-11 are the bridge between the events recorded in the Gospels and the events marking the beginning of the church. Jesus spent 40 days teaching his disciples, and they were changed drastically. Before, they had argued with each other, deserted their Lord and one (Peter) even lied about knowing Jesus. Here, in a series of meetings with the living, resurrected Christ, the disciples had many questions answered. They became convinced about the resurrection, learned about the kingdom of God, and learned about their power source—the Holy Spirit. By reading the Bible, we can sit with the resurrected Christ in his school of discipleship. By believing in him, we can receive his power through the Holy Spirit to be new people. By joining with other Christians in Christ’s church, we can take part in doing his work on earth.
1:1-3 Luke says that the disciples were eyewitnesses to all that had happened to Jesus Christ—his life before his crucifixion (“suffering”), and the 40 days after his resurrection as he taught them more about the kingdom of God. Today there are still people who doubt Jesus’ resurrection. But Jesus appeared to the disciples on many occasions after his resurrection, proving that he was alive. Look at the change the resurrection made in the disciples’ lives. At Jesus’ death, they scattered—they were disillusioned, and they feared for their lives. After seeing the resurrected Christ, they were fearless and risked everything to spread the Good News about him around the world. They faced imprisonment, beatings, rejection, and martyrdom, yet they never compromised their mission.
These men would not have risked their lives for something they knew was a fraud. They knew Jesus was raised from the dead, and the early church was fired with their enthusiasm to tell others. It is important to know this so we can have confidence in their testimony. Twenty centuries later we can still be confident that our faith is based on fact.
TODAY IN THE WORD
An American student going to Britain’s Oxford University for graduate study went to see the poet T. S. Eliot. As his visitor was about to leave, Eliot said, “Forty years ago I went to Oxford. Now, what advice can I give you?” The student waited breathlessly for a profound insight from the great poet, only to hear, “Have you any long underwear?”
You may have heard a lot of practical advice concerning the new year. But for profound insights on how to live, we must dig into the timeless wisdom of God’s Word.
That’s the best way to begin this new era, which we hope will also be a time of some new beginnings for you in your Christian life. We want to talk about new beginnings this month by studying the book of Acts and the founding of the church. This is really the beginning of our story, because the history of Christ’s body is still being written today.
The book of Acts is actually volume two of Luke’s biblical writings (v. 1; cf. Luke 1:1-4), since he saw the events of Acts as a continuation of Jesus’ ministry. Biblical research and archaeology have confirmed that Luke was a very accurate historian.
We will approach this study topically, rather than try to cover every verse in the book. Our purpose is to deal with only those events that helped establish and expand the church.
Jesus’ ascension set the stage for the church’s birth. It was forty days after His resurrection (v. 3), and now that the Lord was alive the disciples were hoping for a kingdom (v. 6).
But they received a commission instead. Today’s verse is not only a great principle of ministry. It is also a concise outline of the events in Acts, tracking the growth of the church.
The disciples may not have felt ready for a ministry “to the ends of the earth,” but they soon would be. As Jesus was taken from them, they heard the angels’ promise of His return in the clouds. With that assurance, the apostles and the other believers went back to Jerusalem to pray and wait.
Ashley Montagu
In teaching it is the method and not the content that is the message; the drawing out, not the pumping in.
C. H. Spurgeon
The resurrection of Christ, as we have often said, is the best attested of allhistorical facts. There is not half as much reason to be sure that Napoleon Bonaparte wee ever taken to St. Helena as to believe that Jesus Christwas raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. If the resurrectionof Christ is not credible, there remains nothing credible in history. I gofurther than that, and say that the news of yesterday, which you read in thismorning’s paper, you had no right to believe if you do not believe inChrist’s resurrection, for the evidence in its favor is not half as strong asthe evidence concerning the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
Remember that this feet was attested by men who could not be deceivedconcerning it, and who sealed with their blood, as well as with theirunfaltering testimony, their solemn belief that they had touched him, thatthey had spoken to him, that they had listened to him, that they had eatenwith him, and had seen him eat of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb afterhe rose from the grave. We know that Christ has risen from the dead. Thatis one of the great corner stones of the Christian faith. Fall back on that inevery time of doubt, and your fears will speedily disappear.
Name of Jesus:
- Musicin His name
- Majestyin His name
- Mightin His name
- Messagein His name
- Magnetismin His name
- Melodyin His name
- Meaningin His name
John Stott
Before Christ sent the church into the world, He sent His Spirit into the church. The same must be observed today.
The Church:
- More tithes and fewer drives
- More action and less faction
- More workers and fewer shirkers
- More backers and fewer slackers
- More of God's plans and less of man's
- More praying and less playing
- More burden bearers and less tale bearers
- More fighting squads and less tight wads
- More soul service and less social service
- More love for the Word and less love for the world
- More fasting and less feasting
- More seeking grace and less seeking place
Ronald Wallace
The church’s future today depends, not on its being able to assume a mighty and popular form of dignity, impressiveness, and stability before men, but simply in its being able to utter to theworld the same life-giving word Jesus uttered from the cross.
C.H. Spurgeon
When our biographies shall be written at last, God grant that they may not be all sayings, but a history of our sayings and doings! And may the good Spirit so dwell in us that it may be seen that our doings did not clash with our saying! It is one thing to preach, but another thing to practice. And unless preaching and practice go together, the preacher is himself condemned, and his practice may be the means of condemning multitudes through his leading them astray.
Anonymous
A builder built a temple,
He wrought with care and skill.
Pillars and groins and arches,
Were fashioned to meet his will.
And men said they saw its beauty:
“It shall never know decay.
Great is thy skill, O builder,
Thy fame shall endure for aye.”
A teacher built a temple,
He wrought with skill and care.
Forming each pillar with patience,
Laying each stone with prayer.
None saw the unceasing effort,
None knew of the marvelous plan,
For the temple the teacher built,
Was unseen by the eyes of man.
Gone was the builder’s temple,
Crumbled into the dust.
Pillar and groin and arches
Food for consuming rust;
But the temple the teacher built,
Shall endure while the ages roll;
For that beautiful, unseen temple,
Was a child’s immortal soul.
TODAY IN THE WORD
Florence Young started her missions career by doing evangelism and Bible teaching among imported workers at sugar cane plantations near her home in Australia. Though her first class had only ten men, she eventually founded the Queensland Kanaka Mission, which evangelized and trained thousands of “kanakas,” or laborers.
Following ten years in China, Florence returned home in 1900, just as the Mission was entering a transitional phase. New laws forbidding forced labor meant that most of the “kanakas” had returned to their homes in the south Pacific islands. In response, Florence and others sailed to the Solomon Islands, worked with recent converts to plant churches, and continued the ministry.
Florence Young joined the line of a great missionary tradition that starts in today’s reading. Here we find the first record of a local church commissioning and sending out cross-cultural missionaries. It’s no accident that this happened in Antioch, where the first cross-cultural work had been done!
There are several key points to note about this first missionary commissioning and sending. First, it took place during a period of intense worship (v. 2). The church was actively glorifying God and seeking His will, and in this context the Holy Spirit’s voice could be clearly heard.
Second, the Holy Spirit took the initiative. The church didn’t ask God to approve their plan. They responded to God’s plan.
Third, God chose the best. From their council of leaders, He called Paul and Barnabas to go.
The church’s task is to set apart or consecrate to missionary work those whom God chooses. This involves worship: the church at Antioch fasted and prayed (v. 3). They also laid hands on the men, signifying special appointment, blessing, and a commitment between the two parties (sender and sent).
Sermon Note
Birth
(emergence, arising, advent, debut)
Death
(release, reward, departure, exit)
Resurrection
(renaissance, immortality, eternal)
Ascension
(surfacing, rising, assumption)
Return
(reappearance, second coming)
Joseph Joubert
To teach is to learn twice.
C. H. Spurgeon
The first lesson that we ought to learn from this inspired record of whathappened on the day of Pentecost is, that we cannot expect a revival untilthere, is unity among Christians.
The Spirit of God will not visit and bless achurch where there is strife. These disciples in Jerusalem “were all with oneaccord in one place” “in prayer and supplication,” as the fourteenth verseof the previous chapter tells us.
Albert Wells Jr
The presupposition that is increasingly being put forth by American courts and trumpeted by other bastions of humanism is: Religion cannot have a legal position contrary to secular authority, or secular consensus.
John Murray
The First Amendment was not intended to safeguard society from the influence of religion, but to preserve and protect religious liberty from encroachment by the state.
R. C. Sproul
The first words of Acts tell us two important things: the same man who wrote the gospel of Luke is writing again, and he has the same purpose in mind.
Luke said in the introduction to his gospel that he was writing to provide an “orderly account” of Jesus’ life and ministry, so that Theophilus might know “the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.” Luke also addressed Acts to Theophilus, and noted that the “former account” was a record “of all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up.”
The common dedication to Theophilus is a major indication that the same author is at work. Who was Theophilus? He may have been Luke’s patron, providing him a living to enable him to research and write his two books. The gospel refers to him as “most excellent,” a designation also used in Acts in references to the Roman governors Felix and Festus; it indicates Theophilus was of the educated, ruling class. The name itself means “friend of God,” which may indicate he did not convert and undergo circumcision. It is unclear, however, whether Luke’s gospel had led him to belief in Christ.
Luke clearly regards the books as two parts of one whole. He indicates in Acts that his gospel was the record of “all that Jesus began both to do and teach” until His Ascension. No other purpose is set forth for Acts; the implication, therefore, is that Acts is the record of additional things that Jesus did and taught. This is crucial. Acts has been dubbed the Acts of the Apostles. Some, disliking that tiles, would prefer to call it the Acts of Peter and Paul. Others see it as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. But Luke seems to think of it as the Acts of Jesus, for it is the record of Jesus fulfilling His promise to build His church.
Many of the church’s foundation stones were laid during the 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. Luke notes that Jesus gave commands to the apostles, presented Himself alive to them “by many infallible proofs,” and spoke to them of the kingdom of God. These were “the apostles whom He had chosen,” His select instruments and He was preparing them to be useful tools in His hands as He continued “to do and teach.”
Persian Proverb
If the teacher be corrupt, the world will be corrupt.
TODAY IN THE WORD
Raised in the Philippines, Lenardo (Nard) Pugyao trusted Christ at age fourteen after reading the Gospel of Mark in his own language. Later, he left for high school in the back seat of a missionary airplane, and was himself led into the field of missionary aviation. He graduated from Moody in 1975.
Nearly twenty years after reading the Gospel of Mark for the first time, Nard piloted the plane that carried the first five hundred copies of the complete New Testament translated into his native tongue. “As I circled over the village,” Nard says, “I knew that down there, underneath those coconut groves, that’s where God formed me. I said, 'God, look at that little hut. That’s where you formed me in secret. What a privilege, now I’m carrying your Word back to my own people.’ ”
Nard Pugyao and other missionary aviators around the globe are a vital part of fulfilling the Great Commission. The version recounted here in Acts is spoken just before the Ascension, meaning that these are the last words spoken by Jesus on earth.
It’s interesting to note that they were spoken in response to a question about the kingdom (v. 6), about which Christ had been preaching since His Resurrection (v. 3). The disciples wanted to know God’s timetable for history–Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit had led them to wonder if the end times were near, since prophecy often linked or blended the two (see, e.g., Joel 2:28–32).
Jesus’ answer, in effect, was that this was not their business. Following the empowering arrival of the Holy Spirit, they were to be Christ’s witnesses throughout the world. As we saw in Matthew, the proclamation of the gospel was to start in Jerusalem and expand outward to nearby regions, finally reaching “the ends of the earth” (v. 8). This could be an “outline” of the book of Acts, following the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem (ch. 1–7) to Judea and Samaria (ch. 8–9) to the rest of the known world at that time (ch. 10–28).