“The word of God increased,”—three times in the Book of Acts Luke uses this sentence to sum up a period of the history of the Early Church (6:7; 12:24; 19:20). These words are a telling expression of the biblical conception of the divine Word. Our Lord Himself compared the Word with a seed that is sown and sprouts and grows: “The seed is the word of God” (Lk 8:11; cf Col 1:6; 1Pt 1:23). The Word of the Lord is powerful and active; it “prevails mightily,” as Luke puts it in Ac 19:20.
If, then, we are to hear the divine Word of the New Testament on its own terms (and that is the whole task and function of interpretation), we must study it historically. We must learn to see it as the growing and working divine Word, as God Himself active in history (Ac 2:11).
What Is the Book of Acts?
The Book of Acts is unique in the history of religions. Nowhere else do we find this sober and religious sense of history, this absolute conviction that God is the God of history, who clothes Himself in a garment of mighty deeds in order to reveal Himself to us. Here only do we find the conviction of faith that His Word is a force, is in fact the force in history.
The Book of Acts is therefore uniquely valuable for our study of the whole New Testament. It is valuable because it provides us with the historical information that is indispensable for reconstructing the historical background of many New Testament books, especially the letters of Paul; but not only for that reason. We appreciate and value the Book of Acts as students of history, of course, but we are never merely historians when we seek to interpret the New Testament. We are always first and foremost believers, for whom the historical is a means to a higher end, namely, that we hear the New Testament speak to us as the living voice of God now. And it is to the theologians and believers that the Book of Acts is really uniquely valuable. Since it is the history of the Early Church, conceived of and told not as the history of another religious society but as the history of the growth, the progress, and the triumph of the divine Word, the Book of Acts can determine not only the method of our study but also the basically religious attitude of our study. . . .
Historical Culture and Setting of Acts
What sort of life was this life of the Early Church, that life which was the historical framework of our New Testament, the seedbed in which it sprouted and grew? Its first and most obvious characteristic is that it is a life wholly dominated by the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke makes it very plain that the Book of Acts (which is the second book of a two-volume work, of which his Gospel is the first) is the direct continuation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: “In the first book, . . . I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Ac 1:1). The human figure of Peter may loom large on the stage of history in the first part (chs 1–12) and that of Paul in the second (chs 13–28); but they are both dwarfed by, and completely subordinated to, Him who is the real and sole Actor in this Book of Acts—this Jesus who continues to do and to teach. It is His Word that grows and speeds and triumphs here, not Peter’s or Paul’s, a fact that Peter and Paul are the first to assert. . . .
The Book of Acts pictures the new people of God as living by the apostles’ word. The Church thus lives in faith and love under the Lordship of Jesus, animated by the Spirit, which He has poured out upon all believers, in joyous, active, and responsible expectancy of the return of the Lord in glory. The impress of this first history of God’s people is on the whole new New Testament, and the first apostolic preaching (often referred to by its Greek name kerygma, “herald’s news, proclaimed Gospel”) has given all the New Testament writings their characteristic color and contour. . . .
Literary Features of Acts
Genre of Acts
The Book of Acts is to be thought of as the direct continuation of Luke’s Gospel, with the exalted Christ as its solely dominant figure (Ac 1:1). The book does not pretend to be a history of the Early Church or even a history of early missions; it would be woefully incomplete as either of the two. It is the continuation of the story of the Christ, and can therefore be as selective in recording the facts of history as the Gospel itself.
Of all the ways that the Gospel went, Luke selects just one, the high road to Rome. And even that segment of the total history of missions is not fully portrayed but is leanly and monumentally sketched. There are, for instance, large gaps in the record of the career of Paul; both his two years’ ministry at Corinth and his three years’ ministry at Ephesus are merely illustrated by means of typical incidents rather than chronicled. Indeed, the whole work illustrates rather than chronicles the course of the Word that proclaims and presents Christ. Luke selects incidents and actions that illumine and bring out in clear outline the impact of that Word upon people, the tensions and conflicts that ensue when the Word of the Lord is heard, and the triumphant progress of that Word despite tensions and conflicts. . . .
Characters in Acts
Of the apostles, only Peter and Paul are really leading figures. John appears a few times in the early chapters and then disappears; James the son of Zebedee appears only as a martyr, with one short sentence devoted to his execution. On the other hand, men who are not apostles play a considerable role in the narrative: Stephen, Philip, Barnabas, Silas, Agabus.
Furthermore, if the title were to be understood in the sense suggested by similar works current in antiquity, such as The Acts of Alexander by Callisthenes or The Acts of Hannibal by Sosylus, it could actually be misleading. It would suggest a narrative of human heroism and human achievement. Of course, the very term apostle, as defined by Jesus and as used by the apostles themselves, should have excluded that idea, for the apostle is by definition nothing of himself and everything by virtue of the commission given him by his Lord. But would Luke have selected a title that even suggested the idea of human greatness? His book tells the story of men only because, and insofar as, men are instrumental in the growth and triumph of the Word of the Lord.
Paul is pictured as a loyal friend of the Jews, devoting some time on his second and third journeys to raise money for Christian Jews in Jerusalem. Perhaps Luke hoped that these emphases in his book would serve to heal the growing breach between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Peter was as important as Paul, Luke seems to be saying. God used Peter in the same way He used Paul. Both Peter and Paul performed acts of healing; both raised people from the dead; both overcame sorcerers; both were offered divine worship by superstitious admirers; both were agents of divine judgment on impenitent sinners.
Narrative Overview of Acts
Acts opens with the believers in Jerusalem waiting for the gift of the Spirit and Luke presenting the history of their work in that city. The history presents the journey of faith and of mission that led the early Christians from Jerusalem to the heart of the Roman Empire. In the early chapters, Peter emerges as a key character. Persecution and the death of the deacon, Stephen, moves the story from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, where a second key character is introduced: Saul/Paul, whom God calls to preach Christ.
For a few chapters, the story turns back to Peter, through whom God performs miracles, and begins ministry to the Gentiles (chs 9–12). The story then describes the mission to the Gentiles through Paul, with ch 15 recording how the Christians in Jerusalem settled doctrinal and practical disputes that arose due to the Gentile mission. The rest of the book records two missionary journeys of Paul and his companions until Paul reaches Rome, fulfilling an important aspect of Jesus’ stated goal in Ac 1:8.
Many have found the ending of Acts puzzling and inadequate: why is the outcome of Paul’s trial not told? Either his release or his martyrdom would seem to constitute a more fitting conclusion to the work than the one Luke has seen fit to give it. Some scholars have suggested that Luke perhaps intended to add a third volume to his work, one that would round out and conclude the story by recounting Paul’s release, his voyage to Spain, and his martyr’s death. But there is no real indication that Luke intended such a continuation of his book; neither is the suggestion very plausible that Luke did not record the outcome of Paul’s trial because that outcome was martyrdom and he did not wish to conclude his account of the victorious Gospel on a sad and negative note. To judge from Luke’s account of the martyrdom of Stephen (Ac 7:54–60) and from Paul’s own attitude toward martyrdom as recorded by Luke (Ac 20:24; 21:13), neither Luke nor Paul looked on martyrdom as something negative and depressing.
The fact is that the present ending makes sense, both as the conclusion of Acts and as the conclusion of the two-part work. The goal noted in Ac 1:8 has been reached: the Gospel is being proclaimed in Rome, the capital of the western world; it has stepped through the door that opens into all the world. That is the fact, the fact that counts; before it anyone’s fate, even Paul’s fate, pales into insignificance. And the present ending is a meaningful conclusion to the whole work also. When Jesus “began to do and to teach” in His own city, Nazareth, He offered His people God’s free forgiveness on the basis of a word from Isaiah (Lk 4:18–21). He had met with objection and resistance from His own people even then (4:22, 23, 28–30). And He had hinted even then that the word they were rejecting would go to the Gentiles (4:24–27). Jesus’ prediction is now being fulfilled; the Jews of Rome are following the course set by the Jews of Galilee and Jerusalem and the cities of Asia and Macedonia and Achaia. They are rejecting the proffered Good News of God. The prophet Isaiah is heard once more, this time uttering words of fearful judgment upon a people who will not hear (Ac 28:25–27). But God’s purposes are being worked out nevertheless: “This salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (28:28).
Blog post excerpted from Lutheran Bible Companion, Volume 2: Intertestamental Era, New Testament, and Bible Dictionary © 2014 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
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