The Book of Acts
Lesson 1: Intro
It has been circling around my head for about a year now that someone should go through the book of Acts with our church. The landscape of American Christianity has been painted with so much “Church-Growth” how-to’s and methods, that it’s tough to keep a clear head about what a church is even about anymore. Questions of “what are we supposed to be doing as a church?” and “What can we do to make our church grow?” are so common in Christian circles that there is an entire section on the subject at your larger Christian book stores. As Southern Baptists, we are particularly susceptible to this mentality, as Pastors like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels continue to influence the top echelons of our denomination.
The question that we as followers of Christ should always be asking ourselves is, as always, “What does God have to say about this?” And of course, for the answers to that we must turn to our Bibles. Once again, we find that God has already anticipated our questioning and set out His principles on the subject. This brings us to the book of Acts.
I have planned a series that will take us through the whole book of Acts. In planning this series I’ve spent a lot of time trying to decide what I wanted it to be. In the end I used an old Puritan trick of defining what it is not so that I could understand what it is, and I’ll share that thought process with you.
I do not want this study to be overly doctrinal. As most of you know, I have no problem with going in deep and wrangling over meanings of individual words for hours… but that is not my intent with this study. I have no intention of getting bogged down in minute details, I’ll focus on the main story. The other issue with that, is the book of Acts is just a lousy place to pull doctrine from. There are so many unique events inside the book that never happened again. Unique people, offices, circumstances… it was the beginning of the church and lot happened then that just didn’t happen at any other time. It also wasn’t written as a doctrinal work. It is primarily a history of the events that took place in the middle of the 1st century, immediately following the ascension of Jesus into heaven.
With that thought, I’m going to also avoid all the controversial topics in the book, of which there are several. In fact I’m going to attempt to fly past them so fast that you won’t even have time to focus in on them. There are certain subjects that people have made too much of a big deal out of from this book. I believe that you’ll find, as I have, that they are not even the main points of the sections in which you find them. I don’t think I will have any difficulty in distracting you from those controversies, because the meat of the story will be enough for us to chew on by itself.
I also don’t want this study to drag on. I’ve got the first 9 lessons planned. It will get us through chapter 9. At that rate, it will take 28 lessons, and thus half a year to go through the whole book of Acts. If I can, I’m going to speed that up, but my first priority is to make sure I don’t bite off more than any of us can chew on, so I’m not sure. Because of this, I’m not going to carry over lessons. If I can’t get through the material, then that’s my fault and you all shouldn’t be punished for my incompetence. I currently have 9 lessons, which will carry us through 9 weeks and I promise that at the end of 9 weeks, we will be on chapter 10. If at that time, we all decide that we’ve had enough… then we can end it there.
OK, enough of what I don’t want it to be. A pet peeve of mine are things that are defined by what they are not. Now that I’ve cleared away what this isn’t, allow me to share with you guys the goal of these lessons, so that we can all at least have an idea of where I am aiming. The book of Acts details the events and people of the beginnings of the Christian religion. It contains so much that is practical, so much that is inspirational. Chapter 11 of Hebrews contains a “Hall of Faith” if you will. Just a whole chapter devoted to those heroes of the faith that have come before us. It ends with this sentiment:
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. (Heb 11:32-40 NIV)
And the very next words are this:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Heb 12:1 NIV)
This book contains many of that cloud of witnesses. It is my hope that we can all be inspired to greater things in the service of our great God. That we might look to their example, and pray that God would work these things in us. That we might find where our church is weak, that we would be able to pray much more specifically for God to strengthen it. It is my prayer that we would find the answers to those questions of what we are supposed to be doing as a church that God has so graciously provided for us.
Now we’re all on the same page, or at least looking through the same book. Let’s look at the book of Acts itself. The full title of Acts is “The Book of the Acts of the Apostles.” It details events that took place from the later part of May around the year 30AD until 60-62AD. It was most likely written between 62-64AD by a Greek named Luke who was the Apostle Paul’s personal physician. Now that I’ve said that, one of 2 questions should immediately come up in your mind, depending on your persuasion. “How do you know that?” and/or “Who cares?” Let’s address the first one, because its easy. The book of Acts starts with the Apostles witnessing the ascension of Jesus. We know this occurred 40 days after his resurrection. “How do we know this?”
After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Act 1:3 NIV).
So let’s go backwards…
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) (Luk 2:1-2 NIV)
We know that Caesar Augustus took his first census while Quirinius was governor between 6 and 3BC, the most likely being 3. Chapter 2 is the section that everyone who has seen Charlie Brown Christmas is familiar with. It’s the one that Linus read at the pageant about the birth of Jesus. So Jesus was born between 6-3BC.
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. (Luk 3:23a NIV)
So Jesus started his ministry from 24-27AD. From the gospels we know that Jesus died on the third Passover from when He started His ministry, so He died at Passover, which is pretty close to the date of Easter, between the years of 27-31AD. Count forward 40 days… viola, late May around the year 30AD.
Now, the second questions should be going through everyone’s head… “Who could possible care about that?” Well there are 2 answers, because we have 2 kinds of people here tonight.
The first answer is for those of us who have put our faith in this Jesus described here in the text. And allow me to say, quickly, those of us who have put our faith in THIS Jesus, the one described here in the bible. Not a Jesus that we have crafted from our own understandings or has been taught to us by the traditions of men… well intentioned as those were. But the real man who lived during these times, who really died like the bible said He did, for the reasons that the Bible says He did, in the manner that it says and that literally rose from the dead, just like the Bible says. I keep repeating that for emphasis. The Bible itself makes the claim that it was written by God Himself and was the account that He wanted us to know about Him and His work here on earth. When God tells us something directly, and we believe something else… it’s akin to believing the gossip when the person in questions comes directly to us with their story.
For those of us that fall in that category. It is of the utmost importance that we know times and dates and circumstances surrounding the texts we study. These were real people writing to other real people in real time periods. The books of the bible were first written in those historical contexts, and to ignore that would be to come to an ancient text with a modern understanding… a sure recipe for misinterpretation. Besides that, knowing the time periods surrounding the text just brings the story to life. It stops being boring words written on plain paper and becomes a time machine to put us into contact with those who it was written to and by. The more you study your bibles, more you will benefit from them…and so I’ve laid out our context for the study and I’ll keep coming back to it.
The second answer is for those who have not put faith to those words of our Lord “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” As politically incorrect as those words are. When I was an unbeliever, I had this picture of the Bible that you may share. I thought it was this horribly cryptic thing that was shrouded in so much mysticism that no man could ever unravel it. Words like “Fairy Tale” and “just a story” were what I used to describe it to Christians who didn’t know any better. Those were the thoughts of a prejudiced and unstudied man.
The book of Acts is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke, we went over that a few weeks ago, so I won’t belabor the point, but they were both set out as an “orderly account” (Luke 1:3). Certainly, these 2 books (and all the rest as well, but I’m not focusing on those right now) utterly fail as a fair tale. Fairy tales are purposefully vague and mystic so that they can’t be pegged to actually events, you know… a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Luke includes dates, time periods, names of rulers, cities and towns in their proper layouts and geographical positions. It is also entirely devoid of art. In the 2 books, miracles are presented without explanation or any attempt to ascertain the ways and means. They are simply presented as facts and then the story moves on. Any trial lawyer will tell you that witnesses who were really there tend to present their stories in similarly banal ways, it’s the ones who are making stuff up that elaborate… (“See, what had happened was…”).
In fact, don’t take my word for it. Sir William Ramsey, the father of modern archeology, had as his specialty the period of the first century Middle East. He started out refusing to look through the books of Acts, though he knew it detailed his time period. His studies eventually brought him to a subject that Luke wrote about, and so he picked it up and read it. He was so amazed about what he found there that he completely changed his opinion, and stated the Luke was a historian of the first rate. This from a man who had read all of the other historians of the time period and whose textbook on the subject is still required reading in archeological schools. Even the Smithsonian recognizes that the Bible is THE most accurate ancient document we posses today. It is even the only ancient text that contains all of the names of foreign kings spelled correctly.
I only mention this because, like me, you may have another view of what the Bible actually is. John Bunyan wrote a book entitled “The Holy War” which was an allegory about conversion. He said in it “that [over] Ear-gate the Lord Will-be-will made one old Mr. Prejudice, an angry and ill-conditioned fellow, captain of the ward at that gate, and put under his power sixty men, called Deafmen”. If you’re going to continue to reject the Bible, and certainly that’s your right to do so, then I want you to at least reject it for what it is. The Bible is not a collection of myths or fairy tales handed down through the ages, it’s simply too precise for that. If you continue to reject it, know that you are rejecting a history book, written as a history book by people who were eyewitnesses to the facts. Maybe that will change your opinion, maybe it won’t. Either way, I’ve said enough about the book, its time to actually turn to the text and see what treasures we can find there.
When I originally had this lesson planned out it was titled “Farewell to a Friend.” That’s still a lesson I’d like to teach someday, but I basically did it with everyone here at Jan’s house a few weeks ago, so I’m going to focus more on the second half of the chapter and on the individuals who were left behind, so to speak. While I was studying, a better title came to mind, namely “What a Difference a Chapter Makes” and I think that will help get us all focused in the right areas. The book of Acts is full of transitions and none more startling than this first one. Look with me.
To review. Luke starts us out with Jesus speaking to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. He tells them to go to Jerusalem and wait for the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” which we’ll see next chapter. They’re confused and still not quite getting what’s going on and one enterprising soul asks if Jesus is going to restore the kingdom to Israel. Jesus replied, saying (verse 7) “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” And again told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit would descend on them and give them power. I do want to point out this. It will be really important for us to keep this in mind when studying the rest of the book. Jesus said (verse 8) “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
We all know that the great commission is “Go and preach my name to the ends of the earth” and we see that here in the last words of Jesus. Be my witnesses, and to do that you will receive power. The very next verse has Jesus ascending into heaven while they watched. If this was a movie the music and the wind would pick up, there would be some sort of rousing, slightly sad classical tune written by John Williams. Jesus would rise up to the clouds and the camera would focus in on the faces of those standing there and the words “Be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” would be ringing in the air. Transition number 1, and it’s a doosy. I’m sure they all were at least thinking, “OK, now what?” because 2 men dressed in white appeared and said:
"Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (verse 11)
Oh, yeah… right… go to Jerusalem. Let pick up the story:
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the believers(a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus-- he was one of our number and shared in this ministry." (With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) "For," said Peter, "it is written in the book of Psalms,
" 'May his place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in it,'
and,
" 'May another take his place of leadership.'
Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection." So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles. (Act 1:12-26 NIV)
A lot could be said through all of this, but I’ve burned up all of my time with the intro, so I’m going to call your attention to only one aspect of this section. Keep in mind, especially through the early chapters, the thought of transitions. We just transitioned from Jesus being on earth to Jesus not being on earth. Now here we see the Apostles acting very “Old Testament-y.” The idea of casting lots was set up in Exodus, actually and there were 2 holy relics that were used for the process called the Urim and Thummin and they were part of the priestly vestments, you can check that out in Exodus 28:30 if you’re interested. This section is the last time the process of deciding by lots is ever mentioned in the Bible. From now on, all decisions would be made by following the Holy Spirit, but we haven’t gotten there yet… that’s chapter 2. For now, we find men and women, about 120 in an upstairs room, possibly even the same room that they had the last supper in, doing the only thing they have been taught.
What a difference a chapter makes. The word that I have written in my notes on their actions up to the end of all this is “aimless”, though I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. They are moving with purpose, they just don’t exactly know what they’re supposed to be doing. Jesus said wait, so they’re waiting. Of course in the middle of waiting Peter decides that 12 is an important number and they should pick a replacement. I just love Peter, I don’t want to be guilty of putting thoughts into his head that weren’t his, but we should keep in mind that the time from when Jesus rose to the day of Pentecost, which is the Latin name for “The Feast of Weeks” held on the 50th day after Passover, was 10 days. Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, who He had already told them would bring them power, guidance and even comfort, and Peter couldn’t make it 10 days without standing up in the midst of the brethren.
So questions… was 12 an important number for them to have? Was casting lots for their replacement the most appropriate thing to do? Shouldn’t they have just waited for Paul to replace Judas? Don’t worry, it’s appropriate to ask these things because these Apostles are just men like us, and even the best of men are, at best, men. What they did wasn’t wrong, but perhaps it was a bit pre-mature and certainly we can disagree on this point. The replacement that they picked was Matthias, but he and Barsabbas were never heard from again. The bible doesn’t speak of them, history doesn’t record their passing. We don’t know if they were good replacements or not. So repeat after me… “The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.”
Its plain from the text that these 120 men and women were operation under and old understanding. This is not only forgivable, but to be expected. The Holy Spirit would come in chapter 2 and change everything. These confused men and women would become driven and focused on spreading the news to all the earth that Jesus was alive and that He had made for us a lasting peace with God. No more were men to be afraid of death and its power for Jesus had defeated it. No more had men to fear that they had rebelled against their creator, for that Creator’s own Son had willing taken their just punishment on Himself. But that’s chapter 2, and what a difference a chapter makes. Here in chapter 1, we have men and women doing the best they can with the knowledge they have.
For homework, I would ask all of you to look at chapter 2 and the change that takes place. This is, in my opinion, the greatest transition and transformation in the history of the world. 120 men and women go from Old Testament mentality to a completely new way of operating. They go from an upper room in hiding to outside their door and preaching. They go from lots, to being led by the Holy Spirit. They go from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Today we sit in this room as participants in the movement these men and women started, thousands of miles and thousands of years away from these events. The process, the change, took 10 days. The question you need to ask yourselves this week, is there any force on earth that could have accomplished this. If you find yourselves having trouble coming up with an explanation, may I suggest that the answer you seek is not on this earth, but is in fact, still in the heaven He ascended into. Let us pray:
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