Intro to Acts
Notes
Transcript
Where Mark’s (Matthew, Luke, John) gospel leaves off is where the book of Acts picks up. When we left Mark’s account we read...
14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
As we study through the book of Acts we will see all of this being fulfilled by the early church.
Written by Luke who was a physician as and such was a highly educated man…
14 Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas.
We will see Luke switch from “they” to “we” in chapter 16 verse 10 as he meets and begins traveling with Paul.
Luke was a friend and fellow worker for the gospel for many years alongside of Paul...
23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you,
24 and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
In fact at the end of Paul’s life it was still Luke who was there with him...
11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
Acts is a history of the early church spanning from about 33 -62 AD
Most scholars believe that Acts was written in 62 AD because of the events recorded at the end of the book with Paul still in prison in Rome waiting to go before Caesar.
If Luke had written any later than 62 AD he would have told us what Paul said when he stood trial before Caesar or that he was released from prison, went to Spain to preach the gospel there and was eventually arrested again and was killed in 68 AD. If Acts was written later than 62 AD you might think that Luke would have written about the severe persecution of the church under Emperor Nero in 64 AD. It is thought that Paul did preach the gospel to Emperor Nero and that after rejecting the gospel Nero became an enemy of Christ and the church.
The theme of Acts is to put it simply… JESUS. More specifically the theme is the resurrected Saviour who has power to save and has sent His church to continue the work He begun while here on earth in the flesh through the power of the Holy Spirit. For that reason some have dubbed Acts “the Acts of the Holy Spirit”.
The events in the book of Acts take place between the time of the Gospels and the Epistles. In fact Acts gives us the background for the Epistles as you have no doubt experienced when studying the Epistles on your own time or here in church. Without the book of Acts we would have no context for the Epistles. We wouldn’t know why the letters were being written to the various churches and we wouldn’t know who the various people mentioned were. We also wouldn’t know who Paul was and would wonder why he wrote more of the NT than anyone else.
So as Acts details the fulfillment of the Great Commission which in Matthew’s words are...
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And doing so as Jesus says in...
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
So with that info we can see that Acts is basically divided into 3 parts:
Part 1 (Acts 1:1-8:4) focuses on being witnesses to Him in Jerusalem
Part 2 (Acts 8:5-12:25) focuses on being witnesses to Him in all Judea and Samaria
Part 3 (Acts 13-28) focuses on being witnesses to Him to the end of the earth.
Verse 1
Verse 1
This is the same Theophilus that Luke wrote his orderly account of the gospel to...
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us,
2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us,
3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
There is a notable difference however in the way Luke addresses Theophilus in his account of the gospel and this history of the beginning of the church.
In Luke’s account of the gospel he calls Theophilus “most excellent” [kratistos /krat·is·tos/] - which was a term used of those with status of nobility such as a Roman Senator or others with prominent rank or office who were addressed with this title. The implication of the title was that a person had power and authority.
But, notice that here in Acts, Luke simply addresses him as Theophilus. It is quite possible that Luke dropped the title [kratistos /krat·is·tos/] from Theophilus because he had become a follower of Christ. In the early church all wordly titles were dropped because they truly believed that all were equal and subservient to Jesus Christ regardless of financial, social, or political status. The rich was the same as the poor, just as the Physician was the same as the Senator.
In Luke’s first book (Luke’s Gospel) he wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach, but here in Acts he will write about the continuation of that work and teaching through the lives of Holy Spirit filled disciples of Christ called the church of which we today are also a part of if we have called upon the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and recieved the free gift of His salvation and been filled with the Holy Spirit.
Verses 2-3
Verses 2-3
Interesting to note that Jesus did this through the Holy Spirit as we will see the great reliance upon the Holy Spirit by the church to carry on the very work that Jesus began to do and teach before His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
A.W. Tozer once said...
“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.” (A. W. Tozer)
Who not what is the Holy Spirit?
He is the 3rd Member of the Holy Trinity. God exists in perfect unity, harmony, and power as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit first convicts us as lost sinners of sin, righteousness, and judgement to bring us to reality that we are guilty sinners before a holy and righteous God and draws us to Christ where we might see His work of salvation for us on the cross and cry out for God’s forgiveness and mercy to receive His salvation and become adopted sons and daughters of God.
Upon Salvation the Holy Spirit then fills the one who has trusted in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation, and seals (puts God’s stamp of ownership) the believer in Christ, and dwells the within the life of the Christian to empower us for godly living and service unto our God in Jesus name.
So here we see the reliance of Christ upon the Holy Spirit as He sets the example for us to follow of also being reliant upon the Holy Spirit in our daily lives and for the calling upon our lives as disciples who follow after Christ to continue the work He has set for us to do in His name and for His glory. This pattern is what we will see throughout the book of Acts. For the early church to try and carry on this work without a reliance upon the Holy Spirit would have been futile and the same principle applies to us today. Just as Paul said to the church in Galatia...
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
He presented Himself alive to them by many proofs…This occured during the 40 days between Resurrection Sunday and His ascension which we see here in Acts 1. Jesus was making it clear to everyone that He had risen just as He said He would. It was a public statement of His love and power for all to see.
You might remember what Paul said about this...
6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
What did Jesus do during those 40 days? He continued to teach the same thing that He did for the last 3.5 years that we just studied in Mark’s gospel account. He taught them about the kingdom of God.
Verses 4-5
Verses 4-5
Do you see how clearly the triunity of God is once again displayed in the Bible?
Jesus told them about the promise of the Father and that promise regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit...
This was the final set of instructions for His disciples. Jesus knew full well that if His disciples were ever to become the living breathing Church that He intended them/us to be, they must stop relying on themselves and on their abilities and wait for that magnificent promise of the Father which Jesus already told them about.
The disciples were instructed to wait for the promise. The promise would be well worth the wait! What God called them to was something that required something that they did not have ability for within themselves. Mere fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and whatever other lifestyle this rag tag group had left behind to follow Christ could never accomplish God’s work on earth with their mere natural abilities or unique personality traits. They were in need of God’s very Spirit dwelling within them and that is never something that a person can conjure up in some way or another. That indwelling of God’s Spirit happens in God’s timing according to His will and therefore the disciples would have to abandon all other forms of power and ability and just wait for this wonderful promise of God for their lives.
This will also be the pattern of the church from that point to today.
The Lord will often give us instructions piece by piece and those bits in between His instruction are most often times of waiting upon Him and His power to continue on to the next step.
God doesn not want us to try and accomplish His work in our own power or ability, but rather to wait until He reveals the timing, details, and further instruction by the power of His Holy Spirit. That church is always the key to the life of the Christian. We are those who wait for the moving of the Holy Spirit then when He moves we jump into the flow of His power and presence to carry out the work of the Great Commission for the glory of Christ our Savior and King.
While the waiting is sometimes difficult or frustrating, it is always well worth waiting for.
What was the promise?
“you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit”
Baptizo - the be immersed/dunked
We think of the believer following in obedience and submission to Christ and being baptized/dunked under the water in physical baptism as they display to the world in a very public way that our old life has passed away snd behold all things have become new and in response to that newness of life given to us in Christ we have now decided to live whole and completely submitted and dedicated lives for His pleasure and glory.
That same Greek word baptizo is used here. The believer who has been baptised into the mystical body of Christ and obedient to be baptized into that watery grave to rise anew is to be fully submerged or overwhelmed by God’s Holy Spirit to have the power and ability to live out this new life in Christ.
Hey church I have a very important question for you. Are you baptized in the Holy Spirit
Because as we will see throughout the book of Acts this is a very necessary condition for the Christian.
Did you know that you can ask for this condition to be fulfilled in your life?
9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent;
12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Remember that this IS the promise of the Father for you who are disciples of Christ because the fulfillment of this promise is absolutely necessary for your new life in Christ and His purpose for that life which He has purchased for you on the cross with His blood.