How To Read the Book of Acts (Acts 1:1)

It's one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible, and this is one of my favorite memes. Except we could replace Old Testament narrative with New Testament narrative. Specifically, the book of Acts.

Acts is what the majority of people point to who don't like my content. In my comment sections, Acts is used to defend and justify all kinds of unhinged charismania, false teaching, misapplication of scripture, and spiritual abuse.

And it's because, as this meme points out, we are such products of our individualistic, consumeristic culture that we assume, and we are taught from many pulpits, That scripture is fundamentally an analogy about our personal lives, so that we can apply whatever we like directly to our lives by inserting ourselves into the narrative, typically as the main character.

This happens particularly in the book of Acts by confusing the descriptive for the prescriptive. And entire theological systems are built upon texts that are describing unique events in the early church and are not prescriptive for the normative life of the church.

And we'll talk more about that. So what you can expect in this series is a verse-by-verse exposition through the book of Acts, because I have come to believe, and my holy nope journey has convinced me, that it is desperately needed.

So, what is the Acts of the Apostles? Let me call your attention to the first verse of chapter 1, the first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Luke is the author, and so it will be helpful for us to think of Acts as part two of a two-volume work, the first volume being the Gospel of Luke, to which Luke refers in these opening words, the first account I composed.

Now, we don't know exactly who Theophilus is, but his name means beloved of God, and he was most likely a Gentile convert to Christianity who probably lived in Rome. You'll notice that Luke's gospel was also dedicated to Theophilus.

In Luke chapter 1 and verse 3, Luke addresses him there as most excellent Theophilus, so he was probably someone of higher social status in Roman society. Well, what was Luke's first volume all about?

He tells us, continuing in verse 1 of Acts 1, it was about all that Jesus began to do and teach. This brings us back to the question, what is Acts? Your Bible probably titles the book, The Acts of the Apostles, but if Luke's first account was about all that Jesus began to do and teach, his second account must be about all that Jesus continued to do and teach.

So, is Acts of the Apostles a good title? Well, keep in mind that the title of the book is not inspired, and some have suggested that a better title would be, The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles, but I think we can do even better than that.

F .F. Bruce says, the word began implies that Luke is now about to tell us what Jesus continued to do after his ascension. The second treatise might then be fittingly called, The Acts of the Risen Christ, but maybe we can do even better than that.

The book of Acts is the historical account of the doings and teachings of Jesus after his ascension and during the first decades of his present reign, his reign that is still ongoing, a reign which the apostles acknowledge and proclaim at Pentecost.

Look at Acts 2, 32, and 33. This Jesus, this is Peter speaking, God raised him up, so Jesus is risen, to which we are all witnesses, therefore having been exalted, Jesus is ascended, to the right hand of God, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear, Jesus' ruling.

So, we might even call Acts, The Acts of the Risen, Ascended, and Ruling Lord Jesus Christ. The point is, it's about Jesus. Barton Lloyd-Jones wrote, I've written to you already about him, said Luke, in effect, and I'm going to write more about him.

Christianity is a person. The Lord Jesus Christ was the theme of the preaching of the early church. He is the theme of the Gospel of Luke. He is the theme of the book of Acts. So, The Acts of the Risen, Ascended, and Ruling Lord Jesus Christ serves as a link between the history of the Gospels and the divine interpretation and application of that recorded history in the epistles.

The Gospels are the facts, the redemptive historical facts of Christ's life and death. The epistles are the inspired interpretation of those redemptive historical facts and their application to the church.

Acts is the historical narrative, linking these together and providing the backdrop against which the epistles were written. The last epistles written by the Apostle Paul were penned in Rome before his martyrdom, which is where the book of Acts leaves us in the final chapter, which ties the end of Acts to the beginning because Luke is writing to who?

Theophilus, a Roman citizen of high social status. Acts records the expansion of the Gospel in the first decades of the church from Jerusalem to Rome. So, the nature of Acts gives us much to consider about how we are to interpret it and apply it to our lives, because while the Spirit of God is speaking in this book, it is not in the form of explicit instructions or specific imperatives.

It is, for the most part, descriptive. Here's a few questions to help illustrate the point I'm making. Does God's approval of an event described in a narrative section of Scripture necessarily imply that it is imperative for all subsequent readers?

Should we imitate Abraham by offering our sons as sacrifices to the Lord? These days, it seems like everyone wants their church to get back to the book of Acts, but maybe not the selling and sharing of all of their property and possessions.

Just because it is described in Acts 2 .45 doesn't mean it is prescribed in the church for all time. So, a question we'll be answering as we move verse by verse through the Acts of the risen, ascended, and ruling Lord Jesus Christ is, what is normative for the whole church in all ages?

There are two ditches into which we may fall when applying Acts to the life of the church today. One is, everything in Acts that the Lord approves should be reproduced in the church today. The other is, nothing in Acts is normative for the church today.

We want to steer clear of these ditches and, instead, we want to rightly divide the word because there is so much benefit and blessing that people are robbed of through unwarranted applications of the narrative literature in Acts.

Remember, Acts, and also the whole Bible, isn't about you. It's about Jesus. So, I'm excited for this series and I hope you are too. We've covered verse 1 today and next time we'll get into verse 2. If you want to see a breakdown of some unwarranted application of the Acts narrative regarding what went down at Pentecost, check out this video right here, smash that like button, and stay tuned for more.

Please, Lord, give me a sign, a sign.