The Commission of the Church — Steve Gallagher

The Two-Part Structure of Luke–Acts

Okay, we're going to begin a 20-week series through the book of Acts, but the way I'm going to handle this is I'm going to break it down into two sections. We'll spend eight weeks studying on the early church, which basically is Acts 1 -12, and then we're going to spend 12 weeks going over the life and writings of the Apostle Paul, which, of course, is Acts 13 -28, but also his epistles.

We'll be going through his epistles, at least in a historical standpoint. So let's just take a look at the background of the book of Acts, first of all. It actually was the second half of a two-part book that was written by Luke the physician, and he probably wrote the Gospel of Luke when Paul was in prison in Caesarea, which would have been about 60 or 61 AD, somewhere around in there, and he probably wrote the book of Acts when Paul was in the prison in Rome, which would have been around 62, 63 AD.

And also, the way the book of Acts ends, it kind of just drops off. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. It almost seems as though maybe Luke was thinking about writing a third section to this book, you know, the things that occurred expanding the church after Paul was released from prison there in Rome.

But anyway, the Lord thought better of it, so it never happened, or if he did write anything, it was lost or whatever. So the introduction to this two-part book is, of course, found in the first chapter of Luke.

Let's look at the first four verses, because this really does form the introduction to Acts as well. This two-part book, you know, was basically utilized for a few decades. But anyway, let's read this.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, that is quite a statement just there. I mean, I didn't study out any of this, but I look at that statement, and it's really, there's a lot there.

What does that mean, compile an account of the things accomplished? Just as they were handed down to us by those who were from the beginning, eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. It seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.

All right, so this forms the introduction to this two-part book, and we'll get into Acts chapter 1 here pretty soon. But first of all, let's just look at the book of Acts from the standpoint of an introduction.

Jesus Continues His Work Through the Holy Spirit

We see here in the first verse of the book of Acts, I'm just making mention of this, I won't be getting into this for a while, but basically what Luke is saying is, the first book, which is the Gospel of Luke, or what he calls the former writings here, the first account, he tells what Jesus began both to do and to teach, what he began to do and teach, okay?

That occurs in the book of Luke, and then in the book of Acts, what Jesus continued to do and teach through the Holy Spirit, through the men who he empowered to be his witnesses in the early church time.

All right, so this two-part volume was circulated together for a number of decades, and then early in the second century, someone compiled the four Gospels together, and they started being circulated, and it left the book of Acts out, you know?

So the book of Acts is now a standalone book, you got the Gospels, and then someone compiled the writings of Paul, all the different epistles he wrote. So you have the Gospels, you have Paul's writings, and what book is it that ties it all together?

The book of Acts. Think of where we would be in our understanding if we didn't have the book of Acts. We would have the story of Jesus, we would have all the teachings of Paul and the others, but, you know, there would be nothing tying it all together.

How did all this come about? Well, it's the book of Acts, that's why it's such an important book for understanding the New Testament and the Gospel. All right, as far as these books are concerned, Luke is actually the longest book in the New Testament, and Acts is the third longest, but it's just really a little bit shorter than the book of Luke, so they're almost identical.

The book of Acts is a little over a thousand verses, but the two of them together compiled, made up 30 of the entire New Testament. And there's actually a lot of parallelisms between these books, and I can tell you I'm not going to get into it, although it is interesting, I'm just not going to have time as we work our way through.

But there are a lot of parallelisms between Paul and Peter, Paul and what happened in Jesus' life, and so on. But I will just mention a couple of parallelisms right here. First, like I said, is the size, they're almost identical in size, but also the time span is right around 30 to 33 years long for both of them, you know.

So that's very interesting to me. As far as the layout is concerned, Jesus said in Acts 1 .8, He said, "...you shall be my witnesses," speaking to the disciples, "...you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.".

What He is laying down here is a game plan, a mission statement for this new organization that's being birthed. You know, this is where you are going to go, and this is what you are going to do. And so He's basically laying out a game plan for what He wanted to accomplish through the disciples and their converts later.

But then look at how the book of Acts unfolds. You see it begins in Jerusalem. Just like Jesus said, the first seven chapters of Acts basically all take place in Jerusalem. And then it goes through Judea and Samaria, chapters 8 through 12.

Then to the Gentiles in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, chapters 13 to 19. And then the last eight chapters, nine chapters, is all about Paul's arrest, his imprisonment, his trials, and finally his trip to Rome, and so on.

And that's how it ends. So it unfolds exactly like Jesus said. So in other words, they accomplished what He wanted them to accomplish in that first century. There's one other thing I want to mention here, and that is that there are six summary statements.

And if you want to write them down, I'll give them to you. Acts 6 verse 7, chapter 9 verse 31, chapter 12 verse 24, chapter 16 verse 5, chapter 19 verse 20, and then the final verse in the whole book, 2831.

Let me just read one of them just so you have an idea what I'm talking about. Basically, you could very easily break this book down as far as an outline is concerned by these summary statements. There's a section of the book that is describing people, events, things that are happening, a period of time.

And then Luke wraps it all up with the summary statement. So let's look at chapter 6 verse 7. This is what he said during this, you know, kind of summing up what was going on in the early church. Luke says, "...the word of God kept on spreading, and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.".

Okay, that's a summary statement. He's just kind of summing up all that has happened up to that point. And then let's say we went to chapter 9 verse 31, just to give you another example. "...so the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up, and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.".

That's a summary statement. So anyway, that's how the book was put together. Now I want to look at Luke's purpose in writing the book, and also the purpose of the Lord. I'll say it this way. Luke had his own thinking involved here, and he had two purposes that he obviously was trying to accomplish.

Luke’s Purposes in Writing Acts

The Lord had a much greater purpose in mind that probably, or it's possible Luke never even thought of, I don't know. But the first purpose is he's basically just sending the story to this man Theophilus.

And if you look in Luke 1 -4, this is what he says, "...so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.". So that's a statement right there of purpose. Luke is telling the reader, this is why I'm writing it, so you will know exactly what's going on, or what happened, and how it all unfolded, and so on.

Theophilus seemed to be some kind of an important figure in the Roman culture. Maybe he was a Roman official, I don't know. I mean, he may not even have been Roman, but he definitely was very open to Christianity.

He was interested in it, that's clear. But he's got questions, you know. And so part of what Luke is trying to accomplish in writing the book of Luke, and also the book of Acts, is to answer his questions, and to present to him the story of how the church unfolded, and came about, and so on.

Now, the second purpose I'll mention, and this one, as I say, is probably more the Lord's purpose, but it is just basically providing an accurate account of the origins of Christianity. You know, in other words, not just for this one man, but for the history of the church.

He couldn't foresee that for 2 ,000 years, people would be reading what he wrote down. You know, if he would have known that, I don't know, maybe he would have spent more time having his stuff edited, or something or other, I don't know.

But anyway, he didn't realize that, but he may have been, you know, having that in mind as well. Let me read what Albert Barnes says about this, because he really is very concise and lays it out. He said, Acts was evidently written to furnish an authentic and full narrative of events concerning which there would be many imperfect and exaggerated accounts.

Since these events pertain to the descent of the Spirit, to the spread of the gospel, to the organization of the church, to the kind of preaching by which the church was to be collected and organized, and as the facts in the case constituted a full proof of the truth of Christian religion, and the conduct of the apostles would be a model for ministers and the church in all future times, it was of great importance that a fair and full narrative of these things should be preserved.

Yeah. I mean, that really says it. He's very comprehensive in what he's saying, but he's got it. You know, that is at least the primary thing in the Lord's mind for sure, whether or not Luke thought of it or whatever.

And the third purpose that I'll mention really is very clear in Luke's mind as he is trying to justify Christianity to the Roman world. And let me just show you what I'm talking about here. Go back to the book of Acts.

Acts as a Defense of Christianity Before Rome

You see that even in the time of John the Baptist, Luke is the one who mentions that Roman soldiers are listening to the preaching of the Baptist, and that's found in Luke 3. And then in Luke 7, the centurion whose slave Jesus healed, you know, so there's another example of a Roman official looking favorably upon Jesus Christ and, as we'll see, the religion that he formed.

And then, of course, Pilate's desire to release Jesus and basically saying he's an innocent man found in Luke 23. So we already see that starting in the gospel account, but it definitely comes clear in the book of Acts.

He talks about the proconsul in Cyprus. You remember when Paul and Barnabas went through the island of Cyprus and, you know, Paul ended up striking Elymas' eyes, you know, blinding him. And anyway, that was in Acts 13.

And then there's the story of Galio, who Paul was drugged before by the Jews in Acts 18, and Galio dismissed it as, like, these charges are bogus, you know. So there's another Roman official, and Galio was a pretty prominent man in the Roman world, as we'll see when we get there.

And then there's Claudius Lysias, who arrested Paul in Jerusalem, Acts 21 through 23, but he is very favorable towards Paul. Then there's Felix, Acts 24, and then there's Festus, Acts 25 to 26, and finally the centurion Julius, who's with Paul during that last journey.

All of these Roman officials are all looking upon Christianity in a favorable way. And so, in other words, Luke has definitely got it in his mind that he wants to show that Christianity has been, time and time again, attacked by the Jews but supported by the Roman government.

And of course, you know, out of 17 chapters that deal with the life of Paul in the book of Acts, out of 17 of them, 9 of them are devoted to his arrest, his trials, and all of that stuff there at the end of the book.

You know, it's just way out of balance, really, when you think about the story. Why so much emphasis on that? It's because Luke had an agenda, and his agenda was to present Christianity to the Roman world and to show them that we are a legitimate religion.

And I don't know if you knew this, but if you were not legitimatized by the Roman government, your religion was illegal, and you could be arrested, imprisoned, whatever, for bringing in an illegitimate religion.

They would call it, actually, illicit was the word, I think, in the Latin. And so, it started off as a sect of the Jewish religion, which had been condoned by Rome, you know, but Luke sees that things are, there's a breaking out from Judaism, and Christianity is beginning to stand on its own.

I think he felt like it was very important to justify it to the Roman world. All right, so that was kind of the purpose behind this book. Let's talk a little bit about the narrative. As I said, you know, Luke partially approached it as a historian, and he got his material from three primary sources, and again, it's referred to in Luke 1, but I'm not going to read it.

Luke’s Sources and the Narrative Design

But first of all, he was an eyewitness to much of what occurred in the second half of the book. I mean, he was just there. He was with Paul in a lot of those things that happened. You know, he doesn't come into the picture until, I don't know, Acts 16 or 17, right around in there, but from then on, much of what happens, Luke is right there alongside Paul going through it.

But he also interviewed various people, and he had plenty of opportunities to, you know, obviously interviewed Paul and asked Paul about the earlier days and so on, but he also had access to Barnabas and Philip and Manassan and probably the different disciples, you know, that he probably, when he was in Caesarea or maybe some other time, he had opportunities to sit down with Peter or John or some of the other disciples that were available, and he probably interviewed them, definitely for the book of Luke and probably also for the early chapters of Acts.

And also the third thing was that he had access to written documents that are now lost, and you can see by what he said in Luke 1 that that's obviously true, that there were already written accounts of the life of Jesus, and he, you know, went to them to get a lot of his material.

All right, so this story has basically two main characters. First, we have Peter, and then he kind of fades from view, and then Paul kind of emerges into the main position. And then you have secondary figures like Stephen and Philip and Barnabas and James, the brother of Jesus, and then you have minor characters, Apollos, Mark, Silas, Timothy, Aquila, and Priscilla, and so on.

And also you have Gentile politicians such as Galileo, Claudius, you know, the different ones I've already mentioned. So those are some of the main characters in this story that unfolds in the book of Acts.

The way that Luke presented it was by offering up dramatic vignettes. In other words, you've got 30, 33 years of a story here. How do you tell that story in 28 chapters? Well, obviously you can't write everything out, so you just take some of the main stories or different stories that represented different things.

He didn't tell about all the miracles. He didn't tell about all the answers to prayer, the tremendous answers to prayer. He didn't tell about all the healings and all the powerful sermons or powerful meetings he was in.

He couldn't tell all that. So he would, it looks like, kind of pick out different things, events, stories, situations, things that occurred. He picked out different ones to show different things, probably in line with his purposes.

But as far as the Lord is concerned, it was enough to present the story, you know, and to give readers down through the ages a good sense about what happened. When I wrote the story of Bobby Lloyd, I did it that way.

I, actually more than Luke did, I just took these little incidents that happened in different parts of his life, usually each chapter had three or four of these incidents, and I would just kind of painted his life through that method of writing until, you know, by reading all these stories, you get a sense of who this man is, you know, what happened to him, how he changed, and all that sort of thing.

And that's really what Luke did. So he used these different vignettes to portray the essence of the preaching. There's a number of sermons that are mentioned in the book of Acts, and we'll get into those as we go, but these different sermons are just kind of the main points of what he's saying.

They're not word for word. He wasn't sitting there dictating the whole thing, but he was probably, you know, writing down some of the main points, kind of like Judy Lucas always does, you know, just trying to get the main stuff that's being presented.

He's showing that. He's showing the activity of the Holy Spirit, the spread of the gospel, the different people involved. You know, Luke's presenting all of this, but the climax to this story is Paul's entrance and work in Rome.

You know, that's where the whole thing is headed. Really, as we look back on it, we think, oh, Acts 2, man, that's when the great outpouring was. That's where everything, you know, was the most exciting moment.

Yeah, that's true, but that was a means to an end. What was the end? You know, the Lord is trying to accomplish something. He's birthing something in the world, and he wants it to spread forth, and that's what Luke is trying to show is the spreading forth of what began in Jerusalem, you know, 50 days after Jesus died.

The Holy Spirit and the Transition in Acts 1

All right, now let me just wrap up this introduction part by reading a few quotes that are worth reading. Schofield said this about the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit fills the scene. As the presence of the Son exalting and revealing the Father is the great fact of the gospels, so the presence of the Spirit exalting and revealing the Son is the great fact of the Acts.

Yeah, that's very good, and it's true. Jameson Fawcett Brown said this, this book is to the gospels what the fruit is to the tree that bears it. In the gospels, we see the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying.

In the Acts, we see it bringing forth much fruit. There we see Christ purchasing the church with His own blood. Here we see the church so purchased rising into the actual existence. Albert Barnes said this, this book is an inspired account of the character of true revivals of religion, and that's the truth.

This was a church that was birthed in revival, and that's a word that's never even used in the book of Acts, but it is all about revival, a powerful revival. And finally, Kiddo's Encyclopedia said, the design of Luke in writing Acts was to supply by select and suitable instances an illustration of the power and working of that religion which Jesus had died to establish.

That's a good quote also. All right, let's take a few minutes and look at the first chapter. We'll go through this. Now, this first chapter of Acts is important because it's a transition from the life, the story of Jesus Christ, you know, His life, and then He dies, He's crucified.

The last chapter of Luke 24 is all about His resurrection. And then in Acts 2 is the birth of the church. It's the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So chapter 1 is a transition tying the two together. You've got the life of Christ, you've got the church being birthed and spreading forth, and the first chapter is kind of a transition in that story.

And it also is fit right in between the Passover and Pentecost. You know, as we'll see here in a minute, there was, what happens here in these first few verses of chapter 1, occurred after 40 days. You know, so Jesus died during the Passover, right?

And we know that Pentecost is 50 days after the Passover, always. That's what Pentecost means, it's 50. So 50 days, there's this period of time between when Jesus Christ died, He was resurrected three days later, and then during these next 40 days, those first 40 days, He's making different appearances to different people.

I think, doesn't it say somewhere, I think in 1 Corinthians 15 that He appeared to 500 people or something? But anyway, during that 40 days, He's making these appearances. On the 40th day, and that's a significant number, on the 40th day is right here, this is transpiring on the 40th day.

And then He says, you know, not many days hence, or however He says it in here, I'm going to pour out my Holy Spirit on you. And that happens 10 days later. So for 10 days, they're waiting on the Lord, waiting on the Lord.

That'd be a good thing for you, Jeff, for this coming event here, 10 days of sitting and waiting on the Lord. Wow, can you imagine? The anticipation that must have been building in their midst during that time.

All right, so now, just kind of as an introduction to the early church, I want to read something that Harry Ironside said. One is reminded of the Lord's word to Moses when He commanded him to build the tabernacle.

This comes from Exodus 25, 40. See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain. Okay, now he's just cutting into something that the Lord said to Moses regarding the tabernacle.

And He's saying, I gave you a pattern, now make sure that you do it exactly like the pattern says. All right, now continuing on with what Ironside said, God has given us in the book of Acts a pattern of Christian testimony, missionary effort, world evangelism, and building of Christian churches, a pattern which we would do well to follow.

Certainly, we can be assured of this. The closer we come to following this holy pattern, the greater blessing will attend our efforts. Yeah, and when you get away from this pattern, and I'll say something about that in a minute, but when you start getting away from this pattern that has been laid down by the apostles in the early church time, the further you start getting away from that, the more man-focused it will become, and the less God-focused it will become, and the weaker it will become for sure.

Acts 1:1–8 and the Great Commission

All right, so let's read these first eight verses and go over them. The first account I compose, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, okay, so that's the book of Luke, until the day when He was taken up to heaven after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.

To these, He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of 40 days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which, He said, you heard of from Me.

For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs, which the Father has fixed by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

All right, now I want to go over these verses here for a few minutes. Verse 1 says all that Jesus began to do and teach, and I want to read what Jameson Fawcett Brown said. It's very good about that little phrase there.

A very important statement. The one the beginning, the other the continuance of the same work, the one complete when he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, the other to continue till his second appearing, the one recorded in the gospels, the other in this book of Acts.

Yeah, that's good. It really shows how the life of Christ continued on. Verse 2, he uses the word here, the NIV uses the word instructions, which is good. It's better than New American Standard used the word orders.

Basically saying after he had by the Holy Spirit given instruction to the apostles. Now, probably when Luke wrote that down as part of his letter to Theophilus, he was probably thinking about the statements that you would find in Luke 24.

Actually, I think it's verses 48, 49. Yeah, you are witnesses of these things and behold, I am sending you forth the promise of my father upon you, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

Okay, so he's probably referring back to that with that statement. But I think that the Lord again, you know, can see the whole picture. I think the Lord is thinking more in terms of tying together the words from Jesus that are found in the last chapters of all four gospels.

And if you piece it all together, you get the great commission. This is the great commission to be my witnesses, to take this new message out to people, to lead people into a knowledge of me. That's the great commission.

That is this is the commissioning of the church. Okay, so, you know, I think that that's more like what the Lord had in mind when he had Luke write those words down. Okay, and then verse three, you see Luke mentioning how Jesus presented himself after his death and appeared to different people during that 40 days.

And, you know, this is important also because the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, which the disciples witnessed, is the foundation of their message. You know, if there was no resurrection, then they're serving a dead God, right?

So these are the witnesses. They lived with him. They saw him and all that. They saw all this happen. And this is the foundation of the gospel. And, of course, in the gospels, there's at least 13 different appearances of Christ documented there.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit and the Promise of the Helper

Okay, verses four and five, he's telling them that something is about to happen, something that he had mentioned before. And actually, even before he came, you remember in... Actually, it's in Luke, again, Luke 3, John the Baptist had told the people that he baptized with water, but one who is coming is mightier than I, and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

So Jesus is picking up the same theme that he had heard three years before or whatever that John the Baptist had been preaching, and he's saying, this is what's coming. You know, I am going to baptize you with my spirit.

But there's an interesting statement found in John chapter 16 that I want to read to you that Jesus made sometime before, you know, just a few weeks before, it was on the night that he was arrested, actually, a few hours before he was arrested.

But this is what he said to the disciples. John 16, verse 7, but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. Now, think of the poor disciples.

They were so out of it. They didn't know what he was talking about. You know, they're like, huh, what, are you going away? Are you going somewhere? You know, who's the helper? I mean, they were just so out of it.

And you and I would have been too. Don't laugh too hard because we would have been out of it just as much. But anyway, this is what Jesus is saying, and the Holy Spirit will bring these words to remembrance to at least the apostle John who wrote them down later.

OK, so he said, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And that's what we're going to see next week is him sending forth the helper, the comforter, the Holy Spirit.

And he when he comes, what's he going to do? He's going to have such a greater impact than the life of Jesus had. You know, Jesus really didn't have all that much to show for his life. Really. There was only 120 people gathered after three and a half years of miracles and healings and tremendous words of truth, all that he brought forth to the people, the Jewish people.

All he had was just a smattering of followers, really. But he was going to send someone else who had a way of not only preaching the truth, but getting inside of people's hearts and doing a work inside them.

That was the difference. But anyway, when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. You know, praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit.

I thank God that we have the Holy Spirit and we're not, you know, just depending upon a historical thing or some teachings that have come down over the years or whatever. No, we have the Spirit of God working with us in conjunction with us and also directing us.

The Kingdom of God and the Church’s Witness

All right, verses six through eight, he mentions two important themes or introduces two important themes here that are going to basically run throughout the book of Acts and carry the book of Acts. The first is the kingdom of God.

If you remember, throughout the Gospels, Jesus was continually talking about the kingdom of God. I mean, it was the first thing he preached, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And over and over and over again, he would talk about it, especially to his disciples.

And his disciples, you know, just dull of hearing, dull of mind, were so stuck that they weren't getting what Jesus was trying to say to them. They were very much in the nationalistic mentality that all of Israel was in in those days.

The prevalent thinking of the time was this, that the Messiah is going to come and he's going to come with mighty power and he's going to overthrow the Romans and we are going to be the head and they're going to be the tail.

We are going to be the mighty nation on earth and everyone will look up to the Jews and respect us and obey us. That was pretty much the prevalent mentality of the day in Israel. And the disciples were very much in that same thinking.

And you would probably be surprised and I would probably be surprised at how much we are also susceptible to the prevalent thinking in the church today. You know, we also live in a time when the church is in a terrible condition spiritually speaking.

You know, when I say church, I mean that in a loose way, tying also together a lot of unsaved people who are in the church. But anyway, we have no idea how errant some of our thinking is on these sorts of things just because this is the culture we've grown up in.

And this is the way it was for the disciples. They were stuck. The disciples' idea of the kingdom of God was carnal, temporal, and unrealistic. They didn't understand that the establishment of the kingdom was going to require a great spiritual battle that would cost them their lives.

They just didn't understand that at this point. Yes, the Lord would establish His kingdom, but it would be through their efforts. He would be working through them. He wasn't going to just come riding in on a white horse, not this time.

Later, yes, but not this time. Yet His promise was that He would empower them to do this work, even through all the periods of uncertainty and fear and suffering that they would be encountering in the days ahead.

But you know what? Ten days later, something was going to happen that would completely change their thinking. And you never again see them in confusion about the kingdom of God. They got it. When the Holy Spirit came in and they had that powerful outpouring, and I don't know exactly how that affected them internally, but everything changed.

You know, and we'll get into that next week. But the important thing to notice here is even now, after all that they had witnessed, they are still stuck in that carnal mindset about the kingdom of God.

The other important thing mentioned here in this little passage is that they would be witnesses. And this word, witnesses, and you know, especially for those of you who are with me when we went through the book of Revelation, you remember how that word was such an important theme throughout the book of Revelation.

In other words, this is the ending of the church. Now we're going back to the beginning of the church. And it's the same theme, to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. The disciples had lived with Him, walked with Him for three years, three and a half years, something like that.