Survey of the Book of Acts

All right everybody take out a piece of paper.

We're going to start with a short quiz.

No, week five has the long quiz.

This is your pre-quiz quiz to get you ready for week five.

Yeah this is really not a quiz I'm just I don't want everybody to answer the questions out loud so write your answers and then we'll talk about them.

I'm going to give you three questions.

These are similar to questions that are on next week's quiz but I'm just wanting to make sure that I've covered these things and that there's no questions because it's not fair I give you the quiz and you don't know the information.

I'd rather today clear anything up that way you you know a little bit of what to expect.

I think next week's quiz has 10 to 12 questions so the three three of them three questions.

Number one on your paper which books make up the synoptic Gospels? Which of the Gospels which ones do we call the synoptic Gospels? According to church history and tradition because we don't know for certain but church history and tradition we mentioned in the last few classes which gospel do we believe was written last? According to church history and tradition which which gospel do we think was written last? That's the second question yeah that's a good so the first question is which got which which ones are the synoptic Gospels and the next question is which one do we think was written last? Okay third question who are the traditional authors of the Gospels and with whom with which Apostles are they associated? So if it's Matthew, Matthew is the Apostle.

You don't have to put he's associated with Matthew because you're pretty pretty clear on that but two of them are not Apostles so what which Apostles would those two be associated with? We know Matthew and John are Apostles you don't have to put it for them.

So who are the four traditional writers and of the two that are not Apostles which Apostles are they traditionally associated with? Again this is going to be on a form of this question will be on next week's quiz so getting you ready doing you right as a as a professor and for those who aren't here they're not going to do so good on the quiz.

Well they can always watch the video I guess.

You guys okay? Is everybody as tired as I am? You know this is week four what did I say we start out big everybody's excited by week four but it's work it's work I forgot it's work.

All right number one which books are the synoptic Gospels? Jackie what's the answer? All right thank you she is right it's Matthew Mark and Luke.

Which gospel was written last Miss Daisy? No the four Gospels.

You weren't here I'm sorry I forgot you weren't here last week okay all right anybody want to take that one brother John yeah we believe John was written last we talked about that and last week we did an entire class on John and we talked about why we think his gospel was last but in part who remembers part of the reason why? Yes sir? Because he lived the longest.

That's one.

There's argument for that I'll accept that but there was another reason why we think his was last yes well that's why that's why I would say it's before 8070 but there's you guys may have missed what I said about this remember there is some there's tradition that says he wrote his gospel as a request to to give more information that wasn't in the synoptic Gospels that it that it was the church that had asked him to write because he was personally involved with Jesus and that's why his gospel gives us more variant information various information rather than what the synoptics tend to be similar information he gives us what's one thing we know about Jesus's ministry that we wouldn't know if we only had the other three Gospels what one major thing three years the fact there's three years right the the that because John tells us about the annual feasts and you know that we see we see three-year ministry in in John's gospel that we wouldn't have known about if all we had was the synoptic so yes all right so third question who are the traditional authors yep okay very good very good and of course Matthew and John so yes and who they're associated with does matter next week on the podcast if I have a chance I'm gonna do a lesson on the gospel of Thomas so if you don't already listen to the podcast I'm going to do either one or two days on the gospel of Thomas because the argument what's interesting about higher critical scholars is they all want to try to push the the dating of the of the four genuine Gospels as late as possible but they want to push the gospel Thomas as early as possible because they want to try to fit the gospel Thomas into the first century but there is no evidence that the gospel of Thomas comes from the first century and there's no evidence that the writer of the gospel of Thomas was in any way associated with the Apostles if we know it wasn't Thomas who wrote it and we not the Thomas that we think of in fact it doesn't even claim to be it claims to be well it does the gospel of Thomas claims to be written by the twin brother of Jesus very strange argument right out the gate so when you next week when I do the podcast if you get a chance to listen to it but my point is the Gospels that the four canonical Gospels all have legitimate association with the twelve Apostles Luke through as you said through Paul and Mark through Peter now who was Mark John Mark he was went on the missionary journey with with Paul and Barnabas got tired of it went home Paul didn't like that I mean that's it that's the that's a key standard version but that's what that's basically what happened he he got tired went home and and and and the next time Paul went out says I'm not taking him and that caused a division between him Barnabas also tradition says that John Mark was the was the man who ran away naked and the night Jesus was in the garden remember there was one who was watching and they grabbed him by his clothes and he and he and he and he broke away because and the reason why that tradition is is because tradition says that the upper room was in Mark's home it was his mother's home and so John Mark was associated with the ministry of Christ while he was alive or while he was on the earth and it was John Mark who followed the followed them to the garden and was watching and again this is all tradition this is all speculation the text the text doesn't say it was John Mark but it's interesting that we had that little tidbit that there was a person watching who was there's some kind of emergency going on with 9-1-1 and that everybody's phones are probably going to buzz at some point because it's apparently 9-1-1 for Jacksonville's not working right now which is a pretty big deal so if you were looking for this is your window so so anyway that all that I you know these are all things that I think about after I'm done with the lesson I'm thinking about things I didn't say and that little tidbit about John Mark I always thought was an interesting piece of church tradition in history and so we're going to move tonight into the history book of the New Testament which book caught which book do we call the history book of the New Testament is acts we could we could say that the four Gospels are all history because they are in a sense historical in nature but they also would fall under the category of because they are history of one man particular that is Jesus Christ but even still the Gospels tend to fall under a unique category of gospel that they're not usually identified as biography or history they're used it's just like think about the the writings of Moses those are history but we don't call history we call them the Torah or the law or the Pentateuch you know we say that's the books of Moses right and so when we refer to the Gospels they're such a unique blend of history and biography and and and because of who it's about we say they're unique there are the Gospels the four the one gospel according to four different men and then we have this book of Acts which is the really only book like it in the New Testament acts is a is a history book but it's it's more than just a history book it tells us about the as it were the birth of the church and tonight we're going to examine this and you could you could you could title this lesson a study of acts or you could you could title it Luke part two because Luke is the author of acts and we know that partially because he tells us in the beginning that he's writing a second book in fact everybody turn to Luke or to acts one and we'll read and you'll remember who was Luke written to theophilus right well we get the same introduction in the book of Acts and he references his gospel says in Acts chapter 1 verse 1 and in the first book of theophilus I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom he had chosen he presented them alive to them after his suffering by many proofs appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom so there is reference to the first book reference to what it was about he said that was about Jesus and now we're going to look at the as it were part two and what's interesting is he begins with Jesus still on the earth in this notice look at verse 6 so when they come together they ask them Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel he said to them it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority but you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth I would say that that verse verse 8 is the thesis verse of the whole book because what we see in verse 8 is we see the outline that the rest of the books going to take God is going to give the the Spirit to his church there he's going to empower them and they're going to become his witnesses first in Jerusalem then in Judea which is the surrounding area then in Samaria which is the next surrounding area and then to the ends of the earth and that's literally the way acts is laid out Jerusalem first then Judea then Samaria then then on to into Asia Minor and Macedonia and the ends of the earth right all the way to Rome right so so so literally verse 8 becomes sort of the thesis outline that Jesus is prophesying this is what's going to happen spirits going to give you power and this is how it's going to all work out so so don't lose the importance of that verse as a as a outline for basically for the whole book and so our outline our outline getting back to the lesson for tonight is going to be the same thing we had done for the last few weeks we're going to first look at authorship and purpose we're going to look then at theological insights and then we are going to look at difficulties and controversies that that will be the three-part outline of tonight's lesson and does anybody have any questions before we begin you all read your introduction right any questions about that one thing I do want to mention your textbook the believers Bible commentary that I had everybody purchase your that that particular book comes from what would could be called a dispensational perspective so as we get into certain aspects of interpretation there may be times where I will disagree with the commentary as to the direction that it goes but most of you have probably at least been some way influenced by dispensationalism especially if you have been part of a Southern Baptist Church and this would become very apparent when we get to books like Revelation because Revelation dispensational theology make makes a big part of how you understand in times stuff but there's also some things in Acts that that that will possibly come up and in in the interpretation may be slightly different and I did have one asked me well why why would you why would you give a commentary that you disagree with why don't disagree with everything in the commentary this is one area that I would say I would disagree but also I want you to be as students exposed to these different concepts and if I have to correct something in class I will but ultimately this is you know I hope hopefully your benefit I think it's a good commentary I mean John MacArthur's a dispensationalist if you don't know if you have no idea what I'm talking about by dispensationalist it it's usually contrasted with Covenant theology and it simply is a hermeneutic for how to understand Israel and the church the distinction or lack of distinction between Israel and the church and and why would that be important in Acts yeah access the yeah if you will the birth of the church but see even that language because I said it already even the language birth of the church from a covenantal perspective the church has always been it was in Israel and now is in the New Covenant Church so I I did say birth of the church earlier but typically I I qualify that by saying I believe the church was in seed form in Israel and was by the coming of the spirit to indwell the individual believers I think there was there's a unique and excuse expression a unique dispensation that we now enjoy of the spirit that was not enjoyed in the same way in the Old Covenant I had this conversation I think this morning with the guys at set free I said you know in the Old Covenant the Spirit of God regenerated the believer but I don't believe the Spirit of God indwelled the believer and the New Covenant the spirit both regenerates and indwells and the distinction is in the Old Testament God dwelt among his people and the New Covenant God dwells within his people that's the promise of the New Covenant is that he will he will he will make his home in your heart and you will be the temple of God rather than the temple being in your midst it'll be in your heart and so there's a there's a major distinction there and so I can still say there is something unique there is something new about the New Covenant and there's something unique about the birth of this New Covenant body so that's why when I say birth of the church I I don't have a problem saying as long as I'm able to qualify and say I think the church did exist in seed form in Israel whereas dispensationalists would say no they would say Israel was Israel and the church is the church and never the twain shall meet and that's where I have my biggest problem with with dispensationalism because they would they would make the argument that the church in Israel have two different plans from God two different essentially two different two different paradigms you have the the paradigm of Israel and paradigm of the church and they're not they are not one and I think so many passages of the New Testament would disqualify that from as an interpretation most specifically Paul who said there is now neither Jew nor Greek but we are all one in Christ Jesus Galatians chapter 3 so so anyway as you're reading your commentary if you come across things that make a hard distinction between the church and Israel and to the point that you feel like you have a question about that please message me or ask it in class I'd love to have that conversation remember this is supposed to be dialogical we're supposed to be interacting with one another if this if this weren't nothing but and that was great English right this weren't nothing doesn't you always tell I'm a country country fellow if this was only me preaching this is why I didn't like doing this in the sanctuary back there and cope it because it just felt like an hour-long sermon this is supposed to be you ask we interact dialogical study not just monologue it was just me I could record it and send it to you if that's all it was yes again that that actually goes to another issue that goes to the issue of how did how did the world in the first century view the church and I do think that there is a legitimate argument to be made that people outside of Judaism would have saw Christians as another form of Judaism just a set and that's why it's saying a sect of Judaism I think they would have seen the church they would have said okay those guys are she's expression they're like a cult they're there they're not Jews but they're not they're not Romans or or Greeks they're some kind of an odd offshoot I don't think the church ever saw itself as that in fact I would say the church saw itself as the true Israel what do we see in Acts what where were they going they were going to the temple they were still in the first few chapters I think they saw themselves as the true Israel they the Messiah had come and we have not we're not the cults we're the true believers we're the ones we're the inheritors of the promise of all those old covenant promises and you guys who are still sacrificing bulls and goats just don't understand that's over you guys who are still looking for something to come have missed it think about the first few sermons of Peter you by wicked hands took the Lord Jesus and crucified him you know his sermons are are attacking them for what they did for not recognizing the Parousia their visitation they had had the Lord in their midst and instead of saying welcome King they said crucify him right so yeah I how the world would have saw the church I think is different than how the church saw itself am I saying the church was the plan of God yeah absolutely the Bible says in Galatians that when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law that he would redeem those who are under the law and give them the adoption of sons the fullness of time tells us that God had planned from the beginning to send his son at a certain time in history and when that time came God sent Jesus so Jesus is not a second plan or a backup plan Jesus isn't you know drop back and punt you know Israel didn't do it they're supposed to do so we're gonna drop back and punt and Jesus is going to come in and he's going to run the ball that's not the point Jesus is the plan from the beginning how do we know this because the Bible tells us he was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world so the plan to send Christ was never a second option it was always the primary in him all things hold together Colossians tells us yes sir you had your hand yeah in fact I would argue in fact I will be arguing this Sunday in my sermon that Christ is the true Israel Hosea 11 1 out of out of Egypt I call my son you know that whole passage is about Jesus we know that because Matthew sites that passage in relation to Jesus Jesus is the seed of the woman Genesis 315 that's my sermon this Sunday Jesus is the seed of the woman who crushed the head of the serpent Jesus is the blessing promised to Abraham and you all the nations of the world will be blessed Paul tells us in Galatians that's directly about Jesus it's not about all the descendants of Abraham it's about one Paul makes the point to say it's not seeds plural but it's seed singular and the one seed that matters is Jesus Christ in him it's all about him all of the things of the Old Testament point to him they the fulfillment this is again this is where my biggest issue with dispensationalism because it seems as if they have a secondary set of promises that they want to make sure Israel receives and when all of the promises are yes and amen in Christ and and that and and so yeah I I take issue with with that for sure yeah yeah Christ is the is the true vine I'm the true vine I'm the bread come down from heaven I am the gate I am the way the truth in life I am I am and that's what we talked about last week in John all right well let's move on to our study of Acts several years ago I preached through the book of Acts the title of my message was beyond our borders and I did that I think I did I don't remember how many sermons I did to get through the book of Acts but the the subject of it was that the one of the things that we see in the book of Acts is that the gospel did not have borders it wasn't kept in the in the one location of Jerusalem among the one people of Israel but it was for every tribe tongue people and nation now Acts follows the ministry of Peter first and then the ministry of Paul throughout the latter part but there are other Apostles going other places and that is important there are churches being established in Alexandria there's churches being established in India there's churches being established all around we just happen to have the we happen to have the inspired text of what happened with Paul but that should not eliminate our reminder that there was no borders it wasn't that they it wasn't as if they only went to to Asia Minor which is Turkey now or they only went to Macedonia which is you know there is around Greece no they went everywhere what was the first languages the Bible was translated into Coptic which is Egyptian Syriac Arabic these are the earliest translations of the New Testament in fact we have we have about 5700 Greek manuscripts that are available to us to study and look at now but if you combine also all the other languages Syriac Coptic Arabic and then you get to the fourth century you have Latin there are so many there are more manuscripts that can be counted because now you've gotten away from the original language which you're looking at the original translations of those languages no borders it was going everywhere the good thing about that the blessing of that is when you have such widespread and massive proliferation of an idea then there's no one who can change it without that change being part of the history and we see the change you see if you only had five guys in a room who know the story and they're the only ones who know then that story can be changed but when that story has been told to 5,000 people and they go every direction well if somebody comes along and says no no no here's what the real story is somebody says no no I'm part of the 5,000 that heard the true story you are wrong you see this is the blessing of the copious amounts of manuscripts that we have nobody could come along and collect all the manuscripts and and and change them all you see it was it was expansion and the proliferation of the information that was a blessing that comes with a difficulty too because there are manuscripts that have mistakes in fact there's a lot of mistakes in the manuscripts we see we can trace those mistakes back to a source like I'm preaching next Monday at the fire conference fellowship of independent reformed evangelicals I'm preaching on Romans 828 what's Romans 828 yeah all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to its purpose did you know there's a major textual variant in that passage it says in ESV all things work together for the good of those who are called according to its purpose in the New American Standard Bible it takes the variant reading and it says God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him you say that's not much of a difference it's not much of a difference but it is a variant in the manuscript tradition and so part of what I'm going to be teaching on is why do I think that variant exists I don't get into it right now but the point of the matter is this is that we can spot we can huh I'll be honest with you I think that I think that there's a very good chance that that that was what we call a scribal emendation see there are times when scribes will include information in their copies to clarify things we do it with our translations sometimes they're dynamic translations yes and sometimes we see those commentaries get introduced into the text and I think that it's very possible that the phrase God caused all things to work together is a is a is an attempt by a scribe to clarify what is being said it's the longer reading but I can't I can't tell you it's not the actual reading I prefer that actually I think I think it's nice yeah but either way God's sovereign right no matter how you no matter which version you think is the correct one God's sovereign by the way would anybody in here be interested in a seminar class on textual variation the history of the New Testament okay because that's something I thought about maybe doing because we you know we take two months off around Christmastime and I thought about maybe doing one class on textual variation textual variation is a very important subject that so few people have ever done any study on and if you if you never have it's very useful because it answers a lot of the questions that people have about the the reliability of the text the text is reliable but that doesn't mean that there aren't questions that we have about certain passages and so that the whole class would just be going through the major variants of the New Testament so if you're interested let me know and maybe we'll do something all right so I've kind of got off the subject let me get back to acts acts this is from your actually this is from the introduction introducing the New Testament by Doug Moo and da Carson they say acts is a whirlwind tour of three decades of church history the story moves through various areas including Asia Minor Macedonia Greece and Rome and it focuses on two main figures who are the two main figures in the book of Acts other than the Holy Spirit Paul and Peter and I would say Peter chapters 1 to 12 focus mainly on the ministry of Peter chapters 13 to 28 primarily on the ministry of Paul are there others yes there's chapter you know where Philip is sort of the main focus and then there's other other chapters but the the first 12 chapters deal primarily with the ministry of Peter in fact there was a film about Peter and Paul I don't know what the name of it was but it was a film about those two men and Peter was working on a boat and John went to him is like John Peter why aren't you preaching anymore and he said Jesus took it away from me he gave it to Paul and like like this was like some random thing that the movie creator came up with as if when Paul came on the scene Peter just just just went away and I was like I don't know where that idea came from but I can understand I guess if you don't really know anything about church history that there is a point in Acts where the focus shifts right you go from the focus of Pete of Paul or Peter who is of course the mouthpiece of the Apostles I would say the big mouth of the Apostles I love Peter because we are a lot alike don't know when to be quiet but he was a big mouth and then along comes Paul and in the latter part of acts is about him what's interesting is Paul has a mission according to his own words this is in Galatians 2 7 & 8 his mission is to the Gentiles and Peter's mission I'll read it to you Acts 2 7 when they saw that I had was entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised works worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles so that's that's Paul writing and he's saying Peter has a unique ministry to the to the to the circumcised to the Jews I have a unique ministry to the Gentiles now that doesn't mean that Paul never preached to a Jew and it doesn't mean that Peter never preached to a Cornelius and Paul every time he went to a new city where did he go to the synagogue because it was to the Jews first and then to the Greeks so he's not saying I there there was not some crossover but but his point is there's a unique ministry given to Peter for the Gentiles or to for the Jews and a unique ministry given to Paul and what and one of the things about that when we get to this the book of Galatians which would be actually next week the first the first part of Paul's letters and most of our time next week's going to be on Romans and Galatians because those two books sort of a lot of hinges a lot hinges on those we'll look at the others but the primary focus and our first night on Paul Galatians this is what I consider to be his first book and it's more biographical it's very very important book and then of course Romans this is magnum opus theological work but in Galatians there's that that little biographical piece about him and Peter having an issue what was the issue between Peter and Paul that's right Peter it says when certain men came from James who is James James is the pastor of the Church of Jerusalem brother of Jesus and it says when certain men came from James Peter would stop eating with Gentiles and he would separate himself and a lot of people give Peter a hard time for that one of those being Paul he said you're wrong and he was wrong but have you ever wondered why he did it some people think he was afraid of what they would say about him but I think there's also a more I want to say gracious way of understanding it I think Peter understood his role as a minister to the Gentiles and he did not want to interrupt that relationship so when they came they he's like no I'm not going to do what's going to offend them right because eating with Gentiles would have offended these Jews but Paul Paul comes in says even if you're really gracious with Peter which I'm trying to be he was still wrong and Paul totally publicly called him out on it but you know no matter his motivation well it was better or worse it was the wrong thing to do because he was making a division where there shouldn't have been and it's a distinction where there shouldn't have been so when we look at the book of Acts and getting back to what we're talking about here we see Paul has the latter half Peter has the first half but the primary primary focus of the whole book the person who is the focus of the whole book is the Holy Spirit if you could say we have four Gospels of Jesus Christ you could say we also have one gospel of the Spirit because the book of Acts provides for us the Spirit being unleashed on the world and providing what Jesus said he would he will come and convict the world of sin and righteousness and the Spirit comes and does that all right let's move that was all introduction let's look now very quickly authorship of purpose I've already explained I believe Luke is the author based on Acts chapter 1 it also in chapter 16 20 21 and 27 there is a switch to the first person I and we and Luke is the one apparently in that group in all four chapters so that's another reason why what's that yeah it's it's it's Acts 16 there is a reference to I and we Acts 20 Acts 21 and Acts 27 he talks about we and us and again there are several companions there but there's there's one that sort of is in all four and that's Luke so that's where part of part of where we're getting that and other external evidence says it's Luke as well yes that's yeah yes that's what I'm saying when we when we read through he's the only one that seems to make sense is as the one yeah absolutely so again that's that's what we would call internal evidence for authorship and then we have external evidence which is church tradition says Luke wrote it so both that when you have when you have two pieces of internal and external evidence that that fit together so well there's really no no reason to to argue okay next is the dating of the writing we know that it was after Paul's house arrest in Rome how do we know that as it's mentioned it's like it's like in there so yeah it could have been written before that because that's what it was written so others so we know that that happened and that would have put it somewhere after 62 63 and I would say definitely before 70 definitely before 70 what what is it what is one thing that it's that it absolutely you would think it would have but it doesn't the searching temple that's true that and and that's usually the answer but that's not the answer this time that's a good answer what's another thing that you would think that it would have what okay well the answer I'm looking for is the death of Peter and Paul next time go for it you you can only be wrong it won't hurt well yeah yeah we don't we don't see the death of the two men that the book was primarily about first chapter for first 12 chapters is about Peter the last latter half is about Paul neither one of us mentioned their death which tells me it was probably written before they died that's that's that again is a helpful indicator of dating right yes no a before 8070 certainly would have probably been under the persecution of Nero so this would put the book of Acts prior to that huh 80 before 8070 before 8070 yes I'm sorry I said 80 like sound like 80 yeah yeah before 8070 I want to read from Adam Clark's commentary he says this he said it is commonly believed that when a general persecution was raised against the Christians by Nero both st.

Paul and st.