The Book of Acts - Overview
Acts · Roger Henderson · Jan 5, 2014
Acts (2014), No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926411416671

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, you should have it in your handout. You have at the very back of your handout. There's a couple of extra sheets. There's a timeline of acts. Looks like this black and white thing. And then there's a color version of the nation of Israel. Looks like this.

So these are just kind of extra things you use. They'll be used throughout the class and different teachers may use them differently. But this actually was a suggestion of where I use this. This is some stuff that Bernie had already. And then the handout for today is the rest of it. So I thank Vern for the a lot of material that was here.

Alright, so in the book of Acts, we're going to cover, basically in the next about 8 weeks, we're going to cover the overview and down through the end of chapter 2. And then, you know, Acts actually has more verses than any other New Testament book. So, a lot of reading. Does this class last all year? It does. It does. Now it's been taught in a short time period, but looking at what there is to cover, I decided, well, just so I expanded it from what had been done before.

So we're going to spend a lot of time in the first two chapters and the first two chapters, probably the most familiar chapters of Acts, the rest of it. There's just a lot there, a lot of history. And that's one of the things you want to kind of consider here as we go through this axis is history. And we want to look at that carefully. So let's just kind of get right into it.

So I've made use of several outlines, one from Macaulay. I may want to use one from Verne and Costable. So I've kind of mixed and matched some of these things. So this outline from Macaulay, the first issue is the title of the book. It may sound kind of strange, but part of the issue comes here. If you look at, and let's just do that.

Let's look at, let's turn to the Gospel of Luke. And someone could read the first four verses in the Gospel of Luke. And just kind of compare that And then we'll read the first couple of verses in Acts. So Luke 1-4. Luke 1-1, 1-4. Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. you know, for the Christmas season. He starts writing with the Days of Herod, so it starts into, you know, an account of Jesus' birth and so on.

So with the introduction, he points to this person called Theophilus. So let's turn over to Acts chapter 1. And could someone read verses 1 and 2 in Acts chapter 1? I'll do it. The former account I made of Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

There's a handouts up front here and actually some went overboard. We get by your binders to take one or two of a few. The binder, you know, it's your choice. You put the binder or not. Actually, I was thinking, Bert, Bert taught this class and that's about 10 years ago. So I've made use of some of his stuff. So, you know, I, I worked hard on this, but I didn't work beyond, you know, went overboard. Somebody else has already done it. Well, it's not. OK.

So if you compare those two accounts, you notice that it's directed to this person called Theophilus. And that's one one. It talks about this thing. The first the first account I can pose and that word first account is the idea of it's the word logos in the Greek and the idea that it's a it's a volume. It has a volume. So. So with that in mind, you know, The Book of Acts has been given, Acts of the Apostles, and there are Acts of the Apostles in there, right? And there's an account of what they did.

But really, if you look carefully, and secondly, the titles of these books are not necessarily inspired. Somebody, usually, I think it was, let's see, I can't think of the historical, what was it? Nicene Council, is that right? Nicene Council? Anyway.

There's been proposed a better a better title for the code books of Luke and Axe and Macaulay kind of proposes and others have I look over. Others have proposed titles as well. So this is a looking at the content of acts and the content of Luke's. So basically Luke would be volume one. And that kind of comes off the fact that we said when when Luke said the first time I compose, about all Jesus began to do and to teach, and that's kind of key, is what Jesus began to do and to teach.

So there's action. When Christ was here, he did things. He healed people. He performed miracles. He also taught. So the proposal is that Volume 1 would be called, the Gospel of Luke would be called, The Words and Works of Jesus on Earth. He was here physically. And the proposal for Volume 2, which would be Acts, would be The Words and Works of Jesus from Heaven.

So it's kind of cool. This is and actually this is this is the only combo book like this where you have volume one, volume two. So it's kind of interesting. I thought it was kind of interesting point to start off with. And you might ask, you know, it always helps.

So let's look at. at John 16 for a second. When Christ left, he talked about the ministry the Holy Spirit would have, and that's kind of key to Christ working from heaven. You say, well, how is Christ working from heaven? Well, the Lord Jesus, before he left, talked about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If someone read John 16, 12-15, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself. But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you. All things that the Father hath are mine. Therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. So I always love that verse.

It reminds me of my work. We have I work in a secure environment. So we have secure phones and we have the unsecure phones. Well, sometimes it happens that I'll get phone calls on both phones. So this is not good practice. So I have to be the go-between. I have to be careful about what I say. So I've got one phone here and one phone there. So I talk here and then back and forth.

So what does Christ say about the Spirit? He says He will take of mine and reveal it and show it unto you. So the Holy Spirit is a conduit. He's taking the things of Christ and showing it to us. And I think that's just really so important. And we're going to see here, we're going to see an axe. We're going to see a different view of the Holy Spirit.

We're going to see the early church, and the Holy Spirit seems to have, I mean, he's active, he's doing stuff. And one of the questions is, and there's a body of believers, is that the ministry of the Holy Spirit now? Now, I don't want to put Holly in the spot, but the ministry you learned from Mike over the last year, Did you study Acts very much when you did that? No. My point is the ministry of the Holy Spirit is really described in the epistles. That leads to the next point. I'm getting ahead of myself here. That's one of the key things we're going to see. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church age is described in the epistles. The early church had the Holy Spirit.

He said don't go here, go there. It was just a different ball game. have to be very careful about taking that and saying, well that's for me, I'm going to take that and the Holy Spirit, I'll be combing my hair and I'll be across two houses down the way and I'll be over here and the Holy Spirit's moving me over here and doing this stuff. That's not the ministry that we see in the epistles at all. We see a totally different ministry. Sorry to be ignorant, but I'm learning.

Which are the epistles? Okay, basically you have the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Epistles are basically Paul's writing for the most part. Romans, Colossians. And when you study the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that's what you spent your time on.

You looked at, he has a ministry of comfort. In Corinthians it talks about he's a comforter, right? It talks about he intercedes. The Holy Spirit intercedes with your prayers in Romans and so on. So he is showing us the things of Christ. And the information about the ministry of the Holy Spirit is contained in the epistles. Paul's epistles basically. Well, Rush, another point too is that I think the miraculous works of the Spirit that are reflected in Acts really are clarified in Paul's epistles.

Absolutely. So therefore, to live in Acts is just for a time, right? The Holy Spirit is equally as powerful as ever, right? He can do all those things. But time has ceased when miraculous happenings occur. That doesn't mean God's not capable of miracles, it's just that we don't live in an age where suddenly you start speaking in Russian, right?

And we're going to say that about tongues or other languages. Or you're here and the Holy Spirit said, don't go there. You can't go there. You have to go over here. They're in one of the missionary journeys. Don't go here, go there. We don't operate that way in today's ministry of the Holy Spirit. He indwells us and it's a much more subtle thing. Okay, so let's go on to the contents. The epistles are essentially church doctrine. That's where we hang our hat on. We look at Romans, we look at Ephesians, Colossians. That's doctrine. Acts is basically, for the most part, church history. It's telling us what happened in the early church.

And that's just so key. Because we get off thinking, I'm going to create a new church and it's going to have this ministry of the Holy Spirit. It's going to be this just and people and they do that. And I think to their, you know, to their disadvantage.

Anyway, Acts covers about a 30 year period. It records, Acts has the facts. I wish I had something that would even catch it. Acts has the facts. The epistles, as Holly mentioned, interpret the facts for us. And Bob said, too. They interpret the facts. They tell us what they mean. And basically, I alluded to this. Acts records the coming of the Holy Spirit, but the epistles give us the details of his ministry. And his ministry is, I think there Holly, how many things did you have listed in the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Like 30? There's a big number, right? Yes. Okay, I'm sorry. I put it all on the spot here. Did you pass the final exam? I'm going to talk to Mike. He's going to give his formula back. It's like the teacher. He's always like the boy.

Anyway, in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, all those wonderful things are described in the epistles, basically. And there are many things in Acts that will never be repeated. They are one time events. And we are going to see that. Some body of believers want to produce another day of Pentecost. I think that's real. I mean, I don't know. It doesn't seem like looking at scripture. That's not, you know, there was a day in Pentecost and there were three thousand people saved and so on. But is that is that our goal to reproduce that? Is that what the church age should be about? I don't think it is.

OK, so now the nature of the book is a transition. There's some little pictures I've seen. You have them. You have like the Old Testament age and then you have the church age, a whole bridge, an axis, a bridge. So it's going to be key to see how this accident, how does this transition go from. We have all these Jewish believers. and they're going to transition to accepting the Gentiles. Right off the bat, that's almost anathema. You went and ate with a Gentile. You ate pork. They're uncircumcised. You can't do that. The law says you can't. It's a big mindset change. Transition or bridge from Judaism to Christianity.

Christ only mentioned the church Two times in the Gospels, when he was here on earth. He talked about, I'll build my church, talking about Peter, the little stone, he'll build his rock on this massive stone. And he talked about another one later on in Matthew. Two times, whereas over 23 times, actually that number might be a little bit low.

Acts of the Book of Change. It's the only New Testament book. If you think about the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they give the story of Jesus' birth, they give all these details about his life, but when he leaves this earth, that's the end. But Acts is going to continue on, and it's going to talk about more history of the church after that time period. Some of the changes there, from basically the Law to Grace, Israel to the Church, we're going to see Two key figures here, Peter and Paul. One is sort of the Jewish, even though Paul is Jewish too, but he's the apostle of the Gentiles. Peter, and he struggles with this. He's told, go ahead and eat. Kelly, eat those pigs. Eat that bacon. That's where it started.

So anyway, so we're going to see Peter and Paul, and their ministries are, you know, Paul's going to, toward the end of Acts, Paul is more in view. Peter starts off and then Paul kind of comes in when he's converted. So we're going to see that transition too. Okay. These charts are from Verne. Transition of time extends from the crucifixion of Christ to Paul's house arrest in Rome over three decades. In understanding, Disciples are being asked by Christ questions, and let's look at that. Roger, can I begin with another question? I'm going to be your problem student. No, actually questions are good.

What does house arrest mean? Well, he was held, he was in prison. Okay, so house means like... I'm not sure I'm the best person to tell what house arrest means, but what I believe it is, it means that he wasn't like in a a penitentiary. He was held in, if you held it at your house and you couldn't leave your house. That's what I think it was. Okay, thank you. Sure, sure.

Okay, so let's look at this dilemma here. Could someone read Acts chapter 1 verses 6 and 7? When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put into his own power. All right. You notice in verse six, he talked. Basically, the disciples that were there were saying, Lord, they're still looking for the kingdom, right?

They're saying, you're going to restore the Kingdom of Israel. So they're focused. They're a Jewish mentality. They're focused on that. They're not looking for the church age. They don't even know what the church age even is at that point. So that's, I think, Vern's point here is that they have a Jewish mindset. They're looking for the reign of the Messiah.

A transition to understanding. Another key point, and we kind of alluded to this earlier, is the fact that the Gentiles would be, until Paul's conversion, they would be fellow heirs. And that's kind of brought out in, let's look at Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10. And so someone read 44 through 48.

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished as many as came with Peter. Because that on the Gentiles also was poured the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

Okay, so you notice in verse 45, it says, and all the circumcised, so the circumcised right there, that's the, yeah, Jeremiah's handout up here if you want, and actually you get a notebook too. You need to hand it out to you. It's not. So basically it says all the circumcised believers.

So that's the Jewish folks. had come with Peter and were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles also. So that was an amazing point, that the Gentiles would be fellow heirs with the Jewish people. Because the church was Jewish until, basically until what we're going to see in Acts, that's when the Gentiles are brought into the body of Christ. Before that it was all Jewish. It says, while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard.

Is it something that they visually saw? Well, actually, this is going to be an interesting thing. I'm not sure if I'm teaching this section or not. I heard. Probably Bob is, so I won't worry about that. I'm joking a little bit. I'm going to delay the answer.

Actually, what I'm saying is, and that's a question I have, we're going to see these miraculous, we're going to see unusual terminology used the Holy Spirit in his ministry here and the question is what does that mean and it seems like in this this time period there are miraculous things that happen as you know Mike likes to point out when he teaches about the Apostles I mean they had tremendous power and we will see that they could they would heal people there were these there were unusual situations that were going on and the Holy Spirit was part of that unusual ministry So there's like no other way to account for it. All these phraseology, Holy Spirit to this, Holy Spirit to that. Bob, did you have something you wanted to say? Well, you said bestowed simply means to put forth or to distribute or to bestow. I mean, I don't think this is some sort of cloud that comes down. I think it's the incorporation of the Spirit into the soul of man. I think it's bestowed or bestowed.

I don't know, we all, I think maybe some of us don't, but I remember when I got saved, something special was going on there and I didn't see anything. Right, exactly. Most of us that have been saved, I can remember a time when I remember asking Bonnie, do I seem any different? She said, no. Right, I guess that's the thing because it fell upon those who heard the word.

How would he know? You know what I mean? It's like, can you tell one person who got it or not the other? In context to this particular passage, it says that they knew that the Holy Ghost had fallen upon them because they spoke with tongues. It's an outward sign of an endearment. It's a sign to those Jews that they should actually... I wonder if there are some people faking it.

No, I don't think they were. They didn't know how to figure out. All right. So. All right. So let's go on. Roger, just in that line, I think we brought it up, James brought it up very nicely, but I think today a lot of the speaking in tongues is a lot of gibberish, right?

I mean, it's not known language. I mean, so is that evidence of the Holy Spirit? Well, you could question that biblically, I think. There was a nurse with mom that came in, but she wasn't really a nurse, an aide. And she started saying something, and I thought she was speaking her own native language or whatever it was, because she did have an accent. And my sister asked her, what language was that? And she says, I don't know.

And she said, I'm still working on it. So it was like, whoa, I'm still working. That's a good point. Taking this course. Yeah. I was one of one. OK, so C here, basically, the understanding of the apostles. So we're going to see a change. Their understanding is going to increase.

And actually, if you look at when the epistles started to be penned, it's toward the end of Acts. They didn't have the understanding at the beginning of Acts. Even though the Holy Spirit had come, they did not have the understanding. And not that the Lord couldn't still use them, but they didn't start penning the epistles until later in Acts. So what's the timing of the book that this was written?

Well, basically, if you look in that little handout right here, I'll show you. There's a timeline. Actually, I have several timelines coming up here, Bob. So if you hang on. Basically, there's a timeline at the back of your handout. And actually, right around 30 AD is the ascension of Jesus. So. So here's it. And it shows where the missionary journeys are. Actually, I have some some made a little more intelligible timelines coming up here. So just hang on to that. I'll show you.

But I think, you know, in context, when the epistles were written, was that did that precede the epistles in terms of the acts, the acts? Yes, it did. OK. Sure. Just a point out something. Kind of keep in mind as you go through it. You mentioned the understanding of the Apostles change from the beginning to the end. And what's neat about that is it shows you back So at Pentecost the church started, right?

It wasn't that all the knowledge was there right away. There was a gradual, as we talk about in the book of James, it's not flat. God gives us a certain knowledge at a certain time. And that's encouraging for us in our Christian walk to know that we don't get saved and therefore all the knowledge is there for us. God in his time is going to teach us, just like the church. before Peter had the vision where God said, what I have called clean, don't you call unclean. So it was about 10 years before that happened. So it's encouraging to us to know that we don't have to know everything right away.

As we go through the book of Acts, That's something to kind of keep in mind. God has a specific plan for the church and also for us as far as when he wants us to know certain things about this new life that we have in Christ. I'm sure there was a period of familiarization that wasn't instantaneous in everybody's case. So there was a reason for things to be spread out like that. I always go back to the verse, we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is our marching order so to speak. It is not like we know it all. We start out and it is piece by piece. And think about who we are in Christ. For most of it, that's something that occurred. I didn't learn that when I was saved. I only learned that down the road. Way down the road.

But it's nice that not only do we have verses like that, but here we have the church. And we have this historical record where God revealed specific things to them at specific times. And so it happened for the church, the early church. assume that God is going to deal with us in a very similar manner.

So even though they knew they could eat bacon, it might have taken a while to actually have it. Well, Peter, he was pretty upset. My lord, I can't eat bacon. The transition, Holly, was turkey bacon. It was like soy bacon. Let's see what's my point here.

OK, well, this people here talks about the fact that, you know, if you look in Galatians, it talks about there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free. We're all one Christ, Jesus. So the inclusion of the Gentiles is spoken of here. The fact that Gentiles are going to be part of the body of Christ. And that's another huge area. And we've mentioned that before. I think we get some pictures now here. Some of this is repetitive.

Acts begins in Jerusalem, ends in Rome. Acts begins with Peter, often the lead role. But then once Paul is converted, then it shifts to Paul. And we're going to see his three missionary journeys. So here's our first timeline. So basically, the birth, the birth of Christ, the temple, the temple, and then his ministry, and then the cross. And then basically, here's the period of Acts. It's actually approximately 30 to 60 AD.

And at the end of that, Paul's in Rome. And then here's kind of the overlapping ministries of Peter and Paul in Acts. And you're going to have a little bit of Phillips in there, too. We're going to see Phillips kind of show up. He shows up for a time period. We're going to have Barnabas and others that kind of accompany Paul. And we're going to see the issues about that. And then here's one. This came out in a Nelson chart.

This kind of shows, you see here we have, If you read it, here's a really important, let's look at Acts 1.8 just for a second. This is kind of a key verse and we're going to refer to it several times.

Acts 1.8, and this verse is kind of used by most folks to kind of divide up the book of Acts.

Acts 1.8 says, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you should be my witnesses both in Jerusalem in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. So that was threefold kind of division. So this person here has taken, this is in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole earth. And they kind of divided up the reference of the book here. And then we have Peter. We have some Philip. Actually, Peter's in here too with Philip. And we have Paul.

Here's interesting, here's a two year time period, kind of in Jerusalem, and a 13 year time period in Judea and Samaria, 14 years to the ends of the earth. Ends of the earth meant, you know, they didn't come to the U.S., most of the Middle East there. Until they fell off the edge of the earth. Well wasn't also, at that time, Rome pretty much Exactly. That they define, you know, wherever the Roman road went, that defined the inhabited earth at the time.

We're going to see a bunch of pictures for that. So Roger, back to the issue of the temporal pendantship of the acts of the apostles. I mean, if it's 30 to 60, and that's the time that's spanned, then likely as many of the epistles were already done.

Well, the epistles, OK, I don't have that. I can find that. I don't have it with me, but there's a kind of show. There's a chart that kind of shows these, you know, showing wingless. But there are certain puzzles that didn't start until, say, you know, 40, 80 or 50. And that's what I'm saying. That's that's when that thistle was pinned possibly. So it's worth 10 to 15 years into into the time period described by that.

But the question comes up, was the early part of that interval between 30 and 60 AD, was that recorded and then ultimately completed at 60 by Luke? In other words, was this like a series of documents that flowed or in fact were they intercalated? I don't know that it's that important, but it does kind of put things in the context in terms of where the doctrine of the church was in relationship to the ground. I don't know whether people had the book of Acts to read. Well, actually, we're going to find out that Luke traveled with Paul. He traveled on that wild sea journey. The one that he just goes all over the place and gets shipwrecked. Luke's with him apparently.

In other words, Theophilus came a lot later than you might think. Yeah, and when he wrote it to Theophilus. There was, yeah, and I was kind of asking the same thing, how those letters get kind of dispersed, you know, it seems like maybe some more remote places might not get them. And the question is, how about, you know, that they were handwritten and they were not able to read.

And so they were read. Right. So I don't know. There's a lot. That's a whole study unto itself. But actually, there is some information that might, you know, as we go through this class, maybe we can probably bring up about that. OK. OK. So now this.

So basically, this shows that the first eight chapters take place in Jerusalem, around Jerusalem, basically. And then basically, this is the verse we just read. This is in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the whole world, basically. And then basically a good part three through seven in Acts occurs in the courtyard of the temple.

Here's where Philip shows up and Philip ministered to Vern's fringe groups. The fringe groups were the Samaritans. The Samaritans were the fringe group and then also the Ethiopian Unix. Those were the people that Philip ministered to. The city of Samaria and the Ethiopian Unix basically. So that's Vern's fringe group I guess. And those were all mostly Jewish. Well, they were Gentile Gentile. They were Gentile. All right. So Philip, you were.

So here we are. We're at chapter eight. So we're now going to see some Gentiles going to be brought in as believers. We're going to see that. And then nine through 10 or almost 11. Peter goes and teaches at Caesarea. And then. And that's Chapter 11. Let's see what I have here. Oh, yeah. This is pretty good. Let's turn to X chapter time. That's Chapter 11. Someone read one through four. Excellent. Somebody hasn't done it yet.

Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him, saying, You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. But Peter began speaking and proceeded to explain to them in orderly sequence, saying, Here's Peter. He would dare to eat with an uncircumcised believer. He explains to him how they're going to be included in the body of believers. That's where he has it explained.

OK, so this is kind of repeat. So here's here's where the missionary journeys kind of show up here. They're totally the end of this time period. There's another chart that Verne has. I gave it this a CD Verne gave me. You know, he has all this stuff on it somewhere in there. I think there's one that shows the pending of the of the epistles. So I'll find that. Okay, so now there's a series of four pictures here.

This is the first missionary journey. One thing to remember, all the missionary journeys start in Antioch. So they start in Antioch, and this is Syria, which is kind of interesting. The important spots of the world don't change, folks. So basically it's Paul, Barnabas and Mark. Those three, they sail from from basically any of it. They actually go down to Seleucia, go across to Cyprus, up here. They go around, they kind of retrace their steps.

So that's the that's the first missionary journey. I'm not going to we're going to cover all this. And we didn't go systematically. I'm going to spend a lot of time this day. But you have this picture you can refer to down the road. That's the first missionary journey. The second missionary journey.

Once again, they start Andy on. But right off the bat, there's a problem. John Mark. So basically, there's a dispute. Basically, Paul and Silas go one direction. They take the land route, this route up here. Paul and Barnabas take the sea route to Cyprus. John Mark, right?

Yeah. I said it right. Paul and... I'm sorry. Barnabas and John Mark. Thank you. Barnabas and John Mark. Yeah, right there. Barnabas and John Mark. Thanks. John Mark? I think that's what it's called. Yeah. It says Mark, and what you'll see, sometimes it will just say John. It actually means, I believe, if you look in the context, it means John Mark. I believe, is he the human author of the Gospel of Mark? I'm not sure about that. I don't think so. So he's not John. Well, okay, his name, apparently his name was John Mark. Okay.

Third missionary journey. Once again, they start and they go land up here and they come back by the by the sea route. We're going to go through all this. And then lastly, Paul's last journey. He basically Julius Julius the Centurion puts Paul aboard a ship and he has this incredible sea journey. I mean, it's just incredible. He shipwrecked us all kinds. And actually Luke was with him during this. We look carefully, we'll find out what Luke was with him during this journey. OK, so that's kind of OK. So the last part, the last few months we have here.

Well, both Macaulay and Constable, how we refer to the structure in the book of Acts. And it's something why I would, of course, I haven't really, you know, studied out really a lot until we get into this. But it's interesting that there's a structure that kind of falls out. So I mentioned before the Minion, excuse me. Many teachers will use X one eight to divide up the book of acts.

But this is this is going to be a little bit different. But we're calling possible and others have suggested that there appears to be a historical narrative followed by a conclusion that kind of goes through acts. The period is 30 years again. There are seven six or seven historical periods. Some kind of quibble over that. Well that's.

What's cool about this is the conclusion is not man's conclusion, it's God's conclusion. So we're going to see here that something will happen during a period in Acts, something will happen in this historical period. Maybe Stephen is stoned, but at the end God's going to say, the church prospered, things went well. And you kind of scratch your head and say, how can God say things are good when all this bad happened? And it kind of shows God's perspective over man's perspective.

Anything bad happens is bad. We focus on the bad. Like bad to the bone. People will look at 2013. So if something bad happened to me in 2013, I may call it all bad. But in terms of the Lord's perspective, you may have grown in grace in the knowledge of Him, even through that trial or difficulty. So His view is totally different.

So we're going to look at those conclusions here real shortly. And this is kind of a techie thing. The imperfect tense is used in these in these descriptions. And that's basically ongoing action and pastime. So that's kind of a. So here here we are on 24 slide 24. You got the you got the seven historical periods and then you got the conclusion there's some. There's some debate over this conclusion, and I'm not going to talk about today. We'll do it down the road. We'll get into that one. But I want to just look at the last six here. So here they are. Before we do that, I thought we could just kind of review those periods.

So this is from Constable, basically. He calls the thing the Christian mission. And what I think he's talking about here is this is Go. and spread the good news about Jesus Christ. That's the mission of the Body of Believers, basically. So the first mission is to the Jewish world.

And that's in Acts 2.42 through 12. There's three parts to that, according to Constable. The early days of the church at Jerusalem, the critical events in the life of three pivotal figures, and just so you won't stand wondering who they are, That's Stephen, Philip, and Paul. That's what he calls the three biblical figures. We'll see that down the road here.

Advance of the gospel in Palestine and Syria. So that's the mission to the Jewish world. Then the mission to the Gentile world. The first missionary journey and the Jerusalem Council. Then there's a wider outreach to the two additional missionary journeys. And then lastly, Paul goes to Jerusalem and is under house arrest there.

Okay, so now, to finish up here, here's God's view, six statements he's going to make about how things went in the book of Acts. It's pretty amazing here. So in Acts 6-7, this is what the word says, the word of God kept on spreading and a number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were being obedient to the faith. Kind of cool. Here's a priest. They're coming to know the Lord. The number of the disciples increased. The word is being spread. Next one.

931. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace. So it was a peaceful time. They could go about their business. being built up, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

Acts 12.24 But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.

Acts 12.25 So the churches were all being strengthened in faith and were increasing in number daily. 920 so the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing the last one he is talking about Paul he was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness and unhindered so just amazing just a minute this is it to me is just come knocks your socks off here's you look at all that and there's just all kinds of their difficulties in there there are people Paul's getting beaten, and then Jay. I mean, there's all kinds of awful things. But here's six summaries spread across the 28 chapters. And this is the Lord's summary.

It's just different. God doesn't see trials as a hindrance. He sees them as a benefit. And so this is really cool. This is the main reason I wanted to present this structure, was because of these summary statements. I think it's just really neat. Now, it turns out, in studying the Book of Acts, I'm not sure these colleges come up here. You have to go through some history and they'll just appear. So it's not it doesn't lend itself quite as a book, but it does certainly help me to get John's perspective. So. OK, so that's that's the that's the overview of that. Hopefully.

Well, it seems like it really shows that God is God because like when they were thinking, I forgot, of persecuting Jesus, they had said, oh, you know, there's plenty of prophets who go around, and once that prophet dies, you know, the whole thing just dies out anyway, so just let him go, and it's all just going to fade away, and there'll just be some other prophet, right? And so this kind of shows that it's like God's God, because it just, He didn't, you know, just didn't stop there when Christ died. Exactly. This is God's summary. This is the summary we want to focus on. We focus on, we have the historical summary, so to speak, and it looks, you look at that, it's kind of patchwork. But God's summary is that, no, my word's increasing.

I think one thing that we need to appreciate as we go through BX is the fact that the experiences relate to the doctrine to follow and ultimately balancing those looking. I mean all of us have trials and tribulations in our lives, right? And so we need to look at that through the eyes of doctrine as to what they were experiencing at the time. So there's a lot of application here even though most people don't stress that.

No, that's good. This is going to be fun. And Bob and Jeremy are going to be co-teaching. Actually, Jeremy is up next week. So this should be fun. Pray for your teachers on this one too. There's actually a lot to go through. We have all these historical accounts. It's not clear. There's a lot of information. So it's good. It's very good. Okay, well let's close then.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. And thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Lord. Your view, Lord, your evaluation of Acts, Father, we thank you that the word did increase and that we ultimately benefited by that. We came to know our Savior through the gospel being spread to the Gentiles and ultimately to us, Lord, and we praise you for that and thank you. In Christ's name, Amen.