Week 20, May 11–17: Acts 3–20; Psalms 57–63

• Sun      May 11            Acts 3–5          Ps. 57
• Mon     May 12            Acts 6–7          Ps. 58
• Tue      May 13            Acts 8–9          Ps. 59
• Wed     May 14            Acts 10–12      Ps. 60
• Thu      May 15            Acts 13–15      Ps. 61
• Fri        May 16            Acts 16–18      Ps. 62
• Sat       May 17            Acts 19–20      Ps. 63

Acts covers a unique and important time in history. It tells the story of the beginning of the church and the earliest phase of the church’s mission. It is a story of the Apostles and first Christians obeying Jesus’ instructions and advancing the work he commissioned God’s people to begin after his resurrection and ascension to heaven.

When we are reading Acts it’s helpful to remember that it is describing a particular time in history. It recounts the events when the Holy Spirit first came down at Pentecost and the church was launched. It is instructive for us today, and there are many lessons to learn about things like evangelism, ecclesiology, spiritual gifts, and roles in the church. Nevertheless, the purpose of Acts is primarily to tell us what happened, what God was doing in and through his people by the power of his Spirit. More than prescribing what we are to do, Acts is describing the astounding events of the early church. It is the narrative of God’s mighty acts to advance his kingdom after Jesus ascended and sent his Spirit to indwell and empower the church.

The book opened by telling us that Acts is part two of a two-volume work. The first part, the Gospel of Luke, was an orderly narrative of Jesus’ life, what he accomplished and what he taught (Acts 1:1, cf. Luke 1:1–4). Acts picks up where Luke’s Gospel left off. Both books were written to someone named Theophilus, and they were both probably by Luke, one of Paul’s travel companions who was with him on the travels we read of in Acts. (Notice the first time the pronouns switch from third-person “they” to first-person “we” in Acts 16:10.)

The first chapter of Acts included some important introductory details that frame the rest of the book. Luke recounted there the last instructions from Jesus to his apostles during the forty days he was with them after his resurrection. Jesus spoke to the disciples about the kingdom of God and he told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them there (1:3–5). Then, when his disciples asked about the timing of the kingdom, Jesus said it is not for them to know the time. While he did not answer their question in the way they wanted, he did give them some significant information. He said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (1:8).

This is Jesus’ commission to the disciples, similar to the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 28:19–20). This commission in Acts provides a narrative outline of sorts for the rest of the book. As the early church goes out after Pentecost, their mission spreads according to the geographical stages set forth by Jesus in 1:8, starting with Jerusalem ten going out to Judea, Samaria, and beyond. As we read of the mission advancing, notice that it is always so by the power of the Spirit and through the proclamation of the gospel of Christ, and this proclamation is always rooted in the story of the Old Testament.

Paul joins these efforts after his own miraculous conversion, and he becomes the focal agent of the early church’s mission in the latter half of Acts. He is the one primarily responsible for taking the gospel out from Jerusalem and Judea to the “ends of the earth.”

This is what we are called to do as well. Acts narrates the launch of the church era, which is the era of history we are still living in. We are still awaiting Jesus’ second coming as we look back on his first coming. As we wait, like the Apostles and the early church, we are called to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and tell people boldly about Jesus the Messiah. And as we know from Acts, from the experience of those early Christians, this will not always be easy. One of the marks of the early church was persecution, but that persecution is what brought about the growth of the gospel (See 8:1–4; 11:19–21).