Acts of the Apostles - Conclusions & Final Thoughts

Summing Up

What are the over-arching lessons to be learned from Acts? I believe there are five major conclusions that can be drawn from studying Acts of the Apostles. These are my personal opinions – you don’t have to agree. Here they are, starting with the most important, and working towards the more speculative.


The Primacy of the Holy Spirit

Almost everyone who has read this book carefully will agree with this: the Holy Spirit is the prime mover in Acts. The title of the book might well be “Acts of the Holy Spirit Working Through the Apostles”. Luke is absolutely convinced that everything of value accomplished by the apostles was done by the power of the Holy Spirit and would have been impossible otherwise.

Evidence of this can be found in almost every chapter of Acts and this forms an interesting contrast with the later chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Think of the actions of the disciples during the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus. One of them, Judas, betrays Jesus to the authorities. The disciples argue among themselves during the Last Supper about who is greatest. They fall asleep while Jesus agonizes in Gethsemane and then put up a sham defense when Jesus is arrested. Peter famously disowns his Lord three times while Jesus is in custody and all of the disciples go underground during the crucifixion, hardly daring to show their faces.

When Jesus is buried, the disciples start heading homeward, out of Jerusalem and back to the country life they had led prior to joining the ministry of Jesus. But the resurrected Christ calls them back to Jerusalem – from Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), from the Sea of Galilee (John 21) and from their various hiding places. And they obey! They obey even though big-city Jerusalem is a strange and unfamiliar place where they are wanted as known associates of Jesus. At the Ascension the disciples are charged with the Great Commission, but they are also promised a Councilor.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost everything changes. Peter, who once denied even knowing Jesus now speaks boldly in front of crowds and more significantly, at the temple itself. Peter and John are quickly arrested yet Peter speaks defiantly before the Sanhedrin. Miracles and healings are performed by the apostles and the early church quickly grows. Where before the resurrection Luke shows the disciples doing nothing right, now, empowered by the Holy Spirit, the apostles can do no wrong.

The Holy Spirit guides the apostles’ actions and is with them at every turn. Stephen is a man “filled with the Holy Spirit” and he preaches boldly and with great learning. The Holy Spirit gives Stephen strength, even as he is stoned to death (Acts 7:54). When Peter and John are sent for and travel to Samaria to pray for the people there - the Holy Spirit comes upon them (Acts 8:14-17).

Peter converts the entire household of Cornelius the centurion, and the Holy Spirit fills them all. Saul is blinded on the road to Damascus, but it is only when he becomes filled with the Holy Spirit that he can see again. When Paul is traveling on his second missionary journey, he crosses from Troas to Greece under the direction of the Holy Spirit, thus bringing Christianity to Europe. Paul also performs miracles and healings by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesus it is the baptism into Jesus by Paul, and not the baptism into the repentance of John by Apollos that brings forth the Holy Spirit. And so it goes in every chapter of Acts.

The Holy Spirit fills every page of Acts and is the source of every goodness and power. The examples are almost too numerous to mention. Our understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit and its importance in Christianity is primarily due to Luke’s testimony in his Gospel and in Acts of the Apostles.


Acts is a Bridge to the Other Books of the New Testament

A good portion of Acts is devoted to the three main missionary journeys of Paul and describes how new Christian congregations were founded in Asia Minor and in Greece. The letters by Paul to these congregations comprise a number of books in our New Testament. So Acts is the bridge that connects the contents of these books with the actions by Paul in the founding of these churches. Paul also writes to his associates – Titus, Timothy and Philemon – and these are also included in the canon. So the events described in Acts are key to understanding the circumstances surrounding the writing of the Pauline Epistles.

The character of these epistles can often be understood best in light of the events described in Acts. In his earliest letter – I Thessalonians – we see Paul offering his advice to the church just founded there a few months earlier and this gives a perspective on the events described in Acts 16:11-15.

Paul’s difficulties with the strongly orthodox Jewish community in Galatia (Acts 13:13 to 14:7) point clearly to the subject of his Epistle to the Galatians: the backsliding of the Galatian churches into a sort of Christian Judaism. Paul’s description of the Council of Jerusalem in Galatians 2 offers a valuable second perspective on the same events as described in Acts 15.

The cordial environment enjoyed by the church in Philippi (there was no synagogue in this city) is reflected in the warm and heartfelt Epistle to the Philippians written when Paul was in prison in Caesarea or Rome. Similarly, the strong leadership of the church in Ephesus (Acts 20:17-38) gives us the valedictory tone of his Epistle to the Ephesians and Colossians also written from prison.

The culturally diverse city of Corinth led to difficulties experienced by that congregation (Acts 18:1-11) with respect to propriety in worship and in Christian living, and Paul deals with this in I Corinthians. In II Corinthians 8:1-12 we read of Paul’s plan to raise donations for the Jerusalem church, and this complements the description Luke provides in Acts 19:21.

Paul did not participate in the founding of the Christian church at Rome, but the experience of the Ephesians with the teachings of Apollos (Acts 18:24 to 19:7) illustrate the diversity of Christian theological thought that was circulating around the Mediterranean. As a result Paul carefully organizes his theology in his letter to the Romans because he wants to make sure his viewpoint is clearly understood in that important church. Paul’s plan to visit Rome is recorded by Luke in Acts 19:21, but his eventual arrival there took several more years.

Acts provides the backdrop and context for Paul’s letters and it is important to study Acts if for no other reason than Lutheran theology is grounded in Paul’s theology - in Romans and Galatians particularly.


Acts is the History of the Early Church – but Luke has an Agenda

Acts of the Apostles is the only intentional history we have of the early church in the New Testament, and this is stated explicitly in the introduction to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:1-4). In Acts, the second volume of this history, Luke follows the disciples from the resurrection and ascension of Christ to Paul’s final journey to Rome. The growth of the early church, its persecutions, conflicts and struggles are all carefully reported, and a number of important speeches by the early believers are quoted at length. There is no better or more complete historical record of the early church. But a close reading of Acts discloses, I believe, a definite agenda that Luke is pursuing in his historical account.

Luke’s record of the history of the church emphasizes, I believe, the inclusiveness practiced by Christianity from its earliest beginnings. At Pentecost, thousands in Jerusalem are baptized by Peter and become believers, as recorded by Luke in just a few sentences. Yet Luke spends two chapters describing the events surrounding Stephen, a man of Greek culture like Luke himself. Stephen is accepted into the church, assumes a position of leadership and, more importantly, is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Yet he is martyred after only a brief sham trial (Acts 6 & 7) before the Sanhedrin. This is in stark contrast to the treatment given by the authorities to Peter and John (Acts 4:1-22, 5:17-41 and 12:1-19) or even Jesus. Luke’s Greek audience would likely be very sympathetic to Stephen and Luke is showing the importance of Greeks – and how they were discriminated against – in early church history.

Luke consistently goes to great lengths to describe the conversions of Gentiles into Christianity. Luke focuses on how the church ripples outward from Jerusalem, encountering - and accepting - various non-Jewish peoples. Philip preaches in Samaria with the result that they “accepted the word of God.” Samaritans were looked down-upon by the Jews, yet Peter and John are dispatched to Samaria so that the lowly Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:4-17).

Luke next describes how Philip is guided by a vision and travels southward. There he meets an Ethiopian – exotic by any standard - and baptizes him (Acts 8:26-40). The church in Antioch, founded by believers scattered from Jerusalem during the persecution following Stephen’s martyrdom, are reported by Luke to be converting Greeks into the church (Acts 11:19-24) with the result that “a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.” This prompts a visit by Barnabas of the Jerusalem church to investigate yet Barnabas encourages the efforts in Antioch to convert Gentiles.

In one of Luke’s most important conversion stories, he takes almost a chapter and a half to exhaustively detail the events surrounding Peter’s meeting with Cornelius (Acts 9:32 to 11:18). Cornelius is a God-fearing Gentile, a centurion living in Caesarea who has a vision of an angel who asks him to send for Peter in nearby Joppa. Peter also has a vision about the acceptance of Gentiles into Christianity. Cornelius sends servants to bring Peter to Caesarea, and when they meet: “The Holy Spirit came upon all.. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” Peter is convinced by this event that the Christian church cannot discriminate against Gentiles, yet he is called to account for his actions (entering the house of a Gentile was against Jewish Law) by the elders of the church in Jerusalem. After hearing Peter’s story, however, Luke reports that the elders agree with Peter on the question of Gentiles entering the church. Luke is clearly pointing out to his audience that Peter - leader of the early church, foremost of the disciples of Jesus, able to raise Tabitha from the dead and a man who is filled with the Holy Spirit - is now calling for the entry of Gentiles into the church. And Luke reports that the elders of the church in Jerusalem agree.

Fully half of the entire book of Acts is the account of Paul’s missionary efforts, mostly among Gentiles in Asia Minor and Greece. Time and time again Paul accepts Gentiles into the church and preaches grace instead of law to the Jews. Paul is also called to account by his actions at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), yet, with Peter as the swing vote, the elders in the Jerusalem church again agree that Gentiles can become Christians and are absolved from the observance of almost all of Mosaic Law.

The pattern that Luke is documenting shows that as the church grows it is purposefully embracing Gentiles. This would have been a key issue with Luke’s audience of converted Greek Christians. Luke’s agenda in Acts of the Apostles, then, is to show how the acceptance of Gentiles was an integral part, maybe even the most important part, of the growth of Christianity.


Acts of the Apostles as a Christian Apologetic

At the time of the writing of Acts (late 1st century) the Roman Empire considered Christians to be a Jewish sect. The problem for Christians was that the Jews were in rebellion against Rome in Palestine. The Romans had taken very stern measures, sacking Jerusalem in AD 70, burning the city and destroying the temple. Even peaceful Christians outside of Palestine were under suspicion – they were considered to be just another sort of Jew.

To counter this image, and to put some distance between the early church and the rebellious Jews, Christians wrote apologetics – articles and tracts designed to tell their side of the story: that Christians were a separate theological entity not at war with Rome. Luke’s Gospel and Acts fall into this category of literature. Luke is trying to explain to a neutral Greek and Roman audience what Christianity is and how it is very distinct from Judaism. I think this can be demonstrated in several ways.

Luke invariably portrays the Romans in a neutral or positive light. In Luke’s Gospel, the trial of Jesus is carried out very carefully and correctly: Jesus comes first before the Sanhedrin, then Pilate. Only in Luke’s Gospel does Pilate send Jesus before Herod, meticulously observing a legal technicality in hopes of freeing Jesus. Three times, according to Luke, does Pilate proclaim that Jesus has done nothing to deserve death. Pilate pronounces his sentence only under pressure from the Jews, who ask for Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus. Even the thief on the cross next to Jesus is quoted as saying that his sentence is just – but that Jesus is innocent. When Jesus finally dies, the centurion is quoted as saying “Surely this was a righteous (innocent) man.” And not “Surely this man is the Son of God” as quoted in Matthew.

Paul’s many dealings with the Roman justice system are almost always portrayed by Luke as fair and proper. During the second missionary journey Paul and Silas are put into jail in Philippi on trumped up charges. An earthquake liberates them but they stay in their cells, not wanting the jailer to pay for their escape. When it is realized by the magistrates that they have imprisoned a Roman citizen unjustly and without a trial, Paul receives the apologies due him from the town council.

When Paul makes his final journey to Jerusalem and is attacked in the temple courts, it is the Roman garrison that comes to his rescue. The Romans transport Paul out of harm’s way in Jerusalem to the safety of Caesarea. Paul is invariably treated correctly by the Romans during his imprisonment and subsequent trials. The lengthy descriptions by Luke of the various legal hearings in Caesarea before Felix, Herod and Festus are meant to show to Luke’s audience how carefully Paul was treated by the Roman judicial system. (The exception is Paul’s imprisonment for two years in Caesarea under Felix, yet Luke mitigates this by pointing out the known corrupt nature of Felix, who was fishing for a bribe.) And the absence of any mention of Paul’s ultimate execution in Rome simply adds to Luke’s thesis that Christians and Romans should have no reason to be enemies.

By necessity, then, the Jews are saddled with much of the villainy in Acts. It is reasonable to assume that the Romans and Jewish elite worked closely together in the rule, indeed the exploitation, of Palestine. Yet it is the temple priests, Sadducees, Pharisees and other religious authorities that are portrayed as the bad guys in Acts while Luke always gives the Romans the benefit of the doubt. Luke is saying to his audience that the rebellious Jews were also the enemies of the early church, that Christians have been treated fairly by Rome and are ready to be loyal citizens of the Empire.


Acts as an Explanation?

And this leads to the last, and perhaps most speculative lesson we can draw from Acts: Luke was trying to explain the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 in the context of Christian theology. This must have been a great question for the early Christians: why was the birthplace of Christianity, and with it the mother church, destroyed?

Luke does not answer this question directly, but rather by inference. In the Gospel of Luke we see a foreshadowing of this in the description of the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. In Luke 19:41-44, as Jesus approaches the city he begins weeping. Only Luke quotes Jesus as saying at this point: “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will leave not one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

While preaching in the temple courts Jesus is confronted by the chief priests and teachers of the law (Luke 20:1-18) and they ask him by what authority he teaches. Jesus replies with the parable of the tenants, and in this Luke closely follows Mark. In all of the synoptic Gospels this parable is followed by a quote by Jesus from Psalm 118: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.” But only in Luke is this quote followed by a further statement by Jesus: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” Jesus is using the Psalm 118 quote to explain the meaning of the parable of the tenants – a thinly disguised critique of the priests and temple authorities. But the added statement - found only in Luke - adds a darker dimension to the ultimate fate of Jerusalem.

At the temple later that week Jesus again preaches on signs of the end of the age – the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Luke follows the account given in Mark but adds unique material in Luke 21:24, quoting Jesus: “They will fall by the sword and be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” Luke is emphasizing the coming destruction of Jerusalem – at the hands of the Gentiles - with independently sourced material not quoted in the other Gospels.

Another clue to understanding Luke’s explanation of the destruction of Jerusalem is that Luke’s style of writing is characterized by stories of divine retribution. There are several examples of this. The most obvious is the account of the death of Judas described in Acts 1:18: “With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong and all his intestines spilled out.” Other accounts of the death of Judas involve suicide and hanging – only in Luke does Judas come to such a grisly end. In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira withhold money from the believers, and are struck dead. In Acts 12 Herod has James the brother of John executed and imprisons Peter with the intent to crucify him. Peter escapes, but Herod is struck down by an angel of the Lord and, as if this is not enough, Herod is eaten by worms before he dies.

When Saul is on his first missionary journey on Cyprus (Acts 13) he challenges a sorcerer named Elymas, who was “perverting the right ways of the Lord.” The result was that Elymas was struck blind for a time. In Ephesus some Jews tried to claim the power to exorcise demons as Paul was doing, only to have the demons turn on the impostors and beat them bloody (Acts 19:15-16). So there is a clear pattern in Luke’s writing that points to bad things happening to people who are on the wrong side of God.

I believe Luke is saying that the destruction of Jerusalem is God’s judgment – foretold by Jesus and accomplished by the Romans. The Christianity we know today is, by and large, the Christianity as preached by Paul. There were tensions in the early church regarding the inclusion of Gentiles, as we have repeatedly seen. Yet in the final analysis, the early church in Jerusalem could not break itself away from the customs and traditions of Jewish Law. The most telling evidence of this is in Acts 21:20 where the Jerusalem elders tell Paul: “You see brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the Law.” Paul’s attempt to reconcile with the Jerusalem church through a vow backfires badly, and Paul is removed to Rome.

The deciding vote on the form of Christianity that would ultimately survive was cast by the Romans. The sack of Jerusalem, the destruction of its temple and the death of the elders of the church by AD 70 sealed the fate of Christianity as a subsidiary of Judaism. The Gentile churches founded by Paul would survive to be the protectors of the Gospel with its message of redemption by grace through faith. In the end Luke is trying to reconcile that fact with the events of the early church as he reported them.