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Critical Issues Associated With Acts

Because Acts is going to be the foundation for this study, it is important that some of the historical/critical issues that are associated with the book be discussed. This material may be more appropriate for the scholar as opposed to the average lay person. However, it is important for the lay reader to understand those areas in which Acts has been attacked and how it has withstood these attacks. An understanding of the critical issues associated with Acts will carry over into the rest of the New Testament as well.

Acts is the only book in the New Testament that is devoted to the history of the early church and its value as a source for early church history continues to generate discussion and debate among scholars.10 This debate does not diminish the importance of the book for New Testament study. Foakes-Jackson acknowledges the importance of Acts when he says, “Without it, had we even the rest of the New Testament, the origin of the Christian church would be a subject for ingenious conjecture.”11

The first group of scholars that will be discussed are those who consider Acts as having little, if any, historical significance. These are generally regarded as being liberal in their view of the Scriptures. F. C. Baur and the “Tübingen School” are examples of this type of thought.12 While Baur himself never completely rejected all of Acts, believing that some of the material may have been inspired by genuine traditions, he laid the groundwork for his followers, Albert Schwegler and Eduard Zeller, who did.13 They dated Acts in the 110–150 AD period and according to Hemer, “there is no room in these writers for any connection with authentic traditions deriving from a companion of Paul.”14 Baur and his followers attempted to apply Hegelian philosophy to Christian history in order to understand how the early church developed. In so doing, the Tübingen School became “a historical-critical approach to the Bible that completely ignored the divine element in it.”15

One of the main ideas that Baur and his followers subscribed to was that Acts was written in an effort to reconcile Petrine and Pauline theology. It was believed that there had been a split between Peter and Paul while they were living and that Acts was written in an effort to heal this rift between their followers.16 Baur based this on 1 Corinthians 1:12, where Paul described one of the problems in the Corinthian church. Some were aligning themselves with Christ, others with Cephas, others with Apollos, and still others with Paul.17 It will be demonstrated in chapter 2 that the New Testament does not give any concrete evidence of a long-term conflict between Peter and Paul, nor does it provide the basis for the “two churches” or “two missions” that some scholars describe.

While Baur and his followers lived about 150 years ago, their influence is still felt in some circles today.18 There are contemporary scholars who do not accept Acts as an accurate account of early church history and seem to have been influenced by Baur and his followers. One modern scholar who exemplifies this is Gerhard Krodel. In one of his commentaries on Acts, he states that Acts is neither chronological, nor historically accurate, and is what he refers to as an example of “biblical history which proclaims the mighty acts of God.”19 By relegating it to “biblical history,” it does not matter to Krodel if Acts is accurate historically or not.20 Krodel also seems to accept Baur’s premise that Luke wrote to heal rifts between the followers of Peter and Paul.21

A Pauline scholar who acknowledges the value of the Tübingen School is Samuel Sandmel. He believes that Baur and his students were “on the threshold of the correct solution,” in how to treat Acts.22 While agreeing with most of the their conclusions regarding Acts, Sandmel thinks that the Tübingen scholars’ biggest mistake was in their attempt to force their findings into a Hegelian framework.23

Unlike many Pauline scholars who only focus on Pauline traditions, Sandmel also discusses Petrine tradition in Acts. He believes that the only valid Petrine tradition in the New Testament is that which Paul wrote in Corinthians and Galatians.24 As a scholar who holds to the Tübingen ideals, Sandmel believes that Luke’s Peter is created as “the hammer with which one blunts the sharp edge of Pauline doctrine.”25

J. Christiaan Beker is another modern scholar who appears to have been influenced by the Tübingen School. He says that Acts is composed of “a mixture of oral reports, memories, and legends . . .”26 Beker believes that Luke’s Paul is presented in a way that shows continuity with the original apostles and he is shown working hard to maintain a harmonious relationship with them.27 In Beker’s view, the Paul we see in Acts is a product of Luke’s creativity.28

Another contemporary scholar who holds to the Tübingen idea that Acts was written to reconcile Peter and Paul is Michael Goulder. He says, “Acts is in fact a doubtful asset, for it was Luke who invented the united virginal church theory, and Acts is his steady attempt to paper over all the cracks.”29 Goulder goes to great lengths in his book to establish the fact that the two very different missions of Peter and Paul played a significant role in the development of the church.30

Many modern scholars have attempted to find some middle ground concerning Acts. One example of this is Marion Soards. While he does not accept Acts as a primary source for establishing a chronology for Paul’s life, he does believe that the book has value as a secondary source. Soards says that Acts, “may be used cautiously as a supplement to the primary materials when it is not in conflict with the letters.”31 He believes that it is important that both sources be used, Paul’s letters and Acts, when attempting to develop a chronology of Paul’s life and ministry.32

Johannes Munck also acknowledges that both Acts and Paul’s letters are important if one wants to gain a clear picture of the early church, especially where Paul was concerned. However, Munck does believe that Paul’s letters hold more weight than Acts even though he argues that in many places Acts is a valid primary source for information on the early church.33 In arguing strongly against the Tübingen point-of-view of Acts, Munck says,

Freed from the load of tradition, [Acts] gives us a much clearer picture of primitive Christianity, and that its presentation of Jewish Christianity does not open between Paul and Jerusalem the deep chasms that the Tübingen School took for granted . . .34

C. K. Barrett is another scholar who appears to occupy this middle ground concerning Acts. While Barrett accepts much of Acts as a valid source for how the early church developed, he is much more critical in the way he examines Luke’s presentation of Paul. Barrett concludes that Luke’s Paul is so different from the Paul that one sees in his own letters, that Luke resorted to “degrees of fictitiousness.”35 Barrett believes that if the author of Acts were actually a personal companion and admirer of Paul his presentation of him would be more consistent with the Paul who wrote the letters.36

The speeches that are put in the mouths of Peter and Paul are another area in which Barrett believes the author of Acts exercised creativity. Barrett is one of many scholars who thinks that Luke attempted to create a speech that Peter or Paul might have spoken, but he believes that Luke completely missed the mark with Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Athens in Acts 17.37 Barrett believes that Paul would never have preached a message like this and there does not appear to be any flexibility in Barrett’s thinking that Paul might have preached in different ways to different audiences.38

Barrett’s conclusion concerning the historicity of Acts is interesting. He appears to contradict his own views when he says,

We cannot prove that it happened in the way that Luke describes, but if it did not it must have happened in a similar way or the result could not have been what it was—the result that a Christian church came into being in Jerusalem, and that in tentative, diverse, uncoordinated ways it spread out into the Mediterranean

world . . . 39

A third group of scholars that will be mentioned are those that are conservative in their outlook and have continued to treat Acts as an accurate historical narrative of the growth of the early church. They also hold to the traditional view that it was written by Luke, the companion of Paul.40 This has been the accepted tradition of Acts throughout church history. The first mention of Luke’s authorship goes back to the Muratorian Canon in AD 190.41 The traditional view went unchallenged until the end of the eighteenth century and the rise of the Tübingen School. While most scholars who hold to the traditional view of Acts would acknowledge that there are problems in developing a chronology of events based on Acts, they do not see these conflicts as insurmountable. Colin Hemer, for example, does not see Acts as an exhaustive history of the early church but rather a framework for the historian to build on.42 By accepting this view of Acts as a framework, it is much easier to answer the arguments of those who believe that Luke was not an adequate historian because he was so selective in what he recorded. Luke never intended for his work to be a comprehensive account of church history.

Hemer also challenges the notion that Paul’s letters are unbiased and that Acts is not a trustworthy source. The argument can be made that Paul also had an agenda in his writings and it would have affected his objectivity to the events that he was describing. He was not an unbiased observer, for example, in the meetings with the apostles in Jerusalem that he writes about in Galatians. Both Acts and Paul’s letters must be used and tested by the canons of historical criticism.43 Hemer also argues that the “we” sections in Acts should be included in the primary source category. The author’s participation in the narrative elevates the material from a secondary to a primary source.44

Another important point to remember when dealing with Paul’s writings is the fact that even in his “autobiographical” passages, he was not attempting to write a chronology for his readers. In these passages, he is attempting to make certain points, not present a history of his life. In Galatians 1:13—2:10, for example, Paul is interested in showing his independence from the Jerusalem apostles, not in providing a detailed chronology for his early life.45

W. M. Ramsay, while accepting Acts’ accuracy, acknowledges that Luke was not interested in documenting everything that the modern reader wishes he would have. “He dismisses ten years in a breath, and devotes a chapter to a single incident. His character as an historian, therefore, depends on his selection of topics.”46 This idea of Luke’s being selective in his choice of topics is one that will be dealt with later on when the focus of the study turns more specifically to Peter and Paul. It was Ramsay whose archaeological research at the end of the nineteenth century marked the end of Tübingen School’s “reign” in the theological world.47 Ramsay’s research verified the historicity of much of Acts and even over one hundred years after it was first published, continues to hold its own among modern scholarship and research.

Another scholar who holds to the traditional view concerning Acts is Luke Timothy Johnson. While readily acknowledging that Luke was a selective writer, he concludes that,

Taking into account his fidelity to the one source we can check, his general accuracy in matters we know about from archaeological or documentary sources, and the overall agreement between his description of Paul’s movements and the description in the Pauline letters, we conclude that Luke is accurate in what he tells us.48

In Johnson’s view, Luke did have an agenda that motivated his writing both a Gospel and an account of the early church. Merely having an agenda, however, does not make Luke a bad historian. It just means that he only covered the part of the story that fit with his purposes.49 One example of this is that Acts is devoted almost exclusively to the ministries of Peter and Paul. There were other apostles and missionaries in the early church, but Luke was not concerned with telling their story. Martin Hengel echoes this idea when he says, “In reality, the writers in the New Testament make their proclamation by narrating the action of God within a quite specific period of history, at a particular place and through real men, as a historical report.”50 In his writings, Luke selects the times, places and people that he feels are the most important for his purposes. Leon Morris takes this thought a step further when he says, “Luke is not simply a historian narrating history, though there is history here. He is first and foremost a believer. He is writing about how God worked in the early church to accomplish His purpose.”51 Luke is not just recording history; he is interpreting it.

I. Howard Marshall is another conservative scholar who makes a strong case that among the historians of his day, “Luke acquits himself very creditably. In matters of detail his historical stature is high.”52 Marshall accepts the premise that Luke chose to follow only one strand in the history of the early church, that being the one from Jerusalem to Rome. This simplified view of church history, however, does not mean that Luke was inaccurate or faulty as a historian; it merely means that he was only interested in that particular strand of history. Marshall also observes that Luke would rather present the reader with typical incidents of life in the early church than to attempt to paint the broad panorama of the “Big Picture.”53

Luke’s portrayal of Paul versus the way that Paul portrays himself in his letters is one of the areas that has caused scholars much debate. Luke had no intention of reconciling his work with Paul’s letters when he wrote Acts. If Acts was written at an early date, as some scholars believe, it is possible that Luke had little or no contact with Paul’s letters. Many modern scholars, however, being unable to reconcile the Paul of Acts with the Paul of the epistles have rejected Luke as a credible historian.54 The differences appear to be too great to reconcile them. Marshall, however, would take strong exception to this rejection of Luke as a historian where Paul is concerned. Marshall accepts that there are differences between the Paul that is seen in Acts and the Paul that is seen in his letters. Rather than seeing these differences as grounds for accusing Luke of fictionalizing his account of Paul, however, Marshall makes the case that, “a man’s self-portrait (even when unconsciously undertaken) will not necessarily agree with the impression of him received by other people.”55 Marshall, like many other scholars who hold the traditional view of Acts, believes that Paul’s life and ministry, as seen in Acts, can be harmonized in general terms with what is seen in his letters.56 Foakes-Jackson tends to agree with Marshall when he says, “it is impossible to construct the story of the sequence of events out of a collection of letters, which weighty as they undoubtedly are, are very brief, and allusive rather than informative in regard to events.”57 One must also remember that Paul was not an unbiased, objective writer in his letters. He had his own biases and agenda for writing. Even Paul’s own memory of events would have been slanted by his unique perspective.58

Haenchen, in his commentary, sees the discrepancies between Luke’s Paul and the Paul of the epistles to be threefold.59 First of all, Luke describes Paul (and Peter as well) as a great miracle-worker. In Paul’s letters, however, he never gives any examples of miracles that he performed. A second discrepancy is that in Acts, Luke portrays Paul as a great orator in several places. Paul’s speeches are powerful instruments that lead to the conversions of many. “. . . he is never at a loss for the right word. He is a born orator, imposing himself with eloquence of a Demosthenes.”60 The real Paul, according to Haenchen, admitted that he was a weak and unimpressive speaker. The last discrepancy that he discusses is that of Paul’s apostleship. In Acts, only the Twelve are understood to be apostles. They were the only ones who met the requirements listed in Acts 1:21-22. Paul, however, constantly referred to himself as an apostle in his letters and on several occasions pointedly defended his apostleship. Each of these points will be addressed.

In responding to Haenchen’s first point about Luke’s portrayal of Paul as a great miracle-worker, passages from two of Paul’s undisputed letters need to be examined. In Romans 15:18-20 Paul discusses what Christ has accomplished through him among the Gentiles. Paul referred to “the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit,” as being a major reason that so many people turned to God. Even though he does not provide a list of miracles that he performed, Paul is clearly referring to the miraculous aspects of his apostolic ministry. These miracles were catalysts that led people to faith, and also served to validate his apostleship. The focal point of Paul’s ministry was, “Jesus Christ and him crucified,” not the miracles that he performed in the course of his ministry.

A second passage in which Paul himself mentions the miraculous in his ministry is 2 Corinthians 12:12 where he describes the signs that mark an apostle: “signs, wonders, and miracles.” He says that these, “were done among you with great perseverance.” He reminds the Corinthian believers that when he was with them, they saw the miraculous in Paul’s ministry. Even though Paul does not provide specifics, it is likely that this passage would have served as a reminder to those who read it of miracles that they had seen Paul perform.

Even though Paul does not devote much space in his letters to discussing the miraculous aspects of his ministry, there is no reason to dismiss Luke’s portrayal of him as a miracle-worker. Paul’s purpose in his letters was to teach, correct, and exhort. He was not interested in boasting about his accomplishments. In alluding to miracles that he performed, Paul could remind his readers that the signs of an apostle were evident in him. Luke, however, was interested in showing the miraculous side of Paul’s ministry. It fit his purpose in Acts and he devoted a significant amount of space to providing examples of the miracles that Paul performed. While Paul did not feel comfortable “tooting his own horn,” Luke was happy to describe miracles that Paul performed in great detail.

The second discrepancy that Haenchen sees between Luke’s Paul and the “real” Paul is that of oratory skill. Without a doubt, the Paul in Acts is never at a loss for words and is an excellent public speaker in whatever arena he finds himself. In his letters, however, Paul makes some comments that appear to make him look weak as a public speaker. 2 Corinthians 10:10 is the verse that Haenchen uses to make his point. In this verse, however, Paul actually quotes his opponents who say that, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” Paul is not denigrating himself in this verse but merely quoting his opponents. In the next verse, he actually defends himself from their charge. “Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.”61 Paul seems to be saying that when he comes back to Corinth, his preaching is going to be as strong as the letters that he had sent to them. To be fair to Paul, this observation by his opponents should not be the verse used to evaluate his public speaking skills.

The last discrepancy that was mentioned concerns Paul’s claim of apostleship. There is no question that in Acts Luke portrays the Twelve in a significant position. In the very first chapter of Acts Luke outlines their unique requirements. They had to have been around Jesus and His followers from the beginning, from the time of John’s baptism until the time that Jesus was taken up. Obviously, Paul did not meet these requirements. Paul’s understanding of his own apostleship, however, was that he received it directly from Jesus when He appeared to him on the Damascus road. This special appearance of Jesus to Paul qualified him as an apostle. Paul understood that the Twelve was a unique group that he could never be a part of, but he saw himself as an apostle nonetheless. While Luke only refers to Paul as an apostle once in Acts (14:4), he nevertheless validates his apostolic ministry. Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s ministry parallels that of Peter’s in many ways. Paul is shown doing the same kinds of things that Peter does. Luke seems to be implying that Paul’s apostolic ministry was just as valid as that of the Twelve.

Conclusion

As has been seen in this brief overview, scholars take a number of different views when it comes to the accuracy and historicity of Acts. The goal here has not been to conduct an in-depth study of the different viewpoints but to highlight the most prevalent ones. In examining many of the various views concerning the reliability of Acts, it has been noted that there are extreme differences of opinion over whether or not Luke’s work can be trusted.

While the Tübingen School and its proponents are at the extreme end of liberal scholarship and not nearly as influential as they were in the past, there are still those who hold to some of Baur’s tenants. Baur and his followers rejected an early date for Acts and felt that the author fictionalized the characters that he wrote about, primarily Peter and Paul. Specific discrepancies were raised by Haenchen between the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the epistles. By digging a little under the surface, however, these discrepancies can easily be resolved. While those scholars who reject the historicity of Acts do bring up valid points, they still do not present enough evidence to overturn the traditional view. As Neil points out, “The traditional view has not been conclusively proved to be wrong, and many of us would prefer to give more weight to the tradition of the Church than to the hypotheses of individual scholars.”62

The work of a number of scholars who hold to the traditional view regarding Acts, i.e., that it was written by Luke, the companion of Paul was also highlighted. By the standards of his day, Luke can be considered a reliable historian who carefully investigated the things that he wrote about. Luke even describes his method of writing by acknowledging the “eye-witnesses and servants of the word”63 from whom he got much of his material. It can be acknowledged that Luke did have an agenda for his writing without rejecting his work. Even though Luke only focused on one part of the expansion of the early church, it does not take away from his reliability as a historian.64 He may have been selective in the story that he presented but the case has been made that what he presented can be trusted as an accurate account of early church history.65 Further evidence of the historicity of Acts will be presented in the next section as attention is focused on some of the literary concerns that are associated with the book.

Literary Issues Concerning Acts

Authorship

Before moving on to an examination of the apostolic ministries of Peter and Paul, it is important to focus on some of the literary issues that are present in Acts. The first issue that will be addressed is that of its authorship. It is important to remember that Acts is part of a two-volume work, commonly referred to as “Luke-Acts.”66 There is little debate in the scholarly world that the same author composed both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.67 There does continue to be much debate and discussion over who that author was. The traditional view of authorship states that Luke, the companion of Paul, wrote both volumes. Scholars who hold to this view believe that the evidence clearly points to one of Paul’s co-workers. If this is the case, Luke would be the leading candidate, based on tradition and textual evidence from Luke-Acts, as well as Paul’s letters.68

Krodel represents the view of many scholars in his rejection of the traditional view of authorship. In his understanding, there are too many historical discrepancies between what is written in Acts and what is written in Paul’s own letters. Some of these same discrepancies were raised by Haenchen and discussed in the previous section. Krodel says, “that not much is gained by affirming the traditional view on the authorship of Acts by a travel companion of Paul if simultaneously the discrepancies which have been noted are not glossed over.”69 Some of these same issues that concern authorship were also discussed in the previous section relating to critical issues concerning Acts and bear reiterating here.

To address Krodel’s statement about the discrepancies in Acts, it is important to remember that there will always be some discrepancies between biographical writing and autobiographical writing.70 A biographer’s perception of Paul will always be different from Paul’s perception of himself. Events that Paul considered important, Luke did not mention, and vice versa. Munck argues the case that even if Acts were not written by Luke, it had to have been written by another of Paul’s companions. He believes that there are too many vivid eyewitness accounts in Acts for it to have been written by someone who was not there.71 He points out that, “In historical sources from other fields such discrepancies are no surprise to the scholar, nor do they make him doubt the historical reliability of the accounts . . .”72

Munck argues that the traditional view of Lukan authorship should not be dismissed lightly. It is safer, in his view, to accept the traditions and look for supporting testimony in the written sources.73 Hemer also saw the strength behind the traditional view:

There is no apparent reason why the early church should have chosen to ascribe the two longest books in the New Testament,

together some two-sevenths of its total bulk, to so relatively obscure a person unless it preserved sound tradition.74

The argument can be made that the historicity of Acts does not necessarily depend on whether or not its author was Luke, the companion of Paul. It is unlikely that those who hold to the traditional view believe that Luke was an eyewitness to the events that took place in his gospel or in the first half of Acts.75 The first “we” passage occurs in Acts 16:10 and they continue sporadically throughout the rest of the book indicating that he was an eyewitness for much of what took place. For the first half of the book, however, the author had to have had other sources. This was alluded to in the preface to the Gospel of Luke, “just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.”76 The author of Luke-Acts is clearly claiming that he is presenting a reliable, historical account. Not only does he acknowledge his use of sources, he, “emphasizes that the authors who preceded him were eyewitnesses ‘from the beginning.’”77 Even though the reliability of Acts does not hinge on Lukan authorship, the reader will “probably have more confidence in the accuracy of the narrative if they could be reasonably certain that the author was in one way or another in close contact with the people and places that feature in his story.”78

While it is impossible to say with certainty that Luke, the companion of Paul is the author of Luke-Acts, the strongest evidence points in that direction. The earliest traditions of the church acknowledged him as the author. The internal evidence of his writings point to someone that was close to the apostles and Paul in particular, and was also an eyewitness for much that he wrote about in Acts. As of yet, no one has been able to provide a better alternative to Luke.

Date

The whole issue of dating Acts is closely related to the issue of authorship. The earlier the date that is assigned to Acts, the more likely it is that Luke, the companion of Paul, was the author. On the other hand, if a later date is chosen, it is much less likely that Luke was the author.

The most common time period that is accepted for the authorship of Luke-Acts is from AD 60 to 150.79 The case has been made previously that the traditional view of Lukan authorship is the most viable. If Luke was the author of Acts, it is reasonable to set it between AD 60 and 85.80 Obviously, there are many scholars who will continue to reject Lukan authorship and an early date for his writings. The following discussion will highlight some of the strongest arguments for an early dating of Luke-Acts.

Hemer argues for an early date of AD 62.81 He bases this date on five key points.82 First of all, there is no mention in Acts about the fall of Jerusalem, which took place in AD 70. In Acts, Luke clearly believed that Jerusalem was the center of early Christianity. It would be very surprising if Jerusalem had fallen and Luke did not mention it. Another point that Hemer makes for his early dating of Acts is that there is no mention of the outbreak of the Jewish War, which started in AD 66. In Acts, the relationship between the Jews and the Romans was still fairly cordial. A third point is the fact that the church’s relationship with Rome has not deteriorated in Acts. Paul felt comfortable in appealing to Caesar and truly believed that he would be treated fairly. The fourth argument that Hemer makes for an early date for Acts is the fact that the author displays no knowledge of Paul’s letters. This has often been one of the criticisms leveled against the historicity and accuracy of Acts. If the author were a companion of Paul’s then he would have surely made some reference to Paul’s letters. An early dating of Acts, however, eliminates this argument because few of Paul’s letters would have been in circulation when Acts was written. The last point that Hemer makes is that Luke gives no hint as to the death of James, the brother of Jesus. He was martyred around AD 62. While this is an argument from silence, it is still a reasonable argument. James occupied a fairly large role in Acts as the leader of the church in Jerusalem. It would be surprising that Luke would not have said anything about his death. While Hemer’s argument may not provide prima facie evidence for an early date, it probably comes as close as can be reasonably expected.

There are also a number of other arguments that can be made for an early dating of Acts. One of these has to do with the death of Paul. If Luke had known of the death of Paul, it is unlikely that he would not have mentioned it. He never failed to mention the deaths of other key figures in the church in his writings. Luke reported the deaths of John the Baptist, Jesus, Judas, Stephen, and James, the brother of John.83 With the exception of Jesus, none of these figures occupied a role as large as that of Paul in Luke’s writing, yet their deaths were recounted. Luke drew a number of parallels between Jesus and Paul in Acts.84 Luke’s failure to show Paul’s death after his last journey to Jerusalem must have meant that he had not been martyred yet.85

One last argument that will be mentioned for an early date for Acts has to do with its ending. When Acts ends, Paul is still in Roman custody waiting for his appeal to be heard. Those who hold to a later dating of Acts have difficulty explaining why Luke ended his book as he did. If Acts was written later, why did Luke not tell his audience what happened to Paul? If he was released or if he was executed when his appeal was finally heard, why would the author not say? Paul’s reputation had been solidly established by the end of Acts. Neither his release nor his martyrdom would have tarnished his image. The most likely reason that Luke does not tell what happened to Paul was because his book was written before Paul’s case came up before Caesar.86

Relationship Between Luke’s Gospel and Acts

The relationship between the Gospel of Luke and Acts is strong. It appears that the books were intended to tell a single story.87 There is a strong unity between the two books. The Gospel details the life of Christ and includes a blend of narrative, miracles, and teachings. Acts details the life of the early church. It also includes a blend of narrative, miracles, and teachings.88 Jesus is the central figure in the Gospel; Peter and Paul are the central figures in Acts.

Luke’s style of writing comes closer to that of the ancient Greek classical writers than any other New Testament writing.89 The prologues to the Gospel of Luke and Acts are good examples of this.90 Luke appears to be writing to a Greek audience that has some knowledge of Judaism. In both of his works, he makes repeated references to the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. Drury says that Luke relied heavily on the Septuagint and, “There is scarcely a verse which is uncolored by them [i.e., the Septuagint Scriptures].”91 Morris echoes this when he says, “It seems that Luke thought of the style of the Septuagint as good biblical style and most appropriate for the kind of narrative he was composing.”92

Both the Gospel of Luke and Acts deal with many of the same themes:

Prayer—Luke shows Jesus at prayer more than any other writer.93 He is shown spending the night in prayer before selecting His twelve apostles.94 There is also some extended teaching by Jesus on prayer in Luke 11. In Acts, “the church faced one crisis after another with prayer.”95 When Peter was arrested, the church prayed for his release.96 When Paul and Silas were arrested in Philippi, they prayed and sang hymns.97

The Holy Spirit—From the first chapter of his Gospel where Mary was told she would be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to where Elizabeth is seen to be filled with the Holy Spirit while pregnant with John, until the last chapter where Jesus tells His disciples they would be “clothed with power from on high,” Luke emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit.98 Acts shows the Holy Spirit coming upon disciples on the Day of Pentecost and then guiding and directing the early church as it grew and spread.99 The disciples were repeatedly “filled with the Spirit.” Luke emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit more than any other New Testament writer.100

The Poor and the Outcast—Only Luke records the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds in the infancy narrative, the parable of the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus, and the account of the widow’s gift of two small coins.101 In Acts, Peter and John healed a lame beggar at the temple, the church administrated the feeding of widows, and Paul and Barnabas brought a financial gift for the famine-stricken Palestinian church from the church at Antioch.

The Kingdom of God—Luke’s Gospel opens with Gabriel’s promise to Mary that her Son would, “reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end.” (Luke 1:33) Jesus began His ministry by proclaiming the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom message was one that Jesus regularly proclaimed.102 Acts opens with the disciples asking if the resurrected Jesus was going to restore the kingdom to Israel.103 Peter’s Pentecost message emphasized the fact that Jesus had fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, especially regarding David’s unending kingdom. Peter’s sermon at Cornelius’ house characterizes Jesus’ revelation of the kingdom in Acts 10:38: the healing and deliverance of those who were under the power of the Devil.104 Acts closes with Paul, “testifying about the kingdom of God” to a group of Roman Jews. As the Anointed One in Luke, Jesus exercised His authority over the kingdom of Satan. In Acts, the apostles proclaimed Jesus as the Anointed One who was still wreaking havoc on the kingdom of darkness.105

It appears that Luke used the same literary template for both of his books. They have a similar structure and it appears that Luke designed the Gospel and Acts to be parallel parts to the story that he was telling.106 Below are examples of a few of these parallels.107

1. In Luke 3:21, Jesus is shown praying at His baptism. In Acts 1:14, the disciples are shown in prayer as they await their baptism with the Holy Spirit.

2. Luke 3:22 tells of the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus as He prayed.108 Acts 2:1-13 shows the Holy Spirit filling all of those in the upper room as they were praying.109

3. Luke 4:16-30 describes the opening of Jesus’ ministry with a sermon that focused on Him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets and then ended with Him being rejected by those who heard it.110 It appears that Jesus was rejected because He challenged the idea of Jewish exclusivism by recounting God’s dealings with the Zarephathite widow and Naaman the Syrian.111 Acts 7 shows Stephen preaching a message that traced God’s dealings with the nation of Israel but also challenged the notion of Jewish exclusivism. Stephen pointed out that Abraham was called out of Mesopotamia, Joseph was used mightily by God in Egypt, and God’s call of Moses came while he was living in Midian.112 Stephen’s message was rejected and he was stoned to death. Luke goes to great lengths in both the Gospel and in Acts to emphasize the universality of God’s salvation.113

4. In Luke 10:1-12, Jesus sent the 70 out on a missionary trip to preach, heal, and cast out demons.114 Jesus told His disciples in Acts 1:8 that they would be His witnesses, “to the ends of the earth.” The first half of Acts shows Peter and Philip, in particular, begin this process. In Acts 13–20, Paul and others went on several mission trips, eventually taking the Gospel all the way to Rome.115

5. In Luke 9:51—19:28, Jesus made a final journey to Jerusalem. It was done under divine prompting and not understood by the disciples.116 Paul made a final visit to Jerusalem in Acts 19:21—21:17. It also was done under divine prompting and not understood by Paul’s friends and co-workers.117

6. Luke 22:54 shows a mob seizing Jesus. Acts 21:30 shows a mob seizing Paul.118

7. In Luke 24:45-49, Jesus’ ministry ended on the note of the fulfillment of Scripture. In Acts 28: 25-31, Paul’s ministry ended on the note of the fulfillment of Scripture.

These parallels between the Gospel of Luke and Acts give some idea of what Luke thought was important. They also serve to develop a clear picture of Luke’s theology. Marshall says that Luke should not be labeled as only a “historian,” or as only a “theologian.” He is both, and according to Marshall, should be called “evangelist,” for that term encompasses both of the others.119 Martin also sees strong pastoral concerns in Luke’s writings, specifically in the area of discipleship.120 This aspect of discipleship is paralleled in both the Gospel and in Acts. Luke’s use of parallels will be seen even more clearly when the study focuses more specifically on the apostolic ministries of Peter and Paul.

The Purpose of Luke-Acts

As with the study of any Biblical writing, it is important to understand the purpose behind the author’s work. Unlike the other Evangelists, Luke provides the reader with some idea of why he was writing:121

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word have handed them down to us, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1-4)

The prologue found in Acts refers back to the Gospel and is also written to Theophilus, tying the two works together.

The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive, after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:1-3)

It appears that the preface for the gospel applied to the work as a whole. The shorter preface in Acts was more like a chapter heading referring the reader back to the earlier preface.122

Aside from the obvious aspect of linking the Gospel of Luke and Acts together, the two prologues provide much insight into what the author was trying to accomplish through his writings. One first notices that both books are addressed to the enigmatic Theophilus. It has been generally assumed that each of the gospels was written to a different Christian community to provide needed spiritual instruction.123 Luke, however, says that he is writing to an individual. Other scholars have discussed in-depth who this Theophilus might be. What is important to us is the fact that Luke tells Theophilus what his goal is in writing. Luke says that he wants Theophilus to, “know the exact truth about the things he has been taught.” Many scholars believe that Theophilus was a new believer and that Luke was writing to provide him with a better understanding of what the Christian life was all about.124 Some have speculated that Luke may have even intended his work to be a catechism for Theophilus and the others that would have access to it.125 It is also apparent from the scope of the work and the way in which Luke wrote it that he intended for it to have a larger audience than just Theophilus.126 While there may be a number of primary and secondary reasons put forth for why Luke wrote his two volumes, the safest route is to accept Luke’s own purpose for writing. He wanted, “to give Theophilus a comprehensive, accurate, historical account of the matters concerning Christianity in order that he may be assured of the reality of the things which he has been taught.”127

In a similar way, W. Ward Gasque sees four purposes in Luke’s writings that emerge from a study of the prologues.128 First of all, the prologues outline Luke’s literary pretensions. He tells his reader how he is going to write. Luke’s prefaces also show historical pretensions. He is organizing an “orderly account” of the story that he is telling. Luke also has a theological purpose to his writing. He wants to tell what God has done: “the things that have been fulfilled among us.” The last area that Gasque mentions concerns the fact that Luke is writing his book to a Gentile Christian audience who need to be assured that what they have been taught is accurate and true. This fourth purpose, then, is pastoral in nature.

There are several other possible purposes for Luke-Acts that have been put forward and deserve consideration. These look beyond just the prologues and take into account the entirety of both books. The first of these that will be mentioned is the one that was set forth by Hans Conzelman in The Theology of St. Luke. Conzelman understood Luke’s central theme to be responding to the delay of the Parousia.129 The anticipation of a quick return of the Lord gave way to disillusionment in some segments of the early church. Luke understood this and as a pastor he wrote to provide encouragement that everything was proceeding according to God’s predetermined plan. By showing the unfolding of world history from the viewpoint of God’s unfolding revelation of Himself, Luke lets his readers know that the delayed Parousia is not really delayed at all.130 God’s plan was worked out in the life of Jesus and now is being worked out in the life of the church.131 There is no indication in either of the prologues that Luke was writing to explain the delay of the Lord’s return. Conzelman does make a strong case, however, that this was one of the subsidiary purposes that Luke was attempting to demonstrate.

A second purpose that has been set forth for Luke-Acts is that of an apologetic work intended to offset the charges that Christianity was politically antagonistic towards the Roman government.132 While this does not appear to have been a primary purpose for the writing of Luke-Acts, it could have been a secondary one. Luke notes that Pilate declared the innocence of Jesus three times.133 The Roman authorities declared the innocence of Paul on three occasions.134 Rosenblatt argues that this is one of the primary themes for Acts. She believes that Luke deliberately shows Paul as, “the witness and the accused- who must press forward from synagogue to courtroom to give his testimony, ultimately before governors and kings.”135 According to her, in Acts, Paul’s judicial confrontations gradually assume dominance in the narrative and Acts ends with Paul defending the Gospel to the Roman world.136 While Rosenblatt does make a good case that this apologetic aspect of Luke’s writing is one of the purposes for his writing, she seems to overstate it by making this the primary reason. Luke does not even hint in either one of his prologues that he is planning on writing an apology for Christianity. As has been shown, Luke seemed to have several purposes for writing and apologetics is only one of them.137

Another purpose for Luke-Acts that will be examined specifically relates to the material that is recorded in Acts. Many scholars believe that one of Luke’s reasons for writing was to address the problems that developed between the Jewish and the Gentile believers in the early church.138 It is easy to build a case for this theory based on the text of Acts. Luke records a number of instances that directly relate to this issue. These include the story of Peter and Cornelius, along with Peter’s subsequent defense of his actions in chapters 10 and 11 and the issue of the Judaizers in Antioch and the Jerusalem Council in chapter 15. Paul’s arrest in chapter 21 was directly related to his trying to appease the Jewish believers of the Jerusalem Church who thought he was teaching Jews to disobey the Law. This appears to be another valid subsidiary purpose for the writing of Acts.

A last purpose that will be mentioned for Luke-Acts is put forth by Carson, Moo, and Morris in An Introduction to the New Testament. They argue that Luke wrote to edify and build up Christians by showing how God’s plan was first fulfilled in Jesus. The plan of God had then “continued to unfold in the history of the early church.”139 In his two-volume work, Luke clearly shows how Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. In essence, history culminated in Christ but continued to move forward through the apostles and then, “the church as the eschatological people of God.”140 This understanding of the purpose for Luke-Acts will become even clearer as Peter and Paul’s ministries are compared and contrasted.

The Message of Acts

Because Luke’s second volume is going to be the primary source for this study on Peter and Paul, this chapter will end by looking briefly at the basic message that is presented there. First of all, it is apparent that Acts is a continuation of the third Gospel. What Jesus did in the Gospel of Luke, He continued to do through His church in Acts.141 After the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they began to do the same things that they had seen Jesus do when He was with them: preaching, teaching, healing, raising people from the dead, and casting out demons.142

A second element of Luke’s message, as seen in Acts, is that of the church. Luke traced the birth and development of the church and showed how it grew into a worldwide movement in about thirty years.143 In his Gospel, Luke gives a detailed account of the birth of Christ and some aspects of His childhood before moving on to discuss His ministry. In a similar way in Acts, Luke describes the birth and infancy of the church. He then goes on to describe how it grew into “adulthood.”144

Included in this theme of showing the way the church grew, Luke makes it a point to show some of the “growing pains” that were associated with it. One of the main issues that Luke attempted to resolve was that of Jewish/Gentile relations. Luke wrote Acts in such a way that chapter 15, the center of the book, dealt with the question of whether or not Gentiles would have to be circumcised before being accepted into the church.145 A further aspect of the problem was concerned with table fellowship between the two groups. Could a Jewish believer share a meal with a Gentile believer? While Luke did touch on this subject, it was much more fully developed in the writings of Paul.146

The third component of Luke’s message in Acts that will be mentioned is the fact that the Gospel is a universal message.147 No longer were the Gentiles to be excluded. Now they were to be numbered among the people of God. The universal message that was hinted at in Luke’s Gospel is developed much more fully in Acts.148 In Acts, Luke legitimized the new movement by showing its Jewish origins and by, “emphasizing the divine providence which was reflected in every aspect of the development and expansion of the early church.”149 This is seen taking place progressively through the course of Acts. Philip, and later Peter and John, evangelize in Samaria. Peter, shortly after that, is instructed by a heavenly vision to go to the centurion Cornelius’ house where he ministers to a Gentile audience. A church is later established in Antioch that is composed both of Gentile and Jewish believers. It is from this base that the Apostle Paul and others take the message of Christ throughout the Roman Empire.150 By the end of Acts, Luke has made the case that Christianity is “an independent religious movement in the process of emerging from Judaism to which it is its legitimate successor.”151

Conclusion

The second part of this first chapter has highlighted many of the literary issues that are associated with the writings of Luke, and Acts in particular. First of all, the authorship of Acts was discussed. While many scholars do not accept the traditional view that Luke, the companion of Paul, wrote Acts no one has been able to present enough evidence to successfully refute it. Tradition and internal evidence point towards Lukan authorship.

The dating of Acts was examined next. Authorship and dating are closely related. If Acts is given a late date, such as the early to middle of the Second Century, as many scholars do, then the traditional view of authorship is effectively nullified. If Luke was the author of Acts, then an early date of 60 to 85 AD is not unreasonable. A date in the early to mid-60’s seems to make the most sense in the light of the internal evidence that was presented.

The relationship between Luke’s Gospel and Acts was the next area that was discussed. A number of themes that are common to both works were discussed. There are numerous literary parallels between the two books. Several of these were highlighted.

The purpose for Luke-Acts was the next literary topic that was examined. The primary purpose for both works is found in the prologues. There, are, however, numerous other subsidiary purposes that have been set forth as to why Luke wrote these volumes. Several of these were mentioned. The last literary issue that was discussed was the basic message of Acts.

The next chapter will start the process of looking specifically at Peter and Paul. The focus will be on their relationship to each other in the early church and whether or not they should be considered friends or foes. It will look beyond Acts to their respective letters to see what they had to say about each other.

10 Hemer, 1. See also W. Ward Gasque, “The Historical Value of Acts,” Tyndale Bulletin 40 (1989) 136.

11 F. J. Foakes-Jackson, Acts, The Moffatt Commentary (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931) ix.

12 Gasque, 136. See also Samuel Sandmel, The Genius of Paul: A Study in History (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 149.

13 Hemer, 308–9.

14 Ibid., 309.

15 R. V. Pierard, “Tübingen School,” http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/bxc/Tübingen.htm (May 22, 2003).

16 French L. Arrington, The Acts of the Apostles (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988) xxxiv. See also, Sandmel, 157. See also Willam R. Cannon, “The Book of Acts,” http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin (May 22, 2003); Luke’s motive for writing Acts, “was to present to posterity a harmonious and unified picture of Christianity by playing down all controversies and differences of opinion, especially those between Peter and Paul, the one the protagonist of Judaism and the other the champion of the rights of the gentiles.”

17 E. Earle Ellis, Paul and His Recent Interpreters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961) 18. Ellis says that in this verse, Bauer found his “interpretive key . . . conflict between Paul, the apostle to the Greeks . . . and the narrow Jewish Christianity of the original apostles.”

18 Horton Harris, The Tübingen School: A Historical and Theological Investigation of the School of F. C. Baur (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990) 1, “No single event ever changed the course of Biblical scholarship as much as the appearance of the Tübingen School.”

19 Gerhard Krodel, Acts, Proclamation Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 2. Krodel also says, “We should recognize that Luke’s silence about Paul’s problems with his churches or with Peter in Antioch is theologically motivated and his theology determines his writing of history,” 110.

20 Harris, xxiii–xxiv, Baur felt that anything that had to do with God, “should be excluded from all historical events, so that history is treated as pure history, as purely historical, with no admixture of supernatural factors or forces.”

21 Krodel, 102.

22 Sandmel, 146.

23 Ibid., 147.

24 Ibid., 157.

25 Ibid., 158. Sandmel goes on to say, “Acts is no more reliable for the ‘Petrine’ tradition than it is for the Pauline.”

26 J. Christiaan Beker, Heirs of Paul: Their Legacy in the New Testament and the Church Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 1991) 64.

27 J. Christiaan Beker, The Triumph of God: The Essence of Paul’s Thought (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 10, “Thus the thought of the apostle was reduced and domesticated to a minimum for the sake of harmonizing his witness with that of the other apostles, with the result that Paul’s theological influence in the patristic period was minimal.”

28 Ibid.

29 Michael Goulder, St. Paul versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) x.

30 Ibid., ix–x, “The two missions were agreed about the supreme significance of Jesus, but they disagreed about almost everything else . . .”

31 Marion L. Soards, The Apostle Paul: An Introduction to his Writings and Teachings (New York: Paulist, 1987) 9.

32 Ibid., 34.

33 Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, trans., Frank Clarke (Richmond: John Knox, 1959) 80–81.

34 Ibid., 84.

35 C. K. Barrett, “The Historicity of Acts,” Journal of Theological Studies 50 (1999) 526.

36 Ibid., 527.

37 Ibid., 528.

38 C. K. Barrett, Paul: An Introduction to His Thought (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994) 7, “Paul was a great theologian; the author of Acts was not, and if on some important issues he misunderstood Paul he was certainly not the last to do so.”

39 Barrett, “The Historicity of Acts,” 534.

40 Riesner, 7.

41 D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992) 186.

42 Hemer, 20.

43 Gasque, 142. In this article, Gasque not only reviews scholarship since F. C. Baur, he also gives a thorough review of Hemer’s book.

44 Hemer, 316.

45 Jack T. Sanders, “Paul’s ‘Autobiographical’ Statements in Galatians 1–2,” Journal of Biblical Literature 85 (1966) 343. See also Peter Ricahrdson, “Pauline Inconsistency: I Corinthians 9:19-23 and Galatians 2:11-4,” New Testament Studies 26 (1979–1980) 359, “The selection of material in Galatians 1 and 2 is shaped by the need to demonstrate that Paul does not please men.”

46 W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul The Traveller and the Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1951) 18.

47 Marshall, 34.

48 Luke T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 201.

49 Ibid., 203–4.

50 Martin Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, trans. John Bowden (1980; reprinted, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 1979) 43.

51 Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 108. See also Jacob Jervell, The Unknown Paul: Essays on Luke-Acts and Early Christian History (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984) 19, Jervell takes Morris’ thought a step further. Luke was not only a believer. He is also a, “preacher and theologian describing past situations with relevance for the situation of his own readers.”

52 I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970) 69.

53 Ibid., 74. See also John T. Squires, The Plan of God in Luke-Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 21, While, “Luke himself has carried out the historian’s task of carefully scrutinizing his sources, it is clear that he has arranged them according to his own purposes.”

54 I. Howard Marshall, “Luke’s View of Paul,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 33 (1990) 36.

55 Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian, 75. See also F. F. Bruce, “Is the Paul of Acts the Real Paul?” Bulletin of John Rylands Library 58 (1976) 282. Bruce feels that both portraits of Paul, the one in Acts and the one in his letters must be carefully examined to get “the real Paul.”

56 Marshall, 75.

57 Foakes-Jackson, ix.

58 Keathley, 68.

59 Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, trans. Bernard Noble et al. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 113–15.

60 Ibid., 114.

61 2 Corinthians 10:11.

62 Willam Neil, The Acts of the Apostles, The New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973) 22. See also Carson, Moo, and Morris, 190, “We have shown that there is no convincing reason to deny that the author of Acts was a companion of Paul. That he was his companion is the natural implication of the ‘“we”’ passages. That this companion was none other than Luke ‘“the beloved physician”’ is the unanimous opinion of the early church. We have good reason, then, to conclude that Luke was the author of Acts.”

63 Luke 1:2

64 Hengel, 36, “He certainly knew a good deal more than he put down; when he is silent about something, there are usually special reasons for it.”

65 Hemer, 69, “Facts do not come in sealed packets untouched by human hand: selection and interpretation, at however rudimentary stage, are inseparable from historical information, and it is none the worse for it.”

66 Joseph B. Tyson, A Study of Early Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1973) 204, “Any evaluation of the Gospel of Luke must recognize the unity of the two books and consider the material in Acts as having a direct bearing on the meaning of the Gospel.”

67 Charles H. Talbert, Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, (New York: Crossroad, 1997) 2–3, Talbert, for example, argues for the unity of the two books based on the similar prefaces, the architecture of the two books, and the theological themes. See also Hengel, 37, “Acts cannot be separated from the Third Gospel: both books must be understood as a historical and theological unity.”

68 Mark Allan Powell, What Are They Saying about Acts? (New York: Paulist, 1981) 32–33.

69 Krodel, 111.

70 See note 57 above.

71 Munck, xxxv.

72 Ibid., xxxiv. See also, Merrill C. Tenney, New Testament Survey (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961) 231, “The reliability of Acts has often been challenged, but it has never been successfully impugned.”

73 Ibid., xxxiii.

74 Hemer, 308.

75 Neil, 18.

76 Luke 1:2.

77 Squires, 20–21.

78 Neil, 22.

79 A. J. Mattill, Jr., “The Date and Purpose of Luke-Acts: Rackham Reconsidered,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978) 335.

80 Ibid., 336.

81 Hemer, 408.

82 Ibid., 376–78.

83 Ibid., 338.

84 Carson, Moo, and Morris, 192, “Would not Paul’s execution have made a fitting parallel to the execution of James earlier in Acts (12:2) and brought Acts to a similar climax as the gospel of Luke, with its narrative of Jesus’ death?”

85 Mattill, 336.

86 Ibid., 338–39.

87 J. Dawsey, “The Literary Unity of Luke-Acts: Questions of Style—A Task for Literary Critics,” New Testament Studies 35 (1989) 48.

88 John A. Hardon, “The Miracle Narratives in the Acts of the Apostles,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 16 (1954) 305–6.

89 Craig A. Evans, Luke, New International Biblical Commentaries, (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1990) 5.

90 Bruce, The Book of the Acts, 29–30, “Such dedications were common form in contemporary literary circles.” See also, Evans, 17–19.

91 John Drury, Tradition and Design in Luke’s Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1976) 49. See also J. L. Houlden, “The Purpose of Luke,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 21 (1984) 62, Houlden says of Luke that, “he is at home in the language and content of the Septuagint and perhaps other Jewish literature.”

92 Leon Morris, The Gospel according to St. Luke, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 27. See also Hengel, 52, “Luke is evidently influenced by a firm tradition with a religious view of history which essentially derives from the Septuagint. His imitation of the style of the Septuagint shows that he wants quite deliberately to be in this tradition.”

93 Ibid., 46.

94 C. F. Evans, Saint Luke, Trinity Press International New Testament Commentaries (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990) 318–19, Evans feels that Luke is drawing a deliberate parallel here between Jesus praying before selecting His apostles, and the account of Matthias being added to the Eleven in Acts 1:14-26. Matthias was chosen during a time of corporate prayer.

95 Arrington, xlii.

96 Williams, 212. Acts 12:5, informs the reader that the church was praying “fervently” for Peter’s release. This is reminiscent of Jesus praying “fervently” in Gethsemane in Luke 22:44.

97 Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles, 271, “The prayers offered may have been simply of praise to God; there is no suggestion that the prisoners prayed for release . . .”

98 C. F. Evans, 85, “The Spirit occupies a crucial position in the structure of the two volumes.”

99 Arrington, 21, According to Arrington, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost became the pattern for how the church would move forward. The church would only continue to grow as the believers walked in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

100 Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984) 34–35. See also, F. F. Bruce “The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles,” Interpretation 27 (1973) 168, According to Bruce, the difference between the Holy Spirit’s ministry in Luke’s Gospel and Acts is the fact that in the Gospel, the Holy Spirit’s works are, “seldom explicitly mentioned, but they are implied throughout.” In Acts, however, with Jesus physically gone, the Holy Spirit has a much more prominent role in the lives of the believers.

101 Morris, 41–42.

102 C. F. Evans, 98, “From his sources Luke inherited a double strand of teaching about the kingdom- that it was to come in the future, and that it was already operative in the activity of Jesus.” See also, Ralph P. Martin, “Salvation and Discipleship in Luke’s Gospel,” Interpretation 30 (1976) 373, “The ministry of Jesus centers on the proclamation of God’s kingdom.”

103 Williams, 21, The disciples ask this question before Pentecost. After Pentecost they will preach the Kingdom message themselves from a new perspective.

104 Martin, 373–374.

105 Susan R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 64.

106 C. F. Evans, 43. According to Evans, these parallels, “are deliberate, and show Luke’s work to have an architectonic design based on the principle of balance, which may be detected in other writings of the period.”

107 Talbert, 11–12.

108 Morris, 99, “Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who tells us that the descent of the Spirit occurred as Jesus was praying” [author’s italics].

109 Arrington, 19, “Physical manifestations accompanied the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. At the Jordan the Spirit’s descent was in bodily form, and at Pentecost his presence was seen in the dividing of tongues similar to fire and in the disciples’ speaking in other tongues. The similarity between what happened at Jesus’ messianic anointing and at Pentecost strongly indicates that the disciples received the power of the Spirit by which Jesus had preached the gospel, healed the sick, and cast out demons.”

110 Evans, 70, “Luke wishes to make it clear that Jesus’ ministry begins in the power of the Spirit as he taught in their synagogues (see 1:35; 3:22; 4:1), which parallels the inauguration of the apostolic preaching and teaching in Acts 2.”

111 Ibid., 72, “What makes all of this preaching so ‘unacceptable’ is that the people of Jesus’ time expected Messiah to come and destroy Israel’s enemies, not minister to them.”

112 John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts: The Spirit, the Church and the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1990) 133–38.

113 Morris, 36.

114 Evans, 169, “Whereas the Twelve may represent the reconstitution of the twelve tribes of Israel, the Seventy may represent the seventy Gentile nations of the world, founded by the sons of Noah after the flood . . .”

115 Fred Jonkman, “The Missionary Methods of the Apostle Paul,” http://www.thirdmill.org/paul2/missionary_methods.asp (Oct. 11, 2001) 1, “It was Paul’s mission activities (Acts 13–28) that contributed remarkably towards the Christian church’s move from the limited sphere of Judaism to the broader frame of the Gentile world. It then becomes, for all religious history, a preeminent model for missionary outreach.”

116 Evans, 161, Luke says that Jesus “resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9: 51) This has several Old Testament parallels. One of the most obvious is Ezekiel 21:2, “Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and speak against the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel.” Moessner sees this final journey as more of a type of a new Exodus. “Luke will tell his readers that as Jesus progresses through the “‘towns and villages of Israel, teaching in their streets”’ (13:22) the crowds continue to swell around him until these ‘“myriads”’ become a ‘“multitude of crowds”’ (11:29; 12:1; 14:25). As the prophet like Moses Jesus gathers all Israel on their Exodus to Jerusalem,” David P. Moessner, ‘“The Christ Must Suffer’: New Light on the Jesus-Peter, Stephen, Paul Parallels in Luke-Acts,” Novum Testamentum 28 (1986) 239.

117 Arrington, 209, “The solemn prophetic admonitions were understood by Paul to be the definite guidance of the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, the place where the purpose of God would be carried out.

118 Luke records that after Paul was seized by the mob, “they dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut.” Bruce sees significance in the shutting of the temple doors. “For Luke himself, this may have been the moment when the Jerusalem temple ceased to fill the honorable role hitherto ascribed to it in his two-fold history. The exclusion of God’s message and messenger from the house once called by his name sealed its doom: it was now ripe for the destruction which Jesus had predicted for it many years before (Luke 21:6),” The Book of the Acts, 410.

119 Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian, 18.This is in direct contradiction with C. K. Barrett who does not feel that the author of Acts was a very good theologian. See note 45 above.

120 Martin, 377.

121 Evans, 17.

122 J. Dawsey, “The Literary Unity of Luke-Acts: Questions of Style—A Task for Literary Critics,” New Testament Studies 35 (1989) 50.

123 C. F. Evans, 121.

124 Darrell L. Bock, Luke, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996) 42, “Theophilius was probably a new believer, who as a Gentile found himself in what had started out as a Jewish movement.” See also, Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles, 56, “Theophilus was probably already a Christian, and Luke wrote his book to help him and others like him to have a reliable account of the beginnings of Christianity.”

125 Morris, 66.

126 Hiebert, 130, “While writing for the personal benefit of Theophilus (Luke 1:4), Luke clearly intended for his work to have a much wider circulation.”

127 Ibid., 132, He goes on to say that Luke’s “ultimate aim is to convey these truths to Gentile readers and to awaken and deepen their faith in Jesus as the God-sent Savior for all mankind.”

128 W. Ward Gasque, “A Fruitful Field: Recent Study of the Acts of the Apostles,” Interpretation 42 (1988) 119–20.

129 Hans Conzelman, The Theology of St. Luke, trans. Geoffrey Buswell, (New York: Harper & Row, 1961) 131.

130 John Navone, “Three Aspects of the Lucan Theology of History,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 3 (1973) 115.

131 Conzleman, 132, “As the End is still far away, the adjustment to a short time of waiting is replaced by a ‘Christian life’ of long duration, which requires ethical regulation and is no longer dependent upon a definite termination.”

132 Hiebert, 133.

133 Luke 23: 4, 14, 22.

134 Acts 23:29; 25:25; 26:31.

135 Marie-Eloise Rosenblatt, Paul the Accused: His Portrait in the Acts of the Apostles (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1995) xvii.

136 Ibid., 95.

137 Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles, 21–22, “We are not denying that Luke had an apologetic motive in the composition of Luke-Acts, especially in the case of Acts. But it is a subordinate aim as compared with the main theme of the presentation of the historical basis for the Christian faith.”

138 David Gooding, True to the Faith: A Fresh Approach to the Acts of the Apostles (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990) 12–13.

139 Carson, Moo, and Morris, 210.

140 Ibid. See also, Squires, 153, “Thus, Luke’s history of Jesus and the church is driven by the fulfillment of prophecies.”

141 Bruce, 30, “The implication of Luke’s words is that his second volume will be an account of what Jesus continued to do and teach after his ascension—no longer in visible presence on earth but by his Spirit in his followers” [author’s italics]. See also Arrington, xxxviii, “Luke’s second volume makes clear that what Jesus began to do during his ministry, he continued to do through his witnesses (Acts 1:1).”

142 Stronstad, 49, “By this transfer of the Spirit, the disciples become the heirs and successors to the earthly charismatic ministry of Jesus; that is, because Jesus has poured out the charismatic Spirit upon them the disciples will continue to do and teach those things which Jesus began to do and teach (Acts 1:1).”

143 Gundry, 220, He says that Acts shows, “the extension of Christianity in early Church history so as to convince readers by the irresistible advance of the Gospel that God through His Spirit really is working in human history for the redemption of all men.”

144 Talbert hints at this connection (Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, 3ff.), however, there did not appear to be any other scholars who saw a connection between the birth and infancy narratives in the Gospel, and the early days (infancy) of the church.

145 Frank Stagg, The Book of Acts: The Early Struggle for an Unhindered Gospel (Nashville: Broadman, 1955) 13, “The problem of accepting uncircumcised Gentiles became increa-singly difficult for Jewish Christians, leading eventually to the self-exclusion of the Jews from the Christian community.” See also Marshall, 29–32.

146 Stagg, 13–14.

147 Marshall, 50, “Luke demonstrates that in the purpose of God there can be no racial discrimination within the church” [author’s italics].

148 Hiebert, 257, “It shows how Christianity, which arose out of Judaism, was led step by step to recognize God’s purpose that it can be an intrinsically universal body.”

149 David E. Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment, Library of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987) 137.

150 F. F. Bruce, “The Significance of the Speeches for Interpreting Acts,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 33 (1990) 28, The gospel message that Luke presents in Acts is, “freed from national restrictions to be accepted by all nations, and therefore entitled to be granted the liberty enjoyed by Jewish communities throughout the world.”

151 Aune, 140.