HE book which we call the Acts of the Apostles may be said to complete the Pentateuch of New Testament history. Four of these books present the Person of our Lord; while the fifth gives the first page of the history of the Church: that is, the story of the first activities of Christ, in power, in the history of the race.
he story of these first things in the life of the Church has a fascination from which there is no escape. However it may be read, it interests. But to see its true character, before beginning to deal with it in detail, we need to recognize the nature of the book as a whole, and its place in the New Testament revelation.
he book opens with a reference to one of the earlier books, in the words: “The former treatise.” The Lucan authorship of the Acts of the Apostles needs no argument. We take that as fully established, both by the long continued opinion of the Church, and by the conclusions of the most recent scholarship. Consequently we may take it for granted that this reference, at the commencement of the book, is to the Gospel which bears Luke’s name.
n order that the value of this may be gained, we will read the prologue to Luke’s Gospel:
“
orasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have
beenfulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed” (Luke I. 14).
e then take up the book of the Acts of the Apostles and read: “The former treatise I made, O Theophilus.” The continuity is apparent on the surface. We have the same writer, Luke; the same reader, Theophilus; the same subject, Jesus.
et perhaps the whole of that does not appear immediately. One is inclined to say: The writer is the same, the reader is the same, but is the subject the same?
irst let us recognize that the title of the book is an unfortunate one. To one taking up the book for the first time, that title, “The Acts of the Apostles,” would seem to suggest that in the book we should find a chronicle of all the doings of all the apostles. We know that this is not so. As a matter of fact the Greek title of the manuscript is “Acts of Apostles.” That is more indefinite, suggesting only that it records some acts of some apostles, which comes far nearer the truth. Some of the apostles are never named beyond their inclusion in the list given before the account of the Pentecostal effusion. Further, not all the acts of any one apostle are recorded. The book as history is merely a fragment, and in some senses a disappointing fragment; but in the incompleteness of the story is part of the method of the Spirit. When we come to its last sentences, we inevitably put it down, feeling that there are a hundred questions we want to ask. The last picture we have in the book is that of Paul in his own hired house in Rome, receiving all that came to him, teaching them the things concerning Jesus, and preaching to them the Kingdom of God. Before he went to Rome he wrote to the Romans that he hoped to go on by them unto Spain, for his eyes were ever fixed on regions beyond. We should like to know if he ever did pass on to Spain; yes, and more, whether the feet of the intrepid apostle ever actually stood on the soil of Britain. These things the book does not tell us. It is an unfinished fragment.
evertheless in the imperfect nature of the book there is a perfect system. It is the story of the first movements of the Christian fact in the world; revealing principles, indicating methods, showing failure; and all in order that there might be at least one page of inspired Church history, which, men reading, might know the true meaning and mission of the Church in the history of the world.
ut this fact that the book is the first page of Church history is not a final or perfect definition of its value. To discover what its supreme value is, we must come back once more to the initial phrase, in which we shall find the key which unlocks the book: “The former treatise I made, 0 Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” Observe carefully that word began. If the writer had written: “All that Jesus did and taught,” the suggestion would have been entirely different. That would have suggested a conception of the mission of the Lord in the world, which was not that of the writer of this treatise; it would also have suggested a conception of the purpose of this treatise, which was not that of its writer.
HE book which we call the Acts of the Apostles may be said to complete the Pentateuch of New Testament history. Four of these books present the Person of our Lord; while the fifth gives the first page of the history of the Church: that is, the story of the first activities of Christ, in power, in the history of the race.
n order that the value of this may be gained, we will read the prologue to Luke’s Gospel:
“
orasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which have
beenfulfilled among us, even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word, it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast instructed” (Luke I. 14).
e then take up the book of the Acts of the Apostles and read: “The former treatise I made, O Theophilus.” The continuity is apparent on the surface. We have the same writer, Luke; the same reader, Theophilus; the same subject, Jesus.
et perhaps the whole of that does not appear immediately. One is inclined to say: The writer is the same, the reader is the same, but is the subject the same?
evertheless in the imperfect nature of the book there is a perfect system. It is the story of the first movements of the Christian fact in the world; revealing principles, indicating methods, showing failure; and all in order that there might be at least one page of inspired Church history, which, men reading, might know the true meaning and mission of the Church in the history of the world.
ut this fact that the book is the first page of Church history is not a final or perfect definition of its value. To discover what its supreme value is, we must come back once more to the initial phrase, in which we shall find the key which unlocks the book: “The former treatise I made, 0 Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” Observe carefully that word began. If the writer had written: “All that Jesus did and taught,” the suggestion would have been entirely different. That would have suggested a conception of the mission of the Lord in the world, which was not that of the writer of this treatise; it would also have suggested a conception of the purpose of this treatise, which was not that of its writer.