Introduction

Tom Shrader opens an expositional series through the Book of Acts with a full introductory session covering authorship by Luke, dating of the book, and a six-part structural outline tracking the gospel's spread from Jerusalem to Rome. He establishes that Acts is a historical record of Christianity's expansion through the power of the Holy Spirit, tracing the ministries of Peter and Paul. Throughout, he applies the early church's pattern of faithfulness to God's Word as the model for Christian witness and church growth today.

“Witnessing isn't optional, witnessing isn't mandatory, witnessing is inevitable. You're a witness.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Acts

Recorded: 1999 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 1 hr 2 min

Themes: bible study, church growth, holy spirit, witnessing, faithfulness, early church, scripture, missions, new believer, new to church, curious about bible, seeker, small group leader, sunday school teacher, young adult, returning to faith

Scripture: Acts 1:1-8, Acts 1:3, Acts 1:6-7, Acts 9:31, Acts 12:24, Acts 16, Acts 20, Acts 27, Luke 1:1-4, Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11, 1 Corinthians 3:6, 2 Corinthians 5

Theological Themes: pneumatology, power of the holy spirit, biblical authority, ecclesiology, church history, expository preaching, apostolic witness, gospel proclamation

Full Transcript

Introducing a Book-by-Book Study

Today we do something that may be new for some of you, especially if you have joined this church in the last three or four months, or if you have come from a church where this is not the custom. We are going to study and work our way through a book of the Bible, beginning in chapter 1, verse 1, and work our way all the way through to the last chapter and the last verse.

A couple of things will be important and helpful to you. First, I think it is important for you to bring a Bible with you when you come. There is something so powerful about having the Word in front of you, having a notebook, writing notes, and being able to flip through and see the Word there. As God begins to work in your life and teach you, He will so often remind you where things are. There are times I am looking for a passage of Scripture and I know it is in the upper right-hand corner of the page — and that comes from having that Scripture in front of you repeatedly. So I am going to encourage you to bring a Bible, and in some cases a notebook or notepaper with you.

I also remind you that all of the notes are on the website, likely by this morning if not by tomorrow. And I think — they asked me not to announce it, so I felt compelled to do it — by this time next week we will have the audio available as well, running about a week behind, so you will be able to archive messages you miss or catch up after vacation.

Why Begin with an Introduction

When I decided to begin this study of the book of Acts, it was easy to decide which book to do. What was not easy was deciding how to begin. My original thought was to come in, start at chapter 1, verse 1, and let the first few verses serve as the introduction. I think we could have done that, but I decided against it.

Instead, I decided to take a full week and spend it entirely on background information and introduction material. It is likely that many people will join us at various points along the way, and it would be helpful for someone coming in at week seven to be able to go back and find that very first week's overview. So that is what we are going to do — provide a lot of background and overview information that I think will be helpful to you.

The Title and Nature of the Book

We are going to look at the book of Acts. The technical title of the book is the Acts of the Apostles, though we commonly refer to it simply as the book of Acts. John Stott, trying to identify a title that would capture everything in the book, proposed this: "The Acts of the Holy Spirit in the Church of Jesus Christ through God's People." Another author uses this title: "The Continuing Works and Deeds of Jesus by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles."

The one word you sense and the idea you get is that this is an action book — things are happening throughout its pages. It begins with the end of the earthly ministry of Christ, His ascension, and it ends with Paul during his first imprisonment. It is a book that gives us valuable insights, providing principles for discipling one another, principles for developing the church and what the church should be, and perhaps as importantly, principles and certainly impetus for being involved in evangelism.

The book of Acts tracks primarily two characters: the Apostle Peter, and then the baton is in a sense passed to Paul. There is also something unique about this book — it has no formal close. The book simply ends. There is a final verse, and then that is it. As we read through the rest of the New Testament, we frequently encounter closings and summations, but that is absent here.

Luke: Author, Physician, and Historian

The author of the book is Luke, who is also the author of the Gospel that bears his name. Interestingly, his name appears only three times in the entire New Testament. Yet from those three references, from background information, and from the writings themselves, we get at least a brief personality profile and a sense of who this man is.

Colossians chapter 4, verse 14 tells us that Luke was a doctor — a physician. We discover that he served as Paul's personal physician. But he is not only trained in medicine; he is also a historian. Consider what he writes at the opening of his Gospel. Luke chapter 1, verses 1 through 3:

"Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of the things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write an orderly account that you may know the certainty of those things in which you've been instructed."

Luke says as he begins the Gospel that he wants to provide an orderly account — rooted in perfect understanding, drawn from eyewitnesses — so that his reader may know with certainty the things they have been taught.

Luke as Historian and Companion of Paul

Luke wants to give us an orderly account — an orderly account of what? Well, the things he is writing to Theophilus. We know from reading the Gospel what those things are: the virgin birth, the birth of Christ, His earthly ministry, His perfect life, His teaching, His crucifixion, His resurrection. Luke is a historian. We see the same thing here in the Book of Acts. He wants to give us a history of what happened in the early church.

Luke is also a companion of Paul's. We see three sections that we call the "we passages" — three sections in Acts 16, Acts 20, and Acts 27 where the author uses the plural personal pronoun. He says, "As we traveled," "they persecuted us," "they drove us from the city," "they fed us," "we moved together through the region." We get the sense that the author was there. We know the author is Luke, and that Luke was present. He was a companion of Paul's, a trusted helper, and a loyal friend.

In Second Timothy chapter 4, Paul is at the end of his life, writing what is the last book we have from his pen recorded in the New Testament. At the very end of that book, he says to Timothy, "Be diligent to come to me quickly." There is a sense of urgency — come quickly. "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and he has departed for Thessalonica." Then in verse 11: "Only Luke is with me." Luke is a loyal, trusted friend who is there to the very end of Paul's life.

Luke's Careful Investigation

As Luke writes, he demonstrates familiarity with Roman law and Roman custom, and he understands the geography of the area. By combining Volume 1, the Gospel of Luke, and Volume 2, the Book of Acts, we understand that he has not merely heard about these things but has actually gone out and interrogated and investigated. He has spoken with Peter and John and Mark and many others, and obviously with Paul.

At the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, there is a lengthy treatment of the birth of Christ and the anticipation of His birth. Many believe this material is unique to his Gospel because Luke took the time to go and interview, firsthand, Mary, the mother of Jesus. That fits the whole personality profile. If you are a doctor and a historian, you are a fastidious individual who wants everything to line up and be in order. He is very precise. He wants things done a certain way. And we are grateful to him for that, because because of it we have this great record of the early church.

Dating the Book of Acts

There are two schools of thought on the date of Acts. One is a later date — 70 to as far as 84 or 85 A.D. The other is the early date — 60 to 62 A.D. We opt for the early date, primarily for two reasons. First, the abrupt ending of the book seems to tell us that Luke has simply written up to the present moment — it brings us to what has taken place as of that date. Second, there are significant things that are not mentioned in the book.

It seems unlikely that Luke would write a history of the church and not mention the persecution of Nero and the way he ravaged the church. In fact, the Romans are viewed in a rather positive light in the Book of Acts, portrayed as in some sense protecting the church. There is also no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., which seems very unlikely to omit from any serious history. As you work through the Book of Acts, you also notice that Luke is very much focused on Paul's ministry — three times he devotes a large section to Paul's personal testimony. It seems highly unlikely that, in writing this history, he would exclude Paul's second imprisonment and death. So we opt, as most conservative scholars would, for the early date.

The Significance of the Resurrection

Here are the significant portions of the Book of Acts that we return to. There is doctrine in the Book of Acts, and we understand that. But what we really understand is that it is, first and foremost, a historical account. This book begins with the resurrection itself. As Luke opens in Acts chapter 1, verse 3, he writes: "The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen." Then speaking of those apostles, he says in verse 3: "To whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Luke begins his historical account of the church — of this great transition — with the resurrection of Christ.

Christianity as a Historical Religion

One scholar offers this insight, and it is worth reading in full. Christianity is a historical religion. It is a religion not based primarily on an idea or a philosophy. Most of the religions of the world can exist apart from their founder. You do not have to have a historical Buddha to have Buddhism — all you have to have is Buddhist teaching. So also with many other religions. But this is not the case with Christianity. If you take away the history, if you reduce it, as some have tried to do, to a religion of mere ethics or ideas — the Jefferson Bible — Christianity evaporates. That is because Christianity is linked to the life and the accomplishments of Christianity's founder, Christ Himself.

It is crucial for us to understand the importance of the empty tomb. That is why Luke says, "I have given you these infallible proofs." You cannot deny them. You cannot dispute them. It is a fact.

The Resurrection as the Foundation of Faith

Because there is an empty tomb, Paul writes to these people that Jesus died — and therefore they know He has risen from the dead. That proves He is God. That is what separates our faith, our religion, from everything else. Our founder was God Himself, come in the flesh, who died on the cross and rose from the dead.

We understand the deity of Christ — and because the deity of Christ is established, we can believe the teaching of Christ. We can believe the Word itself. I was talking to a gentleman this week who leads a small group, and he was working these men through a sticky issue that they did not really want to buy into. He could see they were not accepting it, so he said, "Turn your Bibles," gave them the passage, and singled out one man who did not seem to want to believe the teaching. He said, "You read it." That is a great teaching technique.

The man read the passage, and the group leader asked, "Now, who is speaking there?" The man said, "Jesus." The leader pressed further: "Do you believe this?" The man hesitated. The leader stopped him and said, "Wait. We have God come in the flesh, who died on the cross, whose words are recorded right here. Is there any question what He said?" The man answered, "No." "Then do you believe it?" He said, "We don't have that option. We believe this is true."

We are not committing intellectual suicide. We have not taken our brains out, put them in a jar, and set them on a shelf. We have the only reasonable approach to the Word of God. We understand Jesus rose from the dead, and because He did, He is God. Because He is God, we can believe what He says, and because we can believe what He says, His Word is true, and we can live and die accordingly.

The Activity of the Holy Spirit in Acts

As we read through the book of Acts, we understand that Jesus is alive and that the Holy Spirit is active. I would encourage you, perhaps this week, to read through the book of Acts in one sitting if you can. It is only 28 chapters. Read through it and make some notes on the things that strike you as you work your way through it. One of those things should be the activity of the Holy Spirit — He is alive and involved in the lives of the people in the church and in the world you read about in Acts.

The development of the church is one reason it is important for us, as a church, to read and understand the book of Acts. It is a history of our forefathers, and it matters to the church. And lastly, and perhaps as importantly as anything else, there is a missionary mandate here — the idea that you are to go, to be about this.

The Missionary Mandate

Look at verse 6, Acts chapter 1, verse 6: "Therefore, when they had come together, they said to Him" — Jesus is there among the disciples, and we will talk about this at length next week — "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?" The operative word is "restore." They anticipated it. They had suffered, waited, been patient, and watched Jesus suffer. They were still looking for the earthly kingdom, the financial Messiah, the political Messiah. Is now the time?

Look at verse 7. He said it is not for them to know the times or the seasons. He says it very pointedly — it is really none of their business. That is what He says. You do not need to know that. Here is what I want you to do: be about your Father's business, just as I was.

At the end of His life, Jesus prayed a magnificent prayer in which He said to the Father, "Father, I have completed all that You have given Me to do." Imagine that. Imagine being at the end of your life and being able to say, "Father, I have completed everything You gave me to do. You gave me this ministry — whatever it is, uniquely designed for me — and I can tell You now, at the end of my life, I have completed what You gave me to do." That is the objective. And in its simplest and broadest form, it is to be about witnessing to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

The Structure and Scope of Acts

That missionary mandate is the content of the book of Acts. Luke begins his book in Jerusalem, picking up his account with the closing hours of the earthly ministry of Christ — the period between Jesus' resurrection and His ascension. Then Luke, and here is the operative word, methodically records the spread of the new religion throughout the Roman world. It is about the spread of Christianity, and he breaks it into two areas. In the first half of the book, the focus is largely on the influence of the Apostle Peter. In the second half, Luke shows how Christianity spread as far as Rome itself, primarily through the work of the Apostle Paul.

The book of Acts is a transition book. You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — the Gospels — and then if you were to skip Acts and land directly in Romans, working your way through the rest of the New Testament, you would find a significant gap. The Gospels end with a handful of Jews stuck in Jerusalem, not knowing what they are going to do tomorrow. The book of Romans begins with an apostle named Paul — a man not even mentioned in the Gospels, not one of the Twelve — writing a letter to a church that is established and already flourishing in the capital city of Rome. If you did not have the book of Acts, you would ask, "What in the world happened in between?" That is exactly what the book of Acts does. It fills in the gap. It gives us the history of what took place in this very early church — a period of roughly 30 years from the time of Christ onward.

The Book of Acts: A Six-Segment Outline

The book of Acts covers the period from Christ's ascension into heaven until Paul emerges from his first imprisonment. It is the story of how the church got started. The book can be broken into a six-segment outline, and in each segment the closing verse reveals something significant about the state of the church.

The first section covers the church in Jerusalem: the ascension, the preaching of Peter, Pentecost, thousands of people coming to Christ, the beginning of the church, and the beginning of persecution. That section ends with this verse: "Then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." The first section closes with the idea that the word of God is spreading. The gospel is alive, on fire, and moving throughout the city of Jerusalem, so much so that it begins to permeate even some of the Jewish leaders themselves. The disciples are reproducing themselves, and the faith is alive.

The Church Spreads Through Palestine

The second section follows Christianity as it spreads through all of Palestine. Luke introduces Stephen, whose sermon is the longest delivered and recorded in the entire book of Acts. Shortly after delivering it, Stephen is martyred, and overseeing that martyrdom is a man named Saul, who would soon become Paul. After this, Saul unleashes his wrath on the church, sets out for Damascus, and is converted and given an assignment.

That second section ends in Acts 9, verse 31: "Then the churches throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and were edified." This connects directly to the commission in Acts 1 — "Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth." The church is flourishing in this region. The verse continues: "And it was walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and they were multiplied."

That phrase — walking in the fear of the Lord — would have stood out immediately to anyone present for the previous day's teaching, which focused on the reverential awe of God and who He is, and the desire to please Him and be faithful to Him. That is exactly what we see in this early church. They did not have a building, a sound system, PowerPoint, a children's ministry, or much of an organizational structure, but what they did have was the word, and to the extent that they had that word, they lived it. The people around them saw it and it became real. Because of that, the church continued to grow and multiply.

Based on what we see in these early sections, the most important thing one can do for church growth is simply to be faithful to the word.

The Gospel Reaches the Gentiles

The third section covers Paul delivering the message to the Gentiles. Paul was self-described as the Jew of Jews — the super Jew, if you will allow the term. If anyone were choosing a ministry for Paul, the obvious conclusion would be that he should go to the Jews. No one would be better equipped for Jewish apologetics. And God does what He so frequently does: He says that would be a great idea if you were God, but you are not — and Paul is going to be used to reach the Gentiles. Some people may have thought it a waste, but not at all. Paul delivers this message, the gospel spreads outside of Judaism, and the Gentile community begins to come to Christ.

With that expansion come challenges — doctrinal issues, behavioral issues, and the problem of legalism. Persecution also comes upon the church during this period. That section ends in Acts 12, verse 24: "But the word of God grew and multiplied."

Persecution and Real Growth

A theme is becoming clear. At the end of every one of these sections, the word of God flourishes and the word of God multiplies — including in the middle of persecution. The church does marvelously well in the midst of persecution. Hard times seem to be an environment in which the church experiences real, meaningful growth — not merely numerical growth, but genuine growth.

What persecution does is strip away the make-believers. When persecution arrives, those who are not truly converted tend to leave. What remains is the church — those who are truly converted and truly committed to following Him. In a comfortable environment, where everything is pleasant and accessible, church attendance can function as a kind of spiritual salve, something applied lightly and walked away from. But persecution reveals the real believers. It exposes who is genuinely committed to Christ and who is not. That is precisely what we see again and again in the book of Acts: the church, refined by hardship, continues to multiply.

The Church Under Pressure

David and Mary Lamb were on the last boat out of Shanghai. They had wanted desperately to get to China. At the time, there were thought to be about 2 million Christians in the country. They couldn't get in, the gospel was shut out, and nobody really knew what was happening inside. When the country opened again, they found somewhere between 50 and 75 million Christians there. In the midst of that persecution, the church had multiplied.

I say all of that to make a point, and it is not a new point to those of you who have been around — I make it regularly. We are in for a very difficult time, because it does not look like much persecution is coming to us. If anything, it is the opposite. We are heading into very good times.

Your IRAs are doing well. The stock market is doing well. We are going to get through this little Y2K glitch, whatever it is, and the market is headed to 15,000 or 20,000. That tends to puff you up.

Les and I wanted to have a quick lunch last week, so we went to a little place nearby. We did not think anyone would be in there — which is not an endorsement, I suppose, when you think about it. We went in, sat down, and started to talk, and next to us were two men. The younger one was maybe about 25, the other about 35 or 40.

They were talking pretty loudly back and forth, and then one of them got on his phone to check with his stockbroker. As everyone seems compelled to do on a portable phone in a restaurant, he was speaking exceedingly loud — I do not know why that is, but there he was, saying, "I bought that, I bought that, Amazon.com, I was in there, yeah, that's great," shaking and jiving. And this young kid — I will call him a punk, he was 25 — says, "Check on Nissan, I got some Nissan stock, check on the Nissan stock." Three shares or something. Les and I just looked at each other and laughed. Talk about missing it. We do not do well when you are jiving about your Nissan stock. We do a lot better when things are not good. That is why prosperity is a real test.

Judged by What We Do with What We Have

We talked about this yesterday — 2 Corinthians 5: "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." That is believers. Believers' lives will be judged. We miss that. Non-believers face the great white throne judgment. But believers will be judged, "that each may receive according to the things done in the body, according to whether they are good or bad."

Interestingly, that phrase "good or bad" in the Greek does not refer to something morally good or morally bad. It refers to something that is useful and valuable versus something that is useless. What it is saying is that you and I are going to be judged according to the way we have used the things God has given us to promote His kingdom versus promoting our own kingdom.

And persecution crystallizes that. Consider what this early church was already facing. On top of having hardly anything economically — dirt poor people, people losing jobs because of their faith, families breaking apart because of the faith — now comes persecution from the outside. You would think that would stop it. No. The Word of God multiplied and continued to grow.

The Gospel Expands and the Church Multiplies

The gospel expanded into Asia Minor — part of that area you are familiar with from our study in the second and third chapters of Revelation. The team of Barnabas and Paul came together and moved to Antioch and Iconium. The Jerusalem Council began to deal with issues of practice. Then Barnabas and Paul split — that surely must have been a setback. More persecution followed. And here is how it ends: "So the churches were strengthened in their faith and they increased in their number daily."

What did they do in the midst of all of this? They were faithful. So God was faithful.

Then the gospel moved on into Europe. Paul continued to minister. He and Silas were beaten and imprisoned. Paul was beaten again and again, stoned, shipwrecked. He went into Athens and was run right out of there. Surely that had to be the end. The Word of the Lord grew. The Word of the Lord prevailed.

Finally, Paul was imprisoned. The resistance had been so strong that he appealed to Rome itself, invoking his own Roman citizenship for protection. And what happened in the midst of that persecution? Paul spent two years there, speaking to all who came to see him about the kingdom of God — teaching — and there was no one stopping him, because you cannot stop that. What an incredible study.

Why This Book, Why Now

That is why it was such an obvious book for us to look at next. As we talk about evangelism and everything coming up in the next year, as we talk about preparing for whatever God is going to do here and what He is doing right now — what is causing the growth? Why are there a thousand more people now than there were at Easter last year? What is happening in the midst of that?

Is it a system? Is it a program? Is it the worship? No. It is faithfulness to God's Word. You just teach it and you just live it. All the other things are very important — I am not minimizing those at all — but the foundation is to just faithfully teach it. That is what is going on.

You Are a Witness

Here is the summary — here is the key verse, and we will look at it more closely next week. "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," and here is what you are going to do: you are going to be a witness. That is the key word — witness.

If you are a follower of Christ, you are a witness. Witnessing is not optional. Witnessing is not mandatory. Witnessing is inevitable. You are a witness. When we think of witnessing for Christ, we think of someone telling the truth and proclaiming the gospel. Do not fall into that trap. You can be a bad witness. You are a witness either way. You come in here —

The True Main Character of Acts

You flip through those pages, mark them off, take these cards from Easter, and invite people to your church. You reach out to them, they start to watch you, and you immediately begin to witness to them. Maybe it is an awful witness, but you are a witness. The call is to be a witness who is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is the key character of this book.

As we read through Acts, there is a tendency — at least I have it, and I will confess that — to look at the life of Paul and say, "I want to be like that. Make me Paul-like." But the prayer should not be to make us Paul-like. The prayer should be to make us Christ-like.

Then there is the other side of that temptation: to look at these men and say they were so unusual, so specially blessed, that what they experienced is something we could never aspire to. But that is not true either. The same Holy Spirit who indwelt Paul indwells you and indwells me, and He is just as active and just as alive today. They were obedient. They taught the Word, they lived the Word, they witnessed faithfully — and that is the main character as we look at this book. It is not Peter. It is not Paul. It is the Holy Spirit Himself.

The Danger of Following Personalities

Do you think it is a problem if people start looking at Paul and Peter and the others rather than the Spirit? By the time of First Corinthians chapter 3, it had already become a problem. Paul writes and says, "You are carnal people, filled with envy and division and strife." Here is the problem: some of you say, "I am of Paul," and some of you say, "I am of Apollos."

Paul answers his own question: who is Paul, and who is Apollos? They are ministers through whom you believed, and even then only as God gave to each of you. First Corinthians 3:6 — "I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase." Notice what the text asks: God — who does the work?

Listen to this: "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters." Paul says, "I am nothing. Apollos is nothing." But God gives the increase, so He must be everything. As we read the book of Acts, it is ultimately the book of the way the Holy Spirit moves, and of the power of God that is available to you and me through this book, through this understanding, through this obedience. We begin to see the way these lives are transformed in the simplest, most straightforward way, and God does these mighty things.

A Call to Study and Obedience

That is what we are going to look at together. I am going to ask you to study, to spend time in this book, and to work your way through it. I challenge you to read through the book of Acts this week. Just look at it. Look at the way the Holy Spirit emerges. Look at that outline — all six of those verses speak about the Word of the Lord growing and the Word of the Lord increasing, because they were faithful and they were obedient. That is what was happening there, and the same thing will happen in your life.

We are going to spend some time in this book — I do not know exactly how long, though I would think at least a couple of weeks. As we do, it is our prayer that we would individually and corporately begin to think and walk and act like that early church. Not mimic their methods, but mimic their love for God, their trust of Him, and their obedience to Him. Next week we study chapter 1, verse 1 of the book of Acts.

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*Father, please open our eyes to see this and touch our hearts to understand the truth of it. Transform us. Mold us into the image of Your Son Jesus. Give us a passion for Him and His truth. God, help us be the men and women You have called us to be. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.*