The Book of Acts

Course Description

As the second volume of Luke’s two-volume work on the History of Christian Origins, the book of Acts plays a pivotal role in the New Testament canon. Looking back to the Gospels and forward to the Letters, the document provides rich fodder for historical, literary and theological reflection, all of which we will want to engage in throughout the term.

Essentially the book covers in broad strokes the progress of the primitive church in its expansion from Jerusalem westward to Rome, all in three adventure-filled decades (ca. AD 30-60). In the course of the narrative, the author reveals his perspective on many doctrinal and practical issues as he documents the penetration of the gospel into the heart of both Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures, often in the face of much opposition and sometimes through less-than-perfect individuals. In this way, the book is both a comfort and a challenge to us who are seeking to live the life of God and do the work of the ministry in the early decades of the twenty-first century.

In pursuit of a fresh reading of this ancient document, we are greatly helped by the appearance of new studies such as the comprehensive four volume commentary by Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (2012-15), an intriguing overview of The Acts of the Apostles through the Centuries by Heidi Hornik and Mikael Parsons (2017), and the important work by C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (2009) which opens with Rowe's conviction that of all New Testament texts it is the book of Acts that "best encompasses the difficulties and promises of thinking through the particularity of Christian theological knowledge and its embeddedness in a comprehensive pattern of life" (p. 3). These and other works will stimulate our thinking around the message of this inspiring work.