1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• Luke and Acts begin the same way, with an address to Theophilus about the author’s intentions behind the writing. Luke addresses the need for “an orderly account.” Acts continues that account with first a summary of Luke. The beginning of Acts makes clear that it cannot be read and understood without first reading Luke.
• It is unknown who Theophilus was. The name comes from the Greek noun theo (God) and verb phileo (to love), so translated the name is “Lover of God.” He could have been the patron who financed the writing, or an invented character to stand in for the reader who would no doubt also be a “lover of God.”
• In Acts, the disciples from Luke become apostles. In Luke, they were mathetes (disciple, student, pupil). Now in Acts, they are apostolos, from the Greek verb apostello which means “to send.” This shift indicates how they are now sent out by the Spirit into the world.
• The summary of the forty days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension in v. 3 is very short, assuming the reader’s prior knowledge of Luke. One part of the sentence is interesting. The word translated “many convincing proofs” (tekmerion) is only found here in the whole New Testament. It is the same word used in other ancient texts to refer to hard evidence for convincing skeptics.
• “Forty days” echoes Jesus in the wilderness with the Spirit for forty days, the years the Israelites were in the wilderness, the flood, etc. It is a number that marks a period of preparation where God is fully preparing people for their future work.
• The apostles are instructed “not to leave Jerusalem” (1:4a) because according to Luke’s narrative, the path to salvation is through Jerusalem. This is different from Matthew and Mark, where the disciples are instructed to go to Galilee to meet Jesus.
• The third instruction, to “wait for the promise of the Father” for “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,” echoes John the Baptist’s prophesy of the Messiah’s Spirit-filling in Luke 3:16.
• The role of the Holy Spirit is functional rather than soteriological. Meaning, the Holy Spirit gives abilities, not salvation (soteriology is the fancy theological word for the study of salvation). Baptism by the Spirit enables people to witness to the risen Jesus.
• In v. 6-7, the apostles asked if this was the time Israel would be restored. Jesus responded it was not for them to know. There are varying theories to this response. Possibly a comfort to the disappointment of the early church who did not see the restoration of Israel they thought they had been promised. Or a criticism of so-called “prophets” who claimed personal insight to when Christ would return, and in doing so created cult-like and divisive congregations. Dr. Wall thinks the reason is to keep the apostles focus on the “now” rather than the future. They are not to wait for some saving event from the future, but are to begin moving toward that future right now.
• V. 8, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” The apostles will receive power from outside, but it will change them not the world. God’s reign will be reestablished through their mission among God’s people, not by some apocalypse from heaven.
• The word used in v. 8 for “power” is dynamis, which means a robust force at work that all can see and feel. The Spirit doesn’t give the apostles political authority, it gives them skills they didn’t have before in order to accomplish the task in front of them.
• While there were witnesses to the resurrected Jesus, there were no witnesses to the resurrection itself. For the ascension, the author makes it very clear the apostles saw the whole event. That the apostles witnessed Jesus ascension gives them credibility when they speak of how he is alive.
• The “two men in white robes” in v. 10 move the apostles’ attention from the past of Jesus to the future of their work.
• The two men may relate to the Torah requirement that two witnesses are required to confirm the veracity of an event (Deuteronomy 19:15).
Works Sourced:
Smith, Mitzi J. “Commentary on Acts 1:1-11.” Working Preacher.
Wall, Robert W. “The Acts of the Apostles.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002.
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