Study of the Book of Acts
Chapter 1
1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Acts is a book most likely written by Luke, making the “first book” that it mentions in the first verst the book of Luke. The book of Luke was about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Therefore, since this is the second book, we can logically assume that this book is going to talk about the rest of Jesus’ ministry and how to apply his teachings to our lives and to our church. This is why I feel God is calling me to take an in depth look into the book of Acts. I have a very strong desire to start a church one day. Not so that I can get glory, but because there are a lot of people in the world who need the gospel. I really applaud missionaries that go over seas, but I am really feeling called to help people in our country who have heard the Word, but just have not accepted it for any number of reasons. I really love that people are reaching the world for Christ. I just feel like I can’t leave my own country unattended when there are so many on our soil that need Christ. However, I know nothing about what a Biblical church should look like. I have just always assumed that whichever church I was going to at any given time was perfect and that is what a church should look like. But that is not the case at all. In fact, I don’t think there is any one way that a church needs to look. In fact, I firmly believe that church should be contextualized to fit the needs of its given community. However, there is a difference in contextualizing practices and contextualizing beliefs. Practices should be altered to attract any given culture to the church so that you can share Christ with them. Beliefs should come only from Scripture and should never be altered for anyone. That is why I am readying Acts. So that I can get some semblance of an idea about what beliefs my future church should or should not have. So I guess we can just start with the first few verses. First, since I have already mentioned the first couple verses, I just want to point out that the third verse brings proof of the resurrected body of Christ. The resurrection is obviously one of the most important doctrines in the Christian faith because without the resurrection Christians would be worshipping a dead guy, like a lot of other religions do (Buddhism-Buddha, Islam-Mohammad). So the first doctrinal issue brought up by the book of Acts is that Jesus did in fact appear to many people, not just that apostles, after his crucifixion. In fact, Jesus spent more than a month (40 days) roaming the Earth discussing the Kingdom AFTER he had risen from the dead. Jesus told the disciples to stay and Jerusalem to wait for the promise of God that means the Holy Spirit. Why do you think Jesus told them to wait? I am not entirely sure to tell you the truth, however, I think there are some important lessons to learn from listening to Jesus telling us to wait. First of all we learn of God’s provision for us. God made a promise to the disciples that the Holy Spirit was going to come and lead them after Jesus’ ascension (that is Jesus going up to heaven to be with the Father) and God never breaks his promises. He knew that Jesus was going to be leaving soon and that the people would need another force to teach and to guide them in the ways of the Father, so He sent the Holy Spirit. God will never put us in a situation without help. His provision is perfect. The next thing we learn is to listen to Jesus and be obedient. We must be patient. If we are patient God will deliver on His promises sooner. If we disobey we are really just causing the promise to be further away and therefore setting ourselves up for more failure because we will be impatient again and through being impatient we will cause God to postpone even more. We must wait for the promise of the Father. The last thing we learn from this verse (well not the last thing I am sure but the last thing I can think of at the moment) is the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is alive and strong in us and we must utilize the Spirit’s abilities in reaching the world. So in these few short verses, we learn a lot about some things that a church needs to believe to be Biblically accurate. Jesus has been glorified through the resurrection and His Ascension into Heaven. God will provide for absolutely all our needs through His perfect provision. We must be patient in our prayers and our daily walk with the Lord. The Holy Spirit is a force of God and is God living in and throughout our lives working for the good of the world, but for the good of our own souls and lives as well. :) If you have any questions or comments you can either leave them here or feel free to email me at any time. kpsattler@gmail.com Love you! Seriously.
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