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The book of Acts is the earliest known record of the growth and development of the apostolic Christian church, and the only such record written before the fourth century. Many Christians say they long for a return to the simple faith and worship and power of the first-century church . . . here in Acts we find the most reliable model of that.

Acts is a bridge between the gospel records of the ministry of Jesus and the letters (or epistles). It provides historical background for the letters. To try and accurately understand the early church without the benefit of Acts—to try and understand Paul and his letters without Acts—would seem impossible.

Acts is also a model for a missionary program . . . because, in large part, that’s what Acts is all about. And furthermore, since so much of the focus of Acts is how to bring the gospel across great cultural divides, it may provide helpful insights for us in 21^st century America.

Acts begins with Jesus ascension to heaven, but culturally it begins almost 400 years earlier . . . when Alexander the Great of Macedonia conquers the known world from Greece to Egypt to India with his state-of-the-art military weapon called a phlanx—a poor man’s tank. Alexander is a missionary for Greek culture, which we today call "Hellenism." Some say Hellenism is a lot like what we practice in 21^st century America. It’s a focus on beauty . . . in buildings and people . . . like the Parthenon with its statue of the goddess Athena. It’s unbridled hedonism and free love. It’s many gods—with great power but human weaknesses. It’s theater and horse racing and nude athletic competitions. And it’s a "western" thought process, with emphasis on logic . . . a focus on "form" vs "function."

As one example of the different thought patterns . . . it is reported that in Turkey, Alexander the Great was shown the Gordion knot—with no beginning and no end—and told of prophesy that the next emperor would be the one who could untie it. Alexander didn't bother with the subtleties of this task; he took his sword and cut it.

Conquest by the Greeks brought massive culture shock to the Jews. Hellenism is the epitomy of evil in their minds. Yes, Jewish religious leaders welcomed Alexander when he arrived in Jerusalem . . . but 150 years later, Jewish guerillas led by the Maccabees defeated Alexander’s successors—the Selucids—and established an independent Jewish nation, which lasted until it was conquered by the Rome 100 years later.

The Romans are organizers and engineers; they care little about anyone's culture. The Romans build a vast network of military roads and maintain a worldwide peace so that the gospel of Jesus can be spread relatively freely—but that’s another topic. Culturally, the Romans adopt the hedonism of Hellenism is fun with only minor changes. Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem again collaborate with their new rulers . . . to preserve what they can of Judaism—and, most important, to preserve their high positions. But rank-and-file Jews in the rural synagogues are very uncomfortable living under Hellenism and evil Roman rulers. This was Israel at the time of Jesus . . . and at the time of Acts.

I should add—and this is important—that the "religion" of Hellenism is spiritually unfulfilling, and many Gentiles attend synagogue services and learn about Judaism; these are the so-called "God-fearing Gentiles." Some even are circumcized and become Jews.

As Acts begins, Jesus gives the Apostles what I’ll call "the Second Great Commission," in verse 1:8:

Before the apostles can ask Jesus what this really means this, He ascends to heaven . . . while they watch. Ten days later at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit arrives . . . with tongues of fire. This is not the first time the Holy Spirit has come to mankind, but it’s the first time it has come upon people en masse, and moved into their hearts as a counselor.

So . . . emboldened by evidence of the resurrection of Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ followers do amazing things in Jerusalem: they preach and heal and defy the Jewish religious establishment . . . until the religious establishment finally has enough. They stone a new disciple named Stephen. Anti-Christian persecution breaks out . . . which is actually good, because most Christians flee Jerusalem and become missionaries to Judea and Samaria and beyond. Christians are pursued by zealous Jews, including a young Pharisee named Saul, who pursues them to Damascus. But before he arrives, Jesus appears to Saul, and he himself becomes a Christian.

The Christian church—up until now—consists entirely of Jews. Let’s remember how intensely the Jews dislike the Greco-Roman culture and the Gentiles who practice it. The rabbis teach that Jews are automatically "saved" and non-Jews automatically damned; pious Jews have no social associations with Gentiles. Yet the rest of Acts involves taking Christianity to the Gentiles. Today, it’s normal to want to share the gospel with people of all cultures and races, but 2000 years ago that was a radical idea!

How is this great cultural barrier bridged? To make a long story short: Peter has a vision from God; the Holy Spirit comes upon Gentile Christians. And only then do the Jewish Christians agree to accept Gentiles . . . but some Jewish Christians agree to accept them only with onorous conditions, as we shall see!

Meanwhile in Antioch—the 3^rd largest city in the Roman Empire, former capital of the Greek Selucids, overthrown by the Maccabees—large numbers of Gentiles are becoming believers in Jesus. The church in Jerusalem sends an emissary to verify the legitimacy of this movement . . . then calls Saul from his home in Tarsus—just over 100 miles away—to instruct these new Christians.

Saul does even more. After building up the church in Antioch, he goes to preach Jesus in central Turkey, using his Roman name, Paul. He wins many more converts—and encounters fierce Jewish opposition.

But while Paul is away from Antioch, Pharisee-Christians come from Jerusalem, and tell the new Gentile believers they must, essentially, become Jews and follow the oral law of the Pharisees. This precipitates what is called the "Council of Jerusalem," in which the "church fathers" meet to decide this issue. Ultimately, they agree that Gentile Christians need only do two things: demonstrate separation ("holiness") from the immorality of their Greco-Roman civilization, and prepare foods in such a way that they can eat with Jews without causing offense.

Pharisee-Christians don’t accept this defeat. Over and over they try to undercut Paul’s work and the ruling of the Council of Jerusalem . . . and to this very day their spiritual offspring continue trying to impose a yoke of oppressive legalism upon the freedom we have as Christian believers.

Nevertheless, flushed with victory at the Council of Jerusalem, Paul sets out on an even more ambitious missionary journey . . . to more of Turkey and on to Greece. There, he confronts the greatest philosophers of Hellenism in their intellectual citadel of Athens. Paul returns to Antioch . . . then strikes out on a 3^rd missionary journey, also to Turkey and Greece. But Paul’s effective preaching has a down side: Jewish opposition intensifies, and silversmiths in Ephesus riot over his preaching, fearful people will quit buying their shrines to the goddess Artemis.

Paul returns to Jerusalem . . . where he precipitates another riot—this one by Jews. For his protection, Paul is taken prisoner by the Roman army. But the Jews pursue him doggedly, by fair means and foul, until ultimately Paul demands a trial by the emperor in Rome, rather a Jewish "hanging judge" in Jerusalem. This is Paul's right as a Roman citizen . . . but it means Paul is taken on an arduous sea journey to Rome—as a prisoner of Caesar. In Rome Paul is only under house arrest, so he is free to preach Jesus and write letters to the churches he founded . . . which he is doing as Acts comes to an end.

Within the framework of this story, lots of important issues are addressed . . . which we will discuss in the next 24 weeks. We learn about Holy Spirit. After Jesus ascended to heaven, the Holy Spirit came to live within believers . . . to empower them to do Jesus’ work on earth. We see this over and over in Acts.

We also learn in Acts about the universalism of the gospel of Jesus: the applicability of God’s grace to non-Jews. We experience the clash between the Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures . . . yet we see Paul translate the good news of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, into something understood in the Gentile culture and mindset. On the other hand, although Acts also emphasizes the continuity between traditional Judaism and the gospel of Jesus. . . we see overwhelming, vehement Jewish rejection of Christianity. We’ll want to learn why.

Acts constantly reminds us that cross-centered preaching produces exponential growth. The "gospel" is always the same: forgiveness of sins has been made possible by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. How do we grow the church the 21^st century? To answer that in the modern vernacular: "Well, duuhh . . . "

But, lastly, we see efforts within the early church to convince Christians to give up the freedom Jesus promises . . . and replace that freedom with the shackles of legalism. Why, we ask, does anyone listen to that? Indeed: why do modern Christians listen to modern legalists?

This ought to be an interesting study.

Who is the author of Acts? It’s Luke, a physician from Antioch, a Gentile who became a believer and disciple, and followed Paul on his missionary journeys until his martyrdom. Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, in which the author promises "an orderly account" based interviews with "eyewitnesses and servants of the word," which have been "carefully investigated" (Luke 1:2-3).

Luke wrote Acts in the early 60’s AD—before Paul and Peter were martyred in the persecution of Christians by Nero in AD 64-67, and before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.

There are some detractors who say Luke is not the author, and that the writing occurred as much as 100 years later. The date and authorship of the Book of Acts was rarely discussed until fairly recently. And those who question it are the same so-called "scholars" who seem to feel virtually everything in the New Testament is a myth or a contrived story (written long after the fact to accomplish someone’s agenda). And the authorship by Luke of Acts—and the gospel of Luke—is one of the least disputable facts of the New Testament . . . for very good reasons, which I won’t discuss tonight.

I find it exciting that Acts is an eyewitness account. The author was a participant in many of the events he reports . . . he actually heard many of the speeches he transcribes. And with regard to those events he did not witness first hand, he was scrupulously careful to accurately record eyewitness testimony.

Luke was a product of the Greco-Roman world. He knew that to receive a hearing from his Greco-Roman audience, he had to adhere to certain "norms" established by the great Greek historiographers, including a rigorous methodology which required the utmost historical accuracy. His research had to be comprehensive; his narrative had to be based on evidence obtained from eyewitnesses and reliable written accounts; and his account had to be chronologically accurate. Luke could not afford to be sloppy, even on details such as dates, political titles, and legal matters. To his readership, mistakes even in the small print would immediately invalidate the remainder of the narrative. And in fact, Luke has been proven reliable with respect to descriptions of political realities, and there are no references in Acts to things outside their proper time frame.

Acts is the "real deal." As we read Acts, we can almost reach out and touch the apostles . . . and especially Paul. We can feel we are in the audience for the great speeches.

I’m going to close with a 2-dollar word: hermeneutics. You don’t need to remember it after we leave here tonight . . . but essentially it’s the science of interpreting ancient texts—and it’s important in our study of Acts.

Since the 16^th century, the primary rule of hermeneutics—at least among believers—has been to allow the Bible to speak for itself . . . to use every tool at our disposal to hear the intended message of the original author. This includes reading each passage in its larger literary context, and hearing each message against the background of its proper historical context.

However, over the last 50+ years, there have been distinct steps backwards. Influenced by Post-modernists and New Agers—and consistent with the baby boomer "Me Generation" mentality—Christians have begun falling into what some call the "this is what the Bible means to me" trap. Some people who call themselves Christians even adopt the "this is what I think the Bible ought to say" fallacy . . . substituting their personal opinions for the word of God. We call this philosophy "New Age," but it's really the same temptation to make ourselves like God that goes back to the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. Do we have the right to believe the bible means whatever we think it means? . . . to replace the Word of God with our word? That would imply we are under an inspiration equal to that of the writer of Scripture . . . because that’s what it takes to override the message intended by the original author.

At another extreme, hyper-literalist Christians treat the New Testament letters as if they were written last week from someone in the next county. They're not. The New Testament letters were written almost 2000 years ago to people with a very different culture than our own . . . with problems and concerns we may know nothing about. These letters must be understood in historical and cultural context. We can't uncritically transpose them onto the 21^st century, and claim we're being "obedient" to God's word; that's just being stupid.

The Bible is rich in meaning on many different levels. We can disagree on the meaning of the Bible . . . and disagreement can be healthy. But we must always begin with what I call "faithful hermeneutics." We must first understand the inspired, intended meaning of God’s Word . . . as the original hearers understood it. Only then can we accurately apply the Bible to the 21^st century. All other approaches, however well-meaning—"Me Generation," hyper-literalist, whatever—risk a return to the spiritual bondage which characterized the Church before the 16^th century Reformation.

So, as we study Acts, we will try very hard to hear the words of Luke as his 1^st century Jewish and Greco-Roman audience heard them . . . and to use that as a springboard to apply them to 21^st century America.