Today we start a new series on the Book of Acts. We’ll cover the first five verses and answer the question: How should we act on the message of Jesus?
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A lot of people view Christianity as merely an ideology or a set of beliefs.
- I just need intellectual assent to the right ideas, believe the right things
- I go to church, read the Bible (occasionally) to learn these ideas
- This is how a recent article struck me: Why I am now a Christian
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Grew up Muslim in Kenya
- “The most striking quality of the Muslim Brotherhood was their ability to transform me and my fellow teenagers from passive believers into activists, almost overnight. We didn’t just say things or pray for things: we did things. As girls we donned the burka and swore off Western fashion and make-up. The boys cultivated their facial hair to the greatest extent possible.”
- Then became an atheist
- “You can see why, to someone who had been through such a religious schooling, atheism seemed so appealing. Bertrand Russell offered a simple, zero-cost escape from an unbearable life of self-denial and harassment of other people.”
- Eventually became a Christian. But why?
- Because only Christianity has “an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom and dignity….”
- This is true, but is this all there is?
- For many “Christians,” yes
- It’s a better ideology than atheism, Islam
- But it’s more than ideology - it should cause us to act.
Acts 1:1-2
Acts 1:1-2 (NLT) "In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit."
- In my first book
- Acts is Part 2 of the Luke-Acts volume
- (Expositor's Bible Commentary: Abridged Edition (2 Volumes)) Luke-Acts being originally one work in two volumes, which sometime during the last part of the first century or very early in the second began to circulate as two separate works
- (Expositor's Bible Commentary: Abridged Edition (2 Volumes)) The Acts of the Apostles was originally written as the second part of a two-volume work, and its inseparable relation to Luke's gospel must be kept in mind if we are to understand the work.
- Luke 1:1-4 (NLT) 1 Many people have set out to write accounts about the events that have been fulfilled among us. 2 They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples. 3 Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write an accurate account for you, most honorable Theophilus, 4 so you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught.
- So the author was obviously Luke (the doctor)
- Colossians 4:14...
