7 October 2025
This opening session steps back from the text itself to ask why Acts still grips readers today, who actually wrote it, what Luke was trying to achieve in writing it, and what its theology adds up to - before the class turns, next time, to the words of Acts chapter 1 itself.
Editor's note: This article is a written summary based on the substance of Harry's Bible study on this passage. It is not a verbatim transcript, and while it aims to reflect the heart of the teaching faithfully, it cannot fully convey the warmth, care, and encouragement of the class itself.
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your word and for the privilege of gathering together in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. As we open the Scriptures today, we ask that your Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds and soften our hearts, that we might hear your voice, grow in the knowledge of you, and be equipped to live and speak for Christ. We commit this time of study into your hands, in Jesus' Name, Amen.
Harry opened by underlining just how exciting a book Acts is - arguably the most exciting in the whole Bible. It tells the story of ordinary men, filled with divine power and speaking with an effectiveness far beyond their natural ability, guided by heavenly visions and marked by miraculous healings and rescues. Their progress from a huddle of frightened believers in Jerusalem to the very centre of the civilised world, Rome, is remorseless.
One figure dominates the story: Saul of Tarsus, later Paul. He had zealously persecuted the church, "intensely" trying to destroy it (Galatians 1:13-14), and elsewhere calls himself "the worst" of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Yet after meeting the risen, glorified Christ on the road to Damascus, this persecuting Pharisee became Christianity's chief advocate and missionary to the Gentiles. Acts traces his conversion, travels, preaching, disappointments and successes with complete honesty, right down to his long defence in the closing chapters.
But it is not only Paul. The other apostles were, in the eyes of the religious leaders, simply "unschooled, ordinary men" who were noted only for having "been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13). Acts is the story of how a group of nobodies turned the world upside down and changed the course of history - not through their own ability, but because they believed in Jesus, knew the Father's blessing, and were empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Harry pressed home how bleak things looked before that empowering. To an unbelieving world, Jesus' mission had visibly failed: His disciples had scattered, and He had died on a cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Only 120 remained, gathered to pray in the opening chapter of Acts. They had been encouraged by seeing the risen Jesus - but even that was not enough. They still had to wait for the Father's promise to be fulfilled.
Harry noted that Acts still divides opinion today just as Paul's preaching did in his own day - "some were convinced... but others would not believe" (Acts 28:24). For some, it stirs a longing for the church to know that same empowering of the Spirit again; others read it with doubt, or indifference. Harry left the class with the question he wants us to keep asking as we work through the book:
"Is this Christianity as it really was in the beginning, as we should continue to envisage it, and even as it should be today?"
Although Acts does not name its author, the church has always identified him as Luke, the doctor and travelling companion of Paul (Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24). Harry pointed to the "we" passages that appear especially in the second half of the book - for example Acts 16:10-17, where the narrative suddenly shifts from "they" to "we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia" - as strong internal evidence that the writer was travelling with Paul himself.
Acts is also, as its opening verse makes plain, the second half of a two-part work. Luke's Gospel begins by addressing "most excellent Theophilus" so that he "may know the certainty" of what he had been taught (Luke 1:1-4); Acts opens by referring back to that "former book" about "all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1-2). Luke and Acts are one continuous account.
Harry drew out five reasons Luke gives, or implies, for writing.
Luke is above all writing about the continuation of the work Jesus began - the message of the kingdom of God, centred on Jesus' death and resurrection, carried forward under His name and by His Spirit. Jesus is presented as the long-awaited Messiah, fulfilling Israel's hope and calling, including the calling to be "a light to the Gentiles."
He wants to trace the spread of the new movement and the success of its evangelism, summed up in Jesus' own words: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
He wants to record the beginning, growth and justification of the mission to the Gentiles - worked out especially in Acts 10-11 and 15 - which was central to Paul's own calling.
He wants to portray the new community and the way faith reshaped ordinary social life: believers devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer, holding possessions loosely so that "there were no needy persons among them" (Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37).
And he gives us, in effect, a contents page for the whole book: the gospel in Jerusalem (chapters 1-7); its spread into Judea and Samaria (8-9); its acceptance among the Gentiles (10-12); its success in Asia Minor (13-15); its advance into Europe (16-20); and finally Paul's arrival in Rome (21-28).
God, the sovereign Creator. Acts consistently presents God as "Sovereign Lord," maker of heaven, earth and sea (Acts 4:24; 14:15), who "marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands" so that people "would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him" (Acts 17:24-27). Because He is sovereign, the gospel calls both Jew and Gentile - from Simon the Sorcerer to the philosophers on the Areopagus - to recognise His true character and to repent in the face of coming judgement (Acts 8:18-24; 17:22-31).
Jesus at the centre. Acts continues the story of Jesus begun in Luke's Gospel. His death is shown to be no accident but "God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge" (Acts 2:23), and His resurrection - "God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death" (Acts 2:24) - is the book's central testimony, returned to again and again (2:24-32; 4:33; 10:40-41; 13:30-37; 17:18, 30-31; 23:6; 26:23). The apostles are repeatedly called "witnesses" specifically of the resurrection (1:21-22; 2:32; 3:15; 5:30-32; 10:39-41; 13:29-31; 22:14-15; 26:15-16). And Jesus' "name" becomes the banner under which the whole mission marches - healing, forgiveness and salvation are all found "in the name of Jesus Christ" (2:38; 3:6, 16; 4:10, 12, 30), so much so that the authorities' only real strategy is to try to silence that name (4:17-18).
Mission, from start to finish, by the Spirit. Jesus' parting words double as the book's mission statement: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you... and you will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8) - and Harry noted how fittingly the whole book ends with Paul still doing exactly that, in Rome, "with all boldness and without hindrance" (28:30-31). Every stage of the mission depends on the Spirit: it begins only once the Spirit is given (1:4-5; 2:1-42); its direction at every turn is the Spirit's doing, not human strategy (4:8, 31; 8:29, 39; 10:19-20; 13:2, 4, 9; 16:6-7; 20:22); the decisive moment in anyone's conversion is receiving the Spirit, who knits new believers into the church (2:38; 8:14-17; 9:17; 10:44-48); the Spirit maintains unity and gives grace and insight as the movement grows (9:31; 20:28); and Spirit-inspired prophecy remains a living feature of the churches throughout the narrative, from Pentecost itself to Agabus's warnings to Paul near the end of the book (2:14-18; 11:27-30; 13:1-4; 15:32; 19:1-7; 21:8-14).
Running underneath all of this detail was one consistent, personal challenge. Acts is not offered simply as fascinating ancient history to admire from a safe distance. It is the record of what happens when ordinary, unremarkable people are filled with God's Spirit and given over to His mission - and Harry's repeated point was that the same Spirit, the same name, and the same mission are still on offer to us. The question he left ringing at the start of this series is the one he wants us to keep answering as we go: is the church today expecting, and experiencing, the same empowering of the Spirit that turned the world upside down in the book of Acts?
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you that we are gathered here in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit, open up our hearts and our minds that we might understand your words in the Scriptures and get to know you more, that we might live holy lives, and that we might share the Good News about Jesus in the power of your Spirit, for the building of your Church and the extending of your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, Amen.
