Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles (Greek: Πράξεις των `Αποστόλων) is a book from the canon of the New Testament that narrates how the message of Jesus began to spread through the Roman Empire.[1]

It is used in all Orthodox churches, in the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in almost all so-called reformation churches (Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, Mormons...).

Scientific research with very high certainty attributes this book to the author of the Gospel of Luke, which is traditionally attributed to Saint Luke. Like the Gospel written by Luke, the Acts of the Apostles originates as a letter to a certain Theophilus, for whom there are several assumptions about who he really is. So, some believe that Theophilus was a Roman dignitary, some even that he was one of the Roman judges in the court that was supposed to condemn St. Apostle Paul.[2]

In the original, the Acts of the Apostles do not have any title, but it was assigned to the book in accordance with its content, that is, its essence.[3] The title of the book is admittedly not 100% adequate, since it mainly deals with the life and work of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, while the other apostles are only barely mentioned in some places; he, on the other hand, is justified because "until about the middle of the book, the apostles are mentioned many times as a group (2, 14; 5, 18; 6, 2; 8, 11; 9, 27; 11, 1; 15, 2 -22)".[4] However, some scholars believe that a more appropriate title for the book would be "The Acts of the Holy Spirit" since the Spirit of God inspires and guides most of the acts mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles,[5] that is to say that the emphasis that Luke places on the presence and role of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

The goal of writing a book "The writer's goal is to show how the light of the gospel, together with the Acts of the Apostles, illuminates the cities one after the other, and thus from the mother church in Jerusalem, it passes through the polytheistic world through the entire empire, to finally reach the very heart of the empire, to Rome. The spread of the Christian gospel was carried out by the Holy Spirit, who is strongly and effectively present throughout the Acts of the Apostles."[6]

Although the Acts of the Apostles deals in a very worthy way with the history of the first Church, it is more correct to consider them a continuation of the third gospel, that is, the second part of the same book by the same writer, than to consider them as the history of the first Church.[7] In the words of Harrington, the theme of Luke's book can be expressed as follows: "The Acts of the Apostles shows the general spread of the Christian religion, as it began and advanced with the help of the Holy Spirit." God's guidance and providence can be seen very nicely in the book itself, especially in how St. . the apostle Paul was called by the Lord himself to be an apostle and to preach His Word with an obvious purpose, that the Lord had appointed that place for the apostle Paul (13, 2) and that he constantly guided him in that task (16, 6-10) . As, again, Harrington says in his book, the book of Acts "is neither secular nor church history. It brings one page of the history of salvation".[8]

The book ends by showing that the goal the author set for himself has been fulfilled. The word of God went from Jerusalem to the end of the earth.[9]

The content

The book itself can be divided into several chapters depending on the topic that prevails in that place. There are several divisions that are very similar to each other, and here is the most detailed one:

• Luke's Prologue: A Brief Account of the End of the Gospel According to Luke (1:1-14)
• The early days of the community of believers in Jerusalem (1:15-8:3)
• Spread of Christianity in Judea and Samaria (8:4-12:25)
• The sending of Paul and Barnabas by the Church in Antioch (13:1-14:28)
• Council (meeting) in Jerusalem: requests for Gentile converts (15:1-35)
• Mission of Paul and his companions in Greece and Asia Minor (15:36-20:38)
• Paul's return to Jerusalem and imprisonment in Caesarea (21:1-26:32)
• Paul's imprisonment in Rome (27:1-28:16)
• Paul's life in Rome and the continuation of preaching about Christ (28:17-31)[10]
• Acts of the Apostles can be said to have two parts:
• the part in which Peter is the main character and which takes place mainly around Jerusalem, and
• the part in which Paul is the main character and in this part the sermon goes beyond the previous framework of the spread of Christianity and missionary work even reaches Rome.

Sources

Everything that Luke writes in the introduction to his gospel is certainly understood for the Acts of the Apostles: he takes information from eyewitnesses, presents the events from the beginning, in full, with accuracy and in chronological order. In any case, the question of Luke's sources, both in his gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, is still very complicated in scientific research today and is still much debated.[11]

Time and place of origin

The Tübingen school (in the 19th century) chronologically placed the origin of the Acts of the Apostles in the 2nd century AD because of the idealized representation of the church that we encounter in this book and because of the complete harmony of the relationship between Christians of Jewish origin and Christians of polytheistic origin. Today, the auditoriums of this school are completely abandoned" [12]. Today, the majority of scientists accept as the correct theory that the author of the Acts of the Apostles St. Luka, then in their teachings the time of creation of this book must be placed in AD

References

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