What Is at the Heart of the Book of Acts?
The Purpose of Luke’s Writing
If you think about it, Acts is kind of a funny name for a book, isn’t it? It immediately raises the question, “Whose acts? What acts?”
Of course, the fuller name we find in our English Bibles for this book is Acts of the Apostles. Luke, the author of this book, didn’t actually give it that title. It wasn’t until the third century that the early church gave it this designation. Why might they have given it that title?
This book certainly tells the story of what happened to and through the twelve apostles and the apostle Paul in the thirty or so years following the death and resurrection of Jesus. It particularly focuses on the ministry of Peter in the first part of the book and then on the ministry of Paul in the second part.
But if this is a book about what the apostles did, it is interesting that after the twelve are listed in the first chapter, we don’t hear anything else about most of them, while we have several chapters about the ministries of Stephen and Philip, who were not among the twelve apostles, and Paul, who was added as an apostle. So perhaps providing an account of the actions taken by the apostles was not the primary focus or purpose of Luke’s writing.
Saved
Nancy Guthrie
Saved, by bestselling author Nancy Guthrie, gives individuals and small groups a friendly, theologically reliable, and robust guide to understanding the book of Acts.
Acts of the Holy Spirit?
Some have suggested that this book is really about the acts of the Holy Spirit. Certainly the descent of the Holy Spirit is central to this book. It begins with the dramatic descent of the Holy Spirit on the 120 believers gathered in the upper room and Peter’s Spiritempowered sermon in Jerusalem during the feast of Pentecost. From there, the narrative is driven by the expanding circle of those on whom the Spirit descends—on Samaritans (Acts 8:17), on Saul (Acts 9:17), and on God-fearing Gentiles gathered at the house of Cornelius (Acts 10:44; Acts 11:15).
We see the Spirit at work to make the disciples bold in speaking the word of God (Acts 4:31), to enable Agabus to foresee a coming famine (Acts 11:28), to provide divine instruction and direction (Acts 8:29; 11:12; 13:2; 16:6; 19:21; 20:22; 21:4), to provide divine transport (Acts 8:39), to comfort God’s people (Acts 9:31), to provide clarity on the requirements of God (Acts 15:28), and to reveal coming persecution (Acts 20:23; 21:11). Significantly we see the same Spirit who enabled Jesus to do signs and wonders (Acts 2:22) enable his disciples to do signs and wonders again and again throughout the book to authenticate their ministry as being connected to his (Acts 2:43; 4:30; 5:12; 6:8; 8:6; 14:3; 15:12; 28:8–9).
We could rightly say that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on those who put their faith in Christ was a watershed event in human history. Indeed, it marked the dawn of a new age in redemptive history, the dawning of “the last days,” the age that stretches from Pentecost until the return of Christ.
Certainly the descent, filling, and work of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts is important and unique to this book. Yet if we’re trying to get at the purpose or aim of the book, we recognize that the descent and indwelling of the Holy Spirit was not an end in itself, but rather served a greater end. What is that end?
Acts of the Preached Word?
When we examine how the Spirit works throughout the book of Acts, we see again and again that the Spirit works through the preached word. Yes, the Spirit speaks and acts directly at numerous points, but most significantly, we see the Spirit working through the means of the preached word of Christ. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit gave his people the supernatural ability to announce the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ in languages they didn’t know before. Peter preached and the Spirit worked through it, and those who heard were cut to the heart.
So perhaps another possible title for this book could be Acts of the Word. The word almost seems to take on an identity of its own in this book, as it is spreading. The Spirit works through the word to accomplish a work of new creation. Indeed, we could organize the book around the statements of what the word is doing and how it is spreading:
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Immediately following Pentecost we read that three thousand people heard the word preached by Peter and received it (Acts 2:41). And from there the word continues to spread.
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The apostles are arrested and beaten and told not to teach. But they do it anyway. And in Acts 6:7 we read, “The word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”
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Stephen is stoned to death and James is killed by the sword, but we read in Acts 12:24, “The word of God increased and multiplied.”
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Saul and Barnabas make Antioch their headquarters, and we read, “The word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region” (Acts 13:49).
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In his second missionary journey, Paul and Silas go to fartherout places, “so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily” (Acts 19:20).
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When we come to the end of the book, Paul has faced storm and shipwreck, and he is imprisoned in Rome, facing execution. And what does he do? “From morning till evening he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (Acts 28:23).
So the book of Acts is about the acts of the apostles, the acts of the Spirit, and very much about the acts of the preached word. But there is yet another option to consider as a possible title.
The heart of Jesus is still with his people. The hand of Jesus is still at work among his people.
Acts of the Enthroned Lord Jesus?
In the first verse of Acts, Luke writes, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). In his Gospel, Luke wrote about the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Implied in his statement is that in this second part of his two-part work, the book of Acts, he is going to present what Jesus continued to do and teach.
This means that the transition from Luke to Acts is not from what Jesus did to what the apostles did. Rather, the transition is from what Jesus did while on earth to what Jesus continued to do from heaven. So perhaps another alternative title for this book could be, Acts of the Enthroned Lord Jesus.1 As we read through the book of Acts, the Lord Jesus is at the center of the action. We hear him calling to himself those who are far off (Acts 2:39); adding new believers to his church (Acts 2:47; 11:21); sending his angel to open prison doors (Acts 5:19; 12:11); providing direction to his disciples (Acts 8:26; 9:11); appearing to Stephen and Saul (Acts 7:59–60; 9:17); speaking to Saul (Acts 9:5; 18:9; 23:11), to Cornelius (Acts 10:4), and to Peter (Acts 10:14); striking down those who persecute his people (Acts 12:23); opening the hearts of hearers of God’s word (Acts 16:14); and appointing ministers of his word (Acts 20:24).
We can never think that Jesus is unconcerned or uninvolved in the affairs of his people and the spread of his gospel. The heart of Jesus is still with his people. The hand of Jesus is still at work among his people. But, we might ask, at work to accomplish what? The risen and enthroned Lord Jesus is at work by his Spirit giving his apostles boldness to preach, adding to their number, equipping them to establish churches.
But to what end? We’re left, once again, searching for the deeper purpose toward which the apostles, the Spirit, the word, and the enthroned Lord Jesus are acting.
God’s Plan of Salvation Being Carried Out
Perhaps we find help with this by looking at the bookends to Luke’s two-volume work. One bookend is Luke’s birth narrative of Jesus, where we are told numerous times that the child Mary is carrying is the one who will “give knowledge of salvation to his people” (Luke 1:77). When Simeon takes the baby Jesus into his arms, he praises God saying, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30). In Luke 3, Luke quotes Isaiah 40:3–5 and says that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6). The other bookend is Acts 28:28. After quoting Isaiah 6:9–10, Paul proclaims, “Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.” In between these two bookends, we’re told that the content of the message that the apostles have been empowered by the Spirit to declare is “the message of salvation” (Acts 13:26), or “the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17). Peter declares, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). So, if we wanted to capture what the whole of the book of Acts is about in a sentence, perhaps one way to say it would be this: The enthroned Lord Jesus is at work by his Spirit through his apostles who are preaching the word, taking the gospel to every nation, and it is accomplishing its intended purpose: people are being saved.
No other Gospel writer uses the word saved and its various forms as much as Luke. In the book of Acts, he uses saved, or some form of it, twenty-one times.2 Indeed, salvation is at the heart of the promise of the book of Acts, the promise that we want to experience for ourselves and for everyone we love. And that is: “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21). What generosity of grace!
But what does it really mean to be saved or to experience salvation? In the Old Testament, salvation was about deliverance, preservation, and rescue from enemies. Moses told the people cornered and scared on the shores of the Red Sea that they should “fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today” (Ex. 14:13). They were saved from the Egyptian army when the Lord rolled back the waters of the Red Sea. But as the Bible’s story progresses, we begin to see that the salvation he worked for this one nation throughout the Old Testament was really a shadow of a far greater and more pervasive salvation he intends to work for people from every nation.
The Bible is a book that recounts the work of God accomplishing his great purpose for history: to save his people from their greatest enemies, sin and death, and deliver them into the safety and rest of his presence. In the Gospels we see how God is working for the salvation of his people through the incarnation, Jesus’s sinless life, his death, and his resurrection. And in the book of Acts we see how the Lord Jesus is continuing to work out God’s eternal plan of salvation for his people through his ascension, his session as he sits at God’s right hand ruling over and interceding for us, and in pouring out his Spirit at Pentecost. We also discover that “his people” includes people from every nation, of every culture and race. God intends to save a people for himself made up of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). We await the final great work of salvation to come, when the Lord Jesus will return to destroy his enemies and usher in the new creation. On that day we will experience salvation in all of its glorious fullness.
Notes:
- One of the books I found most helpful in writing this book is The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus by Alan J. Thompson (Grand Rapids, MI: InterVarsity Press, 2013). Another is In the Fullness of Time by Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), who, in discussing the title of the book of Acts, suggests, “‘Acts of the Exalted Christ through the Apostles,’ or, going all out (in quasi seventeenth-century Puritan style), ‘Acts of the Exalted Christ by the Holy Spirit in the Church as Founded by Him through the Apostles,’” 59.
- Patrick Schreiner, Acts, Christian Standard Commentary (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2022), 21.
This article is adapted from Saved: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Acts by Nancy Guthrie.
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