TPT The Book of Acts E-Book

Brian Simmons

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Passionate Life Bible Study Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 213

Beschreibung

The book of Acts is a vivid portrait of the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit is central, anointing God's people to bear witness to the gospel and perform mighty wonders and healing miracles. This book will awaken your soul and empower you to join the apostles in spreading God's kingdom on earth.      This 12-lesson study guide on the book of Acts, designed for both individual and group study, provides a unique and welcoming opportunity to immerse yourself in God's precious Word as expressed in The Passion Translation®. Begin your journey exploring details regarding the authorship of Acts, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. The study then walks you through every portion from the book and includes features such as notable verses, historical and cultural background information, definitions of words and language, cross references to other books of the Bible, and character portraits of figures from the Bible and church history.      Enrich your biblical understanding of the book of Acts, experience God's love for you, and share his heart with others.  

Leseprobe

BroadStreet Publishing® Group, LLC

Savage, Minnesota, USA

BroadStreetPublishing.com

TPT: The Book of Acts: 12-Lesson Bible Study Guide

Copyright © 2024 BroadStreet Publishing Group

9781424567645 (softcover)

9781424567652 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018, 2020 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT). Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

General editor: Brian Simmons

Managing editor: William D. Watkins

Writer: William D. Watkins

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Printed in China

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Contents

From God’s Heart to Yours

Why I Love the Book of Act

Lesson 1

Luke and His Acts of the Apostles

Part 1

Messengers to Jerusalem

Lesson 2

Jesus Keeps His Promise

Lesson 3

Church Expansion and Threats

Part 2

Messengers to All Judea and Samaria

Lesson 4

The Ministry and Martyrdom of Stephen

Lesson 5

From Philip to Saul

Part 3

Messengers to the Rest of the World

Lesson 6

Peter and the Gentiles

Lesson 7

Paul’s First Missionary Journey

Lesson 8

Paul’s Second Missionary Journey

Lesson 9

Paul’s Third Missionary Journey

Lesson 10

Captivity in Jerusalem

Lesson 11

Captivity in Caesarea

Lesson 12

Captivity in Rome

Endnotes

From God’s Heart to Yours

“God is love,” says the apostle John, and “Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him” (1 John 4:7). The life of a Christ-follower is, at its core, a life of love—God’s love of us, our love of him, and our love of others and ourselves because of God’s love for us.

And this divine love is reliable, trustworthy, unconditional, other-centered, majestic, forgiving, redemptive, patient, kind, and more precious than anything else we can ever receive or give. It characterizes each person of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and so is as limitless as they are. They love one another with this eternal love, and they reach beyond themselves to us, created in their image with this love.

How do we know such incredible truths? Through the primary source of all else we know about the one God—his Word, the Bible. Of course, God reveals who he is through other sources as well, such as the natural world, miracles, our inner life, our relationships (especially with him), those who minister on his behalf, and those who proclaim him to us and others. But the fullest and most comprehensive revelation we have of God and from him is what he has given us in the thirty-nine books of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) and the twenty-seven books of the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament). Together, these sixty-six books present a compelling and telling portrait of God and his dealings with us.

It is these Scriptures that The Passionate Life Bible Study Series is all about. Through these study guides, we—the editors and writers of this series—seek to provide you with a unique and welcoming opportunity to delve more deeply into God’s precious Word, encountering there his loving heart for you and all the others he loves. God wants you to know him more deeply, to love him more devoutly, and to share his heart with others more frequently and freely. To accomplish this, we have based this study guide series on The Passion Translation of the Bible, which strives to “reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader. It doesn’t merely convey the literal meaning of words. It expresses God’s passion for people and his world by translating the original, life-changing message of God’s Word for modern readers.” It has been created to “kindle in you a burning desire to know the heart of God, while impacting the church for years to come.”1

In each study guide, you will find an introduction to the Bible book it covers. There you will gain information about that Bible book’s authorship, date of composition, first recipients, setting, purpose, central message, and key themes. Each lesson following the introduction will take a portion of that Bible book and walk you through it so you will learn its content better while experiencing and applying God’s heart for your own life and encountering ways you can share his heart with others. Along the way, you will come across a number of features we have created that provide opportunities for more life application and growth in biblical understanding.

  Experience God’s Heart

This feature focuses questions on personal application. It will help you live out God’s Word and to bring the Bible into your world in fresh, exciting, and relevant ways.

  Share God’s Heart

This feature will help you grow in your ability to share with other people what you learn and apply in a given lesson. It provides guidance on using the lesson to grow closer to others and to enrich your fellowship with others. It also points the way to enabling you to better listen to the stories of others so you can bridge the biblical story with their stories.

  The Backstory

This feature provides ancient historical and cultural background that illuminates Bible passages and teachings. It deals with then-pertinent religious groups, communities, leaders, disputes, business trades, travel routes, customs, nations, political factions, ancient measurements and currency…in short, anything historical or cultural that will help you better understand what Scripture says and means.

  Word Wealth

This feature provides definitions for and other illuminating information about key terms, names, and concepts, and how different ancient languages have influenced the biblical text. It also provides insight into the different literary forms in the Bible, such as prophecy, poetry, narrative history, parables, and letters, and how knowing the form of a text can help you better interpret and apply it. Finally, this feature highlights the most significant passages in a Bible book. You may be encouraged to memorize these verses or keep them before you in some way so you can actively hide God’s Word in your heart.

  Digging Deeper

This feature explains the theological significance of a text or the controversial issues that arise and mentions resources you can use to help you arrive at your own conclusions. Another way to dig deeper into the Word is by looking into the life of a biblical character or another person from church history, showing how that man or woman incarnated a biblical truth or passage. For instance, Jonathan Edwards was well known for his missions work among native American Indians and for his intellectual prowess in articulating the Christian faith, Florence Nightingale for the reforms she brought about in healthcare, Irenaeus for his fight against heresy, Billy Graham for his work in evangelism, Moses for the strength God gave him to lead the Hebrews and receive and communicate the law, and Deborah for her work as a judge in Israel. This feature introduces to you figures from the past who model what it looks like to experience God’s heart and share his heart with others.

  The Extra Mile

While The Passion Translation’s notes are extensive, sometimes students of Scripture like to explore more on their own. In this feature, we provide you with opportunities to glean more information from a Bible dictionary, a Bible encyclopedia, a reliable Bible online tool, another ancient text, and the like. Here you will learn how you can go the extra mile on a Bible lesson. And not just in study either. Reflection, prayer, discussion, and applying a passage in new ways provide even more opportunities to go the extra mile. Here you will find questions to answer and applications to make that will require more time and energy from you—if and when you have them to give.

As you can see above, each of these features has a corresponding icon so you can quickly and easily identify them.

You will find other helps and guidance through the lessons of these study guides, including thoughtful questions, application suggestions, and spaces for you to record your own reflections, answers, and action steps. Of course, you can also write in your own journal, notebook, computer document, or other resource, but we have provided you with space for your convenience.

Also, each lesson will direct you toward the introductory material and numerous notes provided in The Passion Translation. There each Bible book contains a number of aids supplied to help you better grasp God’s words and his incredible love, power, knowledge, plans, and so much more. We want you to get the most out of your Bible study, especially using it to draw you closer to the One who loves you most.

Finally, at the end of each lesson you’ll find a section called “Talking It Out.” This contains questions and exercises for application that you can share, answer, and apply with your spouse, a friend, a coworker, a Bible study group, or any other individuals or groups who would like to walk with you through this material. As Christians, we gather together to serve, study, worship, sing, evangelize, and a host of other activities. We grow together, not just on our own. This section will give you ample opportunities to engage others with some of the content of each lesson so you can work it out in community.

We offer all of this to support you in becoming an even more faithful and loving disciple of Jesus Christ. A disciple in the ancient world was a student of her teacher, a follower of his master. Students study, and followers follow. Jesus’ disciples are to sit at his feet and listen and learn and then do what he tells them and shows them to do. We have created The Passionate Life Bible Study Series to help you do what a disciple of Jesus is called to do.

So go.

Read God’s words.

Hear what he has to say in them and through them.

Meditate on them.

Hide them in your heart.

Display their truths in your life.

Share their truths with others.

Let them ignite Jesus’ passion and light in all you say and do.

Use them to help you fulfill what Jesus called his disciples to do: “Now wherever you go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them to faithfully follow all that I have commanded you. And never forget that I am with you every day, even to the completion of this age” (Matthew 28:19–20).

And through all of this, let Jesus’ love nourish your heart and allow that love to overflow into your relationships with others (John 15:9–13). For it was for love that Jesus came, served, died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. This love he gives us. And this love he wants us to pass along to others.

Why I Love the Book of Acts

The book of Acts, the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, is a captivating narrative that chronicles the dynamic and transformative journey of the early Christian church. Often referred to as the “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” this book is a source of inspiration and revelation for believers seeking a deeper understanding of the power and wisdom bestowed upon followers of Jesus.

The book of Acts holds a special place in the hearts of many, myself included. Here are some reasons why I love it.

The Supernatural Becomes Natural: One of the most enchanting aspects of Acts is its vivid portrayal of the supernatural becoming a natural part of the lives of believers. Miracles of healing, the raising of the dead, and other acts of divine intervention are not just confined to ancient history but are also presented as tangible experiences for those who align themselves with the teachings of Christ. The book serves as a reminder that the power of God is not a distant concept but a living force that can manifest in our lives today.

The Unhindered Gospel: Acts underscores the unstoppable nature of the gospel. Despite challenges, persecution, and opposition, the message of salvation spreads like wildfire. The book of Acts demonstrates that human limitations or external circumstances do not bind the gospel; it is the dynamic power of God bringing salvation to the ends of the earth. The resilience and unyielding force of the gospel inspires believers to share their faith boldly, knowing that God’s purpose cannot be hindered.

Explosive Church Growth: Acts provides a front-row seat to witness the explosive growth of the early Christian church. From a humble gathering of one hundred twenty believers, the church expands dramatically, with over three thousand joining in a single day. This phenomenal growth is attributed to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, transforming a small and hesitant group of believers into a powerful force for good. Acts serves as a blueprint for contemporary believers, encouraging them to anticipate and embrace growth fueled by the Holy Spirit.

Bridging Historical Gaps: The absence of Acts would leave a significant historical gap between the events of the Gospels and the writing of the New Testament epistles. This book serves as a crucial link, providing essential information about the establishment and growth of early Christian communities. It answers questions about the origins of specific churches, such as Corinth, and lays the foundation for understanding the context in which the New Testament epistles were written.

Actions Speak Louder Than Doctrines: Unlike some parts of the Bible that focus predominantly on doctrinal teachings, the book of Acts is a narrative filled with actions. It vividly illustrates the powerful expression of the Holy Spirit flowing through believers, emphasizing the importance of hearing the Word and living it out in our daily lives. Reading Acts challenges us to move beyond theological discussions and embrace a faith that is active and transformative.

In my view, the book of Acts is a treasure trove of inspiration, offering a glimpse into the Christian church’s early days and the Holy Spirit’s extraordinary acts. It ignites a passion for the supernatural, underscores the resilience of the gospel, and provides a historical foundation for the remaining New Testament. As we delve into the pages of Acts, we discover a timeless truth: the same Holy Spirit who empowered the early disciples is available to us today, ready to usher us into new dimensions of power and wisdom.

I know you’re going to love this study guide. It has the power to ignite your heart with the flame of the Holy Spirit!

Brian Simmons

General editor

LESSON 1

Luke and His Acts of the Apostles

(various Scriptures)

What we know today as the book of Acts or the Acts of the Apostles is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke. The same man wrote both books. His name was Luke, and he was a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. Paul refers to him as “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14) and as one of his ministry companions (Philemon 24). Luke was also Paul’s sole companion during his imprisonment in Rome (2 Timothy 4:11), a time when Paul thought he might be executed (vv. 6–8). Luke traveled with Paul during his second and third missionary journeys, as indicated by the switch from the author’s use of “they” earlier in Acts to “we” in later chapters (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16). Luke’s use of the first-person plural tells us when he was actually with Paul and not just describing Paul’s journey using the accounts of others.

We also know that Luke was not born a Jew but a gentile, for in Colossians, Paul distinguishes between his Jewish traveling companions and his non-Jewish ones. He lists Luke among the latter group (4:10–14). As to where Luke was born and raised, we don’t know. But that he wrote Acts is secured in Christian tradition along with his authorship of the Gospel that bears his name. Early church leaders such as Irenaeus (late second century), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 155–220), Tertullian (ca. 160–215), and Origen (ca. 185–254) name Luke as the author of both books. And in later centuries, his authorship of these books remained a settled matter.2

Luke’s Gospel and Acts display an obvious connection that links them as a single work. Both books are written to Theophilus, a name that means “friend or lover of God” (Luke 1:1–4; Acts 1:1). And in both cases, the author Luke says that he is providing a reliable, trustworthy, historical account of “what Jesus accomplished and fulfilled among us” (Luke 1:1–4; cf. Acts 1).

As to the identity of this Theophilus, he may have been a historical individual, perhaps Luke’s patron or a relatively new convert to Christ. Speculations abound, for all we really know about Theophilus is what Luke says about him, which isn’t much. Because of this, some Bible scholars suggest that Theophilus stands symbolically for all who are friends or lovers of God since that is what the word Theophilus means. In that case, Luke’s Gospel and Acts were composed for all those who love God.

Purpose of Luke-Acts

Luke’s Gospel tells of Jesus’ life, ministry, arrest, trials, execution, resurrection, and ascension. Acts picks up with the resurrected Jesus, Jesus giving some final instructions to his disciples, and then his ascension—events that clearly link Acts to the closing chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Then Acts begins to tell about the establishment and growth of the church, the body of Christ, including how it burst past its Jewish origins into the gentile world. Acts is the earliest history we have of the first-century church, and it takes us up to Paul preaching the gospel in Rome, the capital city of the Roman Empire.

As you can see, Acts is the second volume of a two-volume work, with the Gospel of Luke as volume 1. Both books are tied together, so the prologue of the Gospel also serves as a complement to the prologue of Acts.

Read Luke 1:1–4 and study note ‘a’ in TPT, as well as Acts 1:1 and study note ‘c.’ Then answer the following questions:

Whom did Luke address as the first recipient(s) of Luke and Acts?

Did Luke know of other biographies of Jesus? Support your answer.

Why did Luke choose to write his account of Jesus’ life and the initial decades of the church?

Why do such resources matter in the writing of history?

From Luke’s comments in the opening verses of his Gospel and Acts, would you say that Luke was a firsthand witness to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, or was he a second-generation Christian writing a history of Jesus and the church? Support your answer.

Date of Acts

Determining the time when Luke wrote Acts is largely based on what that book does not record. Acts does not mention several events that had a major impact on the early church—events that Luke would likely have mentioned if he had not already concluded writing the book. These omitted events include the following:

In the spring of AD 62, the Jewish ruling body, the Sanhedrin, put to death James, the Lord’s brother, without securing the permission of Roman authorities.

3

In 64, the Roman emperor Nero began to bring cruel and controversial atrocities upon Christians in the city of Rome and its surrounding districts.

4

Around the year 67, the apostles Peter and Paul were executed in Rome under the emperor Nero’s reign.

5

The Zealots, a Jewish party who worked to purge Israel of its Roman overlords, led an armed revolt against the Romans from 66 to 73. The church historian Eusebius (ca. 265–339) records a tradition that, before the war against Rome began, “believers had been warned through a prophetic utterance to flee from Jerusalem to the city of Pella in Perea…Perhaps some Jerusalem believers remembered the words of Jesus (Matt. 24:15–16 [parallels Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20–21]): ‘So when you see standing in the holy place “the abomination that causes desolation,” spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.’”

6

And Christians did flee—in droves!

In the year 70, the Romans besieged Jerusalem and ultimately looted and destroyed the city and its temple. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and rebels died in the process, including children.

7

That Luke fails to mention any of these events indicates that he had completed writing Acts before they took place. This is especially telling for the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple in the year 70. Since Jesus had predicted their ruin (Matthew 24:1–2, 15–18; Mark 13:1–2; Luke 21:20–24), it would be incredibly odd, if not astonishing, for Luke to omit them. After all, they further confirmed Jesus’ accuracy as a prophet of God.

When many scholars put these facts (and others) together, they date the writing of Acts as likely in the early 60s. If Jesus was executed in the year 33,8 then Acts provides us with a history of the first thirty years of the Christian movement following his death, resurrection, and ascension.9

What is the value of a history of the church that was composed less than a generation after Jesus’ last days on earth?

Major Characteristics of Acts

Among the many characteristics of Acts are these:

Historical Reliability

Jesus really lived, taught, healed, performed numerous miracles, exorcised demons, faced down critics, told stories, and ended up nailed to a cross due to trumped-up charges. He was really buried in a tomb and then rose physically alive from that same tomb, showed himself alive to hundreds of witnesses over a forty-day period, and then ascended into heaven. All these things actually happened. The four Gospels present a historical record of these events, and Acts adds to them how Jesus’ life and teachings, as well as his death and resurrection and ascension, became central to his early followers as they began to share his message to others and live it out themselves.

Christianity is rooted in history, in actual events, in people who really lived and followed a Savior who really lived, too, and still lives in his resurrection body. Because Christianity is historical, the New Testament writers gave us history, not just theology or wisdom, to live by. Luke is no different. His account of the early church and its growth has been repeatedly historically verified. Perhaps the most important way this occurs for ancient writings is through the work of archaeologists. They strive to confirm or challenge whether the places mentioned by ancient authors actually existed during the timeframe the writers describe. Archaeologists want to verify if the names and titles of key persons are genuine and accurate. They also want to know if the authors accurately depict the geography and if the events that the author has detailed truly occurred. For all these details and more, when Luke is put to the test, he has passed with 100 percent accuracy. Bible scholar Robert H. Gundry brings out one area of confirmed historical accuracy that was especially difficult to get right in Luke’s time:

We now know that his [Luke’s] use of titles

for various kinds of local and provincial

governmental officials—procurators,

consuls, praetors, politarchs, Asiarchs, and

others—was exactly correct for the times

and localities about which he was writing.

The accuracy is doubly remarkable in that

the usage of these terms was in a constant

state of flux because the political status

of various communities was constantly

changing.10

Luke was a first-rate historian, and the findings of archaeology confirm this.11

Why does it matter that Luke paid such careful attention to detail in his writing of Acts?

Do you derive any comfort from Luke’s historical accuracy? Why or why not?

The Centrality of Jesus

Luke tells us in his Gospel that he intends to provide “an orderly account of what Jesus accomplished and fulfilled among us” (Luke 1:1–4). Similarly, at the start of Acts, Luke says that he plans “to give you further details about the life of our Lord Jesus and all the things that he did and taught” (Acts 1:1). In other words, his Luke-Acts volumes center on Jesus Christ—first his earthly life and then his heavenly work through the Spirit. As the “Introduction” to Acts in The Passion Translation says:

Acts opens in the same way Luke closes,

with the ascension and exaltation of Jesus

to the right hand of the Father. In essence,

the disciples pick up where Jesus left off in

seeing the salvation of the world realized.

Not only is he the object of the church’s

affection, Jesus is the content of their

message! Luke makes it clear that salvation

is found in no one and nothing else but

Jesus and his name. The word name

appears over fifty times in Acts, signifying

that Jesus is the exalted, exclusive Lord of

salvation. We are saved through him and

him alone!12