Pre-amble to Acts

Hope you all had a great summer and feel organised and ready for the new year –long may we feel organised!
The - aliveandonline biblestudy group – is ready to start, hope you find it uplifting and enlightening as we learn from each other and build up our fellowship, knowledge and love in these unsettled times.
Peace in Christ – is the name of the game. A little effort from us but I hope it good for us all, let me know if you think something is not working or could be done differently.

I am very happy to send you a paper copy of studies and readings if it makes life easier for you.

Rosanna

Pre-amble:
It’s interesting that Acts is named 'Acts of the Apostles' when in fact Luke’s attention is focused on the preaching and activities of Peter and Paul leaving aside other Apostles and preachers. Luke gives a detailed account which enables readers a fuller historical understanding of how Christianity spread.When I think of Acts the ‘upper-room’, the ‘coming of the Holy Spirit’ and ‘Paul’ are my main memories. We will discover that it is firstly Peter who holds the key for the door to be opened to the Gentiles to enter the Kingdom of God. Paul then becomes the main figure with his band of ‘merry men’ travelling through ~Turkey, Greece and finally to Rome.

There are many interesting and diverse figures, themes and messages, I look forward to hearing what you discover and sharing mine also.

Here is a thought for you:
Luke hopes that we 'may be confident in all that we have been taught' (Luke 1:4).Are you a sports person, a musician or do you have a love of travel?
Do you believe what you are told about a match or piece of music by those commentating?
Do you read about a country and decide to go or not based on what you have read?

Some of us hear what is said and believe what we are told without questioning - we simply enjoy what we are doing and go with the flow. This is fine, but Luke’s readers were probably not like that. He had written one book explaining up to a point in Jesus’ life and now he was going to write about the life of the disciples and apostles – The effect of Jesus death if you like! I find it striking that Luke wrote his first book so that the reader may be confident in what he had been taught. I want to encourage you then that our aim should be confidence in what we have worked out and believe. That means a healthy mix of enjoying what we are learning and going with the flow and also wanting to question and look at things from a different angle. We need to have worked out what we believe and why!Acts is the story of the history of SALVATION (the act of saving or protecting from harm, risk, loss, destruction, etc) and REDEMPTION (paying off, as of a mortgage)
The resources I am likely to use are:
http://www.seite.co.uk/seitecms/ Up to date online resources via links from the SEITE theological porthole

Wiersbe, Warren W. 1989 The Bible Exposition V.1 Acts (Victor Books) SP Publications

Barclay William 1956 The Daily Study Bible (The Saint Andrew Press, Scotland)

Maclaren Alexander D.D 1826-1910 Expositions of Scriptures - Acts