03 — The Acts of the Apostles
Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, is the only narrative history of the apostolic Church in the New Testament: it carries the gospel story forward from the Ascension and Pentecost in Jerusalem to Paul preaching the Kingdom unhindered in Rome, structured around the risen Lord’s programmatic word that the witnesses would carry his name “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This section reads Acts as the second half of a single two-volume work addressed to Theophilus and bound to the third Gospel, then takes up the long question of Luke’s standing as the first Christian historian — its preface’s historiographical claims, the test cases of the speeches and the voyage of Acts 27, and the honest tensions between Acts and Paul’s own letters.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)
Acts is the indispensable bridge between the Gospels and the Epistles, the book in which the Church reads the story of her own birth: the descent of the Holy Spirit, the first preaching of the resurrection, the spread from Jerusalem to the Gentiles, and the missionary career of the Apostle Paul, with whom the author travels in the first-person “we” passages (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–21:18; 27:1–28:16). These files establish what the book is and how it is built, and then confront the question that has occupied scholarship since the nineteenth century: how far Luke is a reliable historian, and how the Orthodox Church reads a book that is at once inspired Scripture and her own founding memory.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Acts of the Apostles | Acts as Luke’s second volume to Theophilus (Acts 1:1) and a single project with the Gospel; the structure from the Ascension and Pentecost (Acts 1–2) through the Jerusalem church, Stephen (Acts 7), the spread (Acts 8), Saul’s conversion (Acts 9), Cornelius (Acts 10–11), the Jerusalem council (Acts 15), Paul’s journeys, and the voyage to Rome (Acts 27–28); the programmatic Acts 1:8; the Holy Spirit as protagonist; the great speeches; the open ending; and Acts in Orthodox liturgical life. |
| Luke the Historian | Luke as the first Christian historian; the historiographical claims of the preface (Luke 1:1–4); comparison with Hellenistic historiography; the long debate over his reliability — the maximalist case (Ramsay, Hemer) against the redaction-critical case (Haenchen, Conzelmann) and the tensions with Paul’s letters; the voyage of Acts 27 as classic test case; and the Orthodox reading. |
See Also
- Companion of Paul — the “we” passages and the case that the author of Acts traveled with Paul
- The Third Gospel — the first volume, of which Acts is the deliberate continuation
- The Theology of the Third Gospel — the salvation-history framework that spans Luke–Acts
- The Dating of Luke–Acts — what the open ending at Rome (Acts 28:30–31) may imply about when Acts was written
- Authorship and History — the honest inventory of the authorship and reliability questions
- St. Apostle Paul — the protagonist of Acts 13–28
- St. Apostle Peter — central to Acts 1–12
- Holy Scripture — Acts as inspired Scripture within the Orthodox canon
References
- The Acts of the Apostles, cited by chapter and verse, including the prologue (Acts 1:1–2), the programmatic word (Acts 1:8), and the “we” passages (Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–21:18; 27:1–28:16).
- John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 11. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1889.
- Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies 3.14.1. Trans. in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1885.
- Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 3.4. Trans. Arthur C. McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1. 1890.
- Ramsay, William M. St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1895.
- Hemer, Colin J. The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989.