Dear Friends,
The room was full for last Sunday’s introduction to the Book of Acts! We could easily study it for six months, but time is short in this program year, so we’re going to move quickly through the book, studying some key themes and passages.
Students learned, among other things, something about the structure of the book, for “Luke” was a skillful writer. One way of perceiving the structure is geographically. The eighth verse of the book outlines the outward movement of the faith in the early Church: “[Jesus said,] ‘you will receive power when the holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'” This is, indeed, the progression of action in the book, the “ends of the earth” being Rome, which beyond being the capital of a vast empire that at the time seemed to many to comprise the whole world, was also to become the epicenter of the Christian Church. Verse 8 always causes me to remember God’s covenant with Abraham so many generations earlier: God says, “I will make of you a great nation . . . and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:2-3).
And that’s just the beginning! Come join the class this Sunday as we finish up the overview and begin to look at specific stories that describe our Church as it first took shape!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Mtr. TJ
