Text: …but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." (Acts 1:8)
I. Who was Theophilus?
Luke 1:3, Luke 1:4
Acts 1:1
II. Who was Luke?
Colossians 4:14
Tarsus? Troas? (Acts 16:10)
2 Timothy 4:11
III. The Book of Acts; why?
Acts 1:8
IV. The Big Picture
God’s eternal covenant of grace
Acts gives us God’s answer to the deficiencies of the old covenant
What was wrong with the old covenant?
But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? (2 Corinthians 3:7-8)
"Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, (32) not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. (33) "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (34) "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
God’s answer:
Acts 1:5
“…[the book of Acts] describes, not so much the Acts of the Apostles, as the Acts of the Holy Spirit; even as the former treatise [Luke’s gospel] contains the Acts of Jesus Christ.” --Bengel
Application 1: Luke the historian
Application 2: A New Covenant
Psalm 46:8-11 “Come, behold the works of the LORD…”
Having a kingdom perspective
“Thy kingdom come…”