Acts Reboot

Passage: Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-3; 2:36

Those of you who are following our Bible reading plan will have noticed this past week we started reading through the book of Acts.  Lord willing we will take up and finish our sermon series on Acts.

Since it has been just over three years since I started preaching the book of Acts, and about six months since I last preached from Acts it seemed good to me to do a reboot, to back up and be reminded why it is spiritually fruitful and profitable to preach through the book of Acts.  It is easy to forget when we are preaching through history and events that happened so long ago and seem so far removed from us.

I read the two introductions or prefaces from Luke and Acts so we would remember Acts is Luke II.  Luke’s first volume covered all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day when He was taken up to heaven, volume two (Acts) covers what Jesus continued to do and to teach through the Holy Spirit after He was taken up to heaven.

Both of Luke’s books are important in the NT to show our faith is built on the solid foundations of historical fact.  This is not a myth, some made up fairy tale.  The times, places, people and events are all real and verifiable.

Around the turn of the last century a skeptic and atheist scholar, Sir William M. Ramsey, took on the truth of Luke’s writing but was so impressed with the historical accuracy of Luke that he renounced atheism and became a believer.  Ramsay writes, “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect to its trustworthiness…Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements trustworthy…this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”