If you have 5 minutes!
Read the General Intro below
Acts recounts events occurring between AD 30 (Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension) and AD 62 (when Paul was imprisoned in Rome). Historically, there are a number of factors that contributed to the success of early church’s expansion. Firstly, although it was the Roman Empire that ruled the roost when the events in Acts took place, the influence of the Greek Empire (330-30 BC) was still strong. Thus people throughout the Mediterranean world shared a common language (Greek!) and culture, making it far easier for the first Christians to evangelize than it might otherwise have been. Further, the Romans were renowned for great infrastructure, making it easy for these Christians to travel around.[1] On top of this, politically, it was a time of unusual stability and peace. Further still, Christianity was viewed as lying within state-approved Judaism and was therefore unthreatened by imperial power (the first persecution of Christians by the state occurred in AD 64 and this persecution was not then formalized until AD 85).[2]
Not that there weren’t challenges! Persecution arose from those within Judaism who viewed the Christians’ claims as blasphemous. There was spiritual opposition (e.g. 13:4-12).[3] Further – as Paul’s letters indicate more clearly than Acts – aspects of Greek and Jewish thinking provided an insidious threat through their subtle perversion of the gospel’s truth in equal but opposite measures (contrast the problems Paul addresses in Corinthians versus those in Galatians, for example).
Acts could have been written as early as AD 62 (just after Paul arrived in Rome) but it’s more likely Luke wrote it sometime between AD 80-90.[4] Either way, as far as recording history goes, it was produced very close to the events it describes which – alongside other reasons – means we can be confident that in it Luke records an accurate (albeit selective!) account of what actually happened.
➡ What opportunities and threats are provided for us today by our contemporary culture? In other words, if we were to perform a SWOT analysis of our current time in history – from a Christian perspective – what would be our key findings?
If you have a bit longer :-)
Luke was Paul’s traveling companion (e.g. Acts 16:10-17) and an educated doctor. John Stott argues he was also a diplomat, pointing out that Acts is a brilliant political apologetic within which Luke goes to great lengths to show that Christianity was not something to fear but was, on the contrary, harmless – even beneficial – and legal![5]
➡ In what ways can Christians today engage politically to provide a positive Christian voice both here and abroad? Some websites you can check out on this include: www.licc.org.uk; www.opendoorsuk.org; www.csw.org.uk; www.care.org.uk.
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