The Book of Acts "At a Glance" and Controversial Questions

[00:00:01] The Book of Acts at a Glance and Controversial Questions by Bart Ehrman in addition to my nutshell summaries of each book of the New Testament, I've been providing a post that gives additional materials that I present in my New Testament textbook. [00:00:16] These are a rapid fire summaries of each book that I call at a glance and b a set of study questions that challenge students to take up a position on key aspects of the book that I like to call Take a Stand. [00:00:31] Here they are. Now for the Book of Acts. I hope the summary at a glance makes sense and that you can Nail the questions 1. The Book of Acts is the second of a two volume work by the author of Luke. [00:00:43] Like the first volume, it's dedicated to an otherwise unknown Theophilus. [00:00:49] These books have traditionally been ascribed to Luke, the traveling companion of Paul. [00:00:53] There are, however, reasons to suspect this tradition. [00:00:57] Like the Gospel of Luke, the book was probably written around 80 to 85 CE. [00:01:04] A thematic approach of the book reveals several prominent themes. There's the Jewish origins of Christianity, its fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures, and its continuity with Judaism. [00:01:16] There's the portrayal of Jesus as a Jewish prophet rejected by his own people, the consequent movement of the religion from the Jews to the Gentiles, and a concomitant geographical shift from the holy city of Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. [00:01:32] The proclamation to Jew and to Gentile alike of salvation through the repentance of sins and the forgiveness of God with Gentiles who accept this offer of salvation not needing to adopt the ways of Judaism. [00:01:45] There's the delay of the time of the end to make this Christian mission a possibility. [00:01:50] There's the ripeness of this religion in both the divine sense in that it came from God in fulfillment of the Scriptures and the human one in that it did nothing to violate Jewish custom or imperial law. [00:02:02] There's the complete unity and harmony of the church as guided by the apostles who agree on every issue and resolve every problem through the direction of the Spirit and ultimately the hand of God directing the course of Christian history behind the scenes from Jesus own life and death to the life and ministry of the apostles that he left behind. [00:02:24] So take a stand, Number one. [00:02:27] List five similarities that strike you as interesting between Peter in Acts chapters 1 to 12 and Paul in Acts chapters 13 28. [00:02:37] What similar things do they say, do and experience? [00:02:41] Is that simply coincidence? Or do you think that Luke is going out of his way to make their missions reflect each other? [00:02:49] If the latter, why would he be doing that? [00:02:53] Suppose that we did not have any information about Paul other than what can be found in the Book of Acts. [00:02:59] What does he say to non Christians to get them to convert? [00:03:03] 3 Suppose you wanted to sum up the major points that Luke is trying to make about the spread of Christianity in the Book of Acts. What would you say.