Acts

    1.    Along with Luke, Acts has short paragraphs that summarize periods of time the author

            The “we passages” in Acts provide the best indication of its authorship. They occur in a series of sections as follows:

I.  Selectivity

            The fact that the book does not recount all the events means that selection has occurred. If selection has occurred, the writer does not just tell about a bunch of things that happened (“stream of consciousness”). Rather, he is a historian that makes a judgment about what events are epitomes and direction-setting events. Seeing the big picture, a historian chooses events that—from the vantage point of God above or of later perspective—prove to be more important because of their impact on subsequent events or prove more useful to any distinctive purpose the author may have.

Basic proposition: Place leads to purpose.

    I. Traces the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome

                     Besides historical narrative in The Acts, Luke includes significant verbal presentation from conversations, prayers, letters, and sermons. Below in order of appearance are the major examples of spoken material.

            In working out the purpose of Acts, we consider three items:

Introduction