Below are the handouts I created for our class. They’re heavily weighted toward emphasizing and exploring the original context of the snapshots I chose but during the actual class I only used about a quater of the sheet. We focused on dialoge and interaction with the original context  of the passages and their abiding value for how the church wrestles with the Kingdom and the Missio Dei today.

One of the things I wished we had done differently was sit in the round rather than a classroom style. Someone actually suggested this on an evaluation sheet I had the class use at the end. We finish up tomorrow with week twelve. Acts has always been a book close to my heart and life. I knew it was a rich book but over the course of these twelve weeks after spending large amounts of time with the flow of the narrative, the greek text as well as the Western version w/commentary by Bruce, several technical commentaries and articles (Dunn, Longenecker, Witherington, Bruce, Marshall, and Williams), and pastoral type expositions and preaching series (Johnson, Boice, and others; Piper and Keller’s sermon series) I really must say that this book is a treasury of wisdom for the churches mission today. God has not left us without witness or wisdom…tolle lege.

WEEK ONE: An introduction to the genre and theology of the book of Acts

WEEK TWO & THREE: Pentecost as a Redemptive-Historical hinge; Pentecost and Peter’s interpretation and application of it; and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues then and now.

WEEK FOUR: Luke’s snapshots of the church and the world; What makes a church the Church?

WEEK FIVE: Putting Ananias and Sapphira in their Redemptive-Historical context; The holiness of God and the Church today

WEEK SIX: Guest teacher, no notes

WEEK SEVEN: Persecution and the secrete to the growth of the Church; The gospel to the physical half-breeds; the gospel to spiritual half-breeds; and Church growth then and now

WEEK EIGHT: Cornelius, Peter, and the Jew/Gentile relationship; The Gentiles Pentecost; Jerusalem’s hesitation and ‘acceptance’ of the real mission; and Peace for the Church and the world today

WEEK NINE: Jerusalem, Antioch, and the spread of the gospel; To the Jew first and then the Gentile; Luke’s exemplars of how the gospel encountered the Gentile city; and Cross-cultural missions today

WEEK TEN: Antioch and Jerusalem: the role of church government in mission; Peter & James’s resolve “saved through grace just as we are”; the resolve dispersed among the Gentile churches; and Unity in the Global church today

WEEK ELEVEN: Paul and the public square of Athens; was Paul contextualizing the gospel or giving an apologetic defense for the faith; the cost of compromise or the bridge of future faith; and Apologetics and a public faith in a Secular Square

WEEK TWELVE: The ending of Acts and our Kingdom call.