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Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapters 3 and 4 Chapter 5 Chapters 6 and 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapters 10 to 11:18 Chapters 11:19 to 30 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapters 18:1 to 19:7 Chapters 19:8 to 41 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 |
The three divisions of the book
The Acts of the Apostles are divided essentially into three parts
— Acts 1, Acts 2 to 12; and Acts 13 to the end. Acts 11 and Acts 12
may be termed transitional chapters founded on the event related in
Acts 10. Acts 1 gives us that which is connected with the Lord's
resurrection; Acts 2-12 that work of the Holy Ghost of which
Jerusalem and the Jews were the centre, but which branches out into
the free action of the Spirit of God, independent of, but not
separated from, the twelve and Jerusalem as the centre; Acts 13, and
the succeeding chapters, the work of Paul, flowing from a more
distinct mission from Antioch; Acts 15 connecting the two in order
to preserve unity in the whole course. We have indeed the admission
of Gentiles in the second part, but it is in connection with the
work going on among the Jews. These latter had rejected the witness
of the Holy Ghost to a glorified Christ, as they had rejected the
Son of God in His humiliation; and God prepared a work outside them,
in which the apostle of the Gentiles laid foundations that annulled
the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and which unite them — as
in themselves equally dead in trespasses and sins — to Christ, the
Head of His body, the assembly, in heaven.* |
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