7/13/2023 0 Comments One spirit book of daysThe Spirit seals Peter’s ministry to Cornelius and his companions (10:44) and when that apostle gives an answer for his actions at Cornelius’ house, the Jerusalem church is informed of that which the Holy Spirit did (11:15). Much of chapter six and all of chapter seven stem from the declaration that Stephen is a spirit-filled man. What are the facts? Is the Holy Spirit actually dismissed from the book? The Spirit is clearly in charge of the church in the opening chapters (4:31 5:32). Referring to the parallel importance of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, some scholars have insisted that Luke could never have dismissed Jesus from his Gospel in the way he seems to have dismissed the Holy Spirit from Acts. After 21:11 the Spirit is mentioned only once again (28:25), and that when a quotation from Isaiah is said to have had the Holy Spirit as its author. There are eleven chapters in Acts that contain no reference to the Spirit. The fact that the vast majority of the references to the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts are found in the first half of the book has raised a question mark after the contention that the concept of the Holy Spirit determines the structure of Acts. Having acknowledged the similarity of structure in the beginning of both Acts and the Gospel of Luke, some critics have been unwilling to go any farther in that direction. The fact is that Acts and the Gospel of Luke from a literary point of view share a structural similarity in the way each begins. The chapter divisions, which of course were added relatively recently, are an unnecessary part of the evidence. That same reader when exposed to the Gospel of Luke would note that chapter one in that book is a build-up for the coming of the Messiah which is described in chapter two. Even a casual reader of the book would note the build-up in chapter one for the coming of the Holy Spirit which is described in chapter two. The structure of the book of Acts may also witness to the importance of the Holy Spirit to Luke as an author. With fifty-six references to the Holy Spirit in twenty-eight chapters, Acts can with justification be said to be especially the book of the Spirit. In the Johannine literature, the Gospel and the Epistles, a combined total of twenty-eight chapters contain only twenty-one references to the Holy Spirit. The combined chapters of Romans and 1 Corinthians (thirty-two), which are Paul’s longest letters, contain only forty-five references to the Spirit. The combined sixty-eight chapters of the Synoptic Gospels contain only thirty-four references to the Holy Spirit. By comparison to other portions of the New Testament the special significance of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts can be demonstrated. In the American Standard Version of Acts there are fifty-six references to the Holy Spirit. That title could equally well read The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” William Barclay, The Promise of the Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), p. “The full title of the book of Acts is The Acts of the Apostles. Such a conclusion seems unwarranted, but a recognition of the unusual importance of the Holy Spirit in Acts is completely justified. Some have suggested, however, that not the acts of the apostles (who have no major importance in the book) but the acts of the Holy Spirit were meant. The earliest title for the book seems to have been simply “The Acts.” Even that title, of course, was not original because Acts was the second part of the Gospel of Luke. Acts is especially the book of the Spirit.
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