Acts 1 Footnotes

1:1 The reference to Theophilus (“lover of God”) links Acts to Luke’s Gospel. The two were published separately probably due to: (1) their different genres (a biography of Jesus vs. a history of the early church), and (2) their length (each work was long enough to fill a single scroll). Acts has some literary attributes found in the classical Greek historians, Herodotus and Thucydides. Daniel Marguerat argues that Acts has eight of the ten attributes identified as belonging to histories of the Greco-Roman era. The structure of Acts is that of a Greco-Roman history; the content is closer to a Jewish history. (See Daniel Marguerat, The First Christian Historian, p. 16.)

1:6-11 This fuller Olivet ascension account (than Lk 24:50-52) makes the transition from Jesus’s life (Luke) to the purpose of the apostles and the church (Acts).

1:8 Luke’s purpose in Acts was showcasing the empowerment by the Spirit that allowed believers to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem first before expanding their reach “to the end of the earth”—the furthest extensions of the Roman Empire of the time (Rm 15:19; Col 1:6,23).

1:11 Christ’s return, bodily and visible, will mirror the manner in which he departed.

1:18 The report of Judas’s death in Acts—his falling headfirst and bursting open—pictured his hanging (Mt 27:5).

1:26 Although it might seem strange to contemporary Christians, casting lots was once an acceptable means of decision-making. The point, however, is that the Lord’s superintending influence guided the disciples in selecting Judas’s replacement.