06.26. The Book of the Acts
Chapter 25 The Book of the Acts The opening verse of the Acts of the Apostles offers a starting point for the consideration of its genuineness. The writer addresses himself to an individual, refers to a former treatise he had made, and specifies its contents. The facts fit the Gospel of Luke (compare the opening verses of that Gospel), and suggest immediately that the author of the one was that of the other.
Tradition is almost altogether on the side of this supposition, although there is little further internal evidence to prove it. It is clear, however, from the use of the word “we” (Acts 16:10), that the writer was a traveling companion with Paul. To be sure, Paul had several traveling companions besides Luke, and it may have been anyone of these. But Luke was a physician (Colossians 4:14), and an examination of both the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, shows the work of both to be that of a person “familiar with the language of the Greek medical schools, who naturally slipped into the use of medical phraseology.” So far as this can be established, it is a very convincing evidence of the Lucan authorship of both books.
Concerning that word “we,” it might be admitted that Luke wrote so much of the Acts as stands related to the employment of that pronoun, while the remainder was the work of another man who simply incorporated Luke’s account with his. But it may be asked, what is the value of such an hypothesis? While on the other hand, there seems to be a unity of plan in the book, characteristics of language and cross-references that make very strongly for a single authorship throughout. The way in which Luke may have gathered his facts is clearly indicated by himself in the opening verses of his Gospel. He had traced all things accurately from the first in that instance, and, doubtless, he had done the same in this. He made notes as he journeyed along with Paul, supplementing them by memory, conversation and research. While this explains the data from Acts 13:1-52 to the end of the book, the previous material may have been gathered in other ways. Acts 1:1-26; Acts 2:1-47; Acts 3:1-26; Acts 4:1-37; Acts 5:1-42; Acts 6:1-15; Acts 7:1-60; Acts 8:1-40; Acts 9:1-43; Acts 10:1-48; Acts 11:1-30; Acts 12:1-25 are taken up chiefly with the ministry of Peter, whom Luke may have met while sojourning with Paul at Rome. At any rate, we know that Mark “the interpreter of Peter,” was with Luke in Rome, as we gather from Colossians 4:10 and Philemon 1:24, and he could have supplied him with most of the information concerning the early events in Jerusalem because of the large place occupied by himself and his household therein (see Acts 12:12). At Cesarea again, Luke staid with Philip the Evangelist (Acts 21:8), and in Jerusalem he met James and the elders (Acts 21:18). All these doubtless supplied him with the facts he has recorded. The story in the Acts carries us down to the period of Paul’s imprisonment at Rome at about 62 or 63, but there are reasons for believing that the book was not published for perhaps 15 to 20 years later.
It is of value to note, however, that no matter who may be the human author of this compilation, its historic accuracy and truth are established in a variety of ways. There is an old, but still invaluable work by Dr. Paley, entitled Horae Paulinae, to be obtained in second-hand bookstores at least, whose contents will astonish and delight the reader in the array of undesigned coincidences recorded as between the Acts and the Pauline epistles. Then there are later works of the same general character, like Ramsey’s The Church in the Roman Empire. An always standard book is Conybeare and Howson’s Life and Epistles of Paul. All these books note “the accuracy of the writer in the employment of official titles as well as in references to local or personal characteristics.” Take an example or two. When Paul’s visit to Philippi is spoken of (Acts 16:35), the local authorities are named as magistrates and sergeants, or, as the Greek indicates, “praetors” and “lictors;” but when he reaches Thessalonica the officials are “politarchs.” Now the difference in these names is explained by this, that Philippi was a Roman colony while Thessalonica was a free city. The observance of this distinction is a mark of careful truth. The word “politarch,” indeed, is not found in books, but has been discovered on an inscription in the city of Thessalonica, which is now deposited in the British Museum. A similar circumstance is associated with Paul’s visit at Corinth. There the chief magistrate (Acts 19:12), is described as the “proconsul,” (Acts 18:12, Revised Version), a title used where the Roman province was a Senatorial province. Should it be an imperial province the title would be “propraetor.” Now was Corinth a senatorial province or an imperial province? Singularly enough it was the latter, both before and after Paul’s visit there in 52 or 53, but during that particular period it was a senatorial province. At no other time, therefore, but that particular time could the chief magistrate have been designated correctly as the writer of Acts designates him.
It will be interesting for the reader to examine the text of that chapter in the Acts a little further, and notice that the “proconsul” of the period was Gallio. Now Seneca, the brother of this man, describes him in Roman literature as an universal favorite on account of his amiability, and it will be observed that this secular and intimate description of him tallies fully with his ruling in the case of the Jewish charges against Paul, and especially with Luke’s words in verse Acts 18:17, “And Gallio cared for none of these things.” Such coincidences could be multiplied almost indefinitely. That there are no difficulties in reconciling two or three statements in the Acts with themselves or with statements in some of Paul’s epistles one cannot undertake to say, although were there time it might not be so difficult to present a reasonable explanation of them in the light of all that has been said.
It may be well to close this chapter with some words of introduction touching the epistles of Paul, which we begin to treat in the next. A familiarity with Paul’s missionary journeys as recorded in the Acts, is almost a necessity to intelligently discuss the genuineness of his written productions. It will be found that there were four such journeys, taking Antioch, in Syria, as the starting point. The first was the most limited in area, and is referred to in Acts 13:1-52; Acts 14:1-28; Acts 15:1-35. There were no epistles written on this journey of which we have any record, and, indeed, the occasion for them hardly appears. The second journey is spoken of in Acts 15:36-41; Acts 16:1-40; Acts 17:1-34; Acts 18:1-22, recording the call into Europe, with the visits to Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens and Corinth, at which last-named place there is reason to believe the first and second epistles to the Thessalonians were penned, constituting them the earliest of all Paul’s writings known to us. The record of the third journey is in Acts 17:23-34; Acts 18:1-28; Acts 19:1-41; Acts 20:1-38; Acts 21:1-17, where we find him spending three years at Ephesus in Asia, and then once more crossing the Aegean and retracing his former steps in Greece. During this period were written, presumably, the first and second epistles to the Corinthians, and those to the Galatians and Romans. The fourth journey practically concludes the history in the book and gives us the story of Paul’s arrest at Jerusalem, his imprisonment at Cesarea, his shipwreck en route to Italy and his stay in the imperial city for at least two years. During this stay as a prisoner in Rome, awaiting his hearing before Caesar, he writes to the Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians, and the personal letter to Philemon. It is after his release that he addresses the first so called pastoral epistle to Timothy, and that to Titus, but later on, when a prisoner at Rome the second time, he writes the latest of all his epistles, the second to Timothy. He is then ready to be offered, having fought the good fight, and finished his course.