List of Tables -- x

List of Abbreviations -- xi

Author's Preface -- xiii

Introduction: Why Study Acts? -- pg. 1

Section One: Christianity and the Restoration of All Things (1:1-67)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 21

Movement 1: Christ's Programme for the Restoration of
All Things (1:1-414) -- pg. 33

Movement 2: Opposition to the Programme (415-6:7) -- pg. 97

Section Two: Christianity's Worship and Witness (6:8-9:31)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 127

Movement 1: The Gospel and Judaism's Orthodox
Worship (6:8-8:3) -- pg. 134

Movement 2: The Gospel and Samaria's Unorthodox
Worship (8:4-25) -- pg. 160

Movement 3: The Gospel of the Suffering Servant (8:26-40) -- pg. 173

Movement 4: The Gospel of the Son of God (9:1-31) -- pg. 179

Section Three: The Christian Theory and Practice of Holiness (9:32-12:24)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 191

Movement 1: The Gospel Released from Jewish Social
Isolationism (9:32-11:18) -- pg. 197

Movement 2: The Gospel Freed from Jewish Administrative
Centralism and Political Sacralism (11:19-12:24) -- pg. 219

Section Four: The Christian Doctrine of Salvation (12:25-16:5)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 239

Movement 1: The Preaching of the Good News of
Salvation (12:25-14:28) -- pg. 245

Movement 2: The Discussion of the Terms of Salvation
(15:1-16:5) -- pg. 266

Section Five: Christianity and the Pagan World (16:6-19:20)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 289

Movement 1: The Holy Spirit and the Powers of
Darkness (16:6-40) -- pg. 299

Movement 2: God's Messiah and Gentile Politics,
Religion and Philosophy (17:1-34) -- pg. 331

Movement 3: God's Messiah and the New People of God
(18:1-28) -- pg. 370

Movement 4: The Holy Spirit and the Name of the
Lord Jesus (19:1-20) -- pg. 383

Section Six: Christianity and the Defence and Confirmation of the Gospel (19:21-28:31)

Preliminary Observations -- pg. 395

Movement 1: The Defence of Nature-Worship and the
Defence of the Church of God (19:21-21:16) -- pg. 414

Movement 2: The Gospel to be Judged by its Respect for
Conscience (21:17-23:11) -- pg. 432

Movement 3: The Gospel to be Judged by its Attitude to
Morality and the Law (23:12-24:27) -- pg. 455

Movement 4: The Gospel to be Judged by its Message for
Caesar and the World (25:1-26:32) -- pg. 466

Movement 5: Nature's Storms and the Kingly Rule of God
(27:1-28:31) -- pg. 482

Appendices

1: Is Christianity Essentially Anti-Semitic? -- pg. 499

2: If Acts is a Carefully Structured Literary Work, Can it
still be Regarded as Historically Reliable? -- pg. 503

Bibliography -- pg. 515

Publications by David Gooding -- pg. 519

Scripture Index -- pg. 525

Index of Greek Words -- pg. 539

General Index -- pg. 541

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES IS ABOUT MORE than the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. By the time the ascended Christ had sent the Holy Spirit to guide his disciples, they had no doubt what the basics of the gospel message were: that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day and would one day come again. But, according to Luke’s account, difficult questions and chat lenges arose for the apostles as they began to spread this message. These questions, when once settled by the apostles, would further define the gospel with answers that are definitive for us today.
By carefully tracing Luke’s presentation of the historical material, David Gooding shows us that Luke has arranged his historical material into six sections, each con¬taining a set of issues and a dominant question that confronted the church:
- Was the gospel to be under the authority of the Jewish Sanhedrin, even when they called into question the deity and messiahship of Jesus?
- Would the temple and its entire system of worship become obsolete because of Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary, as Stephen claimed?
- What would God do when the observance of his own food laws became a barrier to preaching the gospel to Gentiles such as Cornelius?
- What would the apostles decide about the rite of circumcision and its relation¬ship to salvation?
- How would the gospel distinguish itself from the spiritism, idolatry, religions and philosophies of the pagan world and state positively its own answer to questions of the origin of the universe and life’s ultimate goal?
- And how would Paul defend the gospel at the highest levels of society, against every kind of misrepresentation, when he found himself under the power of Roman law and order?
The conclusions that the apostles and the early churches reached under the guidance of the Holy Spirit are profoundly relevant. Their defence against each new challenge confirmed the truth of the gospel for every generation of Christ’s disciples. David Gooding’s exposition echoes Acts’ powerful, unspoken exhortation to examine our¬selves honestly to see whether the Christianity that we represent and the gospel that we preach and defend are uncompromisingly the same as those established by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.