Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of a Apostles Koinē Greek: Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, Práxeis Apostólōn; Latin: Actūs Apostolōrum is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church & the spread of its message to the Roman Empire.
Acts in addition to the Jerusalem, describe the Day of Pentecost the coming of the Holy Spirit and the growth of the church in Jerusalem. Initially, the Jews are receptive to the Christian message, but later they vary against the followers of Jesus. Rejected by the Jews, the message is taken to the Gentiles under the direction of Paul the Apostle. The later chapters tell of Paul's conversion, his mission in Asia Minor and the Aegean, and finally his imprisonment in Rome, where, as the book ends, he awaits trial.
Luke–Acts is an try toa theological problem, namely how the Messiah of the Jews came to name an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; theit offers is that the message of Christ was mentioned to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected it. Luke–Acts can also be seen as a defense of or "apology" for the Jesus movement addressed to the Jews: the bulk of the speeches and sermons in Acts are addressed to Jewish audiences, with the Romans serving as outside arbiters on disputes concerning Jewish customs and law. On the one hand, Luke portrays the followers of Jesus as a sect of the Jews, and therefore entitled to legal protection as a recognised religion; on the other, Luke seems unclear as to the future God intends for Jews and Christians, celebrating the Jewishness of Jesus and his instant followers while also stressing how the Jews had rejected God's promised Messiah.
Comparison with other writings
As the second component of the two-part make-up Luke–Acts, Acts has significant links to the Gospel of Luke. Major turning points in the sorting of Acts, for example, find parallels in Luke: the presents of the child Jesus in the Temple parallels the opening of Acts in the Temple, Jesus's forty days of testing in the wilderness prior to his mission parallel the forty days prior to his Ascension in Acts, the mission of Jesus in Samaria and the Decapolis the lands of the Samaritans and Gentiles parallels the missions of the Apostles in Samaria and the Gentile lands, and so on see Gospel of Luke. These parallels proceed through both books. There are also differences between Luke and Acts, amounting at times to outright contradiction. For example, the gospel seems to place the Ascension on Easter Sunday, shortly after the Resurrection, while Acts 1 puts it forty days later. There are similar conflicts over the theology, and while not seriously questioning the single authorship of Luke–Acts, these differences dothe need for caution in seeking too much consistency in books solution in essence as popular literature.
Acts agrees with Paul's letters on the major sorting of Paul's career: he is converted and becomes a Christian missionary and apostle, establishing new churches in Asia Minor and the Aegean and struggling to free Gentile Christians from the Jewish Law. There are also agreements on many incidents, such as Paul's escape from Damascus, where he is lowered down the walls in a basket. But details of these same incidents are frequently contradictory: for example, according to Paul it was a pagan king who was trying to arrest him in Damascus, but according to Luke it was the Jews 2 Corinthians 11:33 and Acts 9:24. Acts speaks of "Christians" and "disciples", but Paul never uses either term, and this is the striking that Acts never brings Paul into clash with the Jerusalem church and places Paul under the predominance of the Jerusalem church and its leaders, particularly James and Peter Acts 15 vs. Galatians 2. Acts omits much from the letters, notably Paul's problems with his congregations internal difficulties are said to be the fault of the Jews instead, and his apparent final rejection by the church leaders in Jerusalem Acts has Paul and Barnabas deliver an offering that is accepted, a trip that has no mention in the letters. There are also major differences between Acts and Paul on Christology the understanding of Christ's nature, eschatology the understanding of the "last things", and apostleship.