The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus

The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus

This excellent book may offer the reader new insights into the Book of Acts, and give a lot of help to the preacher. Alan Thompson wants to let Acts speak for itself, rather than using it to answer our questions that may not actually have been Luke’s main concern. The Book of Acts, ‘Luke’s biblical narrative’, according to Thompson, ‘highlights the continued out-working of God’s saving purposes through the risen Lord Jesus’, and is therefore about ‘the acts of the risen Lord Jesus’. Luke emphasises ‘the inauguration’ (a favourite word in this book) ‘of the kingdom by Jesus and his continuing rule.’ That is why the Resurrection features so prominently in Acts. It is the ‘supreme evidence’ of the achievement of God’s purposes and of the arrival of the age to come. People who have been used to a fairly traditional ‘Pauline Missionary Journey’ approach to Acts 13 to 21 may notice the somewhat different structure that Thompson proposes, which focuses less on Paul and more on ‘the reign of the Lord Jesus’ and ‘the continuing spread of the word’.
Among the extended sections I found particularly helpful are those on Jesus and the Holy Spirit, death and resurrection in Acts and preaching the Gospel in Acts. Thompson devotes a chapter to the inadequacy of the temple and its fulfillment in Jesus, the ‘Davidic king’ (as he likes to call him) and another chapter to the fact that the apostles’ authority and teaching replace the Law as ‘the direct guiding authority for God’s people’ (including an interesting section on the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15). Each chapter ends with a helpful conclusion, which assists the reader to grasp the gist of Thompson’s message. The book’s last chapter, Concluding Summary, in effect repeats what’s in those chapter conclusions, but pulls it all together well. So I recommend this book.

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