Luke’s second volume is a book of transitions, documenting the period after the earthly ministry of Jesus, an era like no other in history, a time when God had much to say but spoke less through individual prophets and more through a growing, Spirit-filled community. Throughout this narrative, Luke shows the church challenged, the church guided by the Holy Spirit, and the church triumphant.

I would state Luke’s purpose this way: to demonstrate, from the facts of history, that the church has become God’s instrument for stewarding the new covenant, that the church is guided by His Spirit, and that nothing can prevent Christ from building His church. Acts opens with a question about the kingdom of God and Christ’s commissioning and empowering of the church, and it closes with the assurance that, even under arrest in Rome, Paul continued “preaching the kingdom of God . . . unhin-dered” (Acts 28:31).