What is Acts?

Have you ever had someone tell you what to do, but not make it practical?  They didn't give examples or show how they tried to live it out.

The New Testament has a really cool part that people often skip that puts skin on the teachings. 

It's called Acts.

Weird name, right? 

It's actually short for The Acts of the Apostles, or in more  'normal-speak' it's a book that shows the stories (or Actions) of the earliest Jesus-followers and how they tried to live out this very, very new way of life.

As an interesting side note, Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and Acts as one continuous story, though our bibles tend to put the Gospel of John in between them. 

Unfortunately, this book, while being a history, is often taught as if it is a book of "how-tos."  You'll often hear people say, "We need to look back at the early church and live like them." 

Sure, there is a purity to them that we want to follow.  They are so close to the life of Jesus that it's important to see what they were doing and saying.  On the other hand, they were new at this thing and didn't do everything right.  For example, they pick a disciple to replace Judas.  Why?  They just seemed to think they should.  How?  They rolled dice.  Huh?  Yep.  The guy they picked was Matthias, and...we never hear about the guy again.  Was he a bad choice?  Maybe. 

The beauty of the book is to see these young believers, transformed by the Holy Spirit, who are now living transformed lives.  They lived, they loved, they shared.  It's fun to watch all the different ways the Spirit leads them.  Sometimes they're all praying together and Father gives them an insight.  Other times they just thought something "seemed right" to them and the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes they make choices and later change their minds.  But all along they have this happiness and excitement about living life loved and led by the Father.

So, check out Acts and just enjoy the story.  Also, when you do go on to read the rest of the New Testament letters (also called epistles) it will give you some background to the situations those letters were written in.