True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel

by David Gooding

Publisher:

Myrtlefield House

, 2013

Overview

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 challenges 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 authoritative 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 containing a set of issues and a dominant question that confronted the church.

Contents

Top Highlights

“repent. The worldwide, Spirit-empowered witness of the church to the Messiah is directed to that very purpose” (Page 50)

“No, Christianity had to grow and develop. A seed contains within itself the blueprint for the fully grown plant; but the plant develops its inherent characteristics only by growing in reaction to the soil in which it is planted, under the influence of the sun, wind, and rain. So Christianity grew out of Judaism as it reacted, under the instruction and direction of the Holy Spirit, to the problems and challenges it met with on its road to worldwide witness in the name of Christ.” (Page 11)

“Peter and James pronounced the official, authoritative, apostolic decision: circumcision was unnecessary for, and contributed nothing whatever to, salvation, not only in the case of Gentiles, but in the case of Jews as well. It would be impossible to exaggerate the importance of the epoch-making step which Christianity took away from Judaism at that time.” (Pages 14–15)

“Paul, at least, need not worry. That night the Lord delivered the only verdict that counts. Announcing his pleasure at the way Paul had witnessed for him in Jerusalem, he informed him that he would do the same in Rome (23:11).” (Page 454)

“Luke’s narrative, intelligently and thoughtfully read, will show us this at least, if nothing else: our modern world, for all its scientific and technological progress, is in its basic essentials no different whatever from the ancient world into which Christianity was born. To imagine otherwise is a fundamental fallacy. Indeed our Western post-Christian world, far from being different from the world of the first century, becomes every day more like it.” (Page 3)

Product Details

• Title: True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and Defending the Gospel
• Author: David Gooding
• Series: Myrtlefield Expositions
• Publisher: Myrtlefield House
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Bible. N.T. Acts › Commentaries
• ISBNs: 9781874584303, 9781874584315, 9781874584322, 9781874584339, 9781874584346, 1874584311, 187458432X, 1874584338, 1874584346
• Resource ID: LLS:MYRTLFLDXPPSTLS
• Resource Type: Bible Commentary
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:40:44Z

About David Gooding

David Gooding (1925–2019) was Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Greek at Queen’s University, Belfast and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He taught the Bible internationally and lectured on its relevance to philosophy and world religions. He published scholarly studies on the Septuagint and Old Testament narratives, as well as expositions of Luke, John 13–17, Acts, Hebrews and the New Testament’s Use of the Old Testament. His expositions of Scripture are enhanced by what F. F. Bruce once called David Gooding’s ‘rare combination of gifts: spiritual insight, classical learning and literary appreciation’.