The Challenge of Acts: Rediscovering What the Church Was and Is

This book offers a brief introduction to the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is a substantial book, sitting right in the middle of the New Testament, looking back to the four Gospels and ahead to the mission of the early church. It provides a framework for our understanding of the letters; but it does more than that. It offers a sophisticated and nuanced view of what it means to think of the gospel of Jesus, Israel's Messiah, going out into the world over which Israel's Messiah claims the status of Lord. This meant confronting the wider culture of the Greek and Roman world, as well as the culture of the Jewish world. All of this is to be found in Acts, providing much food for thought as we ourselves face new questions about gospel and culture in our own day.