The Book Of Acts Research paper 2022

Running Head: THE BOOK OF ACTS
THE BOOK OF ACTS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1THE BOOK OF ACTS
The fifth book within the New Testament is also called the Book of Acts or in other
words, Acts of the Apostles. It narrates the story of the Christian Church being founded and
the spread of the message of Christianity to the Roman Empire. This paper will be focusing
on how the thematic development occurs in the second movement of the book.
It can be seen that the geographic target of the first part of the book is that of
Pentecost. The geographical target in the second part shifts to the various Greek cities that
Paul travels to. During this time, the church extends to Samaria and beyond. This is because
Paul converts from a prosecutor of Christians to someone who teaches the world about
Christianity.
This movement has various parallels to the previous movements. There is geographic
movement from Jerusalem to the center of the Gentile world. Paul’s utterances in 19:21 is a
lot like the utterances of Jesus in Luke 9:51. The role of peter and Paul in the second
movement is that of the representation of the Jewish Christian Church along with the second
mission to Gentiles.
Newer themes are presented through the second movement of the book like a
particular vocation being discerned with the community of the Christians. The Christian life
was also bringing forth confrontation with the powerful like the time, Demetrius a silversmith
said, “... this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying
that gods made with hands are not gods ...” and this had enraged the artisans who dragged
away the companions of Paul. Like Paula and Barnabas being persecuted and driven out of
their religion. However themes like resources being used for the sake of the community is
also recurrent as evident in the words of Lydia 16:11-15, “If you have judged me to be
faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” This movement also focused on the