The Book of ACTS

Part One

The book of Acts represents the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Let me make this as simple as I can for you. If you have followed these teachings, you will realize and understand that the Gospels are part of the Old Testament. If you are studying God’s Word, and renewing your mind to what it says, you should have no doubt in your mind that the New Testament began on the Day of Pentecost. The first outpouring of the Holy Ghost is recorded in Acts chapter 2: 1 - 4. This is the first occasion in the Bible where a person can be born again of God’s Spirit. This is obviously the beginning of the New Testament and the beginning of a new age or Administration, which is called the Age of Grace. This is the Administration in which we now live. There are seven Administrations and we are living in the fifth Administration. You can clearly understand Administrations if you read the teaching called The Seven Administrations. The Administration that was prior to this was called the Christ Administration. This should be obvious to you because it represents a time when Jesus Christ was upon the face of the earth. There is a lot to cover so I will have to condense this teaching as much as possible without confusing you or making it difficult for you to understand what I am trying to teach you.

To begin, a clear definition of the purpose of the complete book of Acts is that it is the history of the rise and expansion of the Christian church. In addition, you should know that the word ACTS is the word praxis in the Greek. This Greek word translated into our English means “practices”. The Acts of the Apostles were written by Luke. If you care to, you can add an extension to the name of the book which says “and disciples”. Remember, all chapters, periods, and commas were added by man. This should tell you that the topic of this book is not the actual Word of God. It was added by man.

The former treatise have I made, O The-oph-i-lus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, -- Acts 1: 1

Luke is doing his best to introduce an explanation and a purpose for the Book of Acts. First, we should examine the word ‘treatise’. This word as defined in the lexicon means “an exposition or account which one gives”. Luke is telling us ahead of time that he is about to give us an account of all that Jesus Christ did and taught. He is addressing the believers and he does this in an unusual way by using a Greek term that you are most likely not familiar with. This is the Greek term stated in the King James Version as O The-oph-i-lus. I myself do not know of any other place in the Bible that this term is used. The term means “Oh, beloved of God”. In our everyday terms, we can say that Luke is telling the believers that he has prepared an account which he will give to them. And he refers to the believers as “Oh, beloved of God.”

There are 26 verses in chapter 1 of Acts. We are still covering only one of them. I have decided that this will be an Advanced teaching and could very possibly result in many more teachings concerning Acts. Remember, we are never to be in a hurry, so let us take our time and learn.

Be careful [anxious or distracted] for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. -- Philippians 4: 6

We are never to be in a hurry, anxious or allow ourselves to be distracted. This takes a renewed mind which can be accomplished only by a continual knowledge and application of the rightly divided Word of God.

Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: -- Acts 1: 2

I would like to give you a more literal translation of this verse which will make it much clearer for you to understand. Remember, that Luke was giving an account or greater explanation of all that Jesus Christ did and previously taught to the 12 apostles.

Until the day in which he [Jesus Christ] was taken up [ascended after three days and three nights] and that he [Jesus Christ] through [by] the Holy Ghost [by Revelation from God Almighty] had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: -- Acts 1: 2 -- Literal translation according to usage.

Time and time again, I have taught you that you must be very careful with the use of pronouns in the Word of God. We see in this verse that Jesus Christ received revelation from God at a previous time which instructed the apostles to be prepared for the original outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. I must mention at this point that you should read Acts Chapter 2: 1 - 4. The original outpouring of Holy Spirit is mentioned only in these four verses. It would help you very much at this point to read this teaching before you go any farther.

Most of Acts 1: 2 is self-explanatory except for the last part. God told Jesus Christ certain things by Revelation that the apostles were to know ahead of time before the day of Pentecost. You must finally understand that with God, all things are done decently and in order. This revelation that the apostles were now to receive would make this possible on the day of Pentecost. Let us take a look at the record of John 20: 22 to help you to rightly divide and clearly understand this verse, especially the part where Jesus Christ had given commandments unto the apostles. In this next verse, we are going to see one of the commandments that Jesus Christ gave to his apostles ahead of time. You remember that I said that I am going to condense what is important, but still make it very understandable and clear to you. It would help you if you read the gospel of John chapter 20, but we are going to turn specifically to verses 21 and 22 placing emphasis on verse 22.

Then said Jesus to them [the 12 apostles] again, Peace be unto you: as my Father had sent me, even so send I you. -- John 20: 21

Maybe the apostles did not completely understand what Jesus Christ was telling them. God will sometimes do this. God made sure that Jesus Christ was preparing them for something in the future that was going to be most dynamic and most important. Take a look at the first thing he said to them. He said “Peace be unto you”. It is very important for us to be peaceful to receive anything from God. The greatest cargoes of life come in over quiet seas. In the context of the verse, Jesus Christ was telling the apostles that even as God had sent him, that he was going to send the 12 apostles. In the next verse, Jesus Christ is preparing the apostles for the day of Pentecost. He was instructing them on how to receive [lambano] the Holy Spirit into manifestation. In every biblical class that I was a part of, we still did the same thing that Jesus Christ is about to tell his apostles.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: -- John 20: 22

This is a poor translation and you should be able to see why. According to the text, I am going to give you a more literal and accurate translation of this verse with an explanation.

And when he had said this, he breathed in, and saith unto them, Receive ye the holy ghost: -- John 20: 22 -- Literal translation according to usage.

Now what did I do as far as any changes took place? The words “on them” is a poor and inaccurate translation. Jesus Christ was breathing in. Picture yourself taking deep breathes. That is what Jesus Christ was trying to instruct his apostles to do on the day of Pentecost. God says it like he likes to say it and if you look at Acts chapter 2 verse 2, you will see the words ‘rushing mighty wind’. This is referring to the heavy breathing that the apostles were doing at that time. Now look back at the literal translation of John 20: 22.

Take note at the very end of the verse. You should know by now if you have been following these teachings that when God is referring to Himself, it will be written as Holy Ghost - upper case H and upper case G. Many times in the Word, God will refer to Himself as Holy Spirit. Notice again that the letter is an upper case H and an upper case S. This is referring to the GIVER. Now anyone should be able to understand the next part. God can give His gift which is holy spirit. Finally, my voice activated software did something correct. The gift is what God gave on the day of Pentecost. That is why it needs to be placed in the lower case. That is what I did in the literal translation of John 20: 22. Do you see the difference between the inaccurate translation and the accurate translation? This is very important. Many people confuse the giver and the gift. And actually, the principal is very simple, is it not? You should understand this by now and if you do not, please read this section over again. There are many places in the Word of God where the gift is capitalized. This is an error. If you take the giver, which is God Almighty, and you put this into lowercase, you also have an error. To sum it up, the giver always begins in an upper case letter. The gift always begins in a lowercase letter.

It blows my mind that we have only covered two Scriptures in chapter 1 of Acts and I have almost three full pages of text. Therefore, I decided we surely are going to take our time and after about five or six pages of text, we will stop and continue with a new part two. Acts is an exciting book, as you will surely see.

So that we can keep the context of this chapter clearly in our minds, I am going to go back and quote verse one and the literal translation of verse two of Acts chapter 1. This will help us to understand the transition to verse three which we are about to cover.

The former treatise have I made, O The-oph-i-lus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, -- Acts 1: 1

Notice that I am using color to attract your attention to the literal translation. You can say I am using color as a figure of speech to grab your attention. I will give you a tip that is from my advanced class. Some of you may believe this and some of you may not. The multiple use of a variety of different colors is from the god of this world. By reading verses one and two, you should not have any problem making the transition to verse three.

To whom also he [Jesus Christ] shewed himself alive after his passion [death] by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: -- Acts 1: 3

To understand how important it is not to inject private interpretation or guesswork into any of the Scriptures, I just now checked with my IT person who also took about as many advanced and foundational classes as I have. I wanted to make sure that you understand the previous verse rightly divided. We first talked about Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead after he was crucified. Understand that Christ did not ascend into heaven until 40 days later. He appeared to a number of different believers including the apostles. The verse says that he showed himself alive by many infallible proofs. We are only going to go over one of those examples for the sake of time and brevity of this teaching. Keep in mind that during these 40 days, Jesus Christ spoke of many things that pertain to the kingdom of God. One of them was preparing the apostles for the day of Pentecost. We went over this verse in John 20: 22. I have chosen another record that mostly everyone is familiar with and this concerns the record regarding Thomas.

Verse 24 of John chapter 20 tells us about Thomas, one of the 12 apostles who was not with all the apostles when Jesus Christ came to visit them.

The other apostles said unto him, We had seen the Lord. But he [Thomas] said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. -- John 20: 25

Read verse 26 and we will go directly to verse 27.

Then saith he [Jesus Christ] to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. -- John 20: 27

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. -- John 20: 28

This record is only one of the many infallible proofs that Jesus showed many people after he was raised from the dead. Remember, he spent 40 days on earth before he ascended into heaven. He made sure the apostles knew what to do on the day of Pentecost and he had done other miraculous acts during his 40 days after he was raised from the dead. It is important to know chronological events that occurred in the Bible. I was once quite weak in this area, but in time I learned to ask questions and to do more research to understand the times and conditions when biblical events took place. I urge you to do the same. It is important for your understanding that you know not only what took place, but also when it took place and where.

And being assembled together with them [the 12 apostles], [Jesus Christ] commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. -- Acts 1: 4

Here again, Jesus Christ is instructing the apostles as to what they should do. They should not depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father. This promise is the original outpouring of Holy Spirit - this is the day of Pentecost.

Now in the next verse, we come to a serious erroneous wrongly dividing of the Word of God. This is why you should never be witnessing to the goats – they will never believe. I tried to help my own sisters with the rightly divided Word of God and they just scoffed at everything I said. They would rather believe their religious leaders in their church who know nothing about the accuracy of God’s Word. My own sister was going through the motions as to how her relatives had their baby baptized with water baptism. My own sisters know absolutely nothing about the Bible. A new type of baptism was going to be available on the day of Pentecost. This is also what Jesus Christ expounded to his apostles in the next verse. How simple can this be? You, by your own free will decide whether you are going to believe the Word of God or the word of man.

For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in [scratch ‘with the’] pneuma hagion [holy ghost] not many days hence. -- Acts 1: 5

The words ‘with the’ do not appear in any of the Greek or Aramaic texts. But I want you to take a look in your King James Version and you can see that the words Holy and Ghost begin with upper case letters. This is a perfect example to show you what I previously taught you about upper case and lower case letters representing the giver and the gift. In this case, Jesus Christ is referring to the lowercase holy and the lowercase ghost because he is referring to the gift and not the giver who is God. This is a common error throughout the Word of God. Many times, you need to work the context of the chapter to understand if it is referring to the giver or to the gift. Giver is uppercase – gift is lowercase. Is that so difficult? But many of us need deep concentration when we are studying the Word of God because the enemy will come along and he will distract you in whatever way that he can so that you cannot concentrate properly. I will tell you some of the things that I do. I sometimes put plugs in my ears. I sometimes put static on my stereo. This blocks the distractions of any type of noise that the enemy can be making to hinder my knowledge of the accurate Word of God. Try it sometime. I realize that I had not even yet gotten into what I believed was the most important part of this verse and in many cases, it is. It is the difference between right doctrine and wrong doctrine.

Jesus Christ stressed the fact that John baptized with water. But, he says -- remember ‘but’ sets in contrast that which is said before. But you shall be baptized in pneuma hagion which is the gift from God. We are no longer to be baptized with water, but everyone who is born again of God’s spirit, is baptized at that instant with the holy spirit -- the gift. This water baptism is still being carried on by many of the major religions and denominations today. They refuse to believe or simply do not understand the Word of God rightly divided. They stick to tradition and tradition is erroneous and very devilish. You should thank God and not me that you found this website to finally teach you the minute accuracy of God’s Word so that you can be delivered from all the power of darkness once you renew your mind and apply the Word in your everyday life. It is really a reason to celebrate and I am thankful every day that I was fortunate enough to have enough brains to believe that if God created life, then I am sure that He knows how to live it.

I believe there are many major points brought up in this teaching in only five verses. For the sake of keeping it simple and making it as easy as I can for you, I am going to conclude this first part of this teaching. I will ask you to review it as many times as you have to to be able to understand these first five verses. They set the stage for what is about to come and we will stay with Acts as long as God wants me to. God bless you all and thank you for staying with me all of these years. I only care to share God’s Word and all of its accuracy to as many people as possible. But when I began this website, I prayed to God that I could only reach one person. God went over and above my request. We will continue in the future with verse six and part two of Acts chapter 1.

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