Today we’re sharing an excerpt from the Acts Bible study by Kelly Minter.
The book of Acts is not simply a collection of individual narratives; rather, every story, every event, every sermon tells the larger story of God’s mission in the world.
Although God’s mission—to redeem the world and draw humanity back to Himself—has remained the same since Genesis, the birth of the church in Acts was a turning point. The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on all believers and the commission for the church to take the good news about Jesus into Gentile territory were major shifts in how God was making His name known.
The kingdom of God is one of Jesus’s main preaching themes throughout the Gospels. Despite only a handful of usages in Acts (1:3; 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 28:23; 28:31), the whole book is a testament to the kingdom’s reality. Every move of the Spirit, every healing, baptism, salvation, or act of God working through the Roman Empire is reflective of God’s kingdom expanding on earth. “The ‘kingdom of God’ is not an earthly political or military kingdom but the present spiritually directed reign of God, gradually transforming individual lives and entire cultures through the power of the Holy Spirit.”1 Because we serve the King, we get to participate in praying for and helping bring His kingdom right here to our broken world.
Let’s read Acts 1:4-8 together:
While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “Which,” he said, “you have heard me speak about; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?”
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Among Jesus’s final instructions for His disciples was the command to wait for the Holy Spirit. Along with this instruction, He made a distinction between the baptism of John the Baptist and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You can read about John’s baptism in Luke 3:1-22. John baptized repentant believers (those who had turned from their sins and back to God) with water in preparation for Jesus’s coming. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit signaled the Messiah had come, a new era had dawned, and a new kind of community was birthed—the Christian church.
In Acts 1, the disciples had little to no understanding of what this new baptism would look like or mean. And with Jesus about to ascend to heaven, they wanted to know if He would use His exalted authority and position to restore the kingdom of Israel (v. 6). At this time, the nation of Israel was under Roman occupation. The Jewish assumption had long been that when the Messiah finally arrived on the scene He would come in the image of King David—a strong military leader, a political force, a ruler who could conquer Rome and restore Israel to its national glory.
Not only did Jesus prove to be a different kind of king than that, but He also told His followers they didn’t need to know the timeframe for restoration. That information belonged to God. This sounds familiar to me. How often do we tell God what needs to happen, and when it needs to happen, only to discover He is doing a new thing on an alternative timeline? But here’s the encouraging news: Jesus didn’t leave His disciples (then or now) hanging. He gave them what they needed to know when they needed to know it, and He does the same for us today.
Although Jesus didn’t answer the disciples’ question like they might have wanted Him to, He did give an answer. The kingdom of Israel would certainly be restored, but its transformation wouldn’t come through political, military, or even religious might. Restoration would come through the power of the Holy Spirit working through His witnesses to all nations. The focus would no longer be confined to the kingdom of Israel, but to the spread of the kingdom of God around the world, one heart at a time.
When the Holy Spirit came, He came with power that enabled Jesus’s disciples to be bold witnesses for Him. Sometimes we don’t share our faith because we fear we won’t be able to explain it clearly, we won’t have answers to the honest questions of skeptics, or we’re not theologically educated enough. But bearing witness to Christ is first and foremost about testifying of His death and resurrection and how the risen Lord has changed your life.
Let it sink in that we are called to bear witness to the resurrected life of Christ wherever we go, wherever we live. I hope you feel the excitement. Acts is not mere words on a page; it is the church’s launch party. We are not to only read about this story, we’re to live it. Yes, it is the first-century church’s story, but it is also our story. Their mission remains our mission, and the Holy Spirit is alive and at work today in you and me.
Want to learn more about the Acts Bible study by Kelly Minter? Watch the promo video below for a sneak peek or view a free sample and teaching video clips.
Works Cited
1. Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 2080.
