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From Jerusalem to the Nations by God’s Design · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking. It is good to be back in the
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  studio. It's good to be here.
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  We've got quite a stack of material in front of us today.
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  We do. And I want to, you know, set the
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  stage properly because the book we're talking about today is one
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  that I think most of us, we have it on our shelves.
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  We read it, but we might be coming at it with the wrong
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  lens. We're talking about the book of
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  Acts. The Acts of the Apostles, right?
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  And the default setting when we open Acts is to go into history
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  mode. You know, we grab the
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  highlighters, we flip to the maps in the back of the Bible,
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  the ones with all the red lines showing the missionary journeys,
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  and we treat it like a textbook. It's a bridge.
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  That's how most people see it. Yeah, a bridge.
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  You've got the Gospels, which tell us about Jesus.
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  Then you've got the Epistles, which are, you know, the heavy
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  theology. And Acts.
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  Acts is just the glue. It's the transitional story that
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  explains how we got from Jerusalem to Rome.
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  And that's not wrong exactly. It is a history.
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  It does answer that logistical question.
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  How did this message get from a small province to the heart of
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  the Empire? But if you stop there, you're
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  missing the engine that's driving the whole machine.
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  You miss the whole theological point.
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  And that is what we're digging into today.
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  We're drawing from two really solid sources.
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  First God's Invincible Plan. A structural study of Acts by
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  Mark Tatlock and Christ Burnett. And we're pairing that with a
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  piece called Practical Pauline Missions by William D Barrick.
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  And the thesis that we're working with today is pretty
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  bold. It's that Acts isn't just a
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  travelogue, it's a theological treatise on the sovereignty of
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  God. That's the core argument, the
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  central theme. The main idea of the entire book
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  of Acts is that God's plan is invincible.
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  Invincible. Unstoppable.
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  No matter the opposition, no matter the chaos, the plan moves
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  forward. That's a strong word.
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  Invincible. It implies there's a fight going
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  on. You don't call something
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  invincible unless it's being attacked.
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  Precisely. And to really grasp this, we
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  have to look at the book in a new way.
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  Tatlock and Burnett use this analogy of building a house that
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  I think is really helpful. Yeah.
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  First you have to look at the architectural framework.
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  You know the beams, the structure, how it's built.
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  The blueprints. Then the theological foundation,
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  the concrete, it all stands on, what holds it up.
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  And finally the pastoral purpose, sort of the
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  furnishings, the and people actually live in it.
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  All right. Let's grab our hard hats then.
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  Let's start with that framework, the architecture.
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  The source makes a good point that most people already know
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  the basic outline of Acts, even if they don't realize it.
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  It comes right from the first chapter.
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  Acts 1.8 It's the key. It's basically the table of
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  contents for the whole book. Jesus tells the disciples, You
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  will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and
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  Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
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  And the book just follows that map.
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  It's like a military campaign. Chapters one through 7 they're
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  all in Jerusalem. Then chapters 8 through 12, the
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  circle widens out to Judea and Samaria.
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  The next ripple? And then from Chapter 13 all the
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  way to 28, it's off to the races, to the ends of the earth.
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  And this geographic spread is paralleled by a demographic one.
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  It moves from being a message primarily for Jews to a message
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  for Gentiles, and from a church that's just in its infancy to
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  one that's maturing. But our sources highlight
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  something else in the structure that people often just read
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  right past, and that's how Luke, the author, uses specific people
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  to frame the narrative. You're talking about the Peter
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  and Paul parallel. Yes, this is just fascinating.
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  It's like Luke is doing this intentional literary mirroring.
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  He really is. If you read carefully, you see
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  the first half of the book is largely Peter's story, the
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  apostle to the circumcised. The second-half is Paul's, the
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  apostle to the Gentiles. But Luke doesn't just tell their
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  stories one after the other, He matches them event for event.
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  I was looking at the table laid out in the source material and
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  the symmetry is just, it's striking.
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  It's almost like Luke is shouting hey, pay attention to
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  this. So give us an example.
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  OK, so Peter gives this massive foundational sermon in Jerusalem
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  in chapter 2, Pentecost, right? And Paul in chapter 13 gives a
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  massive sermon in Pacitian Antioch that sort of launches
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  his mission to the Gentiles. The structure is almost
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  identical. And it goes so much deeper than
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  just the sermons. Think about the miracles.
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  Remember Peter healing the lame man?
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  Chapter 3 At the beautiful gate, Peter says silver and gold have
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  I none, and the man walks. A classic Sunday school story.
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  Well, in chapter 14, what does Paul do in Lystra?
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  He heals a man who had been lame from birth.
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  OK, so a sermon for a sermon, a healing for a healing.
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  What else? The conflicts Peter has that
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  showdown with Simon the Magician in Samaria in chapter 8.
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  Right. Who tries to buy the power of
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  the Holy Spirit? And in chapter 13, Paul has a
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  showdown with another magician, Alimus, also called Bar Jesus.
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  He strikes him blind. It just keeps going.
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  Peter raises Tabitha from the dead in Chapter 9 and.
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  Paul in chapter 20 raises Eudicus, the poor guy who fell
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  asleep during the long sermon and fell out of a third story
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  window. And the jailbreaks.
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  Peter has that miraculous jailbreak in chapter 12.
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  An Angel leads him out. And Paul gets his own miraculous
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  jailbreak in chapter 16 with the earthquake in Philippi.
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  So it's not subtle, not all, but the question is why?
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  I mean, is Luke just running out of ideas?
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  Is he thinking, Well, that jailbreak scene worked really
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  well in the first half, let's just do it again with a
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  different character. Not a chance.
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  The implication here is entirely theological.
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  Luke is structuring it this way to show that God's work is
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  consistent no matter who the human instrument is.
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  You have to remember the context of the early church.
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  There were factions. There were people seriously
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  questioning Pauls authority. He was the new guy, the
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  outsider, the one who used to, you know, kill Christians.
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  Exactly. So by mirroring Peters ministry
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  so precisely, Luke is making a powerful statement.
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  He's saying, look, the same spirit, the same power, the same
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  divine stamp of approval that was on Peter is also on Paul.
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  It validates his apostleship. It completely validates him.
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  It unifies the Church's mission. It shows that the mission to the
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  Gentiles isn't some rogue spin off.
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  It has the same divine backing as the original mission to the
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  Jews. It's an apologetic for Paul,
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  picked right into the structure of the book.
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  That's a good way to put it. Now, besides the geography and
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  the people, there's a third structural element that helps us
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  see the flow of the book. Tatlock and Burnett call them
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  the growth statements. These are like Lukes progress
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  reports. That's a perfect description.
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  Luke periodically pauses the action and give the summary
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  statement. They act like these big pillars
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  holding up the roof of the narrative.
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  And there are six of them, right?
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  Six of them, Acts 6.79.3112.2416.519.20 and the
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  very last verse of the book, 28.31.
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  And they all have a similar ring to them, something like the word
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  of God spread or the church grew.
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  They do. The Word of God continued to
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  increase, or the church was multiplied.
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  But what's really significant is where Luke places them.
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  They almost always appear right after a major conflict or
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  persecution has been resolved. So there's a pattern.
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  A definite rhythm. It's crisis resolution, growth
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  statement, crisis resolution, growth statement over and over.
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  It's like the chorus in a song. The verse is full of trouble and
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  drama, and then you hit the chorus.
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  But the word grew. And that rhythm is a key part of
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  the architecture. Which brings us to the final
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  piece of the framework, which is a bit more literary, the
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  chiastic structure. We don't have to get bogged down
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  in the technical weeds here, but it's worth seeing how Acts is a
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  mirror image of the Gospel of Luke.
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  Right, because Luke wrote them both their volume 1 and volume 2
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  of the same same story. Exactly.
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  So in the Gospel of Luke, what's the direction of movement?
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  It's all moving towards Jerusalem.
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  Jesus starts out in the wider world, the context of the Roman
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  Empire, moves through Galilee, Samaria and Judea, and the
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  climax is in Jerusalem. And acts just flips that
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  completely on its head. It flips it.
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  The story starts in Jerusalem, moves out to Samaria and Judea,
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  then to the nations. And where does it end?
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  In Rome, the heart of the empire.
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  And the pivot point, the hinge on which the whole story turns,
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  is the resurrection and ascension.
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  Everything in Luke's gospel leads up to it, and everything
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  in Acts flows out from it. It's this beautiful, complete
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  picture of God's Kingdom invading the world.
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  OK, so that's the framework. We've got the geographic map
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  from Acts 1.8, the Peter Palmira, the six growth pillars
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  in this big Luke Acts Chiasm. Now let's dig down to the
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  foundation, the concrete. What is this whole building
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  standing on? Well, the primary foundation,
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  the bedrock, is the sovereignty of God.
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  We mentioned the invincible plan earlier.
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  Throughout Acts, Luke keeps using this language of divine
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  necessity. Things happened because they had
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  to happen. It was necessary to fulfill
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  Scripture. It's God's plan unfolding, but
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  there's a specific Reformed insight from the text about the
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  Word that I find absolutely striking.
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  This is the idea of the word is the hero.
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  Yes. Usually when we read a story,
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  we're looking for the protagonist.
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  Is it Peter? Is it Paul?
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  Maybe the church as a whole. I think most people would say
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  Paul is the main character of the second-half for sure.
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  You'd think so, but if you pay close attention to the Greek
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  verbs Luke uses, a really interesting pattern emerges.
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  When Luke writes about the word of God, he uses active verbs.
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  The word grew. The word prevailed.
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  The word increased. But when he writes about the
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  church, he often uses passive verbs.
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  The church was multiplied. The numbers were added.
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  Oh, that's a huge distinction. That's a really fine point.
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  It is. We tend to think, Look at what
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  the early church did. They were so bold.
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  They went out and multiplied. But Luke is framing it
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  differently. He's saying no.
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  Look at what the word did. So the word is the active agent,
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  the word is the engine. The Word is the hero of the
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  story. The church is the result, the
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  effect of the words activity. It's not that the church carries
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  the Word, it's that the Word carries the church.
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  Wow, that that takes the pressure off doesn't.
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  It absolutely does, and it completely reframes the next
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  theological block, which is the role of suffering in the book.
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  Right, this is the part nobody really likes to talk about.
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  We want the Invincible plan to mean smooth sailing, no
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  problems. But in the book of Acts, the
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  invincible plan is paved with suffering.
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  It's a paradox. Suffering is presented as the
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  primary vehicle for the Gospels advance.
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  Our source quotes a scholar named Paul House who concludes
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  that the Gospel prospers because of persecution, not just in
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  spite of it. Because of it, not just despite
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  it. Yes, think about it.
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  Go back to those growth statements we talked about, the
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  clearest, strongest ones. Acts 6.712.2419.
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  Point twinnery come immediately after the most intense periods
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  of conflict. So give me an example.
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  OK, Stephen is martyred. At the end of Chapter 7, a huge
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  wave of persecution breaks out, led by Saul.
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  It looks like a total disaster, right?
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  The church in Jerusalem is scattered.
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  It looks like the movement is being crushed in its cradle.
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  But what does Acts 8.4 say? Those who had been scattered
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  went about preaching the word. If they hadn't been forced out
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  of Jerusalem by suffering, the mission to Judea and Samaria
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  might have been delayed for years, maybe decades.
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  So God uses the enemy's attack to kick start the next phase of
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  his own plan. He uses the persecution as the
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  fuel for the expansion. It's the standard operating
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  procedure for the Kingdom. That transitions us perfectly to
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  the third part of the building analogy, the pastoral purpose,
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  the furnishings. Why did Luke even write this
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  book? Who was it for?
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  Well, there have been a lot of theories over the years.
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  Some have argued it was a legal brief and apologetic to defend
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  Paul and his trial before Caesar.
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  To show that Christianity wasn't a threat to Rome.
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  Right. Others have said it was mainly
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  an evangelistic tract, but the text itself tells us who the
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  audience is. Right at the beginning of Luke
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  and Acts. It's written to a man named
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  Theophilus. Most excellent Theophilus.
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  And Luke says he's writing so that Theophilus might have
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  certainty concerning the things he's been taught.
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  This is all about pastoral assurance.
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  So it's for believers. It's for believers.
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  Yeah. Try to put yourself in the shoes
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  of a Christian in the 1st century.
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  The Jewish religious leaders hate you.
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  The Roman Empire is deeply suspicious of you.
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  Your leaders, like James and Steven, are getting arrested and
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  killed. You might start to ask, did we
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  back the wrong horse here? Is this whole movement failing?
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  It would certainly look like it's failing if you're just
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  judging by worldly standards of success and safety.
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  Of course. So Luke writes this massive 2
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  volume work to say Theophilus my friend, look at the evidence.
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  The high Priest and the Sanhedrin couldn't stop it.
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  King Herod couldn't stop it. Angry mobs in city after city
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  couldn't stop it. Shipwrecks couldn't stop it.
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  This plan is invincible. The intended effect is
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  encouragement for the wavering believer.
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  And that changes how we should read the character of Paul in
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  the story. Yeah, I think we have a
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  tendency, especially in our circles, to put Paul on a
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  pedestal as this kind of spiritual superhero.
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  We do. But you're saying Luke presents
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  him differently? Luke focuses heavily on Paul's
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  imprisonment, his trials, his beatings.
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  He isn't trying to glorify Paul the man.
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  He's presenting Paul as a model of the faithful witness and
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  suffering. Right.
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  Remember what Paul says in Acts 14.22.
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  Through many afflictions we must enter the Kingdom of God.
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  Luke is showing Theophilus, and by extension us, that Paul's
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  suffering wasn't a sign that God had abandoned him.
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  It was the mark of his faithfulness.
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  It was the standard path. The message being, if the
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  greatest missionary, whoever lived, experienced this, we
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  shouldn't be surprised when we do too.
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  Precisely. The pastoral message to
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  Theophilus is if the full might of the Jewish religious system
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  and the Roman Empire couldn't crush the Gospel, then nothing
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  can crush it now. OK, I want to walk through the
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  rhythm of the book now because we've talked about these growth
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  statements, but I want to actually trace the cycles that
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  our source material identifies. When you lay them out one by
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  one, it really does look like a heartbeat.
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  Opposition expansion. Opposition expansion.
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  It's a six beat rhythm that carries through the entire book.
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  Let's trace it. Cycle 1 is in Jerusalem.
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  The church starts to grow after Pentecost.
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  What's the immediate result? Opposition.
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  The priests and Sadducees arrest Peter and John and then you get
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  the internal corruption with Ananias and Sapphira.
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  That was the first major internal scandal, a huge threat.
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  It was, but what's the result right after all that, we get the
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  first growth statement in Acts 6.7.
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  Which says the word of God continued to spread and the
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  number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem,
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  and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the
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  faith. Even the priests, the very
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  people who are opposing them. OK, so what's cycle 2?
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  Cycle 2 is the persecution after Stephen's death.
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  Stephen is murdered. Saul is ravaging the church,
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  dragging people out of their homes.
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  It looks bleak. The end of the movement.
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  But then what does Acts 9.31 say?
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  So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria
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  had peace and was being built up.
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  The persecution spread the church out just like Jesus
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  commanded. Cycle 3.
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  This one involves a heavy hitter, King Herod.
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  King Herod Agrippa. He has James, the brother of
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  John killed with the sword. Then he arrests Peter intending
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  to do the same thing. This is state sponsored
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  execution A. Direct attack from the political
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  authority. But God breaks Peter out of
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  prison, and Herod is struck down by an Angel.
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  The result in Acts 12.24. But the word of the Lord
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  continued to grow and to be multiplied.
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  You can't miss the pattern. Cycle 4 takes us out onto the
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  mission field with Paul. Right.
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  Paul is stoned in Lystra and left for dead.
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  I mean, they literally dragged his body out of the city
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  thinking he was dead. On top of that you have the huge
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  internal conflict over circumcision, the Judaizer
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  controversy. An external threat and an
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  internal one. And yet, what does Acts 16.5 say
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  right after that council is resolved?
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  So the churches were being strengthened in the faith and
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  we're abounding in number daily. OK, cycle 5.
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  This is when Paul is an Ephesus in Greece.
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  You have the huge riot of the silversmiths in Ephesus.
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  You have mockery and Athens on the Areopagus.
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  Paul is in constant danger. But the result in Acts 19.20 is
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  So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.
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  I love that word prevailing. It was winning.
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  And that brings us to the final cycle, Cycle 6, the long journey
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  to Rome. This is the climax of
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  difficulty, isn't it? It it's one disaster after
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  another. Paul is arrested in Jerusalem,
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  there's a plot to assassinate him.
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  He spends 2 years in prison in Caesarea, Then the shipwreck,
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  then the snake bite on Malta. Everything that could go wrong
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  does go wrong. And he finally arrives in Rome,
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  not as a free man, but as a prisoner under house arrest.
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  Chained to a Roman guard. And this is where the book ends.
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  Acts 28, verses 30 and 31. Paul is there for two years,
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  welcoming all who came to him, preaching the Kingdom of God and
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  teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness.
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  And then comes the very last word in the Greek text.
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  Akilitus. Akilitus it means unhindered.
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  That gives me chills. Every time Paul is chained, he
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  is physically hindered with the word of God.
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  Unhindered. That is the final stamp on the
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  entire book. The plan is invincible.
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  The messenger might be in chains, as Paul later tells
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  Timothy, but the word of God is not bound.
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  That's a perfect transition to the practical side of this.
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  We've established this huge theological truth.
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  Yes, God is sovereign. The plan is invincible.
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  But you know, we still have work to do.
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  We're the instruments in this plan.
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  So how do we do it? This is where we can turn to the
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  Barrack Source Practical Pauline mission.
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  Yes, this is where we see that amazing interplay between divine
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  sovereignty and human responsibility.
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  Paul didn't just sit around and wait for the divine necessity to
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  ZAP people into the Kingdom. He had a strategy.
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  But, and this is key, it was a flexible strategy.
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  Barrick does this great case study comparing 2 of Paul's
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  mission stops, Basidian, Antioch and Philippi, and they're great
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  to compare because his approach in each city was totally
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  different. Let's walk through it.
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  Basidian, Antioch first. This is in Acts 13.
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  Paul and Barnabas arrive in the city.
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  What's their first stop? Where do they go?
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  The synagogue. A synagogue?
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  He goes to the Religious and Cultural Center for the Jews.
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  And who's his audience? Primarily men.
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  The text mentions men of Israel and God fearing Gentiles who
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  were attached to the synagogue. Right.
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  And he stands up and delivers this long sermon that is just
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  saturated with Old Testament Scripture.
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  He's quoting the Psalms, he's quoting Isaiah.
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  He's meeting them exactly where they are, culturally and
• 18:26
  theologically. Then what's the result?
• 18:28
  It's mixed. At first there's a great
• 18:29
  response, but eventually the Jewish leaders get jealous.
• 18:33
  They incite the prominent man and the leading women of the
• 18:36
  city, and they run Paul and Barnabas out.
• 18:38
  Of town and Paul's reaction is pretty stern.
• 18:41
  He shakes the dust off his feet against them.
• 18:44
  That was a symbolic act of judgement, but it was also just,
• 18:47
  you know, social prudence. The door was slammed shut.
• 18:50
  He didn't stay and fight a losing battle.
• 18:53
  He moved on to the next town. OK, now contrast that with
• 18:56
  Philippi in Acts 16. Totally different situation.
• 18:59
  Philippi was a Roman colony. It seems there weren't enough
• 19:02
  Jewish men there to even form a synagogue.
• 19:04
  You needed ten men for that. So there's no synagogue to go
• 19:07
  to. So where does Paul go?
• 19:09
  He goes down to the river to a place where he heard there was
• 19:12
  prayer. And who does he find there?
• 19:14
  Who's the audience? Women specifically a
• 19:17
  businesswoman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth.
• 19:20
  So just stop there. In Antioch, he's in a formal
• 19:22
  religious building, a synagogue addressing men.
• 19:25
  In Philippi, he's an informal outdoor setting by a river,
• 19:29
  talking to a group of women. The method completely changed.
• 19:31
  He didn't try to build a synagogue first.
• 19:34
  He didn't demand they come to him.
• 19:35
  He went to where the people were gathering.
• 19:37
  And the outcome in Philippi was, well, it was complicated.
• 19:41
  Very. He casts as a demon out of a
• 19:44
  slave girl, which tanks her owner's business model.
• 19:47
  That gets him and Silas arrested, beaten with rods and
• 19:51
  thrown into the inner prison. And then we get the famous
• 19:53
  earthquake scene. But notice Paul's reaction here.
• 19:56
  It's the complete opposite of what he did in Antioch.
• 19:59
  There he left when opposition arose.
• 20:01
  In Philippi, when the earthquake opens the prison doors, what
• 20:03
  does he do? He stays.
• 20:05
  Why? Why does he stay?
• 20:07
  Because the jailer is about to kill himself, thinking the
• 20:09
  prisoners have escaped, Paul shows compassion for him.
• 20:12
  And then the next morning, when the magistrates try to quietly
• 20:15
  let them go, Paul refuses. He demands a public apology.
• 20:20
  He asserts his rights as a Roman citizen.
• 20:23
  That is a stark contrast. In one city he shakes the dust
• 20:26
  off and leaves. In the other, he stands his
• 20:28
  ground and demands justice. And that shows us the principle
• 20:31
  of flexibility. Paul changed his location,
• 20:34
  synagogue versus river. He changed his primary audience,
• 20:37
  men versus women. He changed his reaction to
• 20:40
  persecution, leaving versus staying.
• 20:42
  He accepted everything to the local context.
• 20:45
  But, and this is the big but, what was the one thing that did
• 20:48
  not change? The message, his reliance on
• 20:51
  Scripture in the core of the Gospel.
• 20:53
  Whether he was talking to Jews who knew the Torah inside and
• 20:56
  out, or a Roman jailer who likely knew nothing about it,
• 21:00
  the Gospel of Jesus Christ was the non negotiable central
• 21:03
  pillar. And Barrick points out that Paul
• 21:06
  even justifies his turning to the Gentiles by quoting from
• 21:08
  Isaiah. Right from Isaiah 42 and 49, he
• 21:11
  saw the servant of Yahweh prophecies as applying not just
• 21:14
  to Christ himself, but to the mission of the Church.
• 21:17
  The message was fixed. The methodology was incredibly
• 21:20
  fluid. There's one more point Barrick
• 21:22
  makes about leadership that I think is just crucial for us
• 21:24
  today. Indigenous leadership.
• 21:25
  Yes, back in Philippi after all that drama, who does Paul leave
• 21:30
  in charge of this brand new church?
• 21:31
  Lydia and the jailer, A businesswoman from Thyatira and
• 21:35
  a blue collar Roman civil servant.
• 21:37
  He didn't stay for 10 years to make sure they got everything
• 21:40
  right. He didn't import leaders from
• 21:42
  Jerusalem. He entrusted the work to local
• 21:44
  people almost immediately. He trusted that the Holy Spirit
• 21:47
  and the Word were sufficient to build them up.
• 21:50
  That takes a lot of faith. We like to control things.
• 21:53
  We like to set up programs and structures and make sure
• 21:55
  everything is perfect before we hand over the keys.
• 21:58
  But if you truly believe the plan is invincible and that the
• 22:03
  word is the hero, you can hand over the keys.
• 22:06
  If you believe it all depends on you and your perfect strategy,
• 22:09
  you never will. And that connects right back to
• 22:11
  the theology. If the word is the active agent,
• 22:14
  if the word is the thing that grows, then Lydia and the jailer
• 22:19
  are in good hands because they have the word.
• 22:21
  That's it. That's the connection.
• 22:23
  So let's try to bring this all together.
• 22:24
  We have this massive structural study of Acts showing us God's
• 22:28
  plan on the move from Jerusalem to Rome, overcoming every single
• 22:32
  obstacle. And then we have this practical
• 22:34
  study showing us that while the plan is sovereign, we are called
• 22:37
  to be these flexible, strategic and faithful witnesses within
• 22:40
  that plan. The synthesis is simply this.
• 22:43
  The plan of God is sovereign and invincible.
• 22:46
  That's the headline. Our part is faithful, context
• 22:51
  aware witness. And for you listening, this
• 22:53
  isn't just ancient history. No, the relevance is the whole
• 22:56
  point. Modern believers, missionaries,
• 22:58
  churches, we face the same kinds of things.
• 23:01
  We see riots, maybe not always physical riots of silversmiths,
• 23:04
  but certainly cultural riots. We see Stoning's rejection being
• 23:09
  cancelled, open hostility to the message.
• 23:12
  We see internal disputes in the church that threatened to tear
• 23:15
  us apart. And it is so easy to look at the
• 23:17
  state of the world, or even the state of the church some days
• 23:19
  and think it's all crumbling. We're losing.
• 23:22
  But the book of Acts X shouts at us from across the centuries and
• 23:25
  says, no, it is not. This is just the rhythm.
• 23:27
  Opposition is the prelude to expansion.
• 23:29
  Suffering is the path to glory. The architectural framework
• 23:32
  holds. The foundation is sure.
• 23:36
  I want to leave our listener with one final thought, and it
• 23:38
  has to do with the very end of the book.
• 23:40
  You mentioned earlier that X ends abruptly.
• 23:42
  It's one of the most famous cliffhangers in all of
• 23:44
  literature, isn't it? Paul is in Rome.
• 23:47
  He's under house arrest. He hasn't appeared before Caesar
• 23:50
  yet. We don't see his trial.
• 23:52
  We don't learn if he was released or executed.
• 23:55
  Luke just stops the story. Why?
• 23:58
  Why end it there? I believe, and many scholars
• 24:01
  would agree, it's because the story isn't over.
• 24:03
  The Acts of the Apostles was never meant to be a closed book.
• 24:06
  It was meant to turn into the Acts of the Church.
• 24:09
  The narrative of God's invincible plan didn't stop in
• 24:12
  Acts 28. It continued through the early
• 24:15
  church fathers, through the Reformation, through the modern
• 24:17
  missionary movement. And it continues right now with
• 24:20
  you, the listener. You're living in chapter 29.
• 24:22
  In a very real sense, yes. You are a part of the same
• 24:25
  invincible structure. The baton has been passed.
• 24:28
  The obstacles look different now, but the power of the word
• 24:31
  is the same, and the final outcome, the unhindered Kingdom,
• 24:35
  is absolutely guaranteed. That is a comforting and a
• 24:38
  deeply challenging place to land.
• 24:40
  Thank you for walking us through all this.
• 24:42
  It was my privilege. And thank you for listening to
• 24:44
  Reformed Thinking. Until next time.