NT Overview  Week 08
Sources and the Chronology of the Apostolic Age

Our chapter this week begins our study of the followers of Jesus Christ as they begin to "live out and in" Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:4-8 until He returns.

The Master is gone...now what...now when...now how do we...

As you study this week and the subsequent weeks, try to draw some parallels between how the early believers lived out the Gospel and how you live in the Gospel. Every generation must answer the question of "how are we to live out the Good New of Jesus Christ with our particular circumstances."

In the Resources you will find "Non-Canonical."  If you desire to get a "feel" of how the early Christians lived out their Christian walk, you might want to peruse the New Testament section of the non-canonical literature. Metzger mentions several of these writings.

Of non-canonical Christian writings produced during the second and succeeding centuries…It will be obvious, however, to anyone who reads these apocryphal acts that they are merely romanticized and legendary accounts which tell us far more about the interests and mentality of their unknown authors of the second and succeeding centuries than they do about the first-century apostles whose deeds they purport to record! (Metzger, 169)

The individual believers and leaders of the First Century lived in a world that was for the most part against them.

• First Century believers politically had a one-world government where the top man was to be considered God.
• The mix of religious beliefs and philosophies impacted their daily lives.

Acts is about how the Good News of Jesus Christ confronted a generation. What did the believers and non-believers do with the knowledge of Christ? Accept? Reject? Wait?

The whole of the Bible is filled with stories of how God confronted individuals, families, groups of people, and nations to understand who they were and how they related to God, Himself.

I would suggest that you mark your Bible with the "six panels" mentioned on Metzger page 172. 

Last Updated 24 February 2000