target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_5d2d7b9d-1ade-5d24-b0d6-3e3e1c6bd926">124 Some have speculated that Luke may have even intended his work to be a catechism for Theophilus and the others that would have access to it.125 It is also apparent from the scope of the work and the way in which Luke wrote it that he intended for it to have a larger audience than just Theophilus.126 While there may be a number of primary and secondary reasons put forth for why Luke wrote his two volumes, the safest route is to accept Luke’s own purpose for writing. He wanted, “to give Theophilus a comprehensive, accurate, historical account of the matters concerning Christianity in order that he may be assured of the reality of the things which he has been taught.”127
In a similar way, W. Ward Gasque sees four purposes in Luke’s writings that emerge from a study of the prologues.128 First of all, the prologues outline Luke’s literary pretensions. He tells his reader how he is going to write. Luke’s prefaces also show historical pretensions. He is organizing an “orderly account” of the story that he is telling. Luke also has a theological purpose to his writing. He wants to tell what God has done: “the things that have been fulfilled among us.” The last area that Gasque mentions concerns the fact that Luke is writing his book to a Gentile Christian audience who need to be assured that what they have been taught is accurate and true. This fourth purpose, then, is pastoral in nature.
There are several other possible purposes for Luke-Acts that have been put forward and deserve consideration. These look beyond just the prologues and take into account the entirety of both books. The first of these that will be mentioned is the one that was set forth by Hans Conzelman in The Theology of St. Luke. Conzelman understood Luke’s central theme to be responding to the delay of the Parousia.129 The anticipation of a quick return of the Lord gave way to disillusionment in some segments of the early church. Luke understood this and as a pastor he wrote to provide encouragement that everything was proceeding according to God’s predetermined plan. By showing the unfolding of world history from the viewpoint of God’s unfolding revelation of Himself, Luke lets his readers know that the delayed Parousia is not really delayed at all.130 God’s plan was worked out in the life of Jesus and now is being worked out in the life of the church.131 There is no indication in either of the prologues that Luke was writing to explain the delay of the Lord’s return. Conzelman does make a strong case, however, that this was one of the subsidiary purposes that Luke was attempting to demonstrate.
A second purpose that has been set forth for Luke-Acts is that of an apologetic work intended to offset the charges that Christianity was politically antagonistic towards the Roman government.132 While this does not appear to have been a primary purpose for the writing of Luke-Acts, it could have been a secondary one. Luke notes that Pilate declared the innocence of Jesus three times.133 The Roman authorities declared the innocence of Paul on three occasions.134 Rosenblatt argues that this is one of the primary themes for Acts. She believes that Luke deliberately shows Paul as, “the witness and the accused- who must press forward from synagogue to courtroom to give his testimony, ultimately before governors and kings.”135 According to her, in Acts, Paul’s judicial confrontations gradually assume dominance in the narrative and Acts ends with Paul defending the Gospel to the Roman world.136 While Rosenblatt does make a good case that this apologetic aspect of Luke’s writing is one of the purposes for his writing, she seems to overstate it by making this the primary reason. Luke does not even hint in either one of his prologues that he is planning on writing an apology for Christianity. As has been shown, Luke seemed to have several purposes for writing and apologetics is only one of them.137
Another purpose for Luke-Acts that will be examined specifically relates to the material that is recorded in Acts. Many scholars believe that one of Luke’s reasons for writing was to address the problems that developed between the Jewish and the Gentile believers in the early church.138 It is easy to build a case for this theory based on the text of Acts. Luke records a number of instances that directly relate to this issue. These include the story of Peter and Cornelius, along with Peter’s subsequent defense of his actions in chapters 10 and 11 and the issue of the Judaizers in Antioch and the Jerusalem Council in chapter 15. Paul’s arrest in chapter 21 was directly related to his trying to appease the Jewish believers of the Jerusalem Church who thought he was teaching Jews to disobey the Law. This appears to be another valid subsidiary purpose for the writing of Acts.
A last purpose that will be mentioned for Luke-Acts is put forth by Carson, Moo, and Morris in An Introduction to the New Testament. They argue that Luke wrote to edify and build up Christians by showing how God’s plan was first fulfilled in Jesus. The plan of God had then “continued to unfold in the history of the early church.”139 In his two-volume work, Luke clearly shows how Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. In essence, history culminated in Christ but continued to move forward through the apostles and then, “the church as the eschatological people of God.”140 This understanding of the purpose for Luke-Acts will become even clearer as Peter and Paul’s ministries are compared and contrasted.
The Message of Acts
Because Luke’s second volume is going to be the primary source for this study on Peter and Paul, this chapter will end by looking briefly at the basic message that is presented there. First of all, it is apparent that Acts is a continuation of the third Gospel. What Jesus did in the Gospel of Luke, He continued to do through His church in Acts.141 After the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they began to do the same things that they had seen Jesus do when He was with them: preaching, teaching, healing, raising people from the dead, and casting out demons.142
A second element of Luke’s message, as seen in Acts, is that of the church. Luke traced the birth and development of the church and showed how it grew into a worldwide movement in about thirty years.143 In his Gospel, Luke gives a detailed account of the birth of Christ and some aspects of His childhood before moving on to discuss His ministry. In a similar way in Acts, Luke describes the birth and infancy of the church. He then goes on to describe how it grew into “adulthood.”144
Included in this theme of showing the way the church grew, Luke makes it a point to show some of the “growing pains” that were associated with it. One of the main issues that Luke attempted to resolve was that of Jewish/Gentile relations. Luke wrote Acts in such a way that chapter 15, the center of the book, dealt with the question of whether or not Gentiles would have to be circumcised before being accepted into the church.145 A further aspect of the problem was concerned with table fellowship between the two groups. Could a Jewish believer share a meal with a Gentile believer? While Luke did touch on this subject, it was much more fully developed in the writings of Paul.146
