Scholars believe that the Acts of the Apostles was written after St. Luke’s Gospel sometime between 80 and 90 AD. This dating is based the fact that Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a source. It is also based on the lack of reference to the Pauline Epistles in Acts. It is important to visualize the Third Gospel and the book of Acts as two parts of a single whole. The "former treatise" referenced in the first verse refers to the Gospel of St. Luke. Theophilus means "lover of God" which means it could have been addressed to all "lovers of God". The word is also used in the third verse of the first chapter of St. Luke. In that case, he addresses "most excellent Theophilus" which could mean it was all being addressed to a specific person. There is no consensus on which is intended.

This chapter tells of Jesus’ teaching after the Resurrection and his instructions to the apostles he had chosen. It comments on the many infallible proofs seen by the apostles for forty days. It directly correlates to the end of the Gospel narratives and provides continuity from Jesus’ teaching to the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for their baptism by the Holy Ghost. Of course, the disciples’ first thoughts were that Jesus would come immediately to restore the kingdom to Israel. He responded that they could not know the timing of the second coming. He told them that after they received power as a result of the Holy Ghost coming upon them, they would be witnesses unto Him unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And then He ascended into a cloud.

The first fourteen verses of this first chapter of Acts provide a background against which the reader can begin to understand what Christian doctrine really teaches. A doctrine begins with a significant event from which people draw a general conclusion. People cannot avoid drawing conclusions as they attempt to explain the experience, relate it to other experiences and communicate it to future generations by expressing it in an intelligible form. This is not like dealing with facts and logic. Frequently, the conclusions drawn from an event are more like an act of faith than anything else.

As an example, a small group of men set out to sea. Historically this has no particular significance. However a particular crew kept going without changing their direction and finally returned to the place from which they started. This held significance for the whole world. From this event, men drew the conclusion that the earth was round and not flat. Today, people have circumnavigated the earth in space for visual verification of the shape of the earth. The original travelers had no such option but their event, combined with the guesses of astronomers and geographers, eventually confirmed and substantiated the original conclusion. Then the shape of the earth became a dogma of geography.

The doctrine of the Ascension also illustrates how conclusions are drawn from an event and grow to the point that people are willing to base their lives on those conclusions. The event is the disappearance of Jesus which was certainly considered negative. But Jesus was different. After He died on the cross, he reappeared to his friends. Although the form of his reappearance cannot be accurately defined, neither can the fact of it be denied. Consequently, after His final disappearance, His influence was stronger than ever.

What conclusion were Jesus’ followers to draw from this event? "Jesus had ascended into heaven and was sitting at the right hand of God!" They concluded that Jesus is where God is, where neither time nor space can set any limits upon Him and His manifested power. That was a bold leap from fact to faith. That was their conclusion and that became the doctrine of the Christian church. While we grant we cannot prove this doctrine, it continues to be supported by further experiences until an irrefutable amount of evidence is accumulated.

So as they were commanded, the disciples returned to Jerusalem after the Ascension and assembled in an upper room. There they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with a crowd of about a hundred and twenty. Notice they did not sit idle. Their prayers and supplications were continual. Their faith was not an occasional thing to be celebrated in great festivals or relied on in time of danger. Real religion sets the pattern of man’s daily thought and practice. It works by the law of accumulated reserves. Tracks are laid, patterns formed, and habits established. It sets the expectations of our minds and hearts. That pattern is just as true today.

I like both blue-grass and classical music. But it would be difficult for a person who was raised with only one exposure to be completely satisfied with the other. In the same manner, it is hard for a person raised in the company of Jesus to be satisfied with chiselers and compromisers. Only a continuous religion gives a person a working knowledge of the ways of God. We know the ways of the world all too well. The ways of God are not easy. They must be studied with more care than we use to study the world around us.

Note that Peter, in spite of his earlier cowardly denial, takes the leadership role. This is a fulfillment of Jesus’ words that "upon this rock," He would build his church. Peter pointed out that Judas was numbered with the Apostles and had obtained a part of their ministry. He purchased a field with the reward of iniquity in which he must lie in infamy as predicted by the Psalms of David. Luke writes that the book of Psalms says, "Let his habitation be desolate and let no man dwell therein: and, his bishopric let another take." Note this does not exactly match either the Psalms in the King James Bible nor in our Book of Common Prayer. This was Luke’s take on the Psalms.

Also note that the tract Sanhedrin (1:6) states that the number of officers in a community shall be one tenth of the membership. We noted earlier that the number of names was about one hundred and twenty so the number of leaders should be twelve. Thus they needed a replacement for Judas. The disciples were concerned about the requirements for Judas’ replacement. First it must be one with firsthand knowledge of Jesus as he went in and out among them. The burden of their message to the world was the Resurrection. But speaking of the resurrection without having experienced the life of Jesus greatly diminished the witness.

No substitution has ever been found for that first basic requirement. A person must first be a witness to the Christian way of life before he can presume to speak of the Christian explanation about life. It was even more critical that the Apostles from whom our bishops are succeeded have firsthand knowledge of Jesus. The disciples chose two; Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus and Matthias. Then they prayed for guidance from the Lord which knowest the hearts of all men. We do not know whether they then cast their lots by voting or whether the names were written on stones, placed in a vessel and shook until one fell out. Ultimately, the choice was God’s. The lot fell upon Matthias.

It may seem crude to seek divine guidance in such a manner, but we use the same word today to express the sense of being called to do something. Life is made up of choices and compulsions. Simon was compelled to bear Jesus’ cross. Burdens are laid upon us and we have no choice but to carry them.

It is the lot of some men to bear the burdens and share the joys of leadership in the Christian community. We refer to that as a calling as opposed to a career choice. It is often not so much a question of their choice as it is that they have no other choice. Their talent, their situation, their opportunities, their temperament and nature, their inheritance – all these things converge upon them to press them into a certain channel. Such is the call to the ministry of the church. Given the one requirement – personal association with Jesus – everything else conspires to give a man no other choice than the ministry of God. Wise is the man who accepts the lot when it falls upon him and woe to the man who, when the lot falls, refuses to be numbered with the Apostles.

Much of this information was extracted from the Interpreter’s Bible compiled in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This is quite different from the New Interpreter’s Bible from the 1980’s and later.