Come and study Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast, The Whole Council of God.

Father Stephen is a former Protestant pastor and Bible teacher in the Reformed Church,

but now an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

We'll go ahead and get started here in

the Book of Acts chapter 1, verse 1.

And here we have the dedication I mentioned.

The former account I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach

until the day in which he was taken up after

after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen.

So we hear about the former account that's referring to the gospel according to St. Luke,

the first volume, and he sort of

summarizes it. Notice he summarizes it as all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.

Well, Jesus has ascended into heaven, right? So the Book of Acts is not going to be more of Jesus doing and teaching things directly.

But this is part of that right from the get-go where St. Luke is setting up.

What the apostles are now going to do and to teach are really the acts and the deeds of and the teachings of Christ.

Right?

Because again, they're his representatives.

And so the work that Christ is doing in the world, the work of salvation continues through the apostles, right?

Whom he chose.

I remember what an apostle means,

who he chose and who he sent out to do this.

So the church, the life of the church going forward,

...