Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We finished the Gospel of Luke yesterday, but let's refresh our memories on who he is.

He's a doctor who goes to great lengths to interview a bunch of people and compile a detailed account of the life of Jesus. He's probably a Gentile, not a Jew, and he writes for a Gentile audience, specifically a guy named Theophilus. But some say that since the name Theophilus means one who loves God, that his letters are actually addressed to all of us. In Luke's gospel, he talks about the life of Christ,

and in the book of Acts, he focuses on what happens after the life of Christ. So this book

could have easily been called Luke 2. The primary theme of Acts is how God the Spirit works

through the early church to spread the gospel to all the nations, just like Jesus told his

followers to do before he ascended to heaven. We read about

that briefly yesterday and we covered it again today. Let's jump in. Jesus stayed on earth in his

resurrection body for 40 days, and in that time, he continued to remind the apostles to stay in Jerusalem

until the Holy Spirit came to empower them. Remember, this is a whole new thing. The Holy Spirit has not come to

indwell believers yet, so he's letting them know that the next phase of God's plan is about to be

rolled out. Just like when God the Son came to live alongside his people, now God the Spirit will come

to dwell in his people. It'll be a new kind of baptism that they haven't had access to yet,

and it still won't be available until after Jesus ascends.

The disciples asked him, so now that you've been raised from the dead, you're going to overthrow Rome and we can be free again, right?

After all this, they're still short-sighted, still waiting on an earthly kingdom.

Jesus says, you guys are asking the wrong questions. There's no political

takeover. The only time frame you need to be concerned about is the one where the spirit comes to

dwell in you after I leave. He's the one who will empower you for the mission ahead, which is to take

the gospel from this place to the whole world. In case you didn't major in ancient near-eastern

geography, the progression he gives when he says

there'll be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth

...