We see it anticipated already in what Jesus has talked about it at the Last Supper.

You know, in his upper room discourse, he talks freely about, I'm going to go away, but I'm not going to leave you alone.

I'm going to send the Holy Spirit an encourage you for you, Paracletos.

And that's what we see working its way out in these opening chapters of acts.

As we see Jesus ascended, certainly, but also ascended in order to pour out the Spirit,

who is the one through whom Christ continues to be presence with this church.

Matthew 28, though I'm with you always, even at the end of the age,

but that with you always is not physical presence.

It's now a spiritual presence through the spirit,

which means that he can be spiritually present

with all of his people at the very same time.

Ian Dugood serves as professor of Old Testament

at Westminster Theological Seminary.

He's planted churches in England, California, and Pennsylvania, and is also the author of a number of books and commentaries, including New with Crossway, Turning the World Upside Down, Lessons for the Church from Acts 1 to 8.

Ian, thank you so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

You're very welcome. So early in this new book, this new commentary that you've written,

or something close to a commentary where you're walking through the first eight chapters of the

book of Acts, you early on point out that the book of Acts is really about the continued work of the risen Christ,

the risen Lord Jesus through the power of the Spirit. It's not first and foremost a book about

Christians or the church. It really, the main character is Jesus working through the Spirit.

How would you say that that conviction, that approach to the book as a whole,

affects how you go about reading it and interpreting it? Yeah, I think we naturally tend to read

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