God has given us one book that can change the entire direction of our lives, the Bible.

And in this study, journeying through scriptures, we will take a brief big-picture look at every book of the Bible, tracing God's unfolding story from Genesis to Revelation.

Our prayer is that this journey will stir your heart to open God's word daily.

Let's join Scott Pauli for today's study.

Some people have called it the fifth gospel. It is called in our New Testament, the book of Acts. Some people have mistakenly said, well, it's the Acts of the Apostles, but actually

it is the Acts of Christ. It is the book of Christ continuing his work in this world through the

early New Testament Church, through the Holy Spirit. And the book of Acts is a sequel to the gospel

according to Luke. As a matter of fact, Acts chapter 1 verse number one says, the former treaties

have I made old theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.

So you have the same writer. Luke, the beloved physician, wrote the gospel according to Luke,

and then he continues his record in this book we now call the Acts.

And that's interesting to me. He addresses a man in Acts 1-1 named Theophilus. Now we don't know a great

deal about Theophilus other than it seems from history he was a well-to-do man, a well-respected man.

And many people have surmised that Theophilus was a man that Luke led to Christ. And that very likely

he wrote the gospel record to explain to him

who Christ was and then he wrote the book of Acts as another letter to Theophilus to disciple him

to bring him along in the faith to engage him in the work of Christ but the emphasis of

Acts is not on Luke who wrote it or Theophilus who it was written to but rather on Christ

himself who the book was written about listen to the end of verse one again of all that

Jesus began both to do and teach I've marked in my Bible those little words Jesus

began could I remind you that everything Jesus begins? He always finishes. He's not finished.

He's still at work. And so I would say the book of Acts is the book of the continuing Christ.

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