CHAPTER 12

The opening verse of the Acts, suggests that in that narrative Luke intends to give a record of the things `that

Jesus' continued `to do and teach' after His ascension. While Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Philip may be the active

agents, they are but agents, the true Actor and Teacher throughout the record being Christ Himself.

We must remember that the record called `The Acts of the Apostles', did not exist as we have it until the items

recorded were past history. If the fact that Paul founded the churches of Galatia is a part of the acts of the apostles,

does it not follow that the epistle to the Galatians is an integral part of the acts? True, Luke does not mention the

epistles, but he had no need to, for they were contemporaneous with and supplementary to the history he wrote.

Seeing that Paul's visit to Thessalonica is recorded in Acts 17 and his visit to Corinth in Acts 18, it is not gain but

loss to segregate the epistles to the Thessalonians or the Corinthians, and not allow them full place in the Acts. To

assert that Paul in one set of his acts could teach one thing, and in the epistles written during the same period and to

the same churches, another, is manifestly inaccurate, and therefore unacceptable to lovers of Truth. For us there is

but one deciding voice in all these matters, and that is the actual testimony of the Scriptures themselves.

Accordingly we set out below references to the Acts made by the apostle in his epistles, and by their testimony we

shall abide.

When the time comes for examination of the chronology of the epistles written during the Acts, we shall put

forward evidence that goes to show that Galatians was written first. As however that evidence has yet to be

adduced, we will follow the order of the epistles in the A.V. and commence with Romans, though every student

knows it was written last of this series of epistles.

EPISTLE.-

`Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God' (Rom. 1:1).

ACTS.-

`Separate Me Barnabas and Saul' (Acts 13:2).

EPISTLE.-

`Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was

[have been] let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles'

(Rom. 1:13).

`But now having no more place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come

unto you; whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you ... When therefore I have

performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit, I will come by you into Spain' (Rom. 15:23,24,28).

ACTS.-

`After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and

Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome' (Acts 19:21).

EPISTLE.-

`For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the

Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of

God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of

Christ' (Rom. 15:18,19).

ACTS.-

`And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the

Gentiles by his ministry' (Acts 21:19).

`And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul' (Acts 19:11).

`Paul ... departed for to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone over those parts (note the map.

Illyricum was contiguous with Macedonia), and had given them much exhortation, he came into

Greece' (Acts 20:1,2).