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ACTS.-
`And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep
them safely' (Acts 16:23).
EPISTLE.-
`For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation; even as it came
to pass, and ye know' (1 Thess. 3:4).
ACTS.-
`The Jews ... set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason ... crying, These that have
turned the world upside down are come hither also' (Acts 17:5,6).
There are other allusions to the Acts, in 1 Thessalonians 2 and 3, but the above are sufficient for our purpose. As
with 2 Corinthians so with 2 Thessalonians, to establish the relationship of the first epistle establishes also the
relation of the second. For our present purpose we are not concerned to prove the association of Hebrews with the
Acts, because that epistle lies outside Paul's ministry to the Gentiles, and no good purpose will be served by merely
multiplying evidence.
Following the apostle's example where he sometimes uses the objections of an imaginary opponent, we remind
ourselves of the fact that there is no evidence to prove that the title `The Acts of the Apostles' is inspired. This is
true, and although we have used it to emphasize the fact that there could be no book until the `acts' recorded therein
were finished, and that, for instance, the epistle written to the Corinthians was most certainly as important an `act' of
Paul as those recorded in chapter 18 of the Acts, our argument is in no wise impaired should this narrative be called
by any other name. The writer himself compares it with a `former treatise' in which he had recorded `all that Jesus
began both to do and teach', and the implication is that `the Acts' is a second treatise of all that Jesus continued to
do and teach, after His ascension. This strengthens our argument, for the epistles of Paul make frequent reference to
the fact that, though Paul is writing, the doctrine of which he writes was received by revelation. Christ still teaches
in the epistles of Paul, and to omit them from a narrative that sets out to record `all' that the ascended Lord
`continued' to do and teach, would be a calamity. Our argument depends not upon the title of the book but upon its
purpose. It is a strange mentality that can talk of the Acts as though it were an independent fact, altogether separated
from the epistolary activities of the same apostle, ministering to the same churches, at the same time as that with
which the record deals.
We append a chart (page 130) that may be useful in visualizing this interdependence of Acts and Epistles, and
this chart must be looked upon as a supplement to the one published in The Berean Expositor Vol. 25, p. 8, reprinted
here on page 131.