I think the book of Acts is a tough book. Not that it’s hard to read (certainly there’s plenty of flannelgraph material there). And certainly in some ways figuring out the narrative is easier here than in the Gospels or the Epistles (and let’s not start on Revelation). Just what parts of Acts are normative and what are descriptive? Are we to copy the council in Acts 15? Or was that a one-time-only meeting of Apostles? Should we be choosing leadership by lot? Or was that just for that one moment in the church? Paul walked off a snake bite, what is that all about?
Patrick Schreiner’s new book The Mission of the Triune God: A Theology of Acts won’t answer all these questions. It will, however, lay the groundwork for such answers by giving us an overview of what Acts is all about. In seven chapters Schreiner walks through the theology of Acts concerning God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Word, salvation, the church, and missions.
Obviously Acts is not a systematic theological work–it’s not even structured like one of Paul’s epistles (though it is an “orderly account”). But Schreiner has done a great job teasing out the theological threads running under and through the narrative, which make the book as a whole much easier to understand and apply to our own times.
To that end, this is a book that should be on the shelves of pastors, theologians, and interested laymen.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In