Acts Overview

As I have explained in the past, one of the reasons I am doing this blog is I am curious to see what kind of messages one might get from reading the bible. What might one learn as a take-away. Here is my quick summary of the good and bad from Acts as well as some random thoughts I had while reading.


The Good


2:45 Help others when they are in need


12:7 You should fight against unjust laws


21:13 Be willing to go to prison or even die for principles




The Bad


5:4-5 Death penalty for lying (or for saving money)


9:17 God blinds Saul to make him follow


9:22 poor definition of proof


10:44 get holy spirit just for attendance


12:23 death penalty for not "giving glory to God"


18:17 ignore it if someone gets beat up in front of you


19:11-20 ridiculous spirit stuff


20:24 Your life is worthless except for spreading the word of God


21:4,13 God can't make up his mind



Random thoughts


This is a little embarrassing, but I was honestly surprised that Jesus wasn't in this book. I know he died in the gospels, but I just figured the rest of the new testament would take place during that time. Now I'm wondering if the rest of the new testament is after Jesus is dead or if some books take place during the time period of the gospels. The fact that I was a Christian for years and don't know the answer to that is a little sad.


Why do so many people have multiple names? There was a whole lot of "John called Mark" and such, why not just say Mark?


I must admit, most of this book I found pretty uninteresting. Not good or bad, just boring. Not a lot happened. I wonder if Christians see things here as inspirational or anything. How would an average Christian respond to reading this book?