The Acts of the Apostles forms a bridge between the Gospels and the Epistles. Imagine a New Testament without the Acts. We would have no context in which to understand the origin of the Epistles, those letters from the apostles addressed to ecclesia, the foundations of which would be a mystery and the lives of the authors mostly unknown.

Acts traces the progress oft he spread of the Gospel from the initial proclaimation at Pentecost by Peter and the Twelve in Jerusalem to the arrival of Paul in Rome. We are told nothing of the 'acts" of most of the apostles. Nine of the twelve are not heard of individually after chapter 1. In reality, Acts gives us an account of the early work of Peter and, to a much lesser extent John, while the greater part is devoted to Paul, who was not one of the original twelve.

This scholarly yet readily accessible study of the Acts of the Apostles takes the reader sequentially through the book. Studies are aided by the use of maps, tables sixty "digressions", and thirty two color plates depicting many of the locations visited by the apostles.