Acts 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer opens his second book to Theophilus by picking up where the first ended: Jesus, after his suffering, showed himself alive over forty days and told his followers to stay in Jerusalem until they received what the Father had promised. He tells them they will be his witnesses everywhere, and then he is taken up out of their sight; two men in white say he will return the same way. Back in Jerusalem, about a hundred and twenty followers pray together, and Peter explains from the Psalms that someone must replace Judas. Two men are proposed, and lots are cast; the choice falls on Matthias.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • The writer states that he composed a former account.
   • The writer addresses Theophilus.
   • The former account was about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.
2. 1:2
   • The former account extended to the day Jesus was taken up.
   • Jesus was taken up.
   • Before that day Jesus had given commands to the apostles.
   • Jesus gave those commands through the Holy Spirit.
   • Jesus had chosen those apostles.
3. 1:3
   • Jesus presented himself alive to the apostles after he had suffered.
   • He did so by many convincing proofs.
   • He was seen by them over a period of forty days.
   • He spoke to them about the things concerning the kingdom of God.
4. 1:4
   • While he was together with them (the word can mean either assembled with them or eating with them) Jesus gave them a command.
   • He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem.
   • He commanded them to wait for the promise of the Father.
   • He said they had heard that promise from him.
5. 1:5
   • John baptized with water.
   • They would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
   • That baptism would come not many days from then.
6. 1:6
   • They came together.
   • They asked Jesus a question.
   • They addressed him as Lord.
   • They asked whether he would at this time restore the kingdom to Israel.
7. 1:7
   • Jesus answered them.
   • He said it is not for them to know the times or the seasons.
   • He said the Father has fixed those times by his own authority.
8. 1:8
   • They would receive power.
   • The power would come when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
   • They would be his witnesses.
   • They would be witnesses in Jerusalem.
   • They would be witnesses in all Judaea.
   • They would be witnesses in Samaria.
   • They would be witnesses to the farthest part of the earth.
9. 1:9
   • Jesus finished saying these things.
   • While they were watching, he was lifted up.
   • A cloud took him out of their sight.
10. 1:10
    • They were gazing intently into the sky as he went.
    • Two men stood beside them.
    • The two men were in white clothing.
11. 1:11
    • The two men spoke.
    • They addressed them as men of Galilee.
    • They asked why they stood looking into the sky.
    • They said this same Jesus had been taken up from them into heaven.
    • They said he would come again.
    • They said he would come in the same manner as they had seen him go into heaven.
12. 1:12
    • They returned to Jerusalem.
    • They returned from the mountain called Olivet.
    • That mountain is near Jerusalem.
    • The distance is a sabbath day's journey.
13. 1:13
    • They entered the city.
    • They went up into the upper room.
    • That was where they were staying.
    • Peter was there.
    • James was there.
    • John was there.
    • Andrew was there.
    • Philip was there.
    • Thomas was there.
    • Bartholomew was there.
    • Matthew was there.
    • James the son of Alphaeus was there.
    • Simon called the Zealot was there.
    • Judas, related to James as brother or son, was there.
14. 1:14
    • All of these continued steadfastly in prayer and supplication.
    • They did so with one accord.
    • The women were with them.
    • Mary the mother of Jesus was with them.
    • The brothers of Jesus were with them.
15. 1:15
    • In those days Peter stood up.
    • He stood up among the disciples.
    • He spoke.
    • The number of names gathered together was about a hundred and twenty.
16. 1:16
    • Peter addressed them as men and brothers.
    • He said the scripture had to be fulfilled.
    • He said the Holy Spirit spoke that scripture beforehand.
    • He said the Holy Spirit spoke it through the mouth of David.
    • He said the scripture concerned Judas.
    • Judas became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.
17. 1:17
    • Judas had been counted among them.
    • Judas had received a share in this ministry.
18. 1:18
    • Judas acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness.
    • He fell headlong.
    • He burst open in the middle.
    • All his bowels poured out.
19. 1:19
    • It became known to all who lived in Jerusalem.
    • That field is called Aceldama in their own language.
    • Aceldama means the field of blood.
20. 1:20
    • It is written in the book of Psalms.
    • The first quotation says his dwelling place is to become desolate.
    • The first quotation says no one is to live in it.
    • The second quotation says another is to take his office of oversight.
21. 1:21
    • It is therefore necessary to take one of the men who accompanied them.
    • Those men accompanied them the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among them.
22. 1:22
    • That time began from the baptism of John.
    • That time ran until the day Jesus was taken up from them.
    • One of those men must be appointed.
    • He must become a witness with them of the resurrection of Jesus.
23. 1:23
    • They put forward two men.
    • One was Joseph called Barsabas.
    • Joseph was also surnamed Justus.
    • The other was Matthias.
24. 1:24
    • They prayed.
    • They addressed the Lord as the one who knows the hearts of all.
    • They asked him to show which of the two he had chosen.
25. 1:25
    • The chosen one was to take the share of this ministry and apostleship.
    • Judas fell away from that ministry by transgression.
    • Judas went to his own place.
26. 1:26
    • They cast lots for them.
    • The lot fell on Matthias.
    • Matthias was numbered with the eleven apostles.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

"Treatise" in the King James simply means a written account. The first book is the Gospel of Luke, which opens by addressing the same Theophilus. The name is Greek and means "friend of God" or "loved by God"; it was a real name in use at the time, and Luke 1:3 calls him "most excellent Theophilus," a form of address used for men of rank or office.

1:2

Where the King James says "the Holy Ghost," it means what modern English calls the Holy Spirit. In 1611 "ghost" meant spirit or breath, with none of the haunting sense the word carries now. The same holds everywhere the phrase appears in this chapter.

1:3

"Passion" here means suffering, from a Latin root meaning to undergo or endure; it has nothing to do with strong feeling. "Infallible proofs" renders a Greek word for evidence that settles a matter, the sort of demonstration that leaves no room for doubt.

1:4

The Greek word behind "being assembled together with them" is unusual and its sense is disputed. It may mean simply gathering with them, but it can also mean sharing salt with them, that is, eating a meal together. Both readings have long been defended.

1:5

To baptize is, in Greek, to dip or plunge something in water. John, known as John the Baptist, was a preacher who called people to turn from wrongdoing and washed them in the Jordan River as a public sign of it. "Baptized with the Holy Spirit" borrows the same image for being immersed in something that is not water.

1:6

Israel had not governed itself for centuries and was ruled by Rome through client kings and appointed governors. Many Jews expected God to restore an independent kingdom under a descendant of David. That expectation is what the question is about.

1:7

"Times or seasons" translates two different Greek words: one for stretches of elapsed time, the other for the fitting moment at which something happens.

1:8

The list moves outward in rings from the city. Judea was the southern region around Jerusalem. Samaria lay immediately north of it, home to the Samaritans, a people related to the Israelites but with their own holy mountain, their own version of the law, and a long and bitter estrangement from the Jews of Jerusalem. Going through Samaria was something many Jewish travelers avoided.

1:9

In the Israelite scriptures a cloud repeatedly marks the presence of God and screens it from sight, as at Sinai and over the tent of meeting. A first hearer would have caught that association in the detail.

1:10

"Stedfastly" is an older spelling of steadfastly and means fixedly, without looking away. The text says only "two men"; white clothing is how this writer elsewhere describes messengers from God, and the reader is left to draw the connection.

1:11

Galilee was the rural northern region where most of the group came from. Its people were recognizable in Jerusalem by their accent, and the address "men of Galilee" marks them as northerners standing in the south.

1:12

The Mount of Olives is the ridge just east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley from the city. A "sabbath day's journey" was the limit Jewish teachers set on travel during the day of rest, reckoned at two thousand cubits, roughly half a mile or about nine hundred meters. Naming it both measures the distance and tells the reader the hill was close enough to reach without breaking the rest day.

1:13

An "upper room" was a room on the second story or roof level of a house, often used for guests, meals and gatherings. "Simon Zelotes" means Simon the Zealot: the word marks him as fiercely zealous, and may connect him with the hard-line nationalist current that later hardened into an organized party. "Judas the brother of James" is the translators' guess; the Greek says only "Judas of James," a construction that normally means son of James, and most modern versions read it that way.

1:14

"With one accord" means united, of one mind. "Supplication" means earnest asking or petition. "His brethren" means Jesus' brothers; the Greek word for brother can also cover other close male kin, and what exact relation is meant has been argued over since ancient times. "The women" most likely refers to the women who had traveled with the group from Galilee.

1:15

A hundred and twenty is far larger than the inner circle of the twelve, and Luke mentions it to show the movement in Jerusalem was already a real community. In Jewish practice a hundred and twenty men was also the minimum number for a settlement to have its own local council, so the figure may hint that this group could now act as an organized body.

1:16

"Men and brethren" is a set formula for addressing a Jewish assembly, close to "fellow Jews" or simply "brothers." The Psalms were traditionally credited to David, so quoting a psalm counted as quoting David; the lines Peter means are given in verse 20. Being "guide" to the arresting party means Judas led them to where Jesus could be found.

1:17

"Numbered with us" means counted as one of the group. "Ministry" translates a Greek word meaning service or an assigned task; it does not carry the modern sense of a clergy career.

1:18

"Bowels" in the King James means the intestines. This account differs from the one in Matthew 27:3-10, where Judas throws the money back into the temple and hangs himself, and the priests use it to buy the field. Readers have set the two side by side and tried to reconcile them since antiquity; the texts themselves make no attempt to.

1:19

"Their proper tongue" means their own language, in this case Aramaic, the everyday speech of Jerusalem, used alongside Hebrew for scripture and Greek for wider business. "Aceldama" is the Aramaic phrase for field of blood, and the writer translates it for readers who would not have known it.

1:20

"Bishoprick" translates a Greek word meaning oversight or the post of an overseer. In 1611 the English word still carried that general sense of an office of charge; it is not a reference to the later church rank of bishop. The two quoted lines are from Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8.

1:21

"Companied with us" means kept company with us. "Went in and out among us" is a Hebrew idiom for a person's whole daily round of coming and going, often used of someone who led a group.

1:22

Dating the qualification from "the baptism of John" sets the starting line at the beginning of Jesus' public activity, so the requirement is to have been there from the start. "Ordained" in the King James means appointed or designated; no ceremony is implied. "Witness" keeps its ordinary courtroom sense: someone who can testify to what he personally saw.

1:23

Many Jews of this period carried more than one name. "Barsabbas" is an Aramaic byname, meaning something like son of the Sabbath or son of Sabba, and "Justus" is a Latin name of the sort Jews commonly took for dealings with Greeks and Romans. So one man is being identified three ways.

1:24

"Whether" in 1611 could mean "which of the two," and that is its sense here. "Which knowest the hearts of all men" renders a single compound Greek word, heart-knower, used only of God.

1:25

"By transgression fell" means turned aside and fell away from it. "That he might go to his own place" is left open in the Greek: it can be read as the place he chose for himself or the place that was his due, and the text does not say which.

1:26

Casting lots meant settling a question by chance, using marked stones, sticks or tokens shaken from a container until one fell out. In Israelite practice it was used to divide land, assign duties in the temple and decide disputed cases, on the understanding that the result, random to the people casting, was not random to God.