I thank God for the Acts of the Apostles because it is the only book that gives the history of the early church. It tells the reader of the dedication and consecration of great men and women as they saw missions fields before them and dared to accept the Great Commission at its face value. The book occupies an indispensable place in the Bible. It serves as a bridge between the Four Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, Peter, James and John.
I suppose my interest in the Book of Acts was first whetted as I studied a textbook entitled The Life and Letters of St. Paul by J. W. Shepard; the class was taught by one of my mentors, Doctor Robert Dobson at Wayland Baptist University in 1952. I was again made to appreciate the life of Paul as a student in the seminary under Doctors Gerald D. Kellar, D. N. Jackson and W. J. Dorman as we made our way through the missionary journeys of the great apostle to the Gentiles, Paul the Apostle. I have been made to appreciate anew the great sacrifices that the apostle made to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. As a result of his dedication and persistence the gospel came to Asia Minor thence to Europe and then to Great Britain and finally to America, and I heard the gospel and was saved almost 70 years ago. Praise God for the Apostle Paul and those who followed in his footsteps as they preached the gospel to earth's remotest bounds.
When one remembers that Doctor Luke wrote 2,158 verses in the New Testament, even more than the Apostle Paul (2033) or the Apostle John (1415), a study of Luke's Gospel and his Acts of the Apostles is very important to the Bible student. In my mind Luke is the greatest of all church historians.
John W. Gregson
February 2000