1. The Book of Actions
If the Book of Acts were a movie, it would certainly be an Action film. It could be classified as a documentary, of course, but anyone watching the film would be struck by the constant, almost non-stop action. Acts tells of inspired people addressing huge crowds, healing the sick, running alongside chariots, being attacked and beaten, explaining, encouraging, traveling, being shipwrecked, being thrown in jail on false charges, being rescued and much more.
The action is almost constant, and we get the impression that the actors in the story are "supercharged" with a remarkable energy and determination. Of course, they were – as we see in the first chapter of Acts in the promise given by the resurrected Christ to his disciples:
"Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit … you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:4-8).
The giving of the Spirit of God was what would empower the constant action seen in the Book of Acts; and to understand just how true that is, we need to remember how inactive the disciples were before the Spirit's arrival. Depressed, and doubtless feeling disillusioned after the death of their teacher, the disciples were apparently in a state of shock and at the point of returning to their home areas (Luke 24) before Christ appeared to them and they began to understand the significance of what had happened.
After hearing of the miracle of Christ's resurrection, the disciples were still relatively inactive. Left to themselves they were unemployed and unempowered, and even after seeing the ascension of Christ, they had to be stirred on by angels who appeared to them: "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky?" (Acts 1:11).
We see the first glimpses of activity after this angelic nudging. The disciples returned to Jerusalem and began to pray regarding the commission and the promise they had been given (Acts 1:14), and Peter even rallied the believers to organize themselves to replace Judas (Acts 1:15-26). But this is nothing compared to what would happen soon.
When it arrived, the gift of the Spirit of God drastically changed the frozen inaction of the disciples into a fervent blaze of ongoing activity, as the unfolding chapters of Acts show. It is then that the "documentary" of Acts suddenly changes to the genre of "action," as we will soon see.
But there are lessons we can learn from the first chapter of Acts, beyond the difference that occurs with empowerment by the Spirit of God. One small but worthwhile lesson is found in the way the disciples, once prodded into preliminary action, began to pray actively even before the Spirit was given to them. They already had Christ's clear promise that the Spirit would soon arrive, but as the disciples began to understand what had happened and what was to come they did not just sit and wait – they prayed "constantly," as Acts 1:14 tells us.
It is as if the disciples had grasped the first of many lessons they would learn as the early Church was founded and began to grow – that they needed the power of action and that they had a part to play in letting that action be inspired in them. So even before the arrival of the Spirit of God, we find the disciples beginning to see that waiting for God to act should always be active waiting. This fact lies at the core of what we see as Acts continues.