Addressees and Purpose
Addressees and Purpose
Acts, like the gospel of Luke, is addressed to Theophilus (Acts 1:1), who was probably Luke’s patron, the person who was putting up the money for the publication of Luke’s literary effort. But we learn, and can infer, almost nothing more about him from either book. Moreover, it is almost certain that Luke had a broader audience than one individual in mind. Just who made up Luke’s intended audience can be determined only after we have identified his purpose in writing.
Identifying Luke’s purpose in writing Acts is complicated by the relationship between Acts and the gospel of Luke. With only a few exceptions, 42 scholars have rightly seen these two books to be a literary unity—"Luke-Acts.” Most also think that Luke intends the prologue of the first of these books (Luke 1:1-4) to cover his second volume as well. 43 Ancient writers were severely limited in their verbosity by the need to compress their work into the space of a papyrus scroll. The gospel of Luke and Acts each would have occupied a full-sized papyrus roll. The division of Luke’s work into two volumes was therefore dictated by physical limitations, and like other ancient writers, he has used the opening of this second volume to tie it to the first and to the prologue of that first volume. 44 Any estimation of Luke’s purpose in Acts must thus take into account the information Luke himself furnishes us in the gospel’s prologue. But recognizing the applicability of the prologue to the matter in hand does not solve all our problems. It is not certain, for instance, how much of the prologue applies to Acts. At least some of its statements—such as Luke’s reference to the many who had written before him—seem to apply only to the gospel. Nevertheless, we are safe in concluding that the purpose stated in Luke 1:4, namely, to communicate the "certainty of the things you have been taught,” applies equally to the gospel and to Acts. This, the author’s own statement, must be considered basic to any discussion of the purpose of Acts. But instilling certainty in his readers is a very broad aim and may not cover all the purposes that Luke had. We need, then, to examine some of the suggested purposes for Acts and test them against Luke’s own claim and against the data of the text.