So I was surprised by what I found when I read the book as an adult. The book reads so much like an adventure story, on several levels, that I might have named it "The Book of Adventure."
More reasonable folks might even have suggested the name "The Book of Action" because the text is so descriptive and vivid in its narrative of the first few years of Christ's church.
Persecutions, shipwrecks, daring escapes, stonings, miracles and life-changing conversions are all there. Enough action and edge-of-your-seat excitement to make a feature film ... and three sequels, for a start.
It's the kind of excitement that, if ushered into many of today's contemporary church services, would need to be "toned down" a bit ... to "maintain the reverence of the service" ... or squelched with some other legalistic conforming, because Excitement don't belong in this church.
We like our Bible stories dusty and quiet, you see. So they don't interfere with or much impact our lives as we like living them.
Also included in Acts, significantly, are frequent updates on the numbers of people Preached and Reached for Christ. And descriptions of what the first believers' excitement led them to accomplish through, and by obeying, the Holy Spirit.
Maybe the title "The Book of Acts" sounds like Acts are something that happened a long time ago, back in Bible Days, that's over and done-with today.
Hmmm. Can't help wondering what our churches would be like today if Acts had originally been titled The Book of Action and Eternal Excitement instead.
