Excerpt from The Testimony of the Witnesses: A Devotional and Homiletical Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles A comprehensive survey of the contents of the Acts of the Apostles would probably raise the question, Is not the title of the book a misnomer? It is not difficult to find some justification for calling it the Acts of Peter, John and Paul: but, where nine of the original twelve are mentioned by name but once, and in a general and collective way in but two or three other places, one can hardly accept the common title as the most fitting designation of the entire book. And we are glad to believe that the name is not inspired. We may find a more appropriate name for the work, if we note the fact that Luke's plan seems to cover the teachings as well as the doings of these founders and propagators of the new faith. He evidently follows, in a general way, the program outlined by our Lord in the eighth verse of the first chapter, - Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. But an undeviating adher ence to this scheme was not in his thought. And so we have the conversion of Paul in the second division, and the first Christian Council in the third. The introduction of these topics seems, at first sight, to interrupt the flow of the narrative, but they are soon seen to be essential to the completeness of the chronicle, and their place in the story could not be well improved. These were great events; but it was especially of vast moment to record not only what was done, but also what was said in connection with each of them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.