The Acts of the Apostles

What Acts aims to do," writes Barclay, "is to give us a series of typical exploits and adventures of the great heroic figures of the early Church. Although the book never says so, from the earliest times Luke has been held to be its writer." If this is so, then Luke wrote both the gospel and Acts with a purpose of showing how the new faith that had begun so humbly in Palestine had expanded. In this volume, Barclay discusses among other things the plan in Acts, Luke's skill as a historian, the accuracy of his sources, and the honesty with which he uses them.