COMMENTING ON COMMENTARIES ON ACTS

In preparation for a thorough study of the Book of Acts, it is worth-while to take stock of the resources available. For a book which is as pivotal as Acts to our practice of NT Christianity, it is deplorable that there are so few really exceptional commentaries available. Hopefully, this situation is beginning to improve. There are two new books which have just been completed on Acts. The first, by J. Stott (InterVarsity, 1990) is already available. It is written primarily in narrative form and deals with the material by paragraph rather than verse by verse. The second, which will be out in December, is by S. Kistemaker in the New Testament Commentary (Baker, 1990). We look forward to this one because of the thorough approach and careful scholarship. E. Ellis calls it a "’meat and potatoes ’ book with solid exposition." Perhaps the best two commentaries available on Acts are those by F. F.Bruce (Eerdmans, 1954) and I. H. Marshall (Tyndale, 1980). Bruce in fact, has two commentaries on Acts: one for the student of Greek and one for the English reader (NIC). The NIC volume is now available in a newly revised edition (Eerdmans, 1989). This work is valuable not only because of its solid exposition and theological insight, but because of its attention to historical details which are helpful to the Similarly, Marshall's commentary is helpful for the same reasons. is part of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series and E. M. Blaiklock's work in that series, which was too brief to justice to a lengthy book such as Acts. Other current works which are worthy of note include E. F. Harrison (Acts: The Expanding Church). This work has an especially good introduction to Acts which would be appropriate for an inter-mediate student of this subject. This commentary, however, deals wit