The following in an excerpt from NT Wright’s new ebook “The Gospel According to Acts”. Want to be the first to sign up when it’s available? CLICK HERE.

It’s pretty clear that what Luke is talking about throughout this book, and what he was talking about for much of the Gospel of Luke, is the kingdom of God. What does the kingdom of God look like? What does it mean for God to become king? What does it mean for God to take charge?

Today people often say ‘Well, if God really was in charge, if God really did do something dramatic in and through Jesus, then surely God wouldn’t have just allowed the world to go to rack and ruin the way it seems to still be doing all the time!’.

But Jesus said again and again, in the Sermon on the Mount and in his parables, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. It’s quite different from what you’ve imagined’.

Likewise, Luke intends to say, ‘Actually, this is what it looks like when God takes charge. Jesus gives instructions to his chosen apostles. He equips them by his Spirit. This is what it looks like when Jesus himself is now the Lord of the world’.

It’s very surprising. Sometimes it’s actually shocking. Because things don’t work out as they want it to. Things don’t work out the way that we might want them to. But, by the end of the book, the full sweep from Acts Chapter 1 to Acts Chapter 28, we find that Paul is in Rome announcing the kingdom of God and the lordship of Jesus.

Click HERE to be the first to sign up when the new ebook “The Gospel According to Acts” is available.

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N.T. Wright

Prof. N.T. Wright is currently Research Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s College in the University of St Andrews and Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.