Acts 1 Bible study: Witnesses of his resurrection

Acts opens with words to one reader: "The first book I wrote, Theophilus, concerned all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was received up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen." (1:1-2). Favor's introduction to Acts sets these words beside Luke 1:3, which also names Theophilus, in The first book, and this one, and this chapter adds nothing to it. "To these he also showed himself alive after he suffered, by many proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking about God’s Kingdom." (1:3) (tap proofs). Later in the chapter Peter speaks of "the men … who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to the day that he was received up from us" (1:21-22). Here is what almost everyone misses: the chapter's first words and Peter's words run to the same day. The first book concerned what Jesus "began" to do and to teach "until the day in which he was received up" (1:1-2), and Peter's time runs "beginning from the baptism of John to the day that he was received up from us" (1:22). In the Greek, began (1:1) and beginning (1:22) are the same verb, and received up is the same verb in 1:2 and 1:22, and in the two men's words in 1:11 (tap received up). These notes don't say whether the beginning of 1:1 and the baptism of John are the same beginning.

μάρτυςmartyssay MAR-toos

Strong's: "a witness". Thayer: "a witness (one who avers, or can aver, what he himself has seen or heard or knows by any other means)". Jesus says, "You will be witnesses to me" (1:8), and Peter says that one of the men who had been with them "must become a witness with us of his resurrection" (1:22): the same noun. Acts has it 13 times (counted in RP2018), more than any other book of the New Testament. In Luke's last chapter Jesus says, "You are witnesses of these things." (Luke 24:48), with the same noun.