Chapter 1

Book notes per MSB:

Luke is pretty much accepted as author of this book, as well as the gospel.  Early church fathers attributed it to him, including Iranaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius and Jerome.  So does the Muratorian Canon (ca A.D. 170), whatever that is.  If Luke wrote this book after AD 70, he certainly does not refer to the fall of Jerusalem, and he was a very good historian.  In fact, the book ends rather abruptly with Paul awaiting trial before Caesar.  This was Paul's first imprisonment there, and much happened after that.  Yet Luke writes of none of that.  Several notable events that occurred before AD 70 are also not mentioned at all.  Yet Luke apparently lived until the mid-80's AD.  I don't know how MSB knows that.   Luke is written as a narrative of historical events, not as a theological study.  The only theology in it is when someone gets up to preach or the apostles are discussing how things need to be done.

Acts records events that occurred during the first three decades of the church's existence.  Acts, in the NT, exclusively deals with this material. 

Addressed to O, Theophilus, as was Luke's gospel. 

2022 - Starts with "In the first book...", so this is the second.  The second ends abruptly.  Perhaps there was to be a third volume?  The first ends pretty abruptly also when you look at it, right after the ascension.  Volume 2 ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome.  Perhaps volume 3 was to have taken us to the end of the apostles lives, or some other milestone that just never presented itself as an "ending" to Luke's histories.  Or Luke got where he couldn't write.

Found this on a Catholic site:

Luke was martyred at age 84 in the Greek city of Thebes. His remains were taken to Constantinople about 338 CE and later moved to Padua, Italy, where they are kept in the Basilica of Santa Giustina. A rib is interred at his original burial place in Thebes.

Seems kind of macabre to leave just one rib in it's original spot and move the rest.  Many references call him the apostle Luke.  He was certainly not an apostle.  Also found this on another site:

There are also two versions of his death: that he was crucified in Edessa, Turkey, or clubbed to death.

These two accounts are pretty much mutually exclusive.  And that probably means we really have no idea how Luke died. 

It is interesting to note that Luke traveled extensively with Paul, and was even with him at Rome during Paul's first imprisonment there.  So as Mark would have been heavily influenced by Peter's experience of Jesus, Luke's experience of the early decades of the church would be influenced by Paul. 

Luke gives a very brief summary of his gospel, and ends that with Jesus' orders to his apostles to wait in Jerusalem and not leave until they have received the Holy Spirit.  Luke quotes what we can take as Jesus' last words to his apostles on earth, as follows:

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." [Act 1:8 ESV]

This is much like the great commission that they were given while in Galilee, but I suspect that this is a repetition of it, as Jesus was about to leave.  It was after this that he was taken up in a cloud.  The other place we saw it was in Matt 28:18-20.  Matthew is very specific that what he records - the Great Commission - happened in Galilee.  And he would have been there to hear it.  Matthew does not speak of the ascension, however.  Luke is the only gospel writer who mentions the ascension.  He does so both in his gospel, and now in Acts.  Why only Luke?  Because he writes to Gentiles, and the Jews already knew the story?  You would still think one of the other writers would mention it?

2025 - This verse:  9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. [Act 1:9 ESV].  Note that this DOES NOT SAY he went up on a cloud, or standing atop a cloud...nothing like that.  He went up, and eventually, at some height, a cloud obscured him and they could no longer see him.  I always thought he was like standing on a cloud that rose with him as if a "magic carpet" or something.  That "vision" probably comes from all the painting over the centuries depicting the event.  But that is not what it says.  I also checked a number of other translations.  They all agree.  He went up, and eventually was obscured by a cloud.  Compare that to this verse about the Two Witnesses:

12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here!" And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. [Rev 11:12 ESV].  In this verse, it was the cloud that took them up.  They were called to come up, and transportation was provided.  Jesus went up on his own.  Even in so minor a detail the Bible distinguishes between Jesus' power, and the power of man.  All power comes FROM Him.

This verse:

12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. [Act 1:12 ESV]

Continuity would indicate that they are returning from Jesus' ascension, on the mount called Olivet.  Luke doesn't call it the Mt. of Olives, and in fact is careful to say that it was not "just outside the walls of Jerusalem", but was "a Sabbath day's journey away".  Sources I found quickly said this was 2,000 cubits, or 1000 "double steps", or in common vernacular, not very far.  It was measured from the gate or wall of a city, not from where you started.  Luke says Jesus ascended from Bethany, and that would put Bethany 0.6 miles, or a kilometer, from the gate of Jerusalem.  References all equate Olivet and the Mt. of Olives.  So Bethany was just outside Jerusalem, almost a suburb rather than a separate place.  And if all this is right, Jesus ascended from Olivet, one of his favorite places to go when he was in Jerusalem.  Which would mean that Jesus and the disciples came back to Jerusalem, after his resurrection, and after the time they spent in Galilee.

The 11 went back to the upper room, possibly where they had the last supper.  They were devoted to prayer.  It was the 11, "the women", and Mary.  Next verse says there were 120 people up there.  That's a pretty big room, or it was pretty crowded, or both.  Peter starts to talk about how it was necessary and prophesied that Judas do what he did.  There is a parenthetical insert here telling of the end of Judas - how he died.  It does not say he hung himself.  It uses the term "falling headlong" and there is a footnote that says this could also be translated "swelling up", which doesn't seem at all the same.  This is Luke letting Theophilus know what happened to Judas. 

2021-2, But this seems to be a very different telling of the last hours of Judas' life than was in the gospel account.  There, Judas gives the money back to the Pharisees and they buy a potters field with it, and Judas hangs himself.  The only way I see to resolve the two is that Judas learned what the Pharisees had done with the blood money, and chose that spot to hang himself.  Either he was there until the rope - and his body - rotted and when he fell he was so decomposed that he spilled out everywhere...or God rotted him in a heartbeat and he fell immediately, in the field bought with his blood money.  But...this whole retelling of the fate of Judas is in parentheses...which I am not sure were a thing back then.  Perhaps this retelling is an insert of a tradition that arose some time after Judas actually died.

2025 - This verse:  14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. [Act 1:14 ESV].  Catholics say Jesus had no siblings, that Mary was a virgin until the day of her death.  She had no children by Joseph at all.  So they have interpret "brothers" here as Jesus disciples.  And there were 120 people in that room, so you can, if you have reason to do so, make the men among those 120 be called brothers, or brethren.  It has already talked about "the women, and Mary", and about the 11.  So the only group not mentioned to this point are the non-apostle men in the room.  Hmm...I think the way to look at it is that this passage may not be singling out Jesus' male siblings - or female siblings either for that matter - but is in fact a more general use of brothers, it also does not exclude any possibility that he had siblings - like James and Jude.  (In vs 16, the same word translated brothers in 14 is rendered brethren in the NASB95.  It makes sense in context to do it that way in 16...but it kind of does in 14 also.)  Remember also that Jesus' brother did not convert until after the resurrection, and would not have been considered leaders of the church at this point.  Though by the time Luke wrote Acts, he might well have thought it relevant to mention that Jesus' half-brothers were in that room at this time.

The verse in Psalms, often quoted about least favorite presidents, was actually a prophecy of Judas.  "Let another take his office".  So they cast lots to see whether Joseph or Matthias will join the 12.  Matthias is chosen.  Note that a qualification was that it had to be someone who had followed Jesus from the time John baptized him right up to the end.  There were apparently more than just these two that qualified, but they narrowed it down to them.  It is interesting to note that Peter seemed concerned that they "start with 12", based on that quote from Psalms about another taking his office.  However, there is never any mention in the Bible of any other Apostle needing to be replaced.  James is killed by Herod fairly soon after this, but they don't replace him.  There were to be the first 12, and then never again an Apostle, because none else could qualify, except the special case of Paul.