Week 43 Acts
I finished reading Acts today.
My quick summary? Acts is a) the story of Peter, and b) the story of Paul.
Luke – assuming Luke wrote Acts – had space limitations to think about. And I guess he decided Peter-Paul was all he had marquee space for.
But Acts isn’t a two-man show. I noticed that lots of other people are mentioned, and so I started tracking all the names I could find. Who I found was:
Joseph Barsabbas/Justus, Matthias, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicholas, an Ethiopian official, Ananias, Tabitha/Dorcas, Simon the tanner, Agabus, Rhoda, Simeon/Niger, Lucius, Manaen, a lame man, Judas/Barsabbas, the Philippian jailer, Jason, Dionysius the Areopagite, Damaris, Aquila, Priscilla, Titius Justus, Crispus, Apollos the Alexandrian, Erastus, Tyrannus, Gaius, Aristarchus, Sopater, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus, Eutychus, Philip’s four daughters, Mnason of Cyprus. Luke says nothing or almost nothing about any of these people.
He says very little about Philip, Stephen, Barnabas, Silas, or Timothy.
Nothing is said about almost all the disciples listed in chapter one.
The 3000 believers in chapter one? The 5000 in chapter four? No one even named.
I’m not criticizing Luke for choosing Peter & Paul. But I have to remember that once I get past the Big Two there’s still an awful lot going on in the early church. And it’s being done by an awful lot of people not named Peter or Paul.
So credit to a lot of unknown people.
Note: this name-list is an mhj product: pretty good, not perfect.