All That God Had Done with Them : The Narration of the Works of God in the Early Christian Community as Described in the Acts of the Apostles

Does God act in history? Many passages in the Bible speak with confidence of such action: but does it continue? What does this concept say to us today? By what criteria might we evaluate the events of our own time as the work of God in history? The present study brings to the discussion of these questions the voice of the author of Luke-Acts. It demonstrates the existence of a literary schema in the intra-community discourse in Acts in which God's deeds in history are the central topic, and which presents a set of criteria for calling an event or set of events the work of God. It thus furnishes a solid New Testament basis from which faith communities may begin in their discernment of the reality and the meaning for today of God's working among us.