Chris’s Column: To Theophilus, with Love

Most of us would be honored to have one single book dedicated to us by name. So it must have been particularly pleasing for you, most excellent Theophilus, that our friend and brother Luke dedicated both his volumes to you, and with such warm and encouraging words. It would have been nice to dedicate this third one to you as well, but since the dedication had already been decided upon by others, I can at least offer you this foreword, hoping that it will remind you of the certainty of your faith that Luke’s first volume strengthened and renew the missionary zeal that his second volume inspired.

I’m sure you noticed as you read Luke’s two volumes together, that his story begins in the Temple in Jerusalem and ends in the city of Rome. That geographical trajectory is surely intentional and very counter-intuitive. Jerusalem, after all, was just a troublesome city in a minor province on the margins of the Roman Empire, while Rome was the very center and capital of that Empire, one that embraced the whole world as they thought—certainly your whole world at the time, Theophilus.

And there were Christian believers—Jews and Gentiles—there in Rome even before Paul arrived! How amazingly fast the gospel of God, the good news of God’s Kingdom embodied in the Messiah King Jesus—crucified, risen, ascended, and reigning—had spread from the margins to the center. It was already heading south and east as well, to regions of Africa and Asia that were way outside the boundaries of Rome’s rule. For Jesus (and not Caesar) is Lord of all the earth, its empires and its margins!

But what a surprise would await you if I could transport you from your century to mine, to see Christian churches in almost every country in the whole round world (yes, it’s actually a globe, Theophilus). Of course, if you have managed to read the book of Revelation, you will have marveled at the vision Jesus gave to John of people from every language, tribe, and nation who will be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, praising God along with the angelic hosts and all God’s creatures in earth, sea, and sky. You will have to wait till the new creation to see that for yourself, but already today there are believers worshiping Jesus in more languages in more tribes and nations than you or Luke could have imagined, although the darker side of that truth is that there are still many, many more languages and peoples the gospel has not yet reached. The mission goes on. The story begun in Acts is far from over.

But whose story is it? It’s the story of the mission of the early church, isn’t it? After all, this second volume is entitled “Acts of the Apostles”—even though far more people are involved in the everyday spread of the gospel than the Twelve-plus-Paul. Aren’t we current-day apostles continuing that mission? Well, yes, but I think Luke wants us to understand that first, and more importantly, it’s the story of the mission of God. And not just any God. That motif, “from the Jerusalem Temple to Rome” is more than just a geographical fact. It highlights a theological framework that actually embraces the whole Bible. For the Jerusalem Temple was the earthly address of the God of Israel.

And according to the Scriptures (which we now call the Old Testament, Theophilus; though for you, Jesus, Paul, and Luke himself, they were simply the Scriptures, the authoritative Word of God), Israel’s God, the one true living God, was Creator of the whole earth (as his cosmic temple), ruler of all history, judge of all nations, and Savior of all who turn to him (four truths about Israel’s God that are also—amazingly!—true of Christ.).

For this God of Israel promised repeatedly that he would come—come to save his people, come to his Temple, come to reign as King of kings. And in Luke’s Gospel, God indeed comes, as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, to announce the arrival of God’s Kingdom in himself. In Acts, God also comes as the third person of the Trinity, the promised Spirit of God, poured out on the Day of Pentecost to renew and empower the people of God. So this story (in both Luke’s volumes) is above all God’s story—the story of God’s mission, accomplished by God’s Son and carried forward by God’s Spirit.

Israel’s God on mission! That’s the scale of what Luke dedicated to you, Theophilus. What a story to get your name in!

Now, Luke was a Gentile like yourself, Theophilus. So I reckon he must have spent long hours listening to Paul on their travels, explaining to him in all the Scriptures the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27, ESV)—the promise and plan of God from all eternity, and especially revealed in the Torah and the Prophets. Indeed, I wonder as he wrote about the two on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, if Luke didn’t see himself on that road and later in the upper room, only with Paul rather than Jesus doing the teaching.

At any rate, Luke was a good student, for both his volumes from first to last chapter (sorry, I realize you didn’t have numbered chapters yet; we find them rather useful), are saturated with quotations and allusions to the Scriptures. I hope you’ve been able to check them out if you have access to those scrolls somewhere. Sadly, in my day many people think they can understand Jesus and “proclaim the gospel” without reference to the Old Testament at all, which would have made no sense whatsoever to Jesus himself, or the apostles, and certainly not to Luke!

But what has this got to do with mission? Everything. First, it reminds us that mission is God’s before it is ours. We participate with God in what he is doing in the world—just as the early church clearly followed the leading of the Holy Spirit. Luke launches the dedication of his second volume to you, Theophilus, referring to “all that Jesus began to do” in his Gospel (Acts 1:1, ESV, emphasis added), implying that the whole following story of the mission of the church was actually what Jesus himself went on doing. This keeps us humble; it doesn’t all depend on us, our strategies and resources, for this is the mission of God. It also gives us confidence because it is the mission of God, and he will accomplish his purposes, whether along with us or sometimes in spite of us (as Acts also illustrates). So let’s put all our mission efforts into that perspective.

But more specifically, the redemptive mission of Israel’s God goes back to Abraham. And you’ll remember, Theophilus, that Luke highlights God’s promise to Abraham very early in both his Gospel and in Acts. It was to Abraham that God promised through him and his people, all nations on earth would find blessing. How intentionally, then, Luke ends his Gospel and begins Acts with the risen Jesus telling his disciples that it’s now time for that promise to go into action to the ends of the earth. Quoting what God had said to Israel in Isaiah 43:10-12, Jesus tells his disciples (all of us), “you are my witnesses”—witnesses of all that Israel’s God has accomplished through the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Mission—the mission of Jesus in the Gospel and the mission of the church in Acts and ever since—is simply God keeping his promise to Abraham. Mission means, “Get with the program!”—God’s program for the nations ever since Genesis. And when Luke has Paul arriving in Rome, the implication is that the door is open to the rest of the world.

Another important feature of Luke’s work that I’m sure you’ll have noticed, Theophilus, is that this whole mission story centers on the good news of the Kingdom of God. That is crystal clear from dozens of references to the Kingdom in the Gospel. In and through the arrival of Messiah Jesus, Israel’s God was establishing his promised reign, but he would do so paradoxically (though also in accordance with the Scriptures) through rejection, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection. Then Acts begins with the risen Jesus still teaching about the Kingdom (1:3) and ends with Paul proclaiming it in Rome (28:23, 31). In the very city where Caesar’s lordship was blazoned in words and on coins, in temples, and on battle gear, Paul is announcing boldly that the world has a new king, its true and only king since creation, the Lord (kyrios) Jesus Christ. For that is the very heart of the gospel, the good news preached everywhere by Peter (2:36), Philip (8:12), and Paul (19:8; 20:25).

So whatever else our mission involves, it inevitably confronts the kingdoms of this world, in all their human and satanic manifestations, with the victory and the good news of the reign of the crucified One, the Lamb who was slain, now on the throne of the universe, the “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5, NIV). The conflict is unavoidable, but the victory is assured for those who follow in the way of the cross, not the way of empires, ancient or modern.

Finally, I’m sure, Theophilus, that you love as much as I do the way Luke shows how God’s mission was carried forward not only by named apostles but by masses of ordinary unnamed people whose lives were transformed into the likeness of Jesus himself by the gospel and the presence of the Spirit. The early church was a community of word and deed, both of which Luke carefully records. Not only did the apostles stick to their Christ-given task of proclaiming the shocking news of the bodily resurrection and ascension of “this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36, ESV), but the rest of the disciples also embodied the gospel in practical actions of love, unity, generosity, and compassion. And the church grew exponentially in response to the word both preached and lived out. In a sense, the community of believers became the gospel they bore witness to.

There were threats, of course. The preaching of the word was threatened externally by the religious and political authorities with floggings, imprisonments, and martyrdoms—but that didn’t stop the mission! Then the gospel-embodying life of the community was threatened internally by deceit and lies (Acts 5), as well as by ethnic-linguistic prejudice and unfairness (Acts 6). In the second case, the apostles acted to protect their own priority—the ministry of the word. But they made sure that the equally important social witness of the church in its compassionate care for the needy was preserved by assigning that crucial ministry (you’ll have seen, Theophilus, that the word diakonein / diakonia is used in both of Luke’s books), as the priority for others who were chosen and ordained to the task. The whole church thus preserved their fully integrated priority: the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. So it was as perfectly natural for Stephen and Philip (of the Seven) also to preach the gospel, as it was for Paul and Barnabas to carry out their first missionary appeal for famine relief (11:27-30; 12:25).

Well, my dear most excellent Theophilus, I am sure that you and the church you led must have treasured the two volumes that Luke dedicated to you, and that you will have used especially the second one intensively in shaping and motivating the mission of all your members. For after all, God’s whole mission is for God’s whole church. And God’s whole church includes every member. And every member’s mission demands the whole of life. May it be so for all who read the rest of this book.

Some content taken from the foreword by Christopher J. H. Wright in Reaching Every Nation edited by Philip Ryken and Hwa Yung. Copyright © 2027. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

Christopher J. H. Wright is the global ambassador for Langham Partnership, having served as the international director for twenty years. He was formerly principal of All Nations Christian College, UK, after he taught at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India. He has written popular and influential books—including The Mission of God that reflect his passion for bringing to life the relevance of the Old Testament to Christian mission and ethics.

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