The Kingdom's Progress

Most of you have heard the parable about the king who wanted a map so accurate that it had to be the same size as his whole country. Well, brothers and sisters, in one sense that is what I give you when I preach week-by-week through a book of the Bible. It is my desire to magnify the text, to show it at greater than full size, indeed to expand upon it and draw out its implications. I have reason to believe that you all appreciate how I do that. But the downside to that approach is that it can be hard to see the big picture. Today, then, we are going to look at a map that is much smaller than the text of Acts. Of course, for that very reason we won't be able to see the details. But I hope that looking at Alan Thompson's powerfully constructed outline will show that Acts is indeed about the reign of Christ, in relation to the Spirit, the church, the nations, and the rulers. Jesus reigns over all these things. Acts confirms the certainty of that for us.