The Book of the Acts

F.F. Bruce brings a unique capacity for biblical and historical insight. His broad knowledge of scripture coupled with in-depth historical knowledge of the biblical world make this commentary an essential part of anyone desiring to teach or simply enrich their personal knowledge of the events described in the book of Acts.

`The Book of the Acts, Revised' in `The New International Commentary on the New Testament' series, written by F. F. (Frederick Fyvie) Bruce, is an excellent addition to this series, and a worthy follow-up to Joel Green's commentary on `The Gospel of Luke' in the same series. I once made two mistaken statements about this series, commonly abbreviated as NICNT. The first is that the editors tend to commission relatively junior scholars to do their commentaries, often as revisions of their doctoral dissertations. The second is that the series uses the relatively old `American Standard Version' translation of 1901. Both Professors Green and Bruce are distinctly senior, highly qualified commentators, both of whom contribute their own translations. As I always use the NRSV as a primary translation, I look forward to a commentator's own personal translation, based on a deep knowledge of the particular scripture. And, Professor Bruce has a deeper knowledge than most, as he finished a commentary on the Greek text of Acts before doing this commentary. The separate commentary on the Greek has a salutary effect on the current work, as it separates out all the tedious philological and text critical findings for those who are primarily interested in such things. That leaves only professor Bruce's commentary on the literary, historical, and theological matters we find in Luke's Acts. Acts does not have quite as many interpretational difficulties as Luke's Gospel. Therefore, some commentators' approach, such as the more recent work by Darrell Bock, tends to obscure the relatively cleaner text by discussing many different interpretations, including many from this volume. Like many of the commentators in `The New Interpreter's Bible (NIB)', Bruce focuses on a clean and illuminating organization of the text, with excellent material for applying the text to modern church and pastoral questions. Unlike the NIB, Bruce has excellent references to Hebrew sources, primarily the Mishnah. If fact, it was Bruce's commentary which pushed me to finally get a copy of the Mishnah as an aid to understanding references to Jewish practice in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. It may not count for much in many reviewers' evaluations, but I also find the design of the NICNT volumes' typesetting to be superior to many other series, especially to the Word Biblical Commentary volumes. It does little good to have excellent material if aging eyes find it difficult to read it. Like Green's commentary, I would suggest Bruce's volume over many others, with the one caveat that it is at least ten (10) years older than several important new commentaries, such as the Anchor Bible contribution by Joseph Fitzmyer and at least five (5) years older than Luke Timothy Johnson's Sacra Pagina volume, and both are important and useful for the lay or pastoral user. So, I strongly recommend this volume, used together with Fitzmyer's volume or some other recent commentary. For those reviewers who do

F.F. Bruce is a great scholar and many of his commentaries have held the attention of many pastors and laymen to this day. No matter what your view is of his conclusions, his exegesis is almost always a force to be reckoned with. Moderate/conservative and reformed in his roots, this commentary wins five stars because of it's valuable sholarship. I would also recommend Acts commentaries by I. Marshall Howard (Tyndale) and Richard Longenecker (Expositor's) if you are looking for exegesis and sholarly contribution... if you want "application" and "light devotional" material there are plenty of others to choose from (that are generally mediocre in terms of interpreting and explaining the meaning of the text). A word of caution to the traditional "charismatic": You may not agree with all he has to say about the traditional "baptism of the Spirit" proof text passages... I still recommend reading it so that you may be challenged to interpret Acts again.

Mr. Bruce does an excellent job of giving the reader the necessary background information underlying the text of Acts. I found his commentary to be highly readable and easy to follow. It is not overly technical, but does make frequent mention of textual variants found in the Greek manuscripts. Overall, I found this to be a solid intermediate-level commentary written from a moderate conservative perspective. Very helpful...