“The Acts is also important, however, for the contemporary inspiration which it brings us. Calvin called it ‘a kind of vast treasure.’ Martyn Lloyd-Jones referred to it as ‘that most lyrical of books’, and added: ‘Live in that book, I exhort you: it is a tonic, the greatest tonic I know of in the realm of the Spirit.’ It has, in fact, been a salutary exercise of the Christian church of every century to compare itself the church of the first, and to seek to recapture something of its confidence, enthusiasm, vision and power. At the same time, we must be realistic. There is a danger lest we romanticize the early church, speaking of it with bated breath as if it had no blemishes. For then we shall miss the rivalries, hypocrisies, immoralities and heresies which troubled the church then as now. Nevertheless, one thing is certain. Christ’s church had been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, who thrust it out to witness.”

–John Stott, The Message of Acts, pp. 5-6