Acts of the Apostles (Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture):

Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture

by William S. Kurz, Anonymous

What message was the author of Acts seeking to convey, and what would the original audience have understood? How is God speaking to believers today through Acts as it has been used by the church throughout the centuries? In this addition to the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, respected New Testament scholar William Kurz offers a close reading and explanation of the entire narrative of Acts, grounded in the original Greek but keyed to the NABRE for liturgical use. This volume, like each in the series, relates Scripture to life, is faithfully Catholic, and is supplemented by features designed to help readers understand the Bible more deeply and use it more effectively.

Genres: Nonfiction, Catholic, Theology, Religion, Faith, Scripture, Biblical Studies

403 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1983

About the author

William S. Kurz, SJ (PhD, Yale University), is professor of New Testament at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he has taught for more than thirty-five years. He is the author of numerous books, including Reading Luke-Acts: Dynamics of Biblical Narrative.

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

We just had a 5-day long weekend here in the Philippines: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday, Easter Sunday and Araw ng Kagitingan (Bataan's Fall). So, how did a certified bookworm (me) spend it?

Read! Read! Read! Read non-stop! Read unceasingly! Till my eyes were hurting!

I attempted to finish the whole New Testament (NT). What's the use of finishing 250 books per year if the Holy Bible is not one of them? So, I figured that if I read one book of the NT for each day starting Palm Sunday, I would be able to finish everything by Easter Saturday.

Everything went as planned but only up to The Gospel According to John since the first 4 books were already familiar to me. The Catholic gospel and liturgy, the movies both international and local and even the local singing of pasyon are all centered on the life of Jesus Christ. There are very very few I encountered about what happened after He resurrected to heaven.

So, I had to slow down on Black Saturday while reading the The Acts of the Apostles. Who are these people, I asked myself. What happened to the 11 apostles? For one, I know that Peter was the one who founded the Catholicism after Jesus left. Then suddenly, there is Saul of Tarsus who is persecuting the Jews and then Jesus speaks to him and this converts him to become the main man in the book. I was like, oh so this is Saint Paul, whose statue I see whenever we attend mass along Timog Avenue, when my daughter wants to eat Burger King later so I continued reading on.

But still I was confused. There is Barnabas also who used to be with Paul but has to part ways with him and focus on Jews while Paul gets Timothy as assistant and focus on the Gentiles. Then there are also the Jewish Christian. Then if you add the Pharisees, Sadducees, etc., everything becomes confusing.

So, I went to the bookstore and luckily, I got this book, which has all the parts of the The Acts of the Apostles explained. It says in its opening statement: Acts is the only book in the New Testament which continues the story of Jesus into the early church. If it were not for Acts, we would have only isolated pieces of information about the beginnings of the church. We would have to dig these bits and pieces out of the New Testament letters, but would have no framework into which to put them. Acts has provided a framework for understanding not only the information it contains but facts gleamed from Paul's letters and other New Testament books."

That opening line hooked me and I read the whole book and was able to understand that Acts is a "bridge" between Jesus and the "letters" that follow Acts. I thank the Lord for helping me find this book for me to be enlightened. This is a cliche, but I know that He does work on mysterious ways.

Even to help a bookworm understand what he is trying to read on a long weekend.

I did not finish the whole NT. I am in Romans as of this writing but I am happy that I was able to understand Acts quite in depth. Thanks to this book. Anyway, the Holy Bible is not supposed to be rushed. It has to be read slowly and carefully to savor its meaning and messages.

I just hope to find the rest of this Collegeville series. This book is well-written and can make the reading of the Bible very easy as it explains the details and the historical perspective of the setting and some details about the author of the book.

[Julie Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Bible study series and I got a lot out of this indepth commentary about a seemingly straight forward historical book. In fact, it succeeded in making me like the book, to which I'd always been fairly indifferent before. For example, I'd never heard of the parallels between Jesus' passion and "Paul's passion" which Church Fathers had identified long ago. Really worthwhile.

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scholarly without being pedantic. Annotated text with sidebars. Greek nuances rendered in English. Extracts normative lessons by showing consistency with life of Jesus. Interprets Acts in canonical (Catholic canon) and confessional methods. Every pericope followed by OT, NT, Catechetical, and Lectionary references. For Catholic readers. Defends perpetual virginity of Mary and Marian piety. Protestants can learn from the canonical and catechetical methods to derive normative ecclesiology from Luke-Acts. Kurz goes back to the beginning of Acts to link Peter and Paul with Christ. Kurz is charismatic Catholic, and this also comes through in his emphasis on miracles. Not Pentecostal in the sense of second baptism.

[Jon Diller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great Catholic guide like all of the works in this series. If I could have more emphasis on the translation, and particularly if the work was based on Douay Rheims, it would speak a little more to me; but as a guide that lets you prepare for a good, erudite bible study its hard to imagine better.

As a four year convert from a position of near total ignorance, Acts is an incredibly important book for me. It is an excellent subject for a bible study — particularly an ecumenical one. Also, with Acts taking such an important role in the Liturgy of the Word, this book deepened the meaning of many Holy Masses for me.

[Richard Grebenc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurz keeps up the fine tradition of this series by providing an exemplary commentary on Acts. He splits up the book into chapters that cover the material logically (that is, chapters don't necessarily correspond exactly to the chapters in Acts. Plenty of sidebars and reflections enhance the text. This entire series is a must have for the serious Catholic and/or Scripture scholar.

[lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly good deep dive into the early church in Acts. This book includes the scripture, as well as in-depth commentary and many side bars of additional pertinent information. I read this alongside a group study on the book of Acts and found this commentary to be so helpful in understanding more about the specifics of Paul’s missionary journeys and trials, and all that entailed. This commentary is also broken down into very manageable sections based on logical breaks in the story, making its nearly 400 pages much easier to digest and giving good stopping points to allow space for reflection and application. I found a Catholic perspective of the early church to be very enlightening and important due to the events occurring in Acts happening centuries before the Protestant Reformation, thus helping gain better understanding of the structure of the church as it was originally formed. I will definitely be looking at more of the commentaries in this series and am sure this particular volume will be one I reference again and again.

[Reading Through the Lists · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with the entries for Mark and Luke, the commentary is helpful for building out the larger world surrounding the apostles and the early church. However, I found the Reflection and Application sections to be a bit weak compared to Luke--either they didn’t say much, or they felt overly preachy and prescriptive.

Also (and this is a small complaint but nevertheless), I don’t particularly like the way Fr. Kurz discusses pagan Greek culture and religion. His tone betrays that level of patronizing skepticism (bordering on mockery) that is unfortunately common of moderns and that smells of chronological snobbery. Obviously, you don’t need to uphold Greek religion as true, but it was a real system of beliefs that can be engaged with on its own terms--certainly St. Paul did.

3.5 stars.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid book, showing some parallebs that I didn't see before.

[Rachel Mcloughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took a long time to get through this. This history background is interesting, but it's a slow read.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning from this commentary on the Acts.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid entry in this series of commentaries on the New Testament. Well worth the read, but it left me wanting even more.

[Paul Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book

I have studied and read the Acts of the Apostles, but even so this wonderful book has greatly enhanced my knowledge and understanding of the early church. Unreservedly recommended.

[Dim Bulb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good non-technical commentary. Well written and insightful.

[Patricia Senneville · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good commentary. Informative.