Course Syllabus
THE BOOK OF ACTS
Course Description
Christians today often turn to the book of Acts to explore questions related to the charismatic gifts or to investigate issues related to church government. While these concepts are certainly talked about in the Book of Acts, what was Luke's main point as he wrote this book? What big picture did he try to give readers as a context for understanding these secondary matters? This course answers those questions by explaining the background, structure, and content of the book, including a study of the major themes and guidelines for applying the lessons of Acts today. This course is based on the lecture series, The Book of Acts, produced by Third Millennium Ministries and presented by Dr. Hans F. Bayer.
Dr. Hans F. Bayer
Dr. Bayer is Professor of New Testament, and Chair of the New Testament Department, Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO.
Goals and Objectives
GOALS
In this course, we would like to accomplish the following:
1. We hope you will make use of all the resources of the course to learn key things about the background and content of The Book of Acts.
2. We hope you will become enthusiastic about doing your part to help extend the kingdom of God throughout the world.
3. We hope you make some changes in your life as a response to the teachings of The Book of Acts, especially making a greater effort to do your part in the extension of the kingdom of God.
OBJECTIVES
When you have done the following, it will show that the goals are met:
1. Obtain satisfactory grades on the tests, demonstrating that you can identify key information about the background, structure, content and themes of The Book of Acts.
2. Complete the study guides and other assignments for the course, expressing your attitude regarding the extension of the kingdom of God, and showing how this course has affected your life, especially how it has encouraged you to work for the extension of the kingdom of God.
Thematic Outline of the Course
1) The Background of Acts
2) Structure and Content
3) Major Themes
Explanation of Assignments
The Multimedia Lessons
1. Study the lessons, watching the video, listening to the audio, or reading the text.
2. Complete the study guides for each lesson. These study guides will prepare you for the online quizzes and help you apply the teachings of the lesson to your own life. (For those students associated with a particular institution wishing to track the completion of the completion of the Study Guides, a drop box has been provided at the end of the course.)
3. Take the online quizzes on each section of the lessons. The quizzes may be taken as many times as you want, but you must wait five days between each attempt, and the official grade will be from the first attempt.
4. Optional: We recommend that you look through the glossaries and use the learning games to become familiar with special names and technical terms used in the lessons.
5. Take the cumulative test for each complete lesson. You may take the test again as many times as you want for review, but you must wait five days between each attempt, and the official grade is from the first attempt.
6. When you have finished all the lessons on the multimedia lectures, take the final exam on the lectures.
Other Activities
1. Complete the supplementary lessons for each lesson. These lessons give you additional background information and provide other learning aids related to the lessons. You may repeat these lessons as many times as you want, and the official grade will be the highest score out of all the attempts.
2. Complete the questionnaires for the lessons to help assimilate the teachings and apply them to your own life. These are not quizzes. The answers are more subjective. The grade is for completing the assignment.
3. There is a final lesson based on additional readings. These are optional readings designed to supplement the main lesson materials. The student should do the reading, complete the study guides, and take the corresponding quizzes and cumulative test based on the reading. These are graded as extra credit. (For those students associated with a particular institution wishing to track the completion of the Reading Study Guides, a drop box has been provided at the end of the course.)
We recommend that you work on these reading assignments and quizzes during the entire course, instead of waiting until you finish all the lessons based on the video lectures. For each lesson, do the percentage of the work on them that corresponds to the number of lessons in the course.
Optional Activities
Some institutions may require you to do one or more of the following optional assignments. If so, read the instructions in lesson 1 and follow the specific guidelines given in the instructions for each lesson.
1. The Written project
2. Essay Questions
3. Journal Questions
4. Optional Additional Reading
Grades
The final grade will be calculated as follows:
1) The quizzes on the lectures are each worth 10 points.
2) Each cumulative test is worth 30 points.
3) Each supplementary lesson is worth 10 points.
4) Each questionnaire is worth 10 points.
5) The final exam on the lectures is worth 100 points.
6) Each quiz on the reading assignments is worth 10 points (extra credit).
7) The cumulative test on the additional reading is worth 30 points (extra credit).
The final grade of the course will be calculated by adding the corresponding percentages of all assignments and tests, making a total of 100% possible.
A total course score above 70% is considered passing.
Greek and Hebrew
Some lessons in our courses make reference to words in Greek or Hebrew. If you have not studied these languages, you might want to at least become familiar with the alphabets.
For the Greek alphabet, see:
https://www.billmounce.com/greekalphabet/greek-alphabet
For the Hebrew alphabet, see:
http://hebrew.billmounce.com/BasicsBiblicalHebrew-01.pdf