Re-Visiting Acts 1:8 concerning Jesus’ Instruction to Witnesses
A s noted in Acts 22:15, a witness simply testifies what he actually saw and/or heard; he is definitely not at liberty to embellish what he is obligated to say by incorporating heresay or fabrication. It is important to bear this in mind when checking out the following oft-quoted instruction of Jesus prior to His ascension: “… you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the world.” (Acts 1:8) The question that immediately springs to mind here is what are His witnesses to testify of. A possible recourse is to look at what the author of Acts already stated in the gospel he wrote earlier — with both books addressed to the same reader, Theophilus (Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1), mentioned in passing as having interest to “know the certainty of those things in which you [ viz Theophilus] were instructed” (Luke 1:4). The gospel author dutifully recorded in the last chapter of his first book the following details of Jesus’ instruction (whic