Biblical Theme Map — Acts 1–28 (English → Hungarian)

Purpose

This document maps the nine curriculum doctrines onto Acts’ own internal thematic structure and traces each doctrine’s canonical connections backward (Old Testament roots, Gospel foundations) and forward (the Epistles, especially Romans, and eschatological consummation). It is the theological companion to 09_cross_reference_analysis.md’s textual cross-references and exists to keep Phase 2 translation decisions theologically coherent across the whole book and consistent with the Romans Language Package already fixed for this destination language.

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1. Acts’ Place in the Canon: The Hinge Document

Luke-Acts is a single two-volume work; Acts is not a self-standing narrative but the deliberate continuation of Luke’s Gospel, carrying forward the risen Christ’s own commissioning (Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:1-11) into the founding and expansion of the church. Acts is therefore the hinge of the New Testament: it narrates the historical bridge between the Gospels (Christ’s earthly ministry) and the Epistles (the church’s doctrinal reflection on that ministry, including Romans). Nearly every doctrine treated abstractly in Romans is first enacted narratively in Acts:

• Romans’ doctrine of justification by faith (chs. 3-5) is narratively anticipated in Acts 13:39.
• Romans’ doctrine of the Gentiles’ full inclusion (chs. 9-11) is narratively enacted in Acts 10 and ratified in Acts 15.
• Romans 8’s assurance and the Spirit’s work is narratively inaugurated in Acts 2.
• Romans 12’s body-of-Christ ecclesiology is narratively founded in Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37.

This hinge relationship is the single most important structural fact governing how this curriculum’s Hungarian rendering must relate to the Romans baseline: Acts is where the audience first meets, in story form, doctrines the Romans curriculum will later treat systematically (or, for many Hungarian lay readers using both curricula, doctrines they have already met systematically in Romans and now see narrated historically in Acts). Either sequence requires exact terminological consistency.

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2. Acts’ Own Macro-Structure

Acts is structured geographically and programmatically around its own thesis statement, functionally parallel to the role Romans 1:16-17 plays for the Romans Language Package:

Acts 1:8 — “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Structural Movement	Chapters	Geographic/Ethnic Scope	Dominant Doctrines
I. Jerusalem	1-7	Jewish, Jerusalem-centered	The Holy Spirit and Pentecost; Repentance and Baptism; Church as Community; Apostolic Authority and Miracles; Persecution and Bold Witness (inaugurated)
II. Judea, Samaria, and the coastal cities	8-12	Samaritans; God-fearing and Gentile individuals (the eunuch, Cornelius)	The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles (breakthrough); Conversion of Paul; Apostolic Authority and Miracles (continued)
III. To the ends of the earth	13-28	The wider Gentile world (Asia Minor, Greece, Rome)	The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles (mission); Justification apart from the Law (Jerusalem Council and its aftermath); Persecution and Bold Witness (intensified); The Great Commission Fulfilled

This three-part geographic expansion is itself the book’s controlling theme: the gospel moves, by the Spirit’s initiative and despite (indeed, partly through) persecution, from a single upper room in Jerusalem to the imperial capital, “proclaiming the kingdom of God… with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31) — an intentionally open-ended close signaling the mission’s continuation beyond the narrative itself.

Pentecost (Acts 2) is the hinge within the hinge: it is both the climax of Part I’s Jerusalem-centered inauguration and the theological headwater from which every subsequent expansion flows (the same Spirit poured out in ch. 2 falls on Samaritans in ch. 8, on Cornelius’s household in ch. 10, and on disciples at Ephesus in ch. 19). This confirms the core passage’s (Acts 2:1-41) selection as the curriculum’s theological anchor.

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3. The Nine Curriculum Doctrines: Canonical Connections

3.1 The Holy Spirit and Pentecost

• OT roots: Joel 2:28-32 (universal outpouring); Ezekiel 36:26-27 and 37:1-14 (new heart, new Spirit, breath of life); Numbers 11:29 (Moses’ wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets); the Sinai theophany (Exodus 19).
• Gospel foundation: John 14:16-17, 26; 16:7-15 (the promised Paraclete); Luke 3:16; 24:49 (the Spirit-baptism promise Acts 1:5 and 2 fulfill).
• Acts development: Acts 2 (inauguration); repeated fillings/outpourings at 4:31, 8:17, 10:44-46, 19:6 — establishing the Spirit’s ongoing, communicable presence as the engine of the whole book’s mission.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 8:9-16 (the Spirit’s indwelling, witness, and adoption); Romans 5:5 (the Spirit poured into believers’ hearts, same “pour out” verb family as Joel/Acts 2).
• Eschatological trajectory: The Spirit is the down-payment/firstfruits (cf. Romans 8:23) of the full eschatological renewal Joel and Ezekiel envisioned; Acts narrates its historical inbreaking, not its final consummation.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: The Critical-risk cluster around megtelt(ek) Szentlélekkel, más nyelvek, and a Szentlélek ajándéka (see glossary) sits at the mainline-versus-charismatic/Pentecostal fault line documented in the semantic analysis. This is a genuinely new fault line for this Language Package, distinct from (though related to) the Catholic-Reformed fault lines the Romans baseline already documents around grace and calling.

3.2 The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles

• OT roots: Genesis 12:3; 22:18 (Abraham, blessing to all nations); Isaiah 49:6; 42:6 (light to the nations); Amos 9:11-12 (restored Davidic tent including the nations); Jonah (narrative precedent of God’s concern for Gentile Nineveh).
• Gospel foundation: Luke 2:32 (Simeon’s “light for revelation to the Gentiles,” itself echoing Isaiah 49:6); Matthew 28:19 (all nations); Luke 24:47 (“all nations,” in the Great Commission).
• Acts development: Acts 8 (Samaritans, the eunuch); Acts 10 (Cornelius, the Gentile Pentecost); Acts 13:46-48; 15 (Jerusalem Council); Acts 28:28 (the book’s closing statement that “this salvation of God” now goes “to the Gentiles”).
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 1:16 (“to the Jew first, and also to the Greek”); Romans 3:29-30; 9-11 (the fullest doctrinal treatment of Jew-Gentile unity and Israel’s ongoing place in God’s plan).
• Eschatological trajectory: Romans 11:25-32’s “fullness of the Gentiles” and eventual “all Israel will be saved” supplies the doctrine’s still-unresolved future horizon, which Acts narrates only in its initial, historical stages.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: Reuses baseline “Unity of Jews and Gentiles” (Medium) and “Universal Scope of the Gospel” (High) entries; Acts adds the narrative weight of the Cornelius and Jerusalem Council episodes, making this doctrine considerably more concrete and load-bearing than in Romans’ more abstract argumentation.

3.3 Repentance and Baptism

• OT roots: Ezekiel 18:30-32 (“repent and turn… and live”); Joel 2:12-13 (turning to the Lord); ritual washing/purification texts (Leviticus, Numbers) as background to the water-symbolism, though Christian baptism is a new institution, not a continuation of these rites.
• Gospel foundation: John’s baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3-14; explicitly distinguished from Christian baptism at Acts 19:3-5); Jesus’ own commission to baptize (Matthew 28:19).
• Acts development: Acts 2:38 (the doctrine’s fullest single statement); 3:19; 8:12-13, 36-38; 9:18; 16:14-15, 30-33; 19:1-5; 22:16 — baptism consistently follows, and is inseparable from, repentance/faith throughout the narrative.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 6:1-4 (baptism as union with Christ’s death and resurrection); this Romans passage supplies the theological “meaning” of the rite that Acts narrates as historical practice.
• Eschatological trajectory: Baptism marks entrance into the already-inaugurated new-covenant community, anticipating final resurrection life (Romans 6:5, 8; not treated at length within Acts itself).
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: Two newly-Critical terms (megtérés, keresztség) sit at both the Catholic-Reformed sacramental-theology fault line (documented for related terms in the baseline) and a new fault line unique to this curriculum: the Catholic/Reformed paedobaptist consensus versus the Hungarian Baptist/free-church credobaptist minority, sharpened by Acts’ own consistent narrative pattern of adult repentance preceding baptism.

3.4 The Church as Community

• OT roots: Exodus 19:5-6 (a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation”); Deuteronomy 6-7 (covenant community identity); the qahal/assembly of Israel as background to ekklēsia.
• Gospel foundation: Matthew 16:18 (Christ’s founding promise); Matthew 18:20 (gathered presence).
• Acts development: Acts 2:42-47 (the founding pattern: teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers, shared possessions); 4:32-37; 6:1-6 (the Seven, deacons); 11:26 (“Christians” first named); 14:23; 15; 20:17-28 (elders/overseers) — Acts supplies the church’s entire foundational polity narrative.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 12:3-8 (one body, many members, differing gifts); Romans 16 (the Roman church’s concrete, named, gathered life) — Romans presupposes exactly the kind of local, structured community Acts narrates coming into being.
• Eschatological trajectory: The church as the present, imperfect, still-being-gathered anticipation of the future consummated people of God (not extensively developed within Acts or Romans directly, but assumed).
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: This doctrine carries the curriculum’s single most polity-sensitive vocabulary set (diakónus, kézrátétel, vének/presbiterek, püspökök/felügyelők), engaging the historic Catholic-episcopal versus Reformed-presbyterian institutional divide far more concretely than anything in the Romans baseline, which treats “church” mostly in its universal, doctrinal sense rather than its polity structures.

3.5 Apostolic Authority and Miracles

• OT roots: Moses and Elijah’s sign-miracles (Exodus 4, 7-12; 1 Kings 17-18) as the OT pattern of prophetic authentication through miraculous power.
• Gospel foundation: Jesus’ own miracles as authenticating signs (John 20:30-31); the commissioning of the Twelve with delegated authority (Luke 9:1-2).
• Acts development: Acts 2:22 (Jesus’ own miracles as the pattern); 3:1-10; 4:33; 5:12-16; 9:32-42; 14:3; 19:11-12 — apostolic miracles consistently authenticate, but never replace, gospel proclamation.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 15:18-19 (Paul’s own summary: “what Christ has accomplished through me… by signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit”); Romans 1:5 and 11:13 (Paul’s apostleship as itself a form of delegated authority).
• Eschatological trajectory: Signs and wonders in Acts function as previews of the coming kingdom’s full restoration (cf. Acts 3:19-21’s “times of refreshing”), not as ends in themselves.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: Reuses baseline Isten ereje (Medium) and dicsőség entries; the kézrátétel (laying on of hands) term newly introduced here intersects the sacramental/non-sacramental fault line documented under Church as Community above.

3.6 Persecution and Bold Witness

• OT roots: The persecuted-prophet pattern (Jeremiah, Elijah under Ahab/Jezebel; the suffering of the righteous in the Psalms, e.g., Psalm 69, quoted at Acts 1:20).
• Gospel foundation: Luke 6:22-23 (blessing on the persecuted); Luke 21:12-19 (Jesus’ own prediction of the disciples’ coming trials, directly fulfilled across Acts).
• Acts development: Acts 4-5 (Sanhedrin opposition); 7 (Stephen, the first martyrdom); 8:1-3; 12 (Herod’s persecution, James’s martyrdom); 14:19-22; 16:19-24; 21-28 (Paul’s arrests, trials, and eventual arrival in Rome as a prisoner) — this doctrine structures more of Acts’ plot than any other.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 8:35-39 (nothing can separate believers from Christ’s love, including “tribulation… persecution… sword” — the theological answer to exactly the experience Acts narrates); Romans 5:3-5 (suffering produces endurance, character, hope).
• Eschatological trajectory: Present suffering is set against future glory (Romans 8:18), a theme Acts assumes but does not develop at length.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: The tanúk/vértanú semantic transition (witness → martyr) and the bátorság (boldness) keyword are newly introduced, doctrinally significant terms with no equivalent Critical/High entry in the Romans baseline; require careful, consistent cross-book rendering per the semantic analysis.

3.7 Conversion of Paul

• OT roots: The prophetic call-narrative pattern (Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1-3; Jeremiah 1), as documented in the cross-reference analysis.
• Gospel foundation: No direct Gospel parallel (Paul did not know the earthly Jesus); rather, Paul’s encounter with the risen and exalted Christ (Acts 9:3-6) functions as Acts’ clearest resurrection-appearance narrative outside the Gospels’ own accounts, later treated as a bona fide (if late and unique) apostolic resurrection appearance by Paul himself (1 Corinthians 15:8, outside this curriculum’s scope but relevant background).
• Acts development: Acts 9 (the event); 22 and 26 (Paul’s own two retellings, each shaped for its specific audience) — Acts narrates this single event three times, more repetition than any other episode in the book, signaling its structural importance.
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 1:1, 5 (Paul’s self-description as “called to be an apostle… to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations”); the entire epistle of Romans is, in effect, the mature theological fruit of the encounter Acts 9 narrates.
• Eschatological trajectory: Paul’s commission (“to the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel,” Acts 9:15) sets in motion the very Gentile mission whose ultimate future (Romans 11:25-32) remains open at the book’s close.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: The kiválasztott eszköz (chosen instrument) term must be carefully distinguished, per the semantic analysis, from the soteriological “election” debate (kiválasztás) already Critical in the baseline — this is vocational, not (necessarily) salvific, election language, though the same Hungarian word covers both senses.

3.8 Justification apart from the Law

• OT roots: Genesis 15:6 (Abraham’s faith reckoned as righteousness); Habakkuk 2:4 (“the righteous shall live by faith,” the Romans 1:17 thesis text); Isaiah 55:3 (David’s “sure blessings,” Acts 13:34).
• Gospel foundation: Not extensively developed in the Gospels themselves as a formal doctrine; anticipated in Jesus’ controversies over law and grace (e.g., Luke 18:9-14, the justified tax collector).
• Acts development: Acts 10 (ceremonial law relativized as a Jew-Gentile boundary marker); 13:38-39 (the doctrine’s clearest single statement); 15 (the Jerusalem Council’s ruling that circumcision/full Torah-observance is not required for salvation, explicitly grounded in grace, 15:11).
• Epistolary/Romans connection: This is the single most direct doctrinal through-line between the two curricula: Romans 3:21-31; 4:1-25; 5:1-2 develop at full theological length the very doctrine Acts 13:39 and 15:11 state in narrative-sermon compression. This doctrine requires the highest cross-curriculum rendering discipline of any doctrine in this theme map.
• Eschatological trajectory: Justification is a present, once-for-all forensic verdict (Romans 5:1, “having been justified”) with future vindication in view (Romans 8:33-34) — Acts narrates only the doctrine’s historical establishment as apostolic teaching, not its full systematic unfolding.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: Full inheritance of the baseline’s Critical-risk megigazulás, kegyelem, and törvény entries; Acts adds the historically concrete Jerusalem Council narrative (the iga/yoke and az apostoli határozat/apostolic decree terms) as the doctrine’s decisive narrative resolution — material Romans assumes as settled but does not itself narrate.

3.9 The Great Commission Fulfilled

• OT roots: Isaiah 49:6; 42:6 (light to the nations, “to the end of the earth”); Psalm 67; 96 (the nations summoned to praise the Lord).
• Gospel foundation: Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-49 (the Commission’s original giving, of which Acts 1:8 is the direct restatement and Acts as a whole is the narrated fulfillment).
• Acts development: Acts 1:8 (thesis); 13:47 (direct Isaiah 49:6 fulfillment-quotation); 28:28, 31 (the book’s open-ended close: the gospel has reached Rome, “the end of the earth” symbolically if not literally, and continues “unhindered”).
• Epistolary/Romans connection: Romans 15:19-24 (Paul’s own summary of his completed eastern-Mediterranean mission and his stated intention to press on to Spain) — Romans 15 is, in effect, Paul’s personal progress report on the very Commission Acts narrates him fulfilling, extending the trajectory beyond Acts’ own narrative close.
• Eschatological trajectory: The Commission’s completion (“to the end of the earth”) remains, deliberately, an open and ongoing task at Acts’ close — inviting the reader’s own present-day participation, a natural bridge to any curriculum’s concluding pastoral application.
• Hungarian sensitivity summary: Reuses baseline misszió (Medium) entry; the closing term akadálytalanul (unhindered) functions as this curriculum’s own thematic bookend, worth teaching explicitly alongside Acts 1:8 and the Pentecost narrative as the whole book’s controlling trajectory.

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4. Cross-Curriculum Theme Correspondence Table

Acts Doctrine	Primary Romans Correspondence	Correspondence Type
The Holy Spirit and Pentecost	Romans 8:9-16, 26-27; 5:5	Narrative inauguration → doctrinal exposition
The Gospel to Jews and Gentiles	Romans 1:16; 3:29-30; 9-11	Narrative enactment → doctrinal exposition
Repentance and Baptism	Romans 6:1-4	Historical practice → theological meaning
The Church as Community	Romans 12:3-8; 16	Founding narrative → mature ecclesial reflection
Apostolic Authority and Miracles	Romans 15:18-19; 1:5	Narrated pattern → Paul’s own retrospective summary
Persecution and Bold Witness	Romans 8:35-39; 5:3-5	Lived experience → theological answer/assurance
Conversion of Paul	Romans 1:1, 5 (and the whole epistle as its fruit)	Foundational event → mature theological output
Justification apart from the Law	Romans 3:21-31; 4:1-25; 5:1-2	Compressed narrative-sermon statement → full doctrinal treatise
The Great Commission Fulfilled	Romans 15:19-24	Narrated fulfillment-in-progress → personal missionary report

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5. Thematic Tensions Requiring Non-Adjudicating Translation

Consistent with the baseline’s governing principle (translate the text’s own argument, not either tradition’s fully developed system), the following thematic tensions recur across Acts and must be handled with the same discipline documented in the Romans baseline:

1. Grace vs. law-observance (Acts 15 vs. the Romans baseline’s grace/works tension) — do not resolve toward either Tridentine merit-cooperation or strict Reformed monergism.
2. Election/calling, vocational vs. soteriological senses (Acts 9:15; 13:48 vs. Romans 8-9, 11) — do not import the full Calvinist-Catholic systematic apparatus.
3. Spirit-filling as unrepeatable inauguration vs. repeatable normative experience (Acts 2, 4, 8, 10, 19) — a fault line new to this curriculum, engaging Hungary’s charismatic-Pentecostal minority (notably Hit Gyülekezete) alongside the mainline Catholic-Reformed positions the baseline already documents.
4. Baptism’s mode, timing, and efficacy (Acts 2:38; 16:15, 33 vs. the Catholic/Reformed paedobaptist consensus and the Baptist/free-church credobaptist minority) — a second fault line new to this curriculum.
5. Sainthood/corporate holiness vs. canonized-elite veneration (Acts 9:13; 26:18 vs. the baseline’s existing “szentek” caution) — direct carryover from the Romans baseline, reinforced narratively.
6. Church polity: episcopal-hierarchical vs. presbyterian-parity (Acts 14:23; 20:17, 28) — the sharpest newly concrete institutional-polity tension in this curriculum, engaging the Catholic-Reformed divide far more directly than anything in Romans, which discusses “church” mostly in its universal sense.
7. Israel’s hardening as partial/temporary vs. total/final (Acts 28:26-27 vs. Romans 11:25-32) — must remain open to future restoration in both curricula alike.

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6. Summary Theme-Flow Diagram (Textual)

OT PROMISE (Joel, Isaiah, Amos, Davidic covenant, Abrahamic covenant)
        │
        ▼
GOSPELS: Christ's ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, Great Commission (Luke 24; Matthew 28)
        │
        ▼
ACTS 1:8 — thesis: Spirit-empowered witness, Jerusalem → Judea/Samaria → ends of the earth
        │
        ▼
ACTS 2 (PENTECOST) — hinge: the Spirit poured out; Peter's sermon; repentance, baptism,
        forgiveness, the gift of the Spirit; ~3,000 added to the community
        │
        ├──▶ ACTS 3-7   Jerusalem: apostolic authority, miracles, mounting persecution, Stephen's martyrdom
        │
        ├──▶ ACTS 8-12  Judea/Samaria/coastal: gospel breaks Jewish-Gentile boundary (eunuch, Cornelius);
        │               Paul's conversion
        │
        └──▶ ACTS 13-28 To the ends of the earth: justification apart from the law proclaimed and
                        ratified (ch.13, ch.15); persecution intensifies; gospel reaches Rome,
                        proclaimed "unhindered" (28:31)
        │
        ▼
EPISTLES (esp. ROMANS): systematic doctrinal exposition of grace, justification, the Spirit,
        Jew-Gentile unity, and the church — the mature theological fruit of what Acts narrates
        historically
        │
        ▼
ESCHATOLOGICAL CONSUMMATION: "until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in... and so all
        Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:25-26) — the still-open horizon toward which both
        Acts' open ending (28:31) and Romans' argument (11:25-32) point

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End of Biblical Theme Map. This document, together with analysis/09_cross_reference_analysis.md, must inform every subsequent Phase 1 doctrine-risk and Phase 2 translation-memory decision for the Acts curriculum, ensuring full coherence with the Romans Language Package baseline.