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In 1970, I. H. Marshall published Luke: Historian and Theologian. The influence Marshall had by the publication of Luke: Historian and Theologian has been seen in the various effects the book had on redaction-criticism in the field of New Testament studies, and how Luke, the writer of Luke-Acts, has since been appreciated as both a theologian and an historian, not one or the other, as it was before Marshall’s work. In 2021 at the 73rd national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and after a one-year postponement following the global pandemic, the Luke-Acts steering committee celebrated the 50th year of the publication of Marshall’s book with a section specifically dedicated to aspects of the book and its legacy.

The Apostolic Decree holds a prominent place in the narrative of Acts; yet its meaning remains unclear for many. For some it is simply a Lukan invention; for others it is an ad hoc law of the early Jerusalem Church for Gentiles entering the church. This article suggests instead that the Apostolic Decree is rooted in Leviticus 17–19 as a blueprint from an eschatological ecclesiology that has an impact on us even today. The extent of this blueprint is such that beyond the narrative of Acts, the universal Church of the Lord Jesus should extend hospitality without any social debt to aliens, strangers and immigrants in the 21st century, as similar hospitality was once divinely extended to us.

In 1982, Earl Richard brought to light the unique place that Amos holds in Acts by a pioneering Novum Testamentum article on the use of Amos in Acts. I seek to revisit the investigation of the use of Amos in Acts by giving greater attention to the place of the Lukan appropriation of these two quotations in the narrative of Acts, and why they matter to the overall narrative. I argue that Luke appropriates the two Amos quotations and their interplaying themes in Acts 7 and 15 in order to form a literary inclusio that encloses and emphasizes a portion of Acts that exclusively introduces and develops two principal themes in Acts; the Gentile mission and its missionary, Paul. I conclude that such a “creative” use of Scripture is evidence of a narrative rooted in the exegetical construct of an active reader of Scripture seeking a normative expression for a ministry to an emerging multi-national people under the lordship of Jesus.