Theme: The Church's mission in time and space

Exegetical note
With this beginning to what is, in effect, his Volume Two, Luke epitomizes his Gospel and lays the foundation for his recounting of the Apostles' Acts. The point of the inquiry and ensuing dialogue and angelic exhortation is to point to the future mission of the Church and, beyond that, to the return of Jesus. But the phrase "to the end of the earth" (v. 8) suggests that Luke now sees the delay of the parousia as a fact of life, giving the church p…