1. Continuity versus discontinuity: Many scholars such as Conzelmann, Lofthouse, and Hull focus on the discontinuity of the activity of the Holy Spirit in Acts. They see a fundamental difference in the activity of the Holy Spirit between the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. For them, this is part of a comprehensive understanding of the different workings of the Spirit in the Old Testament, in Christ, and in the church. This view nearly duplicates the emphasis on discontinuity in hyper-dispensationalism (Stronstad 1984, 2–5).
Other scholars have focused on the continuity of the Spirit’s activity not only in Luke-Acts, but throughout the entire canon of Scripture. This would certainly be the view of Stronstad (1984, 4–5) and, to some degree, Horton (2001, 13–14). The position taken in this work is that both continuity and discontinuity exist between the Old and the New Testament, but the overriding emphasis is on continuity.