Luke has already introduced several themes which will be important as his book progresses. Next he emphasizes the way in which the early church was living as the true people of God—not least, we may suspect, in order to highlight an emerging paradox. The temple authorities thought they were the guardians of the official traditions of Israel; but, in the very same city, there was a community which was practicing the life of the true covenant people of God and thereby quietly upstaging all that went on in the temple.