The Book of Acts

Luke opens by reminding Theophilus where the first volume ended: Jesus, alive again after his suffering, appearing to his followers over forty days, "giving many convincing proofs that he was alive." This isn't wishful thinking or a rumour. Luke wants it on record that the risen Jesus was seen, repeatedly, by people who ate with him.

Then Jesus gives his final instructions. Don't leave Jerusalem yet. Wait for the gift the Father promised — the Holy Spirit. The disciples, still thinking in political terms, ask the question on their minds: "Are you now going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus redirects them completely. The timing isn't their business. Their job is: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

That sentence is the table of contents for the entire book.

And then he is taken up before their eyes, and a cloud hides him. The disciples stand there, staring at the sky, until two men in white appear beside them: "Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus… will come back in the same way you have seen him go."

The disciples do exactly what they're told. They go back to Jerusalem, to the upstairs room, and they wait — and they pray. Luke names them, all eleven, plus the women, plus Mary the mother of Jesus, plus Jesus' brothers (who, notably, did not believe in him during his ministry and now do). About 120 people in all.

While they wait, Peter raises an unfinished piece of business: Judas. The one who betrayed Jesus is gone, and his place among the Twelve is empty. Peter sees this as something Scripture anticipated, and proposes they fill the vacancy. The qualification is specific and revealing: it must be someone who was with them the whole time, "beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up." An apostle is, first and foremost, a witness — someone who saw it all and can testify.

They put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias. Then they pray and cast lots — an Old Testament way of leaving the decision to God — and the lot falls to Matthias. He is added to the eleven.

Pentecost was a Jewish harvest festival, fifty days after Passover, and Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims from every corner of the empire. The believers are all together in one place when it happens.

First a sound — like a violent rushing wind — fills the whole house. Then what looked like tongues of fire come to rest on each of them. And they are all filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gives them the words.

The noise draws a crowd, and the crowd is stunned. These are Galileans — small-town northerners — yet every visitor hears them speaking his own native language. Luke lists them: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, Crete, Arabia. "We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Some are amazed and confused. Others sneer: "They've had too much wine."

Peter — the same man who weeks earlier denied even knowing Jesus to a servant girl — stands up in front of thousands and preaches. It is the first Christian sermon, and it is fearless.

He explains that this is not drunkenness but the fulfilment of the prophet Joel: God is pouring out his Spirit on all people. Then he goes straight to the point: Jesus of Nazareth, proven by miracles, was handed over and crucified — "and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death." But God raised him from the dead, and "we are all witnesses of it." This Jesus, Peter says, is both Lord and Messiah.

The crowd is "cut to the heart." They ask: "What shall we do?" Peter's answer: "Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." About three thousand people are baptised that day.

Then Luke gives us a snapshot of what these new believers actually did. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread, and to prayer. They sold possessions to help anyone in need. They ate together with glad and sincere hearts. And every day, more people were added.

Peter and John go up to the temple to pray, and at the gate called Beautiful sits a man who has been unable to walk his entire life. Every day he is carried there to beg. He asks Peter and John for money.

Peter looks straight at him and says the famous words: "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." He takes the man by the hand, and instantly the man's feet and ankles become strong. He jumps up, and goes into the temple courts walking and leaping and praising God — the way you'd expect someone to who has waited his whole life for this.

A crowd rushes over, amazed. Peter seizes the moment for a second sermon: don't stare at us as if we did this by our own power. It was faith in the name of Jesus — the one you handed over to be killed, "the author of life," whom God raised from the dead — that healed this man. Then the call again: repent, turn to God, "that times of refreshing may come from the Lord."

The healing causes a stir, and the temple authorities are not pleased. They arrest Peter and John and hold them overnight. But the word is spreading — the number of believers grows to about five thousand.

The next day Peter and John stand before the same council that had condemned Jesus. "By what power or what name did you do this?" Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, answers plainly: by the name of Jesus Christ, the one you crucified, whom God raised. Then he makes one of the boldest claims in the New Testament: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved."

The council is stuck. The healed man is standing right there — they can't deny the miracle. They can't punish them without causing a riot, because everyone is praising God. So they fall back on a threat: stop speaking in this name. Peter and John refuse: "We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."

Released, they go back to their friends and pray — not for safety, but for boldness. And the place where they are meeting is shaken, and they are all filled with the Spirit again, and they keep speaking the word of God with courage.

Luke gives another beautiful picture of the early church: the believers were "one in heart and mind." No one claimed their possessions were their own; they shared everything. From time to time people sold land or houses and laid the money at the apostles' feet, to be given to anyone in need. One man, a Levite from Cyprus named Joseph, is so encouraging the apostles nickname him Barnabas — "son of encouragement." (Remember him; he matters later.)

Then comes a dark turn. A couple named Ananias and Sapphira sell a piece of property. They keep back part of the money for themselves — which is completely their right — but they lay the rest at the apostles' feet while claiming it is the whole amount. They want the reputation of total generosity without the cost of it.

Peter confronts Ananias: the land was yours, the money was yours; you didn't have to give any of it. "You have not lied to men but to God." Ananias falls down dead. Three hours later Sapphira comes in, not knowing what happened, and repeats the same lie. She falls dead too. "Great fear seized the whole church."

The apostles keep performing signs and wonders, and the church keeps growing — so much so that people carry the sick into the streets hoping even Peter's shadow might fall on them. More and more men and women believe.

The high priest and the Sadducees, "filled with jealousy," arrest the apostles and throw them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opens the doors, leads them out, and tells them: go back to the temple and keep preaching. So at daybreak they're right back at it. The authorities, baffled to find the jail empty and locked, have them brought in again — carefully, because the crowd might stone the guards.

"We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," the high priest says. Peter answers for them all: "We must obey God rather than human beings." The council is furious enough to want them dead. But a respected Pharisee named Gamaliel stands up with a wise warning: leave them alone. If this movement is merely human, it will fail on its own. "But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

They flog the apostles and release them. And the apostles leave "rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."

The church is growing so fast it hits a practical problem: the Greek-speaking widows are being overlooked in the daily food distribution. Rather than ignore it, the apostles tell the community to choose seven trustworthy, Spirit-filled men to handle it, so the apostles can stay focused on prayer and the word. One of the seven is Stephen, "a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit."

Stephen does more than wait tables; he performs great signs and debates so powerfully that his opponents can't win against him. So they do what people did to Jesus: they bribe false witnesses and drag him before the Sanhedrin, accusing him of speaking against the temple and the law.

Given the chance to defend himself, Stephen instead delivers the longest speech in Acts — a sweeping retelling of Israel's whole story, from Abraham to Moses to Solomon's temple. His point lands like a hammer at the end: at every stage, God's people resisted God's messengers, and now "you have betrayed and murdered" the Righteous One himself.

The council is enraged. But Stephen, full of the Spirit, looks up and says he sees heaven open and Jesus standing at God's right hand. They cover their ears, rush him, drag him out of the city, and stone him. As he dies, he echoes his Lord: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and then, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And standing there, guarding the coats of the killers, approving of the death, is a young man named Saul.

Stephen's death sets off a wave of persecution, led by Saul, who goes house to house dragging believers off to prison. The church in Jerusalem is scattered — and that turns out to be exactly how the gospel gets out. "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." Persecution becomes a delivery system.

Philip — another of the seven — goes down to a city in Samaria. Remember: Jews and Samaritans despised each other. This is the gospel crossing its first major ethnic line. Philip preaches Christ, drives out evil spirits, heals the paralysed and lame, and "there was great joy in that city." (A local sorcerer named Simon believes too, then tries to buy the power of the Spirit, and is sharply rebuked — a reminder that God's gifts are never for sale.)

Then an angel sends Philip to a desert road, where he meets an Ethiopian official — the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia — riding home in his chariot, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. The Spirit tells Philip to run alongside. "Do you understand what you're reading?" "How can I, unless someone explains it?" The man is reading Isaiah 53 — the suffering servant led like a lamb to the slaughter. Philip, beginning right there, tells him the good news about Jesus. They come to some water; the official asks, "What can stand in the way of my being baptised?" Nothing can. Philip baptises him, and he goes on his way rejoicing.

Saul is still "breathing out murderous threats." He gets letters of authority to go to Damascus, hunt down believers, and drag them back to Jerusalem in chains. He is the most dangerous man in this book.

On the road, a light from heaven flashes around him. He falls to the ground and hears a voice: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord?" "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." (Note what Jesus says: persecuting the church is persecuting him.) Saul gets up blind, and has to be led by the hand into the city he came to terrorise.

Meanwhile God speaks to a believer in Damascus named Ananias — go and lay hands on Saul. Ananias objects, reasonably: this man came here to arrest us. But God answers: "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel." Ananias obeys, calls him "Brother Saul," and Saul's sight returns. He is baptised at once.

The transformation is total. The man who came to destroy the church immediately starts preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. People are stunned — isn't this the persecutor? His preaching gets so dangerous to the authorities that the believers have to lower him over the city wall in a basket to save his life. The hunter is now the hunted.

While Saul disappears for a while, the camera returns to Peter, who heals a paralysed man named Aeneas and raises a beloved disciple named Tabitha (Dorcas) from death in Joppa. But the big story here is a wall coming down.

In Caesarea lives Cornelius — a Roman centurion, a Gentile, an officer of the occupying army, yet a man who prays and gives generously. An angel tells him to send for Peter. Meanwhile Peter, praying on a rooftop, falls into a trance and sees a sheet lowered from heaven full of animals Jews were forbidden to eat. A voice says, "Kill and eat." Peter refuses — "I have never eaten anything impure." The voice replies: "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Three times.

While Peter is puzzling over it, Cornelius's men arrive. Peter goes with them — itself scandalous, a Jew entering a Gentile's home — and finally understands the vision wasn't really about food. "I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears him." As Peter preaches, the Holy Spirit falls on the whole Gentile household, just as at Pentecost. Peter baptises them. When the Jerusalem believers object, Peter tells the whole story, and they fall silent, then praise God: "So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life."

The scattered believers reach Antioch — a huge, cosmopolitan city far to the north — and for the first time begin telling Gentiles, not just Jews, about Jesus. A great number believe. The Jerusalem church sends Barnabas to check on it; thrilled by what he sees, he goes and finds Saul and brings him to help teach for a year. And it's here, in Antioch, that the followers of Jesus are first called Christians.

Back in Jerusalem, King Herod launches a violent attack on the church. He has James, the brother of John — one of Jesus' closest friends — put to death by the sword. Seeing it pleases the crowd, he arrests Peter too, planning a public execution after Passover, guarding him with sixteen soldiers.

The night before the trial, Peter is sleeping in chains between two soldiers when an angel wakes him, the chains fall off, and door after door opens until he's standing free in the street. He goes to a house where believers are praying — praying, ironically, for him — and a servant girl named Rhoda is so overjoyed to hear his voice that she leaves him standing at the gate while she runs to tell everyone. They don't believe her. Peter keeps knocking. Herod, meanwhile, accepts a crowd's praise as if he were a god, and dies under God's judgement. "But the word of God continued to spread and flourish."

In Antioch, while the church is worshipping and fasting, the Holy Spirit says: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." So the church lays hands on them and sends them off — and the great missionary era of Acts begins. (Somewhere in here, Saul starts going by his Roman name, Paul.)

They sail to Cyprus, then into what is now Turkey, preaching first in the synagogues. The pattern repeats from town to town: Paul preaches Jesus as the fulfilment of the Scriptures; some Jews and many Gentiles believe; others stir up opposition and run them out. In Antioch of Pisidia, when the synagogue rejects the message, Paul makes a decisive turn, quoting Isaiah: "I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." The Gentiles are overjoyed.

It is not a comfortable trip. In Lystra, after Paul heals a man unable to walk, the crowd decides he and Barnabas are gods and tries to sacrifice to them — and the two have to beg them to stop. Then, days later, the same crowd is turned, and they stone Paul and drag him out of the city, thinking he's dead. He gets up and goes back in. On their way home, they revisit every church, "strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith," and warning them plainly: "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God."

Success creates a crisis. As more and more Gentiles come to faith, some Jewish believers insist they must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be truly saved. This is the most important theological question the young church will face: is the gospel grace, or grace plus rule-keeping? Paul and Barnabas argue sharply against the new requirement, and the church sends them to Jerusalem to settle it.

The apostles and elders gather. Peter stands and reminds them of Cornelius: God gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles "just as he did to us," purifying their hearts by faith. "Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?" Then his summary, pure gospel: "We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." Paul and Barnabas tell the stories of what God did among the Gentiles. James, leading the Jerusalem church, agrees and proposes they not burden the Gentiles — just ask them to avoid a few things that would needlessly offend Jewish believers.

They write a gracious letter and send it out. The verdict is unanimous and historic: you do not have to become a Jew to follow Jesus. Salvation is by grace, the same for everyone.

Paul and Barnabas have a falling-out — sharp enough that they part ways — over whether to give John Mark a second chance after he'd abandoned them earlier. Barnabas (the encourager) takes Mark; Paul takes Silas. Even here, God uses the disagreement: now there are two mission teams instead of one. Paul also picks up a young disciple named Timothy, who becomes like a son to him.

Then a night vision: a man of Macedonia pleading, "Come over and help us." Paul takes it as God's call, and for the first time the gospel crosses into Europe. In Philippi, by a river, they meet Lydia, a businesswoman dealing in purple cloth. "The Lord opened her heart," she believes, and her whole household is baptised — the first convert on the continent.

Then trouble. Paul frees a slave girl from a spirit that her owners were exploiting for profit; furious at their lost income, they have Paul and Silas stripped, beaten, and thrown in prison. At midnight, bruised and chained, the two are singing hymns. An earthquake shakes the prison, the doors fly open, the chains come loose. The jailer, assuming everyone has escaped, draws his sword to kill himself — but Paul shouts, "Don't harm yourself! We're all here." Trembling, the jailer asks the question of the whole book: "What must I do to be saved?" The answer: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household." That night the jailer washes their wounds, and they baptise his whole family.

Three cities, three very different responses. In Thessalonica, Paul preaches in the synagogue and some believe — but jealous opponents start a riot, dragging believers before the city officials and accusing them of "defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus." Paul and Silas slip away by night.

In Berea, Luke pauses to praise the locals: they were "of more noble character," because they "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." That's the model — open-hearted and careful, testing the teaching against the text. Many believe.

Then Athens — the intellectual capital of the world, a city "full of idols." Paul is invited to speak at the Areopagus, the council of philosophers. He doesn't start by quoting Scripture they don't accept; he starts where they are: "I see that in every way you are very religious. I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship — and this is what I am going to proclaim to you." He tells them about the God who made everything, in whom "we live and move and have our being," who now commands everyone to repent because he has set a day of judgement and proved it by raising a man from the dead. At the mention of resurrection, some sneer, some want to hear more, and a few believe.

Paul comes to Corinth — a wealthy, rough port city — and meets a couple who will become lifelong partners in the work: Aquila and Priscilla, tentmakers like Paul, who had been expelled from Rome. He works his trade alongside them and reasons in the synagogue every Sabbath.

When opposition hardens, Paul has a vision at night, and the Lord says something he badly needed to hear: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack you to harm you, because I have many people in this city." So Paul stays a year and a half — far longer than his usual quick visits — teaching the word of God. When his Jewish opponents finally drag him before the Roman governor Gallio, Gallio throws the case out as an internal religious dispute, effectively giving Christianity legal breathing room.

Then Paul sails for home, pausing at Ephesus (promising to return), and reports back to his sending church.

Paul settles in Ephesus for over two years, and it becomes one of the great centres of the early church. He teaches daily, and "all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord." God does extraordinary miracles through him — even cloths he had touched bring healing.

The power of the gospel becomes visible in dramatic ways. Some try to use Jesus' name like a magic spell and get badly humiliated by an evil spirit. The result is a city-wide reckoning: many believers who had practised sorcery bring out their scrolls and burn them publicly — a bonfire worth a fortune. "In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power."

But Ephesus runs on the worship of the goddess Artemis, and that's big business. A silversmith named Demetrius, who makes shrines, realises Paul's preaching is hurting sales — "he says gods made by human hands are no gods at all." He rallies the craftsmen, and soon the whole city is in an uproar, chanting "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" for two hours straight in the great theatre. It nearly becomes a deadly riot before the city clerk calms the crowd and sends them home.

Paul is now drawn toward Jerusalem, sensing trouble ahead. (Luke quietly slips into "we" here — he's travelling with Paul now.) Along the way, in Troas, Paul preaches so long that a young man named Eutychus falls asleep in a third-floor window, tumbles out, and dies — and Paul goes down, embraces him, and God restores his life. Then they go back upstairs and keep talking until dawn.

Not wanting to lose time, Paul sails past Ephesus but calls its church elders to meet him at Miletus for a goodbye he knows is final. It's one of the most moving passages in Acts. He reminds them how he served "with great humility and with tears," holding nothing back, teaching publicly and house to house. He tells them the Spirit is warning him that prison and hardship wait in every city — "but I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me." He warns them to guard the flock, because false teachers will come. He reminds them of a saying of Jesus found nowhere else: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Then they all kneel and pray, and weep, and embrace him, grieved most of all that they will never see his face again. And they walk him to the ship.

Paul reaches Jerusalem despite repeated warnings from friends who beg him not to go; his answer is, "I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die… for the name of the Lord Jesus." He meets with James and the elders and, to show he still honours Jewish custom, joins some men in a temple purification rite.

It backfires. Some Jews from Asia spot him in the temple, falsely accuse him of bringing Gentiles into the forbidden inner courts, and incite a mob. They drag Paul out and start beating him to death. Roman soldiers rush down from the nearby barracks and rescue him — arresting him as they go. On the steps, Paul asks permission to address the crowd and tells his story: his old life as a persecutor, the light on the Damascus road, his commission to the Gentiles. At that last word the crowd erupts again.

The Romans nearly flog him until Paul reveals he's a Roman citizen — which changes everything. Brought before the Sanhedrin, Paul shrewdly splits the council by raising the resurrection, dividing the Pharisees (who believe in it) from the Sadducees (who don't), and the meeting dissolves into chaos. That night the Lord stands by him: "Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome." When Paul's nephew uncovers a plot of forty men sworn to kill him, the Roman commander sends Paul out under heavy guard by night to Caesarea, to stand trial before the governor.

Paul now spends two years as a prisoner in Caesarea, moving through a series of trials before the most powerful men in the region — and turning each one into a chance to tell the gospel.

First, Governor Felix. Paul defends himself easily against the trumped-up charges, and Felix, who actually knows quite a bit about "the Way," keeps Paul around — partly hoping for a bribe, partly because his wife wants to hear him. When Paul reasons "about righteousness, self-control and the judgement to come," Felix is afraid and sends him away: "When I find it convenient, I will send for you." He leaves Paul in prison for two years to please the crowd.

Then Festus, the new governor, who wants to do the Jews a favour by sending Paul back to Jerusalem (where the ambush still waits). Paul, exercising his right as a Roman citizen, says the words that set his course: "I appeal to Caesar!" To Caesar he will go.

Finally, King Agrippa visits, and Paul gets to make his case before royalty. He tells his whole story once more — the persecutor, the light, the call to open people's eyes "and turn them from darkness to light." He's so compelling that Agrippa says, half-amused, half-shaken: "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" Agrippa concludes Paul has done nothing deserving death — "He could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."

Paul, still a prisoner, is put on a ship for Rome, and Luke — who is on board — gives us one of the most vivid sea-stories in ancient literature. It is sailing season's end, and Paul warns them not to risk the voyage. They sail anyway.

A ferocious northeaster catches the ship and drives it for days. The crew throws the cargo overboard, then the ship's tackle. The storm is so relentless that "we finally gave up all hope of being saved." Then Paul stands up — the prisoner becomes the calmest man aboard — and tells them an angel of God stood by him in the night: "Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you." Not one of you will be lost, he says — only the ship. "I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me."

On the fourteenth night they sense land. Paul urges the exhausted, starving men to eat, takes bread, gives thanks to God in front of all 276 of them, and they're encouraged. At dawn the ship runs aground and begins to break apart in the surf. The soldiers want to kill the prisoners so none escape, but the centurion — wanting to spare Paul — stops them and orders everyone overboard, some swimming, some clinging to planks. "And so it was that everyone reached land safely." Exactly as Paul had said.

The survivors wash up on Malta, where the islanders show them unusual kindness. As Paul gathers wood for the fire, a viper fastens onto his hand. The locals assume he's a murderer getting his due — but he shakes it off, unharmed, and they decide he must be a god. Paul spends the winter there, and God heals many of the islanders, beginning with the chief official's father.

After three months they sail again, and at last Paul reaches Rome — the goal Jesus named back in chapter 23. Believers from the city walk out along the road to meet him, and at the sight of them, "Paul thanked God and was encouraged." He's a prisoner, awaiting trial before Caesar, but he's allowed to live by himself with a soldier guarding him.

And here is how Luke chooses to end the whole book — not with Paul's trial, not with his death, but with a door left open. Paul calls the local Jewish leaders together, explains the kingdom of God, and tries to persuade them about Jesus from the Scriptures from morning till evening. Some are convinced; some are not. Then Luke's final sentence: for two whole years Paul stayed in his rented house, welcomed all who came to see him, "proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ — with all boldness and without hindrance."