Acts

Author: Luke

Acts continues Luke’s account, following the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome by the witness of the apostles.

Outline

  1. Jerusalem (1–7)

    The Spirit comes at Pentecost, the church shares life and goods, and Stephen is killed.

  2. Judea and Samaria (8–12)

    Philip, Saul’s conversion, Peter and Cornelius, and Peter’s deliverance carry the word outward.

  3. Paul’s journeys (13–20)

    From Antioch the gospel is preached through Asia Minor and Greece, and churches are planted.

  4. The witness in chains (21–28)

    Arrest in Jerusalem, hearings, a shipwreck, and an open preaching in Rome end the book.

Key verses

  • Acts 1:8

    Jesus tells the apostles they will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

  • Acts 2:42

    The first church continues in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

  • Acts 28:31

    The book ends with Paul in Rome, preaching the kingdom and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ openly.

Acts is the second volume of the account Luke addressed to Theophilus. The former treatise was about all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day he was taken up. Acts is what continued: the same Jesus, giving commandments through the Holy Ghost to the apostles he had chosen, and a witness that moves from the city where he was killed to the capital of the empire. The outline Jesus gives in the first chapter is the outline of the book. You will receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and you will be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. A reader can follow that geography without forcing it. The first seven chapters stay in Jerusalem. The next stretch reaches Samaria, the coast, and a Gentile household. From Antioch the missionaries cross into Asia Minor and then into Greece. The last quarter is a prisoner’s journey that ends in Rome, with the word still unhindered.

The opening days are waiting. Matthias is chosen so the witnesses to the resurrection stand at twelve. At Pentecost the Spirit comes, and Peter preaches that God has made the crucified Jesus both Lord and Christ. About three thousand are baptized and continue in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers. A lame man walks in the name of Jesus. The council commands silence, and the apostles answer that they must obey God. Stephen rehearses Israel’s story as a history of resisting the Spirit and is stoned. Saul consents to his death.

The scattering that follows the killing is the next mission. Philip preaches in Samaria, and Peter and John come so that the Samaritans receive the Spirit. Philip is sent to an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah and baptizes him. Saul, breathing threats, is met on the road to Damascus by the Lord he is persecuting, is baptized by Ananias, and immediately preaches that Jesus is the Son of God. The churches have rest and are multiplied. Peter heals Aeneas and raises Dorcas. A vision of unclean animals teaches him not to call common what God has cleansed, and he preaches in the house of Cornelius, a centurion. The Spirit falls on Gentiles, and they are baptized. The church in Jerusalem, hearing Peter’s account, glorifies God that he has granted repentance unto life to the Gentiles as well. James is killed. Peter is imprisoned and delivered. Herod dies. The word of God grows and multiplies. The Jerusalem section ends with a church that has learned, against its own expectations, that the promise is not confined to one people.

Antioch becomes the sending church. The Spirit separates Barnabas and Saul. They preach through Cyprus and southern Asia Minor, appoint elders, and, when circumcision is disputed, carry the question to Jerusalem. James and the apostles write that Gentile believers are not to be loaded with the yoke of the law. A vision then calls Paul to Macedonia. Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, and Corinth follow, and a long stay in Ephesus ends with a farewell in which he says bonds and afflictions wait in Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem he is seized in the temple. He tells his story on the stairs, before the council, and later before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa. He appeals to Caesar. A storm wrecks the ship on the way to Rome, and Paul tells the company that not a life will be lost. In Rome he lives two years in his own hired house, receiving all who come, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. Acts does not narrate his death. It ends with the word loose in the capital. The book’s subject is not a finished biography of Peter or of Paul. It is the continued work of the risen Lord by the Spirit, through witnesses, from the city of the cross to the end of the earth the first chapter named.

Chapters