But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” - Acts 1:8 (ESV)

Acts is a shortened version of the title, The Acts of the Apostles. It is about the time immediately following Jesus’s ascension to heaven and then the birth and spread of the church from Jerusalem all the way to Rome. The church begins in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples in Acts chapter two. The message of the gospel spreads from Jerusalem to Rome, especially due to the ministries of Peter and Paul. Acts recounts how the apostles fared following Jesus‘s departure to heaven and how the promises He made were fulfilled. We live today in line with Acts, as it explains how the gospel came to be heard by us and how we can live as Christians without becoming Jews. 

The Big Idea of Acts

I have taught the big idea of Acts as the following: the disciples receive power and are witnesses throughout the earth. Among other fascinating themes and trends in Acts, the basic pattern set by Christ’s words before He ascends to heaven function as a thesis for the whole story, structuring the narrative so that the whole can be viewed as a fulfillment of Christ’s reassurance that the disciples would be His witnesses to the whole earth after receiving power. 

An Outline of Acts

1-7: The Word Goes to Jerusalem

The gospel spreads throughout Jerusalem in chapters 1-7 of Acts. The book begins with Jesus’ ascension to Heaven following His assurance that his disciples would be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). The Holy Spirit comes in chapter two, prompting mass preaching and revival in Jerusalem, with Peter’s preaching highlighted and three thousand people being baptized and added to the church. Peter and John get themselves in hot water with the rulers, elders, and scribes of the Jews, who attempt to get them to stop spreading these things, but they did not charge the apostles. Ananias and Saphira are killed in chapter five for pretending to be as generous and sharing as other followers while multitudes keep getting added to the church. Deacons are selected in chapter six as the numbers were too large for the apostles to tend to alone. In chapter seven, we have the church's first martyr, Stephen, who rebukes the religious leaders during his sermon and is stoned for it. A younger man named Saul holds the people’s coats while they stone Stephen (Acts 7:58). 

8-12: The Word Goes to Judea and Samaria

As Jesus had said, the disciples continue to be witnesses, now beyond Jerusalem and into the surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria. Philip preaches in Samaria, and Peter and John follow after to baptize them so that they might receive the Spirit (Acts 8:14-16). Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch on his journey home after worshiping in the temple. He is similarly baptized and sent on his way, sowing a seed for the journey of the gospel around the globe. Saul, the man who held people’s coats during Stephen’s stoning and who would become Paul the apostle, is saved in chapter nine while on his way to arrest Christians in Damascus. Luke summarizes in Acts 9:31 how the church was being built and multiplied throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. A Roman centurion named Cornelius receives Peter and he is baptized along with the others there, representing the first group of Gentiles to be saved. Peter is required to explain how this is possible in chapter eleven, where he describes the vision he received from God. By the end of chapter eleven, the gospel is already beginning to spread beyond the confines of Judea and Samaria as Christians are scattered. Barnabas and Saul are sent to Antioch to minister there. They are sent back from Antioch with gifts to relieve the hardship of the Christians in Judea. James is martyred in chapter twelve and Peter is then imprisoned. An angel, however, frees him and returns him to the other disciples. Herod receives blasphemous praise and is struck to death. Meanwhile, Barnabas and Saul return from Antioch. 

 13-28: The Word Goes to the Ends of the Earth

In the final 16 chapters of Acts, the words spreads well beyond its initial beginnings in Judea and the surrounding areas, reaching all the way to Rome, where Paul openly proclaims the gospel there while he is guarded as a prisoner of Caesar by Roman soldiers. 

Before Paul’s imprisonment, Paul and Barnabas are set apart by the Spirit to proclaim the word of God in the nations surrounding Judea. They make stops in many places, inciting all sorts of reactions from people, sometimes being worshipped as gods and other times being attacked. Paul and Barnabas return to Jerusalem in chapter fifteen to attend a council to resolve a dispute about whether and to what extent Gentiles must become like Jews. They are sent off with a letter answering the questions. They continue to travel in chapters 16-21, finally returning to Jerusalem in chapter twenty-one. Paul is accused of bringing Greeks into the temple and is arrested (Acts 21:27-34). Paul makes his defense in chapter 22, only to rile up the people even more, and is set before the council of the Jews by the centurion who arrested him. Paul is ultimately sent to Governor Felix in Caesarea, where Paul is accused again, and again makes his defense. Felix is succeeded by Festus and and Paul appeals to Caesar to be tried in Rome. Before leaving, Paul is asked to make his defense to King Agrippa in chapter 26. Paul is sent off to Rome in chapter 27. They eventually arrive safely at Rome, but not without first experiencing a shipwreck and staying on the island of Malta. Finally, in Rome, Paul shares and argues the gospel with everyone who comes to see him, which is many people. By the end of Acts, Jews and Gentiles all over the Roman empire hear the gospel, from the great to the small, rich to poor, men and women. 

Benefits of Acts

There are many benefits to Acts for our lives today. One of the striking things about Acts in particular is the way that its story so clearly butts up against our own time. Acts is the portion of the Bible story that lays the final pieces to bridge the gap between the time of Jesus and the apostles and our time today. Acts helps us to understand the current context of the gospel and the state of the church until Christ returns. 

One of the important functions of Acts is that it presents to us the role of the Holy Spirit in the church. There are times when the Spirit takes explicit control and, we might even say, micro-manages the affairs in the church (Acts 8:26; 13:2-3). But most of the time, the Spirit does not. Over and over again in the story of Acts, the apostles and the rest of the disciples make decisions, seek wisdom, and take responsibility for their actions. The Christians in Acts clearly depended on the Spirit in prayer, but that dependence is not sentimental, passive, or sensationalistic.

It appears to me that a common trend throughout church history is the desire for following Christ to require less thought or analysis and more automatic and easy choices. We want to hoist our sails and let the Spirit carry us wherever he wills. There can be something noble in that sentiment since utter devotion to Christ and submission to the Spirit in honor of the Father should be our goal. But there is something ignoble as well. Our desire for the Spirit to blow us where he will often seems to reflect a distaste for rowing. Like rowing, making our own decisions, seeking wisdom, and taking responsibility for our actions are hard work. But the early church, and certainly the apostle Paul, did not eschew hard work. Acts shows us a balance between humble dependence on the Spirit and diligent effort. This is a balance the church has always had difficulty in striking, from over- or under-development of and emphasis on doctrine, to over- or under-emphasis on emotions and feelings, to over- or under-emphasis on decision-making and action. In all these things, one step forward toward striking the right balance is surely in applying diligent effort to Spirit-dependent prayer, taking Scripture as our cue, asking for wisdom, and then boldly seeking to live it out. We should desire the Spirit to do marvelous things in regenerating the lost and growing God’s children in their faith, but Acts makes clear that we cannot use the Spirit’s authority and power as an excuse, so to speak, not to pick up our oars and row. As we serve the Lord, we can trust, not in ourselves but in the power of the Holy Spirit, to continue to cause the church to be built up and edified.