Acts

Overview

Acts is volume two. Luke’s Gospel covered what Jesus began to do and teach; this covers what He continued to do through His people after He ascended — which is why the Spirit, not any apostle, is the main actor.

The outline is in the first chapter: Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth. It ends with the gospel preached in Rome, in the emperor’s own city, by a prisoner awaiting trial — no one hindering him.

Background

The church begins entirely Jewish and in one city. Within thirty years it is spread across the empire and mostly Gentile, and the book explains how that happened without anyone planning it — persecution scatters, visions redirect, a council settles the terms.

Luke traveled with Paul for parts of the story; the passages that suddenly say "we" are where he joined the party. He also had access to the Jerusalem church and to Philip’s household at Caesarea.

Key themes

• The Holy Spirit empowers ordinary people to do what they could not.
• The gospel crosses every boundary: ethnic, social and geographic.
• Persecution spreads the church rather than stopping it.
• Preaching in Acts is always about the resurrection.
• God directs the mission — by visions, by the Spirit, and by closed doors.

Outline

1. JerusalemChapters 1–7

   The ascension, Pentecost, thousands added, the lame man healed, Ananias and Sapphira, and Stephen stoned.

2. Judea and SamariaChapters 8–9

   Persecution scatters the church, Philip and the Ethiopian, and Saul struck down on the Damascus road.

3. The door opens to GentilesChapters 10–12

   Peter’s rooftop vision, Cornelius’s household, Antioch, and Peter freed from prison.

4. First journeyChapters 13–14

   Barnabas and Saul sent from Antioch through Cyprus and Galatia.

5. The council at JerusalemChapter 15

   What shall be required of Gentile believers — settled by Scripture and testimony.

6. Second journeyChapters 16–18

   A call to Macedonia, a jailer at Philippi, Athens and the unknown God, and eighteen months at Corinth.

7. Third journey, and arrestChapters 19–21

   Three years at Ephesus, a riot of silversmiths, a farewell at Miletus, and seized in the temple.

8. Trials and RomeChapters 22–28

   Defenses before governors and a king, an appeal to Caesar, shipwreck at Malta, and two years preaching in Rome.

Key passages

• Acts 1:8 Ye shall be witnesses unto me — unto the uttermost part of the earth.
• Acts 2:1-4 The day of Pentecost: a rushing mighty wind and cloven tongues of fire.
• Acts 2:41 Three thousand souls added in one day.
• Acts 4:12 There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
• Acts 7:59-60 Stephen prays for those stoning him.
• Acts 9:3-6 Saul on the Damascus road: who art thou, Lord?
• Acts 16:30-31 What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Acts 17:22-31 Paul at Athens, and the unknown God declared.

Christ in Acts

Every sermon in Acts comes back to the same point: this Jesus, whom you crucified, God raised up, and we are witnesses. He is the one whose name heals a lame man, whom Stephen sees standing at God’s right hand, who speaks to Saul from the light, and whose name is the only one under heaven by which we must be saved.

Reading it

• Read 1:8 as the table of contents, then watch the geography move.
• Mark the "we" passages; they tell you where Luke was standing.
• Read the sermons closely — Peter’s at Pentecost, Stephen’s, Paul’s at Athens — and note how each is shaped for its hearers.