There are seven key passages in Acts that carry the story forward. They describe significant marker events in the life of the early church and help us understand its growth and health.
A. The first key passage is Acts 1:8
Acts’ big idea—that Jesus’s followers were His witnesses and were to take His message to the whole world—is recorded in Acts 1:8. And the verse also presents the book’s outline. Luke used Jesus’s commission as a template to introduce and organize his story.
B. The second key passage is Acts 2
The birth of the church is recorded in chapter 2. This chapter describes the events that occurred on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit Jesus had promised came to His apostles. The Christians in Jerusalem miraculously proclaimed the gospel in languages they had never spoken before. As part of that miraculous event, Peter proclaimed the message of salvation and three thousand people believed and began to follow Christ. We can only imagine what an enormous affirmation this was to these newly minted evangelists. They must have been convinced by the end of the day that Jesus was serious when He said, “You will receive power . . . and you will be my witnesses.”
C. The third key passage is Acts 6–8
In these chapters, Luke introduces us to the need for expanding leadership in the church. The ministry could no longer be accomplished by the apostles. The Holy Spirit was blessing and using others to proclaim Jesus’s good news. Luke included the stories of two of the seven deacons who were appointed in chapter 6. Stephen’s great sermon is recorded in chapter 7, and Philip’s ministry to the Samaritans and to the Ethiopian eunuch is found in chapter 8. These are two strategic events. Stephen refused to compromise Jesus’s message, and Philip took the gospel outside the Jewish boundaries. And it’s important to note that these men were not apostles. God’s Holy Spirit was ministering through a new group of ministers as well. The work was spreading to the congregation of the believers. The workforce was expanding!
D. The fourth key passage is Acts 9 This passage records the conversion of a primary character in Acts—this man named Saul who became Paul the apostle. Saul went from being the church’s greatest enemy to becoming Paul, one of its greatest champions. So read chapter 9 carefully, because it introduces us to the man who from chapters 13–28 was God’s major witness to the world. We will study Paul’s life more thoroughly in the next lesson.
E. The fifth key passage is Acts 10 and 11 In these chapters, Luke introduces us to the first Gentile church. He describes this event in a way that highlights a critical point the church was facing at the time. Peter was the man God chose to plant this first Gentile church. But even Peter, who had been with Jesus when He ministered to Gentiles, could not imagine including them as Jesus’s followers. They were unclean, and the Jews despised them. In fact when Peter went to the Gentile’s home, he reminded the host—a Roman centurion named Cornelius—that he was breaking Jewish law by entering his home. “Yet,” Peter said, “God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean” (Acts 10:28 NASB).
What Peter stated as a simple event, “God showed me,” actually required an elaborate miracle. Peter needed a miraculous message from God before he would associate with Gentiles. Even though Jesus commissioned Peter to be one of His witnesses to the ends of the earth, Peter couldn’t imagine that Jesus included Gentiles. So Acts 10 and 11 describe a critical juncture in the Acts’ story by showing the need to overcome deep prejudices before the gospel could go to the world.
F. The sixth key passage is Acts 15 A sixth essential passage, Acts 15, describes the Jerusalem Council. After Paul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey, they returned to their home base in Antioch. Some Jewish Christians there were upset that they had invited Gentiles to receive salvation without keeping the Mosaic Law. It became such an issue that they met with the apostles and elders in Jerusalem to resolve the issue. The council concluded that Gentiles do not have to keep the law to become Christians and affirmed the essential truth that Paul wrote to the Ephesian church: “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV). Acts 15, like Acts 10 and 11, shows us how the early church overcame cultural barriers as they took the gospel to the Gentiles.
G. The seventh key passage is Acts 13–28 These chapters record Paul’s missionary trips and his imprisonment. On his missionary trips recorded in Acts 13–21, Paul and his team planted new churches that he later wrote letters to. The epistles to the Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, and Ephesians are letters Paul wrote to instruct and encourage these churches. By integrating these epistles and their stories in Acts 13–21, we gain a clearer understanding of both Acts and the Epistles. Paul’s four years in prison are recorded in chapters 21–28. We will study these chapters in greater detail in our next lesson.
These seven key passages move us through the book of Acts and tell the amazing story of how the church functioned as Jesus’s witnesses in Jerusalem (1–7), Judea and Samaria (8–12), and to the ends of the earth (13–28).