New Testament · Acts
Πράξεις
Fire falls and the church goes out, Jerusalem to Rome, prison doors notwithstanding.
Luke's second volume, and the only account we have of how a Jewish movement in Jerusalem became a Gentile church across the empire. The Spirit falls at Pentecost, and the gospel simply will not stay put: Jerusalem, Samaria, the ends of the earth, exactly as chapter one announces. The turning point is not a sermon but an argument, the council in chapter fifteen deciding what Gentiles must do, and the answer is remarkably little. What often goes unnoticed is how much of the book is travel logistics, ports and ships and prison transfers, and that it ends without resolution: Paul under house arrest in Rome, preaching without hindrance, and no word about the trial. Luke stops there because the point was never Paul's outcome.
If you remember one thing
Verse 1:8 is the book's table of contents, and the story follows it exactly. It ends without resolution, with Paul preaching under guard, because the point is that the story keeps going.
“You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
Acts 1:8
Acts 5:1-11
Ananias and Sapphira struck dead over a lie about money. The text offers no softening, and the fear that fell on the church is reported as the result.
Acts 15:20
The four requirements laid on Gentile believers, and the long argument about whether they are ceremonial, moral, or pastoral.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
The shepherd-poet who killed Goliath, outlasted Saul's jealousy, and united the tribes with Jerusalem as his capital. A man after God's own heart, yet his adultery with Bathsheba and its cover-up cost him dearly. God promised his throne would endure forever, the covenant the Messiah would fulfill.
Jacob's favored son, sold into slavery by his brothers, imprisoned on a false accusation, and raised to second in Egypt because he could read dreams. When his brothers finally stood before him he said the line the whole story turns on: you meant it for evil, God meant it for good.
Moses' assistant and one of the two spies who came back from Canaan saying it could be taken. He led the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest, and at the end of his life made the whole nation choose openly whom they would serve.
A young woman in Nazareth who answered the angel's announcement with consent, and whose song of God lifting up the lowly is one of the earliest Christian hymns. She appears at the wedding in Cana, at the cross, and with the disciples in the upper room.
A Galilean fisherman who spoke first and thought later, walked on water and sank, confessed Jesus as the Christ, denied him three times, and was restored on a beach over breakfast. He preached the sermon at Pentecost and opened the door of the church to Gentiles at Cornelius' house.
A fisherman called with his brother James, part of the inner three, and traditionally the author of the fourth Gospel, three letters, and Revelation. The Gospel calls him the disciple Jesus loved and places him at the cross, entrusted with Jesus' mother.
One of the twelve, who kept the money box and sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, then threw the money back into the temple and hanged himself. The Gospels report his motives sparingly and do not speculate.
A Pharisee trained under Gamaliel who persecuted the church until he was stopped on the road to Damascus. He then spent thirty years planting churches across the Roman world and writing the letters that make up roughly a third of the New Testament. He was a Roman citizen by birth, which is why he could appeal to Caesar.
A Levite from Cyprus whose nickname means 'son of encouragement,' which fits the two things he is best known for: vouching for Saul when the church was still afraid of him, and later splitting with Paul rather than give up on John Mark.
One of the seven chosen to serve the Greek-speaking widows, who preached a sweeping survey of Israel's history before the council and was stoned for it. Luke notes that the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
A young believer from Lystra with a Greek father and a Jewish mother, who traveled with Paul and was left in charge at Ephesus. Two of Paul's letters are addressed to him, and the second is the last one we have.
A dealer in purple cloth at Philippi, which was an expensive trade, who was worshiping by the river when Paul arrived. She was baptized with her household and opened her home as the base for the church there.
A tentmaker who, with her husband Aquila, hosted churches in their home in three cities and took the eloquent Apollos aside to explain the way of God more accurately. She is usually named first of the pair, which was unusual enough to be worth noticing.
A magician with a following who believed and was baptized, then offered the apostles money for the power to give the Spirit. Peter's answer is blistering. His name gave English the word simony, the buying and selling of church office.
He predicted a widespread famine, which prompted the first relief collection sent from Antioch to Judea, and later took Paul's belt, bound his own hands and feet with it, and warned him what waited in Jerusalem.
A court official returning from Jerusalem, reading Isaiah aloud in his chariot and getting nowhere. Philip ran alongside, asked whether he understood it, and was invited up. They stopped at water and he was baptized, then went on his way rejoicing.
A God-fearing officer who prayed and gave alms, and whose vision and Peter's happened on the same day. When the Spirit fell on his household while Peter was still speaking, the argument about Gentiles was effectively settled by God before the church could vote on it.
Known for the coats and garments she made for widows, which the widows were holding up and showing Peter when he arrived after her death. She is the only woman in the New Testament called a disciple with the feminine form of the word.
The most respected rabbi of his generation, and Paul's teacher. When the council wanted the apostles executed he counseled patience with an argument still quoted: if this is of human origin it will fail on its own, and if it is from God you will not be able to stop it.
Eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, teaching accurately about Jesus but knowing only John's baptism. Priscilla and Aquila took him aside privately and filled in what he was missing, and he became a formidable public advocate.
Chosen to serve tables, he ended up preaching in Samaria, baptizing an Ethiopian official on a desert road, and settling in Caesarea, where Luke notes he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
They sold property, kept back part of the price, and presented the rest as the whole. Peter's charge is not that they gave too little but that they lied about it when they were under no obligation to give at all. Both fell dead, and great fear came on the church.
A leading man in the Jerusalem church who carried the council's decision to Antioch and then traveled with Paul after the split with Barnabas. He was beaten and jailed at Philippi and was singing at midnight when the earthquake came.
The governors, kings, and officers who handle Paul's case. Felix keeps him two years hoping for a bribe. Festus inherits the problem and cannot work out what to write to Caesar. Agrippa II and his sister Bernice come to hear him out of curiosity.
The apostles the gospels say least about. Andrew, Peter's brother, is the one who keeps bringing people to Jesus: his brother, the boy with the loaves, the Greeks who came asking. Thomas is remembered for one sentence of doubt and forgotten for another, let us also go, that we may die with him.
The Hivite ruler of Shechem whose son violated Dinah and then asked to marry her. Jacob's sons agreed on condition that every male in the city be circumcised, and killed them all while they were recovering.
The tax collector called from his booth at Capernaum, on the road running from Damascus to the coast. Mark and Luke call him Levi; Matthew's gospel calls him Matthew and adds the detail that he was a tax collector, which the others leave out of the apostle list.
James son of Zebedee, John's brother, one of the inner three, and the first apostle martyred, killed by Herod Agrippa. James son of Alphaeus, of whom almost nothing is recorded. And James the brother of Jesus, who did not believe during the ministry and became the leader of the Jerusalem church.
A family name that became a title. Augustus orders the census in Luke 2. Tiberius reigns during the ministry. Claudius expels the Jews from Rome, which is how Paul meets Priscilla and Aquila. Nero is almost certainly the Caesar to whom Paul appealed and under whom he died.
The commanders sent against Judas Maccabeus. Nicanor was defeated and killed at Adasa, and the anniversary was kept as a feast day for a time. Apollonius, Timotheus, and Gorgias lead other campaigns across 1 and 2 Maccabees.
The men who held or bought the high priesthood in the years around the Maccabean crisis. Onias III was respected and was deposed by his brother Jason, who purchased the office and built a gymnasium in Jerusalem. Menelaus then outbid Jason, and Alcimus later took the post with Seleucid backing.
A quiz for Acts is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
