The book of Acts is the continuation of the Gospel of Luke who is the author of this two part volume (Luke-Acts). Within the introduction, Luke is clear that he is picking up where his previous work left off, which was forty days after the resurrection event when Jesus ascended out of His disciples’ sight by a cloud. (Acts 1:9). Interestingly, at the moment Jesus ascended, He is noted as saying to His disciples these final words, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8, NRSV). Jesus’ words here are telling because they not only foreshadow coming events, but they also indicate the major outline and divisions of the book of Acts. Specifically, the outline involves geographical generalization of the gospel beginning in Jerusalem (2:1-7:60), then expanding out to the surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria (8:1-11:18), and then to the ends of the earth (11:19-28:31). The following will provide a brief overview of the main components of Acts, which will be followed by a discussion on persecution and the defense of the gospel. The paper will then touch on the character and role of the Holy Spirit in Acts and then close with the Missio Dei in Acts.
Upon Jesus’ ascension/exaltation, the disciples return to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, per Jesus’ instructions. During this period of waiting, the apostles devote themselves to prayer and restore their number to twelve with Matthias, which signaled their readiness to be empowered witnesses for Christ in the world. With the arrival of the Holy Spirit in chapter two, the gospel begins to permeate the immediate area of Jerusalem, and it is blissfully clear that the spread of the gospel is not a slow process but something that happened in bursts, such as the approximate number of three thousand persons confessing Jesus as the Christ after hearing Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost (2:14-41). Notably, although he is paired with John, Peter is the main spokesperson throughout this first main unit in Acts, which is evident in his five speeches/sermons.[1] There are other notable characters such as Stephen who delivers a long address to the Sanhedrin which results in his death (7:60), but Peter is quite visible throughout. Overall, this first main geographical unit is confined to Jerusalem and spans chapters 2:1—7:60.
Resulting from Stephen’s death, it is noted that “a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria” (8:1). From this, it is evident that the gospel has expanded beyond Jerusalem. The prominent character in this section is Philip who witnesses in Samaria (8:4-25) and also to an Ethiopian Eunuch on a wilderness road south of Jerusalem (8:26-40).
Following Philip, the account of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus is given, which begins to prepare the way toward the gospel to the Gentiles, but not before Peter reenters the narrative to witness the conversion of a Roman centurion named Cornelius and his household (10:44-47). Consequently, Peter’s role in the Gentile family receiving the Holy Spirit gains attention of the Jerusalem council of whom Peter gives his final speech in Acts, which leads to their acceptance and affirmation of God including the Gentiles as part of His redemptive plan (11:18). This second geographical section occurs throughout the regions of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria (& Damascus) and is covered in chapters 8:1 through 11:18.
The third geographical unit begins with the church of Antioch in 11:19 and spans the remainder of Acts in chapter 28. This last section is dominated by Saul (Paul) who plays a vital role in being a witness to the ends of the earth. This division takes on a different sort of ministry style than the earlier witness accounts in Acts because it is sectioned out in missionary journeys into the Gentile world. The first missionary journey is accounted for in 12:26—14:28, the second journey is in 15:36—18:22 and the third is accounted for in 18:23-21:16. With each missionary journey, the gospel spreads closer to the ends of the earth; however, in the last portion of Acts, Paul returns to Jerusalem and is placed on trial to which he makes an appeal to Caesar (25:10). Paul’s appeal eventually brings him to preaching and teaching the message in Rome, albeit under house arrest. Nevertheless, Acts closes abruptly with Paul witnessing in Rome—the hub of the empire.
Persecution & Defense of the Gospel
During His earthly ministry, Jesus faced persecution, and with almost every action and word He spoke, Jesus continuously defended His kingdom gospel to those who opposed Him. Unsurprisingly, Jesus’ pattern of persecution and defense of the gospel is carried over into Acts. Of the two, gospel defense appears early in Acts chapter two when Peter delivers his sermon in response to the arrival of the Spirit when some asserted that the people were intoxicated from wine (2:12-16). The first persecution soon follows in chapter four when Peter and John are arrested while proclaiming resurrection of the dead through Jesus (4:2). Notably, the persecution here comes in the form of several verbal threats (4:21) intended to keep them from speaking about Jesus, of which they refused. From this point forward, the forms of persecution in Acts escalate toward physical persecution quite quickly.
In chapter 5:17-28, the apostles are arrested, and after a series of events they find themselves standing before the council being questioned by the high priest who reminded them of the previous threat that they should not speak of Jesus. The apostles respond by offering their defense of the gospel with an appeal to God who exalted Jesus at his right hand, of which they were witnesses (5:29-32). Thanks to a respected Pharisee named Gamaliel, the apostles were released; however, this time they were physically persecuted by way of flogging (5:40). With this, the persecution motif begins to take hold, which runs parallel to the gospel defense motif that is deeply embedded into Acts.
With the development of persecution set in place, Stephen is arrested and accused before the council (6:12). Once again, another defense of the gospel is put forth, this time by Stephen and as a result, he is put to death (7:60). Stephen’s death led to the first church-wide persecution in Acts (8:1), and as a consequence, the gospel went beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and into Judea and Samaria (8:1).
Famously, Saul is noted in Acts 9:1 for persecuting the Church; however, he encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus, which signifies a shift in the story where the Lord states, “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (9:16). Soon enough, Paul faced opposition as a result of offering his defense of the gospel, so much that the Jews plotted to kill him (9:23). Notably, this was only the beginning for Paul.
In chapter 12:1-2, King Herod became violent with the Church, and had James killed. This shows persecution beyond the sphere of the religious leaders. Luke also notes that Herod had Peter arrested after he saw that his actions in killing James pleased the Jews (12:1-5). This section closes with Peter’s escape from prison; however, this reveals the growing persecution of the Christians during this time.
Paul reenters the narrative in chapter 13, and Luke portrays him as someone who has suffered greatly for Jesus. Also, it should be noted that the gospel defense motif continues with Paul. Although Paul and his entourage were within Gentile territory, his evangelism does include the Jews of whom much of his opposition is from. During their first mission journey, while in Antioch of Pisidia, the Jews stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and forced them out of the region (13:50). They encountered the same sort of threats in Iconium and were forced to leave there as well (14:5-6). Within each of these places, some believed while others did not, but persecution does seem to originate from the Jews. In fact, some of these Jews were so irate that the ones from Antioch Iconium showed up in Lystra and stoned Paul almost to the point of death (14:19).
It was not always the Jews who persecuted Paul and his group of gospelers. While in Philippi, they faced anti-Semitism when they were accused of disturbing the city for “they are Jews” (16:20). In Ephesus, a riot broke out due to a decline within the business of making idols resulting from the rise of Christianity (19:23-41). This pattern of division between the people coupled with persecution followed Paul and others wherever they went.
Perhaps the clearest example of gospel defense (in a judicial form), occurs in the latter portion of Acts beginning with Paul being arrested in the Temple. Immediately, Paul launches into a defense of the gospel, but was cut short when he mentioned that God was sending him far away to the Gentiles (22:21). After this, Paul was placed under arrest, and eventually was able to offer another defense of the gospel to Felix at Caesarea—apart from Jewish council (24:10-21). Paul’s final defense of the gospel is offered before King Agrippa where Paul recounts his story and conversion (26:4-23). All of this provides a very brief overview of the themes of persecution and the defense of the gospel and how they are threaded throughout the book of Acts.
Holy Spirit
The presence and activity of the Holy Spirit is dominant in Acts, and it must be understood that the Holy Spirit is the main character throughout the whole book. Vitally, one of the first things that the reader learns about the Holy Spirit in Acts is the Spirit’s empowerment characteristic. Jesus explicitly states to His disciples, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (1:8). With the arrival of the Spirit, empowerment is immediately put on display when Peter steps up and preaches His first sermon, which is to say that the Spirit empowers a person to speak/prophesy throughout Acts. Even more so, the Spirit empowers the people to speak with boldness (4:31). Further, empowerment is also apparent in all of the miracles throughout Acts of which the apostles were fully aware it was through being empowered by the Holy Spirit, which is evident in Peter’s statement, “why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?” (3:12).
The Holy Spirit also guides and provides direction to the apostles and disciples throughout the book of Acts. Notably, the entire book of Acts reveals the people responding to the direction of the Sprit, but one pericope shows this quite explicitly. In Acts 16, the travel log notes that the Holy Spirit forbid Paul and his companions to speak in Asia, which is followed by the Spirit forbidding them to enter Bithynia; however, through a vision that Paul received, the Spirit guided the mission into Macedonia (Acts 16:6-10).
Not to be missed, in Acts, the people are baptized by the Holy Spirit, which is stated in the introduction (1:5). Significantly, when a person is baptized by the Spirit, the Spirit comes upon them and dwells within them, which is a receiving of the gift of the Holy Spirit (2:38). Importantly, unlike being filled with the Spirit, which can occur repeatedly, being baptized by the Spirit is a one-time occurrence. However, there is an incident in Acts 8 where the people were baptized apart from receiving the Spirit; however, this seems like an isolated event where the Spirit waited for the arrival of the apostles to witness the event. Much has been written on this; however, the point here is that in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit dwells within the people through baptism.
Missio Dei
Just as the gospel accounts capture a period within God’s redemptive story, so to, the book of Acts is a snapshot along the same timeline, which is to say that Acts is one part of the story of God that traverses the whole of Scripture. Notably, the back story to Acts begins in Genesis, where, early on, the problem and pattern of sin is introduced, which initiates the Missio Dei to restore His creation to the state of shalom and wholeness portrayed in Genesis 1-2. One of the main undercurrents of Acts is rooted in Genesis 12 when God reveals Himself to Abram and makes a series of promises, one of which is that through Abram’s lineage, “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3b). With this, the Mission of God is made clear, and it is the driving theological agenda of Acts. Significantly, more than any other book within the canon of Scripture, it is the book of Acts that shows the promise of Genesis 12:3b coming into fruition, and it does so through Christ’s Church.
At the onset of Acts, the Missio Dei is clearly in view through Jesus’ parting words to His disciples that they are to be His witnesses beginning in Jerusalem and then spreading out into the world from there (Acts 1:8). The term witness here is vital because just as Israel was given the responsibility to bear witness to the nations of the world within the Old Covenant, the New Covenant inherits that same responsibility, and it is carried out through the Church, which was birthed when the Holy Spirit came upon the people on the day of Pentecost.
The Church as witness is immediately prevalent in the worshiping communities that resulted from being baptized into this new family of God and receiving the Spirit. Interestingly, these Spirit-filled communities witnessed to the kingdom of God by how they lived and interacted with each other through acts of lovingkindness (something that Israel was supposed to do). This is clearly portrayed within the immediate context of the Church being born on Pentecost where Luke reports that “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45). Of course, as the Church expanded beyond the boundaries of Jewish culture, these Christ-filled communities took on a diverse array of cultural forms, but the point here is the Church participated in God’s mission by living into the teachings of Jesus Christ who once stated to His disciples, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35, NIV). In truth, this has always been a part of the Missio Dei throughout all of Scripture (Lev. 19:18).
The Church in Acts also participated in God’s mission in the world by reshaping the cultures that it existed in. This is clearly seen in Acts 19:23-27 where the Church became so prominent that it resulted in a decline in the sale of idols. Most telling is where Luke writes, “You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods” (Acts 19:26, NRSV). Here, it is obvious that the Church was reshaping the cultural backdrop(s) wherever it happened to be, and it should be noted that this reshaping has never ceased.
Much time has passed since the formation of Christ’s Church accounted for in Acts, and since then, the many cultures of the world have been shaped, in some manner, by the Church. With the birth of the Church, the heart of humanity was infused with the heart of Christ and so things such as holy love, grace, compassion, forgiveness, and the sanctity of life began to spread to the ends of the earth. The Church today is the Church of Acts, and it continues the tradition of where Acts leaves off in chapter 28 with the proclamation of the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:31).
[1]. Peter’s speeches: Pentecost 2:14-39; Temple 3:11-4:4; first arrest 4:8-12; second arrest 5:29-32; Regarding Gentiles 10:34-43.
Kendell Healy 
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