Reviewing the Book of Acts
- mike13109
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 hours ago

At the beginning of the Book of Acts, the world of the disciples was in disarray. They had seen their teacher, their mentor, and their friend horribly crucified. But even though they saw him rise again, they had also lost a fellow disciple, Judas, to the wiles of Satan. Further, the religious leaders that had been responsible for the murder of Jesus were still firmly in charge of their Jewish world. Jesus had given them a message of hope before he ascended into Heaven, but they almost certainly felt rudderless in his absence (Matthew 28:18-20).Â
The rest of the world had been in disarray since the tower of Babel. Every people group spoke a different language and generally worshiped a different God. At Babel, God had split everyone up by confusing their language (Genesis 11:1-9). But at Acts 2, he did the opposite, he began to bring together devout Jewish people from every nation at Pentecost by allowing them to understand each other’s language when the Holy Spirit descended upon the the disciples (Acts 2:1-13). From that point forward, the small Christian community of the disciples was no longer rudderless, The larger world that had been separated by language, began to reintegrate under the language of loving communities led by the Holy Spirit and united under the banner of Jesus (Acts 2:37-47). The church was born, and it would not remain small (Acts 2:41, Acts 2:47).
But God does even more amazing things through the Holy Spirit. He begins to win over a Jewish religious world that didn’t know him, and that believed they loved him when in reality they hated him. That religious world was so clueless about him, and hated him so much that they crucified Jesus without knowing what they were doing. God started his redemption of that religious world with the conversion of Paul (Acts 9). Paul was a Jewish leader that openly hated Christ and Christians (Acts 8:1-3). But God changed him by physically blinding him, and then opened his spiritual eyes to the love and Glory of Christ (Acts 9:18-20). God used him to confront the Jewish leadership and to educate them on who Jesus was. In general, they rejected Paul. Still, everywhere he went, the Church grew as Paul explained the meaning of the Hebrew scriptures to Jewish people and established Christian churches among those who believed. The work of Paul was diminishing a religious system that was intended to be a repository of God’s truth, but had instead become a human structure of power and abuse. Paul’s work was building the new Body of Christ. In the bible it is called the "church," and it would be not only a repository of God’s truth, but a demonstration of it. This did not sit well with those religious leaders. They attempted to have Paul killed in the same way that they had killed Jesus. But God took Paul out of Jewish Jerusalem, and sent him into the Gentile world (Acts 28:28).Â
The Book of Acts is the story of God redeeming the whole world through the creation of the church, which serves as the Body of Christ and is animated by the Holy Spirit. God uses that Body even today to save Jews and Gentiles alike. What part do you play in that body?Â