Why Acts is a great next step
The Word One to One team is excited to release The Word One to One Acts series. Lizzie Jelfs tells us what it’s all about!
What happened next?
As people reading The Word One to One with a friend get to the end of John’s Gospel, they often ask, ‘Well, what do we do next?’
If that’s your situation, then The Word One to One Acts series is for you.
Confidence in the Kingdom
At one level, Acts is simply an account of what happens next in the Bible story after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. But it’s also much more than that.
We should read Acts as the second part of Luke’s two volume work, alongside Luke’s Gospel. Luke tells us in his gospel that he writes: ‘…that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’ (Luke 1:4)
Luke wants us to be certain—totally confident—in the things we’ve been taught. In Acts, that’s especially certainty about God’s Kingdom: the fact that Jesus Christ rules across all of history and across the whole world.
But what kind of kingdom are we being called to be confident in?
The Son’s Kingdom
The question to Peter and John in Acts 4 as they face their first trial for healing a man who had never walked is simple: ‘By what power or what name did you do this?’.
Peter’s answer is dynamite: ‘Jesus is the “stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone”. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.’
Imagine the silence in the courtroom after he said that!
Jesus ascends to heaven in Acts 1, but this is a book all about Him and the wonderful salvation He alone can offer today.
The Spirit’s work
It’s very clear from the start that the power for this Kingdom to grow is not from people, but from God’s own Spirit. Jesus Himself says to His apostles that: ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you’ (Acts 1:8).
The job of proclaiming the Kingdom is given to a band of just 120 followers. Humanly speaking, success looks unlikely. But as Acts unfolds, we see Jesus ruling from heaven and His Spirit at work in extraordinary ways through very ordinary people.
A Kingdom for all nations
Right from the start of the book Jesus is clear that His offer of salvation will go far beyond his small initial group of followers:
‘...you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)
The book then tracks the explosion of the gospel. We go from Jerusalem to Jewish-ish Samaria and then beyond that to Gentiles with no connection to the Jewish faith. We see rich and poor, educated and not, soldiers, businesspeople and priests all come into Jesus’ Kingdom. No nation or person is beyond Him.
Built on the unstoppable Word…
Acts is full of action. But Acts is also full of speeches and sermons. Someone has calculated that of the roughly 1,000 verses, at least 365 are speeches and dialogues. In fact, each major section in Acts is marked off with a short summary statement, like this one from Acts 6:7, ‘So the word of God spread.’
God’s Kingdom grows as His Word is preached, taught, proclaimed and explained.
And yet one of the most interesting things about Acts is that this growth comes despite serious opposition. From early on, the good news of Jesus faces both persecution from outside the church and threats from within: a hostile king, fake faith, even a gigantic storm. We’re sometimes left wondering, ‘Is the church going to survive this?’
But Acts leaves us in no doubt as to who is in control of this world. Terrible persecution in Acts 7 and 8 ends up helping spread of the good news about Jesus. The church’s number one enemy, Saul, has his life turned completely around and becomes one of the apostles. Paul makes it to Rome. At every point, God steps in to keep His church and His message on track.
To the ends of the earth?
As the apostles stand staring into the sky after Jesus’ ascension, we might wonder if they will really be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, let alone Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
By the end of Acts, the gospel has reached into mainland Europe to the very heart of the Roman Empire. And today? Well, we’re reading it and sharing it wherever we are in the world!
As we read Acts, may we grow in confidence – not in ourselves, but in the power of the unstoppable Word that brings all kinds of people into Jesus’s eternal Kingdom.
Read the Acts books 1–5 online now:
Recommended Reads
