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Acts 25: Power Plays
In this chapter, Festus shows up in Caesarea to take Governor Felix’s place, around AD 59. Immediately Paul’s accusers in Jerusalem use the arrival to request a new trial hoping for another ambush attempt. Festus doesn’t move Paul, but hears them out. Lacking evidence of their accusations, he questions Paul who lays out his defense.…
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Acts 22: Citizenship
As Paul is being lead to the barracks, he turns and addresses the crowd in the Hebrew language. Hearing their own words, they stop and listen as he tells how he was raised Jewish and received religious instruction under Gamaliel, a wise priest, and dutifully persecuted the followers of the Way. He tells how he…
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Acts 20: Homecoming
In this chapter, Paul leaves for Macedonia with seven others including Timothy (Lystra), Sopater (Berea), Aristarchus and Secundas (Thessalonika), Gaias (Derbe), Tichus and Trophimus (Asia). They traveled from Macedonia (Northern Greece) to Troas (Western Turkey) by boat after the Passover. Paul gathered them in an upper room and spoke to them before he left. He…
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Acts 18: Multiplication
Paul goes to Corinth and meets up with Aquila and Pricilla, Italian believers who left when Emperor Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome ~50 A.D. He stayed and worked as a tentmaker with them. Even missionaries need to make money sometimes. Every week Paul went to the synagogue to try to reason with the…
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Acts 16: Following the Spirit
Paul goes to Derbe where he meets a young man named Timothy whose father was Greek and mother was a Jewish believer. Paul has him circumcised to be accepted by the Jewish community. This goes against what Peter has seen in his vision, yet the pressure from the other Jewish believers is strong. It shows…
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Acts 15: Us & Them
Some of the believers from Judea went around telling people that only circumcised people could be saved. Paul and Barnabas dissented and debated them describing the conversion of the Gentiles. The Pharisees insisted that the new believers be circumcised in order to keep the law of Moses to show devotion to the Jewish faith. Peter…
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Acts 13: Missions Trip
This chapter starts listing some prophets and teachers including Simeon called Niger (Latin for black), Lucius from Cyrene and Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod (the king that killed both John the Baptist and James). They might have all been rejected earlier as being outsiders or from the wrong group, but here they are included…
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Acts 10: Peter & Cornelius