The Book of Acts picks up the story of redemption after the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. It is commonly called the acts of the apostles, but a better title would be the acts of the Holy Spirit. This offers great hope for us today! The same Holy Spirit that worked in the church in the book of Acts is still at work in the church today. The same power revealed in Acts is within the believer today. You are power-filled!
We continue our study of the early church as revealed in Luke's account in the book of Acts. The church in Jerusalem seems to disappear from the scenes while a new location begins to emerge. The "gentile" church in Antioch and the missionary journeys of Paul take center stage in the last chapter of Acts (Acts 13-28). The church begins to reach out beyond Jerusalem and Judea out into the rest of the world. Followers of Jesus are first called "Christians" in Antioch (Acts 11:26), and the work of the church was turning the world upside down for Christ (Acts 17:6)
Just as the early church changed its world, Jesus calls us to "change our world". He has empowered and invited us to share the message of Jesus with our world - a message that has the power to Change Our World. Join us each week as we study the life of the early church and learn how we can replicate its success.
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God has left the building
We return to Luke's historical account of the early church. Everything about the early church did was marked by great power. But as we are going to learn today, there was a hidden struggle in the early church that could have damaged their growth h and hindered the power of God working through it. Here's the lesson we must learn, "The church is not the church until it breaks free from its own four walls."
Paul's Missions Journeys
As we take a look at the big picture, overarching picture of Acts, we can see that the Apostle Paul had a massive breadth of ministry! We take a look at some of the things he did and the places we went and learn that effective ministry requires a willingness to follow God no matter what and a devotion to the church no matter who. We also learned that Paul was assisted by many different people throughout his ministry, and most of them were just normal people like us!