Acts 8-12

The Voice

8 ^1-2 Some devout men buried Stephen and mourned his passing with loud cries of grief. But Saul, this young man who seemed to be supervising the whole violent event, was pleased by Stephen’s death. That very day, the whole church in Jerusalem began experiencing severe persecution. All of the followers of Jesus—except for the emissaries^[a] themselves—fled to the countryside of Judea and Samaria. ³ Young Saul went on a rampage—hunting the church, house after house, dragging both men and women to prison.

⁴ All those who had been scattered by the persecution moved from place to place; and wherever they went, they weren’t afraid or silent. Instead, they spread the message of Jesus.

⁵ Philip, for example, headed north to the city of Samaria, and he told them the news of the Anointed One. ⁶ The crowds were united in their desire to understand Philip’s message. They not only listened with their ears, but they witnessed miraculous signs with their eyes. ⁷ Unclean spirits cried out with loud screams as they were exorcised from people. Paralyzed people and lame people moved and walked in plain view. ⁸ So the city was swept with joy.

^9-11 There was a fellow named Simon who had a widespread and long-standing reputation as a sorcerer in Samaria. Everyone—not just poor or uneducated people, but also the city’s elite—paid him great respect. Because he had amazed them with his magic, they thought, “This is a truly great man, full of the power of the God of Greatness.” ¹² But they were even more impressed with Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus the Anointed. Both men and women received ceremonial washing through baptism^[b]— ¹³ and even Simon himself became a believer. After his baptism, he shadowed Philip constantly, and he was as amazed as everyone else when he saw great and miraculous signs taking place.

¹⁴ Meanwhile word had reached the Lord’s emissaries^[c] in Jerusalem that the message of God was welcomed in Samaria—a land of half-breeds and heretics in the minds of many Judeans. They sent Peter and John ¹⁵ to pray for the Samaritans. They were especially eager to see if the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit ¹⁶ because until this point they had been baptized^[d] in the name of the Lord Jesus but had not experienced the Holy Spirit. ¹⁷ When Peter and John laid hands on the people, the Holy Spirit did indeed come upon them all.

¹⁸ Simon watched all this closely. He saw the Holy Spirit coming to the people when the apostles laid hands on them. So he came to Peter and John and offered them money.

²⁵ Peter and John preached to and talked with the Samaritans about the message of the Lord; and then they returned to Jerusalem, stopping in many other Samaritan villages along the way to proclaim the good news.

²⁶ A heavenly messenger brought this short message from the Lord to Philip during his time preaching in Samaria:

The message was especially unusual because this road runs through the middle of uninhabited desert. ²⁷ But Philip got up, left the excitement of Samaria, and did as he was told to do. Along this road, Philip saw a chariot in the distance. In the chariot was a dignitary from Ethiopia (the treasurer for Queen Candace), an African man who had been castrated. He had gone north to Jerusalem to worship at the Jewish temple, ²⁸ and he was now heading southwest on his way home. He was seated in the chariot and was reading aloud from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

²⁹ Philip received another prompting from the Holy Spirit:

³⁰ So he started running until he was even with the chariot. Philip heard the Ethiopian reading aloud and recognized the words from the prophet Isaiah.

Then he invited Philip to sit in the chariot. ³² Here’s the passage he was reading from the Hebrew Scriptures:

³⁵ That began a conversation in which Philip used the passage to explain the good news of Jesus. ³⁶ Eventually the chariot passed a body of water beside the road.

The Ethiopian said that he believed.]^[g]

³⁸ He commanded the charioteer to stop the horses. Then Philip and the Ethiopian official walked together into the water. There Philip baptized^[h] him, initiating him as a fellow disciple. ³⁹ When they came out of the water, Philip was immediately caught up by the Holy Spirit and taken from the sight of the Ethiopian, who climbed back into his chariot and continued on his journey, overflowing with joy. ⁴⁰ Philip found himself at a town called Azotus (formerly the Philistine capital city of Ashdod, on the Mediterranean); and from there he traveled north again, proclaiming the good news in town after town until he came to Caesarea.

9 Back to Saul—this fuming, raging, hateful man who wanted to kill every last one of the Lord’s disciples: he went to the high priest in Jerusalem ² for authorization to purge all the synagogues in Damascus of followers of the way of Jesus.^[i] His plan was to arrest and chain any of Jesus’ followers—women as well as men—and transport them back to Jerusalem. ³ He traveled north toward Damascus with a group of companions.

Imagine this: Suddenly a light flashes from the sky around Saul, ⁴ and he falls to the ground at the sound of a voice.

Then he hears these words:

⁷ His other traveling companions just stand there, paralyzed, speechless because they, too, heard the voice; but there is nobody in sight. ⁸ Saul rises to his feet, his eyes wide open, but he can’t see a thing. So his companions lead their blind friend by the hand and take him into Damascus. ⁹ He waits for three days—completely blind—and does not eat a bite or drink a drop of anything.

¹⁰ Meanwhile, in Damascus a disciple named Ananias had a vision in which the Lord Jesus spoke to him.

¹⁷ So Ananias went and entered the house where Saul was staying. He laid his hands on Saul and called to him.

¹⁸ At that instant, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see. So he got up, received the ceremonial washing of baptism^[j] identifying him as a disciple, ¹⁹ ate some food (remember, he had not eaten for three days), and regained his strength. He spent a lot of time with the disciples in Damascus over the next several days. ²⁰ Then he went into the very synagogues he had intended to purge, proclaiming,

²¹ Obviously this amazed everybody, and the buzz spread.

²² As time passed, Saul’s confidence grew stronger and stronger, so much so that he debated with the Jews of Damascus and made an irrefutable case that Jesus is, in fact, God’s Anointed, the Liberating King.

²³ They didn’t like being confounded like this; so after several days, the Jews plotted to assassinate Saul. ²⁴ But he learned of the plot. He knew they were keeping the city gates under constant surveillance, so they could follow and kill him when he left. ²⁵ To save Saul, the disciples came up with a plan of their own. During the night, they put Saul in a basket and lowered him by ropes from an opening in the wall of the city rather than passing through the gates. Their plan worked, ²⁶ and he returned to Jerusalem.

He tried to join the disciples there, but they didn’t think he was sincere.

²⁷ Only one person accepted Saul as a genuine disciple, Barnabas, who became Saul’s advocate to the apostles. He told the whole story of what happened in Damascus, from Saul’s vision and message from the Lord to his transformation into a confident proclaimer of the name of Jesus. ²⁸ Finally they accepted Saul and gave him access to their community, and he continued to speak confidently in the name of the Lord. ²⁹ He dialogued—and argued—with a group of Greek-speaking Jews. That didn’t go well either, because soon they were plotting to kill him also. ³⁰ His fellow believers helped him escape by bringing him to Caesarea and sending him to his hometown, Tarsus.

³¹ And so the church enjoyed a period of peace and growth throughout the regions of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. The disciples lived in deep reverence for the Lord, they experienced the strong comfort of the Holy Spirit, and their numbers increased.

³² Peter hadn’t been idle during all this time. He was having a number of amazing experiences of his own, traveling from group to group and visiting the various communities of believers. Once he came to a town called Lydda, a border town between Samaria and Judea, and met with God’s special people there. ³³ He visited a man named Aeneas. This poor fellow had been paralyzed for eight years, unable to leave his bed.

And immediately—he got up! ³⁵ All the local residents—both of Lydda and nearby Sharon—saw Aeneas healthy and strong again, so they turned to the Lord.

³⁶ In a nearby coastal city, Joppa, there lived a disciple whose Aramaic name was Tabitha, or Dorcas in Greek. She was a good woman—devotedly doing good and giving to the poor. ³⁷ While Peter was in Lydda, she fell sick and died. Her fellow disciples washed her body and laid her in an upstairs room. ³⁸ They had heard Peter was nearby, so two of them went with an urgent message, “Please come to Joppa as soon as possible.”

³⁹ Peter went with them and immediately entered the room where the corpse had been placed. It was quite a scene—the widows of the community were crowded in the room, weeping, showing the various items of clothing that Dorcas had made for them.

⁴⁰ Peter asked them to leave the room; then he got on his knees. He prayed for a while and then turned to her body.

She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. ⁴¹ Giving her his hand, Peter lifted her up. Then he called in the other disciples—including the widows—and reintroduced them to their beloved friend. ⁴² The news of this miracle spread throughout the city, and many believed in the Lord. ⁴³ Peter stayed in Joppa for some time as the guest of Simon, a tanner by profession.

10 Cornelius, a Roman Centurion and a member of a unit called the Italian Cohort, lived in Caesarea. ² Cornelius was an outsider, but he was a devout man—a God-fearing fellow with a God-fearing family. He consistently and generously gave to the poor, and he practiced constant prayer to God. ³ About three o’clock one afternoon, he had a vision of a messenger of God.

⁷ After the messenger departed, Cornelius immediately called two of his slaves and a soldier under his command—an especially devout soldier. ⁸ He told them the whole story and sent them to Joppa.

⁹ Just as these men were nearing Joppa about noon the next day, Peter went up on the flat rooftop of Simon the tanner’s house. He planned to pray, ¹⁰ but he soon grew hungry. While his lunch was being prepared, Peter had a vision of his own—a vision that linked his present hunger with what was about to happen: ¹¹ A rift opened in the sky, and a wide container—something like a huge sheet suspended by its four corners—descended through the torn opening toward the ground. ¹² This container teemed with four-footed animals, creatures that crawl, and birds—pigs, bats, lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and vultures.

¹⁶ Peter saw this vision three times; but the third time, the container of animals flew up through the rift in the sky, the rift healed, ¹⁷ and Peter was confused and unsettled as he tried to make sense of this strange vision.

At that very moment, Peter heard the voices of Cornelius’s delegation, who had asked for directions to Simon’s house, coming from the front gate.

^19-20 Peter’s mind was still racing about the vision when the voice of the Holy Spirit broke through his churning thoughts.

²¹ Peter rushed downstairs to the men.

²³ Peter extended hospitality to them and gave them lodging overnight. When they departed together the next morning, Peter brought some believers from Joppa.

²⁴ They arrived in Caesarea the next afternoon just before three o’clock. Cornelius had anticipated their arrival and had assembled his relatives and close friends to welcome them. ²⁵ When Peter and Cornelius met, Cornelius fell at Peter’s feet in worship, ²⁶ but Peter helped him up.

²⁷ They talked and entered the house to meet the whole crowd inside.

⁴⁴ Peter wasn’t planning to stop at this point, but the Holy Spirit suddenly interrupted and came upon all the people who were listening. ^45-46 They began speaking in foreign languages (just as the Jewish disciples did on the Day of Pentecost), and their hearts overflowed in joyful praises to God. Peter’s friends from Joppa—all of them Jewish, all circumcised—were stunned to see that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on outsiders.

⁴⁸ So he had them baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The new disciples asked him to stay for several more days.

11 ^1-2 By the time Peter and his friends from Joppa returned to Jerusalem, news about outsiders accepting God’s message had already spread to the Lord’s emissaries^[m] and believers there. Some of the circumcised believers didn’t welcome Peter with joy, but with criticism.

⁴ Peter patiently told them what had happened, laying out in detail the whole story.

¹⁸ There was no argument, only silence.

¹⁹ The believers who were scattered from Judea because of the persecution following Stephen’s stoning kept moving out, reaching Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. Until this time, they had only shared their message with Jews. ²⁰ Then some men from Cyprus and Cyrene who had become believers came to Antioch, and they began sharing the message of the Lord Jesus with some Greek converts to Judaism. ²¹ The Lord was at work through them, and a large number of these Greeks became believers and turned to the Lord Jesus.

²² Word of this new development came to the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch to investigate. ²³ He arrived and saw God’s grace in action there, so he rejoiced and urged them to remain faithful to the Lord, to maintain an enduring, unshakable devotion. ²⁴ This Barnabas truly was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith. A very large number of people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵ Barnabas soon was off again—now to Tarsus to look for Saul. ²⁶ He found Saul and brought him back to Antioch. The two of them spent an entire year there, meeting with the church and teaching huge numbers of people. It was there, in Antioch, where the term “Christian” was first used to identify disciples of Jesus.

²⁷ During that year, some prophets came north from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ A prophet named Agabus stood in a meeting and made a prediction by the Holy Spirit: there would be an expansive, terrible famine in the whole region during the reign of Claudius. ²⁹ In anticipation of the famine, the disciples determined to give an amount proportionate to their financial ability and create a relief fund for all the believers in Judea. ³⁰ They sent Barnabas and Saul to carry this fund to the elders in Jerusalem.

12 Back in Jerusalem, hard times came to the disciples. King Herod violently seized some who belonged to the church with the intention of mistreating them. ² He ordered James (brother of John) to be executed by the sword, the first of those appointed as emissaries to be martyred. ³ This move pleased Jewish public opinion, so he decided to arrest Peter also. During the holy festival of Unleavened Bread, ⁴ he caught Peter and imprisoned him, assigning four squads of soldiers to guard him. He planned to bring him to trial publicly after the Passover holiday.

⁵ During Peter’s imprisonment, the church prayed constantly and intensely to God for his safety. ⁶ Their prayers were not answered, until the night before Peter’s execution.

Picture this event: Peter is sound asleep between two soldiers, double-chained, with still more guards outside the prison door watching for external intruders. ⁷ Suddenly the cell fills with light: it is a messenger of the Lord manifesting himself. He taps Peter on the side, awakening him.

The chains fall off Peter’s wrists.

Peter puts them on and just stands there.

⁹ Peter does so, but he is completely dazed. He doesn’t think this is really happening—he assumes he is dreaming or having a vision. ¹⁰ They pass the first guard. They pass the second guard. They come to the iron gate that opens to the city. The gate swings open for them on its own, and they walk into a lane. Suddenly the messenger disappears.

¹¹ Peter finally realized all that had really happened.

¹² Peter immediately rushed over to the home of a woman named Mary. (Mary’s son, John Mark, would eventually become an important associate of the apostles.) A large group had gathered there to pray for Peter and his safety. ¹³ He knocked at the outer gate; and a maid, Rhoda, answered. ¹⁴ She recognized Peter’s voice, but she was so overcome with excitement that she left him standing on the street and ran inside to tell everyone.

¹⁶ All this time, Peter was still out in the street, knocking on the gate. Finally they came and let him in. Of course, the disciples were stunned, and everyone was talking at once. ¹⁷ Peter motioned for them to quiet down and then told them the amazing story of how the Lord engineered his escape.

Then he left to find a safer place to stay.

¹⁸ But when morning came and Peter was gone, there was a huge uproar among the soldiers. ¹⁹ Herod sent troops to find Peter, but he was missing. Herod interrogated the guards and ordered their executions. Peter headed down toward the coast to Caesarea, and he remained there.

²⁰ At this time there was major political upheaval. Herod was at odds with the populace of neighboring Tyre and Sidon, so the two cities sent a large group of representatives to meet with him. They won over one of Herod’s closest associates, Blastus, the director of the treasury; then they pressured Herod to drop his grudge. Cooperation was important to the two cities because they were all major trading partners and depended on Herod’s territory for food. ²¹ They struck a deal, and Herod came over to ratify it. Dressed in all his royal finery and seated high above them on a platform, he made a speech; ²² and the people of Tyre and Sidon interrupted with cheers to flatter him.

²³ Herod should have given glory to the true God; but since he vainly accepted their flattery, that very day a messenger of the Lord struck him with an illness. It was an ugly disease, involving putrefaction and worms eating his flesh. Eventually he died.

²⁴ Through all this upheaval, God’s message spread to new frontiers and attracted more and more people. ²⁵ Meanwhile, the time Barnabas and Saul spent in Jerusalem came to an end, and they reported back to Antioch, bringing along John, who was also called Mark.