The Gentile Pentecost (Acts 8-15)Sample

Pentecost for everyone

In Acts 1-7 we watch the Spirit forming Jesus’ model church in Jerusalem. It is the prototype model for all churches throughout church history.

It was built on the apostle’s teaching, centred on the breaking of bread, and prayer, and fellowship where they generously provided for all the needs of the believers. The church witnessed powerfully that God had raised Jesus from the dead, it was growing strongly (even some of the temple priests were believers), it exercised powerful spiritual ministry in miracles, healings, signs and wonders. It was growing in good order and maturity.

But this was only the beginning.

It was centred on the Temple.

And it was located in Jerusalem.

It was solely Jewish.

There was one more crucial feature that had not yet been established.

The Spirit then filled the deacon Stephen with ‘grace and power’ so he ‘performed great wonders and signs among the people’ to the point where he was arrested, tried and then mob lynched by the Sanhedrin, and he became the first martyr.

‘On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria' (Acts 8:1).

Stephen’s martyrdom and the outright rejection of the message of Jesus and the witnesses of His resurrection led directly to the gospel being taken to all the nations of the earth – which was exactly what God had originally promised Abraham.

In this series we will study from Acts 8-15 how the Holy Spirit brilliantly established this.