Curriculum
Session 1
Introduction: Come Walk Into the Pages of Acts
The Book of Acts tells the exciting story of the best three decades of the early church. Beginning with the ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Acts takes us on a rollercoaster ride of wondrous healings, explosive church growth, and miraculous conversion.
Go to Session 1Session 2
And His Door Is Always Open
We’re starting off this look through Acts in an unexpected place: the end!
Go to Session 2Session 3
And a Cloud Hid Him From Their Sight
At the beginning of the Book of Acts, Jesus gives His disciples the incredibly challenging task of taking the gospel to the ends of the world. Then He just disappears. Into thin air. And yet, this is not desertion. It’s design. It’s Jesus way of saying, “Now, you do the impossible things I did.”
Go to Session 3Session 4
God’s Temple Is Not Built With Human Hands
In chapter 7 of Acts, the first Christian is martyred. Stephen, a Greek-speaking Jew living in Jerusalem, is stoned to death.
Go to Session 4Session 5
It Makes a Smashing
When everything goes wrong, when the growth slows, when the enemies triumph, when all the weaknesses surface, when cancer strikes, when the government tightens up the law, when the bribed judge gets away with it, when the killer walks free.
Go to Session 5Session 6
The Believers Lowered Him in a Basket
In the pitch black, a man is levered out of a window in a four-foot-wide laundry basket. As it reaches the ground, out leaps a balding man in his thirties. He scampers away into the darkness of the Arabian Desert.
Go to Session 6Session 7
They Were Called Christian
Today, the cross is one of the most famous symbols in the world. But the early church didn’t use the symbol very much. They talked about the cross, of course, about its life-and-death message. For the early church, of course, the cross was an instrument of torture and execution. They didn’t depict it in their art.
Go to Session 7Session 8
They Were Tent Makers
The Apostle Paul. That’s how we think of him. His name was Paul, and his job was an ‘apostle.’ But Acts gives us a broader picture. Paul had a trade: he was a tentmaker. This job which gave him the freedom to travel the ancient world spreading the gospel. When you have a dangerous faith, you must be prepared to live on the move.
Go to Session 8Session 9
In Every City Lies Persecution
Chapters 20 and 21 of Acts tell of Paul’s journey back to Jerusalem from Macedonia. Along the way, he stays with Christians in the places he passes through: in Troas, Miletus, Tyre, Ptolemais and Caesarea. And during the journey, he is warned that what he is planning is very dangerous—that he has enemies waiting for him in Jerusalem and that he will be arrested.
Go to Session 9