In All Judea and Samaria

Persecution scatters the church, "and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles" (Acts 8:1). What looks like defeat becomes the second stage of the commission. Philip goes down to a city of Samaria and preaches Christ there, and the crowds pay attention as unclean spirits come out and the lame walk (Acts 8:5-8). Simon the magician, who had amazed the people with his arts, believes and is baptized, then tries to buy the gift of God and is rebuked by Peter (Acts 8:18-23).

On the desert road to Gaza, Philip runs alongside a chariot and hears an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, reading Isaiah aloud. "How can I, unless someone guides me?" the man asks, and after Philip tells him the good news about Jesus he is baptized in the first water they find and goes on his way rejoicing (Acts 8:31-39).

Saul, still "breathing threats and murder," is struck down on the road to Damascus and hears his own name from the light (Acts 9:1-5). Ananias of Damascus is sent to lay hands on him, and Barnabas later vouches for him before a frightened church in Jerusalem (Acts 9:17-27). Peter meanwhile travels the coastal plain: Aeneas is healed at Lydda, and at Joppa the widows weep over Tabitha until Peter says, "Tabitha, arise" (Acts 9:32-41).

Then the door opens wider than anyone expected. Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort at Caesarea, sees a vision; Peter, on a rooftop, sees another; and while Peter is still speaking the Spirit falls on Gentiles (Acts 10:1-44). At Antioch believers preach to Greeks as well as Jews, "and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians" (Acts 11:26). The era ends violently: Herod Agrippa I kills James the brother of John with the sword, imprisons Peter, who is led out past the guards by an angel to the house of Mary the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:1-17) — and Herod himself is struck down for accepting the people's cry that his voice was a god's (Acts 12:21-23).