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1,110 illustrations across all 28 chapters
John Mark John Mark, writer of the earliest Gospel (the Gospel of Mark), was an assistant of three early missionaries—Barnabas, Paul, and Peter. Mark was taken along as an assistant by Barnabas and Paul on their first missionary journey.
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James, Brother of Jesus James, one of Jesus’ brothers (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal 1:19; cp. Jude 1:1), became the recognized leader of the church in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus’ resurrection. He is traditionally recognized as the author of the book of James.
Luke Luke, a Gentile medical doctor who became a convert and trusted assistant of Paul in his missionary work, wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles—roughly one-quarter of the New Testament.
Priscilla and Aquila Priscilla and Aquila were a Christian couple with whom Paul lived and worked during his early days in Corinth. They were later active in Christian ministry and instrumental in bringing Apollos to a true understanding of Christ.
Barnabas Barnabas is presented in Acts as a model Christian leader. A native of Cyprus, Barnabas was active in the Jerusalem church and demonstrated unselfish generosity in meeting the needs of the poorer members of that community (Acts 4:32-37).
Herod Agrippa II Herod Agrippa II, son of Herod Agrippa I, succeeded his father as king and ruled in Palestine AD 50–100, eventually controlling approximately the same area as his great-grandfather, Herod the Great. Agrippa II was in control of...
Philip Philip was one of the first to take the Good News of Christ to those outside the borders of Judea. Well respected among the early Christians, he was one of seven men chosen to administer the food-distribution program for...
Paul (Saul) Paul was a leading persecutor of the early Christians who later became an apostle of Jesus Christ, the most illustrious of the early Christian missionaries, and the great apostle to the Gentiles. He has done more to shape...
Stephen Stephen was an exemplary early Christian who, as a result of the boldness of his witness, was arrested and killed by the Jewish authorities. He is known as the first Christian martyr.
Apollos Apollos was a Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jew, well versed in Scripture, who became a strong evangelist and Christian apologist. A native of Alexandria in Egypt, where there was a large Jewish community, Apollos apparently came under the influence of John the Baptist’s followers.
Herod Agrippa I Herod Agrippa I was Herod the Great’s grandson, Herod Antipas’s nephew, and Herodias’s brother. Agrippa I ruled the whole of Palestine for a short time following the death of Jesus, during the very early days of the Christian movement (AD 41–44).
It refuses both the cynic's delight in exposing hidden corruption and the melancholic's despair at universal failure.
He does not stand above his audience as one who possesses the message of salvation and dispenses it downward.
He had rough-hewn his plan with apostolic certainty.
As Maclaren observes, this Roman official embodied the practical man's contempt for mere ideas, the statesman's faith in visible force and authority alone.
The Sanhedrin spoke solemnly of 'putting down error' and maintaining doctrinal purity, yet their true motive was *zelos*—jealousy, not genuine zeal.
His counsel to leave the apostles unmolested was not born from sympathy with Christian truth, but from a shrewd political calculus: the Pharisees and Sadducees were locked in bitter theological combat over the resurrection, and these Galileans preaching *anastasis* (resurrection)...
The priests resented the teaching because it threatened their official prerogative.
Yet when the earthquake shattered the prison doors and loosed the chains, something far more profound than physical tremor seized him.
From infancy's peril to age's afflictions, human existence demands deliverance.
Among those who reverently buried the martyr were devout men—not disciples, but Hellenistic Jews, perhaps from the very synagogue whose members had disputed with Stephen and dragged him before the council.
Had the Judaisers prevailed, the faith would have collapsed into merely another Jewish sect.
These unnamed men, bearing no vision, no command from Jerusalem, no precedent to guide them—only truth in their minds and the impulses of Christ's love in their hearts—solved the question that had vexed the apostles: whether salvation belonged to Gentiles.
Yet Maclaren observes that this solitude, rather than paralyzing the Apostle, clarified his method.