The Church chapter follows the first twelve chapters of Acts. Jerusalem, Pentecost, the apostolic mission, the spread of the Gospel in the first generation. The Atlas treats this period with care because everything the New Testament will become — the canon, the doctrine, the liturgy, the global mission — is being shaped in these chapters by people who had seen the risen Lord and were filled with the Spirit He had promised.
The chapter opens at the ascension. The disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high (Lk 24:49); they return to the upper room and devote themselves to prayer with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and His brothers (Acts 1:14). Peter proposes that a twelfth apostle be chosen to replace Judas; lots are cast and the lot falls on Matthias (Acts 1:26) — the last use of the Old Testament practice of casting lots in the New Testament, before the gift of the Spirit makes that practice no longer the way the Church discerns.
Pentecost is the chapter's central event. Fifty days after Passover, the feast of weeks brings devout Jews from every nation under heaven to Jerusalem. The disciples are gathered together when a sound like a mighty rushing wind fills the house, and divided tongues as of fire rest on each of them. They begin to speak in other languages, and the crowd hears each one in his own native tongue the mighty works of God (Acts 2:11). The Atlas notes the symmetry with Sinai: at Sinai the law was given fifty days after Passover; at Pentecost the Spirit is given fifty days after the Passover of the cross. The law on tablets becomes the law written on the heart that Jeremiah 31 had promised.
Peter's Pentecost sermon is the first apostolic preaching in the new age. He cites Joel 2 — in the last days I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy — to explain what is happening. He cites Psalm 16 to argue that David could not have been speaking of himself when he said You will not abandon My soul to Hades, since David's tomb is with us to this day; he must have been speaking prophetically of the Messiah. He cites Psalm 110 — the LORD said to my Lord, sit at My right hand — to explain the ascension. And he ends with the call that has rung through Christian preaching ever since: repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Three thousand are baptized that day.
The chapter pays attention to the texture of the early Jerusalem community in Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32-37. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. They had all things in common. They sold their possessions and distributed to any as had need. Day by day they continued in the temple, breaking bread in their houses, with glad and generous hearts. The Atlas reads this not as a utopian primitive ideal but as the practical liturgy of a community living through the period between the resurrection and the destruction of the temple, holding things loosely because the age to come had begun.
The first conflicts test the new community. The Hellenistic Jewish widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution (Acts 6); the apostles institute the seven, including Stephen, to attend to it. Stephen's preaching gives the chapter's first martyrdom — his speech in Acts 7 is the longest single discourse in the book, a sweeping survey of Israel's history that ends with the indictment behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. The crowd stones him. A young Pharisee named Saul stands holding the cloaks. The persecution that follows scatters the disciples out of Jerusalem and into Judea, Samaria, Damascus, and Antioch — and the scattering is also the spreading.
Philip in Samaria is the first crossing of the chapter's central boundary. The Samaritans, half-Israelite and half-Gentile in the conventional Jewish reading, receive the word with joy; Peter and John come down and lay hands on them, and the Spirit is given (Acts 8). Philip then meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza and explains Isaiah 53 to him — the suffering Servant of the prophet is Jesus — and baptizes him in the first body of water they pass. The Atlas notes that an Ethiopian official has carried the gospel back into Africa within the first decade.
The conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus is the chapter's pivot. Saul, breathing threats and murder against the disciples, is stopped by a light from heaven and the voice that says Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? The persecution of the church is identified by the risen Lord as the persecution of Himself — a phrase the Atlas reads as one of the most important sentences in the New Testament for the doctrine of the body of Christ. Saul is blinded for three days, baptized by Ananias in Damascus, and begins immediately preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. The persecutor has become the apostle the Lord has chosen to carry His name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15).
Peter's vision in Joppa (Acts 10) is the chapter's second great crossing. He is shown a sheet let down from heaven full of every kind of animal and told to kill and eat; when he protests that he has never eaten anything unclean, the voice answers what God has made clean, do not call common. The vision is the prelude to the Spirit's descent on Cornelius the centurion and his household in Caesarea Maritima — the first Gentile household baptized into the Church. Peter's testimony at the Jerusalem council in Acts 11 — if then God gave the same gift to them as He gave to us, who was I that I could stand in God's way? — sets the precedent that will hold the larger Gentile mission together.
Chapter 10 closes with the consolidation of the church at Antioch in Syria. The disciples scattered by Stephen's persecution had begun preaching to Greeks there, and a great number had believed. Barnabas was sent down to encourage the work and brought Saul from Tarsus to help. In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). The chapter ends with the prophets and teachers fasting and praying when the Holy Spirit speaks: set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them (Acts 13:2). The first generation has gathered its breath. The mission is about to leave the eastern Mediterranean.