Acts opens with a short rewind of the final scene from Luke’s Gospel. Jesus is alive from the dead and with his disciples. He commissions them to be his witnesses, and promises them the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirits comes upon them, the gospel is unleashed through the witness of the Apostles. Like water released from a dam, it sweeps into the lives of men and women, Jews and Gentiles, who turn from their sin and trust in Jesus.

This unleashed gospel overcomes every barrier meant to slow it down or stop it. Believers are persecuted and killed, but it keeps spreading from one village and town to the next. Cultural barriers threaten to sidetrack it and dilute it, but it keeps flowing into one new city after another. And wherever the gospel is unleashed, the church follows, all the way to the seat of world power in that day – Rome.

Acts is the story of the gospel unleashed into the world through the witness of God’s people. In this generation the same barriers still exist. But Jesus has commissioned us, and empowered us with His Spirit to be his witnesses. Through us, he has unleashed the gospel to our friends and families, to our neighbors and the nations.

Ask and you will receive. Seek and you shall find.