Unstoppable! 'Persecution' — Acts 12:1

The number of Jesus' disciples had multiplied rapidly since the beginning of the church.* On that Pentecost after Jesus' resurrection, three thousand people believed in Jesus as Lord and Christ, submitted to baptism, and received the Holy Spirit as Jesus' gift. Believers shared their faith in Jerusalem, then moved on to all Judea and Samaria. With the conversion of Cornelius and his household in Caesarea, along with Gentiles and Jews in Antioch, the Christian movement spread farther and farther into the Roman Empire. King Herod Agrippa, always the sly politician looking for an advantage with both Rome and the Jewish people, began persecuting believers in Jerusalem and Judea. Satan was not going to let the church grow without serious opposition, and Herod Agrippa was his tool. He was, however, no match for the faith of these early disciples or the Holy Spirit who empowered them! (See, for example, Acts 12:6-12.)

* Jesus promised this growth, empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). The Holy Spirit inspired the birth of the church on Pentecost with 3,000 believers (Acts 2:1-41). Soon, there were over five thousand believers (Acts 4:4). Luke helps us track their growth in summaries throughout the book (Acts 5:14, 6:1, 7, 9:31, 35, 42, 11:21, 24, 14:1, 21, 16:5, 17:12). See the references to the conversions of Cornelius and in Antioch in the Related Scripture Readings, below.