 Okay. So yeah, welcome back everyone for the second session here on the introduction of the Book of Acts and I hope you're all enjoying it. We have looked at how the work of God was, you know, how it expanded and touched many lives as we see in the Book of Acts. So we have looked at the overview and covered a couple of headings under which we have seen all the things that are going on in the Book of Acts. So we stopped at the fact that, you know, this gospel went across to many communities and a powerful work was done. And the Lord Jesus was the main person who was preached by the apostles and also, you know, some of the teachings that existed during the events of the Book of Acts. Now, towards the end of our class, we said church and revival is a good, it's a good theme or topic to describe the Book of Acts. And one of us posted on the chat a little later saying the same works which the apostles did by the power of the Holy Spirit, aren't they happening even now? So that's a good comment. That's true. So the work of the Holy Spirit, it is seen in a very powerful way in the Book of Acts, but you don't see an end to it. We are not told that, you know, those works ended at Acts chapter 28. So there are a lot of writings and sermons on Acts 29. Acts 29 doesn't exist in the Bible, but basically what Acts 29 refers to is our lives and the supernatural work of God through the lives of the believers who came after the Book of Acts. So Acts 29 is the life that we live for God on the earth today, continuing to impact the world for the glory of God. So it's true that God's work continues. So let me go forward from there. And the next subject that I want to discuss about is that the Book of Acts is very supernatural. In the Gospels, you find the Lord Jesus performing many miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. That was one individual. Jesus who became fully, is fully God and fully man, but he was demonstrating the kingdom and you see the kingdom primarily being demonstrated through the Lord Jesus. But in the Book of Acts, you know, you have apostles, you also have believers, right? You would notice that people in the church who did not yet have a certain position of influence, even through their lives, the power of the Holy Spirit was being revealed. One of the examples would be people like Stephen. Stephen was a volunteer in the church at that point in Acts 6. Seven volunteers had chosen to distribute food to the widows. Stephen is one of them. But when you read about Stephen, we are told that he was a man full of faith, but also power. He demonstrated the power of God. So the apostles, the believers, right? And every community that was touched by the Gospel and received the Gospel, you would see the power of God being demonstrated through them. And the supernatural works of God are seen. So there are lots of miracles, healings that are recorded, lots of deliverances that are recorded in the Book of Acts. And in fact, regions are transformed once these miraculous works take place, you know, particularly in Ephesus. Ephesus, you would see that God's work took place so powerfully when the power of God was demonstrated in Philippi. When a demon possessed girl, she was set free. People actually, you know, heard the Gospel. They took notice. It got their attention and then the Gospel spread. So a lot of supernatural works you would see in the Book of Acts. And in another way of putting it is that the Holy Spirit was at work. So the Book of Acts in many ways, it is the direction of the Holy Spirit. He directs the people. Now we will notice how Paul in his missionary journeys, whenever he had to choose a certain place to minister, he would depend on the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit would direct him and guide him and say, okay, you know, don't go into this region now, but you go into another region. So you observe the work of the Holy Spirit in leading, empowering and, you know, releasing the mighty works of God through the apostles, through the believers in the Book of Acts. So the supernatural power of God is something that we just cannot miss. And as we mentioned earlier, it continues today. We are those people who must carry on these supernatural demonstrations of the power of God. Now, a couple of other things that we see in the Book of Acts is, as the Gospel spreads to various communities in Acts 15, you know, you read about the Jerusalem Council. Okay, the Jerusalem Council, where by then you move from just a few leaders in the church to a good number of leaders in the church who are part of the decision making process. And there is an issue that comes up where the Gentiles are forced to follow Jewish traditions, right? The Gentiles who accept Christ, the Jewish believers, you know, they, some of them insist that even the Gentiles must follow traditions like circumcision and all of that. But the Jerusalem Council decides that it is not necessary, right? What is important? The important thing is for them to be born again, not to follow man's tradition. So you also notice in the Book of Acts that the emphasis is on faith in Jesus and to let go of unnecessary Jewish traditions. The Gentiles are told to follow a couple of things that are useful for them, but they are not forced to follow traditions, right? So the emphasis for the communities that are being saved is to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to let go of their wrong way of living, if at all they have some sinful lifestyle. So these are all things that you observe in the Book of Acts. Now I want to talk a little bit about the church in the Book of Acts and to do that, I want to share an image with us and it will clarify many things. So once again, let me share my screen. Okay, I will share my entire screen. Then go to that page. Okay, here you have it and I hope you can see it. So the Book of Acts is the place where you have the church taking birth and when did this happen? When do you think the church was birthed in the Book of Acts? Anyone? You can just take a while guess. When was the church birthed? Okay, I don't hear anybody. Okay, great. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Thomas. I think that's Thomas. So yeah, Thomas, it was birthed in Acts chapter 2 and the Holy Spirit was poured on the people. So if you can see this image, I like it and the place from where I've taken it, you know, that's also mentioned. But I like this chart here because it talks about the birth and the growth and the expansion of the church. So in Acts chapter 2 and the Holy Spirit was poured upon the believers, Peter preached his first sermon and 3000 people were added to the church. So that was the day the church was birthed and then you see them sharing all things in common, devoting themselves to the apostles' teachings, breaking bread, going from house to house. So that's a community. It's become a community of believers whom we call as the church. They begin to give witness to the gospel in Jerusalem. So the church is birthed in Acts chapter 2 and till about Acts chapter 6, you notice that the church and what's going on in the church and how the apostles are giving leadership to the church, all that we would see. And slowly what we observe is the church begins to enlarge itself and move out. So you have people from within the Jerusalem church who are being sent out. So I already mentioned to you, Philip, who goes to Samaria and he does the ministry over there. And then eventually you have others, Acts chapter 13, Paul and Barnabas, who expand further. The enlarging is happening and then the expansion goes on touching all those regions that we saw earlier. Another beautiful thing that you notice is that as people step out to new cities, churches are formed in those cities. What is a church? It's a community of believers. So you would read about other churches, Ephesus church in Galatia, a church in Philippi or another very interesting and important sister church that we will learn about is the church of Antioch where Paul ministered during his initial ministry. So there are many, many churches that rise up. So when we say that the church is birthed, yes, the Jerusalem church was birthed in the second chapter of Acts, but as you go forward that church grows and there is the birth of very many local churches. But all these churches spiritually are in one body of Christ and they have the same vision, they have the same mission for the Gospel. Then of course you see the expansion of the church moving into different regions at that time. So there are many lives that are changed. There are several miracles that take place. You see the spread and multiplication of the people of God. Now a couple of other things you observe is that the communities that are being touched, they also increase in numbers. So it's not just the Jews anymore, but you have the Gentiles, you have different other communities of people who become part of the believers. So we will notice this transition the church makes from being that small, if you would say a baby, maturing into an adult throughout the book of Acts. Now when I say maturing, there are several things. If we look at the church, we can observe so many different things. We will see that initially there are a few leaders, then many leaders start coming into the scene. Like I told you by Acts 15, you have the Jerusalem Council, there are so many leaders who are able to make a decision. Then you observe that it's not just the apostles who are preaching and doing the miracles, but also the believers. So believers have become strong in the teachings, believers have become strong in the work of the Holy Spirit and they are going ahead and serving people and miracles are taking place through them. And that's a strong church, right? The church is really growing up. You will see a praying church initially when opposition comes to the apostles, you find them striving. But they come back to the people of God and they say, okay, you pray, right? You pray. So the people of God are praying. Even in Acts chapter 12, when Peter is in prison, you will find that church is actually in somebody's home meeting to pray and intercede for the release of Peter. So the church is growing in different aspects in the structure, in the leadership, in their faith, in the demonstration of the supernatural power of God. And also, I just told you in prayer, right? In prayer, also courage when opposition comes their way, they're no longer afraid. We will read at some point that because of persecution, the Church of Jerusalem, right? It could not continue and keep growing larger, but people had to move away from Jerusalem. And what happened when people went to different parts of their region? They went ahead and planted churches. So when you read about the book of Antioch, you will observe that it's not started by any notable apostle, but it is some believers who started this important church. So the believers had actually spread across, but wherever they were going, they were planting churches, they were doing the work of the ministry. So the church continued to become stronger and stronger and stronger and you see this throughout the book of Acts. And then as you move towards the last chapters, you see the missionary work of the church. The church is no longer only for themselves, but they think about impact and they want to move forward to impact new territories and conquer new frontiers for the gospel. And this is the journey that the church makes. This is the impact that the church has and that is also very interesting to see and study in the book of Acts. So in this image that I have put for us, there's also another observation. You find evangelism, which initially is city-wide. We look at Jerusalem. A lot of people in Jerusalem get saved. So city-wide evangelism is happening and then it spreads across. So it spreads across to that particular region and it becomes national for the Jews and for their communities. But eventually you would find Paul trying to enter into Asia, trying to enter into new countries. So it becomes cross-cultural. The spread of the gospel moves from being city-wide to nationwide to then becoming cross-cultural. So all these things we will observe in the book of Acts and it's really a very, very fascinating journey for us to make through this book. So I have touched upon several themes that we will study in detail in this course. Now a couple of other things for us. When we observe the book of Acts, I told you that we will touch on the life of Apostle Paul. Now the exact timelines and the exact missionary journeys, we will look at it later. But I want you to have a glimpse of it right away. I was telling you that we will not go into the details of Paul's missionary journey. But I would like to show you at least an image of the places where Paul has been. And that will help you see how far and wide he travelled to spread the gospel. So the missionary work, that's where the term missionary comes in. Where you have Paul going and winning in front of people for the gospel. So I hope you can see my screen. Can you see it now? Yes. Okay, wonderful. So if you can just see, all these points over here, these are all various cities and stops where Paul went and he spoke to believers who lived in those places. So you just observe so many points, so many stops, so many cities across regions. So the travels of Paul covering different cities and churches. So you would observe that he generally he would go initially preach the Messiah to them and give them an invitation to repent. And then when people respond to the gospel, a church will be established. And in the way that he ministered, he would usually strengthen the leaders in that place. He would have some leaders and then instruct them. And whenever he went past that region again, excuse me, he would strengthen the believers once again. So you read that many times, he would go back, for example, if he went to Iconium and Lystra and Dabi. Now if he is going back from Dabi to Iconium, he will go to Lystra. He will go to Iconium and again spend time with the believers. So strengthening the believers, imparting the truth to the believers and establishing them in the things of God, in the kingdom of God, that was very, very important to Paul. So you see that he had touched so many different cities. So you can only imagine how many believers were in all these cities. And let's also remember that it was not just Paul who was planting churches at that time. There were ordinary believers whose names we do not know in the book of Acts who were also serving the Lord. So these are the regions that Paul touched. But we are sure that the work of God which was done had a greater extent than this map that we are seeing. And of course, the work of Paul will be covered under the missionary journeys. And each missionary journey took a couple of years. So like about two years, three years, he would go cover one region, come back, go cover another region, come back. And the purpose of each missionary journey also was unique, like to find new territory, then later on to just strengthen the existing churches, so on and so forth. And towards the end of Paul's life, he was captured, he was imprisoned and he had to be taken to Rome. So you would notice here, over here, he did his work and then later when he was captured, he had to be taken to Rome, okay? Rome is at the extreme left of this map. And even there, when Paul was imprisoned, you would see that he was preaching the gospel to the people who were taking care of his case, right? And they got to hear about Jesus the Messiah and he gave them an opportunity to give their lives to Christ. So such was the ministry of Apostle Paul and such was the impact of Apostle Paul and we will learn more about it in the future. So I think now we have a good idea of different things that are going on in the book of Acts, yeah? So any thoughts at this time, any questions before we continue? Yeah ma'am, I got some idea about Paul's and how the Holy Spirit working and spreading the gospel to so many places. Yes, yes, that's right, that's right. Yeah. So from whatever I have shared so far, what is it about this early church that really inspires you? Ma'am, Holy Spirit lead through Holy Spirit, they obey the Holy Spirit, the commandments and leading and they step out and they work, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, thanks Kiran. Yeah, that's true. You know the leading of the Holy Spirit and the obedience of the people. Anything else that stands out for you? Because we are also a church, right, of today's day and age. So when you observe the early church in comparison to us, is there anything that you feel, wow, we too should have that in us? Okay, this is dependency on the Holy Spirit and the work of the Spirit, that's great. Manu, Holy Spirit doing work and strengthen the believers, true, yeah, and the believers in acts are obedient. Okay, so obedience is what Kiran says. Yeah, what else inspires us? Yes, stop us. As you said, not only Paul and many people established the church, still you didn't touch that portion. In Antioch, we can see the people, those persecuted and scattered, the scattered people wherever, when they established the church there. That's the powerful thing where the believers are so strong in the time that they can go and minister to the people. That's how every church should grow in this time. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, definitely Thomas. So it was a strong church, strong church, and it's only a strong church which can make an impact. Yeah, so we cannot stop but be inspired by the book of Acts and how God was unfolding his plan and purpose initially through the church. And we must continue in that same kind of fire. We must continue in that same kind of obedience. We must continue in that same kind of dependence on the Holy Spirit and that's what God wants for each and every one of us. So as we study through the book of Acts, this is the expectation that I want to set for us. We will look at the events, we will look at the incidents that took place and not just looking at it from a historical viewpoint, but we can take lessons from there for ourselves at this point and really seek the Lord and say, God, can we be those same believers who have the fire of the Holy Spirit and who have such a passion to move to regions where people don't know the gospel and to share the pure gospel? I told you the message of the book of Acts is the Messiah and those who ministered the gospel they were very clear about what gospel was and not only that, they ministered with the power of the Holy Spirit and as people were healed, as people were delivered, as signs and wonders were performed among communities, there was a great response. There was a great response and you notice cities, entire cities turning to the Lord. You notice regions turning to the Lord and that's sort of an impact today. We do see that to some extent, but our prayer is that we will see so much more of it even as we wait for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, just a couple of things before we wrap up for today, a little bit more on the timelines. Now, we understood about the missionary journey and the work of Apostle Paul. Now, how does the timeline look in the book of Acts? I would also encourage us, I will maybe put a link, but you can actually study an APC publication called Revivals, Visitations and Moves of God. And in that publication, Pastor has mentioned about revival in a very systematic way in the book of Acts. So, that will also help you understand the timeline of the book of Acts better. So, I would encourage the main material for us in this semester is the Bible. So, if you have an NKJV version, you know, you could read up and come a couple of chapters for every class. So, I will go over it like a story and explain to you the different events. For additional study, you can look at David Gozik, right? David Gozik has elaborated commentaries on books of the Bible, EnduringWord.com. EnduringWord.com has commentary for the book of Acts. And primarily, we will use that to mention to that what I mentioned just now, Pastor Ashish's publication on Revivals, Visitions and Moves of God. So, the timeline which is covered in Acts chapter 2 to Acts chapter 8 is a span of about eight years. So, the first eight years is from Acts 2 to 8. What did we see there? We saw that the church was born and the church became stronger. And that was the initial stepping out of the church. Then from Acts chapter 8 to Acts chapter 13, which is again the next few years of the church. And the 10 is roughly about, you know, nine, nine years or 10 years of time. In that time, you see all these sister churches, right? Sister churches, church of Samalia, eventually you have Antioch. And then Paul comes onto the scene, God is going to the Gentiles. And then the missionary journey of parts of after Acts 13. So, by now, roughly two decades of already on the last decade, right? From Acts 30 onwards, the last decade till Acts 28 is where we observe the journeys of Apostles. That he goes to cities and he spends a lot of time in different places. In Tesla, he spends 18 months, okay? In Ephesus, probably three years in Ephesus. So, you'll find spending different periods of time in different cities and, you know, with the work of God. And towards the last four years is where we will read the Bible. He's been tried. He does not stop encouraging the churches. And, you know, he wrote his letters, you know, with the epistles being sent to the churches. That's the epistles that Paul wrote. There are names of so many co-workers that, you know, Paul brings out. So, the impact is on regions, is on people, it's on liars who are identified and groomed over the years. And a lot of work actually happens in this, in these 30 years, right? Through the church and particularly through the work of Apostle Paul. So, this ingest is all the main things that you need to know about the book of Acts. And from the next class, we will go chapter by chapter. So, next class, I would encourage you to read up Acts chapter 1 and also to read up Acts chapter 2, okay? Acts chapter 1 and 2. And if possible, there is an APC publication on Holy Spirit baptism. Holy Spirit baptism. So, that is also highly recommended. You can read that up and then, you know, come for class. And as we study whatever is in those chapters, we will try and relate it to, you know, the content on the Holy Spirit baptism as well. So, once again, at this point, I just want to leave this time open to ask you what your expectation is. You know, as you study the book of Acts, what is it that you want to take back with you at the end of this course? Revival. Revival, okay. That's great, Kiran. How about the others? What would you like to take with you? Passion. Okay, Manu says passion. Wow, nice words that capture Acts. Passion, revival. I'll use the word expansion. Okay. And Dave says eating Holy Spirit. Yes. Yes. Yes. I want to take back. Okay. So, if you haven't thought about it yet, I encourage you to think about it. Okay. And please do post it on the stream page of our Google Meet so that we all look forward to certain things that we will receive from this course. Okay. So, here is a very, very general outline. We will delve into the depths of the book of Acts from next week onwards. Okay. Siddharth here adds, he says, just get to know more of church and Holy Spirit and personally for me to be led by the spirit in work or ministry. Okay. Wow. Thanks Siddharth. Thank you for mentioning that. Yes. So, we are looking forward to all of these things. And I would encourage someone to please pray as we close today's class and just pray that we will gain all this, whatever we talked about in addition to that, you know, much more from our course on the book of Acts. So, can I request Dave to pray please? Can you lead us in the word of prayer? Yes. Amen. The Father, I thank you Lord. I thank you that you have given us this time that we could learn from the word of Jesus that we could see and we could learn the works that you did to the early churches or churches, how you lean to all the disciples and all the churches or churches, how you teach your work through the life of Jesus. As we go through this book Lord Jesus, let us understand and let us relate ourselves to Lord Jesus so that we can not just only learn Lord Jesus, but we can apply it in our life and in our ministry so it is whatever we are expecting from you Lord Jesus so that we can have it more than what we expect from Lord Jesus. Thank you for mentioning that. Amen. Thank you. Thank you that we all can come together and learn Lord Jesus. Thank you once again and we bless you in the mighty name of Jesus. I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you Dave. And yes, so take care class and we will connect back next week. Please do read up next chapter one and two and also the APC publication Holy Spirit baptism and you know we will take it from there. God bless. Bye for now. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Bye. Thank you ma'am. Thank you.