And Saul approved of his execution and there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
– Acts 8:1
That last phrase, “except the apostles,” is so important and it leads us to pray in so many different ways. We’ve talked about Stephen praying according to God’s Word. About Stephen in Acts 6 and 7 in the last couple of episodes. We’ll hear Saul approving of Stephen’s execution. A great persecution started on that day against the entire church in Jerusalem. This means the church starts to scatter throughout Judea and Samaria.
Acts 8:1 Narrates the Spread of the Gospel Through Unlikely Means
You even think about that, this is what Jesus had promised would happen. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria”. That’s exactly what happens in Acts 8:4. It says, “Those who were scattered into Judea and Samaria went about preaching the Word”. And that leads us back to the last phrase in Acts 8:1, “except the apostles.”
So the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. Those who were leaders of the church stayed where this persecution was happening. It was all of these other followers of Jesus whose names we don’t know. We know the names of the apostles. They’re staying in Jerusalem. They’re the leaders that we think of when we think of the church in the first century. But it was actually unnamed ordinary followers of Jesus. Unnamed ordinary men, women, teenagers who were scattered into Judea and Samaria proclaiming the Gospel wherever they went.
What a picture. The church is scattered and not the apostles on the front lines of that scattering. Just ordinary, everyday believers on the front lines of sharing the Gospel into new territory, into Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth. This is how the Gospel spreads in the world. Yes, through leaders we might think of, through preachers we might think of. But fundamentally through everyday, ordinary men, women, teenagers, children going out into the world, all of them filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the beauty. It’s not just a special power on Peter or John. It’s Holy Spirit power on every single person in the church who has power to go and share the Word.
I think about this every Sunday when, in the church I pastor, we say the Great Commission to each other at the end of our gathering and we scatter. And I just think about where all these people work or go to school. Where they live and the influence they have, the relationships they have. This is how the Gospel will spread in the city where I live. This is how the Gospel will spread to the ends of the earth.
We’re commissioning out over the next month a couple of families to go to unreached parts of the world, and these families, they are incredible and at the same time, they’re ordinary. They’re incredible because they’re filled with the Holy Spirit of God and they’re going. This is who we are, every one of us at the core.
Acts 8:1 Encourages Us to Play Our Part in the Spread of the Gospel
But I would just kind of take, not that I’m an apostle or other church leaders today are apostles in the same way that we see here in Acts 8 these apostles described, but I just want to encourage every one of us, especially those of you who are not leaders in the church, who don’t have as your job or your vocation a ministry title, I want to encourage you, you are filled with the Holy Spirit of God today. And you are going to your workplace, you’re going to your school, you’re going to interact with people around you filled with the Holy Spirit of God for the spread of the gospel of God in extraordinary ways through your life. Live in this.
O God, make us this kind of church. Make a church, local churches and a global church that gathers together to worship you and scatters to spread the Gospel in the power of your Holy Spirit. God, we pray for a movement of ordinary believers, unnamed men and women and teenagers filled with your Holy Spirit, children, for that matter, filled with your Holy Spirit and going and sharing the Gospel today in the cities where we live, going and sharing the Gospel today in the community, schools, workplaces where you have placed us.
And we pray just what we’ve read in these chapters in Acts that more and more people would come to know you. And God, we pray for this kind of spread of the Gospel to the nations, to all the people groups of the world, not just through a few select people, but through all of us.
Praying for the Khamnigan Ewenki People
God, we pray specifically today for the Khamnigan Ewenki people. God, I don’t know if I’m saying that exactly right, but you know this people group in Mongolia, and you love them and you desire their salvation, and you have workers that you are raising up to get the Gospel to them. Help us all to be open to that. And God, lead us, guide us, direct us to go to the nations, to scatter in the power of your Holy Spirit, sharing your Word wherever we go. And we pray that all the nations would be reached through unnamed, ordinary, everyday followers of Jesus filled with your Holy Spirit. God, may this be the story of our churches, your church, our lives, in this time and place you have put us in. We pray all this according to your Word in Acts 8:1, in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
