The book of Acts, or the Acts of the Apostles or simply Acts, tells us the story of the early church and its spread throughout the Roman Empire. It is most often attributed to the author of Luke and picks up immediately after the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.
After a brief account of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost (interpreted as the birth of the church), Luke pursues a central theme, that of the spread of Christianity to the Gentile world under the guiding inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He also describes the church’s gradual drawing away from Jewish traditions. The missionary journeys of St. Paul are given a prominent place in the Acts of the Apostles.
Without Acts, a picture of the early church would be impossible to reconstruct. It is to this beginning of the early church that we turn to this month. Acts 2:36-47 describes the earliest formation of the church, how the people came together and how new members are brought into what we now know as the Body of Christ.