We left Peter in 8:25 when he returned to Jerusalem with John from their visit to Samaria. Now we find him, taking advantage probably of the collapse of the recent persecution, engaged in an itinerant ministry of visitation among the dispersed Christian communities of Judea. There was one such community in Lydda (the Greek name of Lod). The nucleus of this community was most likely formed of fugitives from the persecution in Jerusalem. Little did Peter know that this ministry trip would result in a radical Kingdom breakthrough.

Immediately following his encounter with Jesus (9:1-9), Paul the persecutor baffled the Jews of Damascus. They knew he was coming to arrest members of the Way, but when he came to their synagogues, he actually promoted their movement!

For the past two episodes we've been celebrating all that God accomplished through Philip in bringing the Gospel to Samaria and leading the Ethiopian official to faith in Christ. It is exciting to see the ways the Kingdom of God grew and expanded to Samaria and Africa. But persecution continued to rage against Jewish believers lead by an extremist Jewish rabbi named Saul.

God redeemed the persecution of the Jerusalem Church by bringing salvation, healing and joy to the city and territory of Samaria. God accomplished this through Deacon Philip and then used Philip to spread the Kingdom to Africa!

Philip brought joy to the city of Samaria. He could have brought bitterness and hatred for the Jews which would have found a receptive audience. But Philip accepted persecution and stayed focus on serving the Kingdom. Like Stephen, the Holy Spirit empowered Philip to do miraculous signs; signs that validated the message that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and Savior.

Many Jews were coming to faith through Stephen's preaching and men from the Synagogue of the Freedmen (perhaps Stephen's former synagogue) didn't like it. But when they attempted to disprove Stephen's preaching, they couldn't. To defeat Stephen, his enemies resorted to false accusations which they communicated to the Sanhedrin.

Whether it is a business, a product, or a religious movement, rapid growth often results in growing pains and problems. If these issues aren’t handled wisely, they can go from bad to worse very quickly. Just because the early Church was a good and godly movement did not make it immune to these pains and problems. It was, after all, a rapidly multiplying family, and every family has its "growing pains."

It is becoming increasingly clear to us as we study Acts that the power of God is in His messengers, and His message is not going to be stopped, not by man nor the devil himself. In our study this morning, we will see that the religious leaders have hardened their hearts in resistance, but God’s messengers will not be intimidated or silenced.

As the Apostles presented the mighty power of God and proclaimed the message of the Messiah, Satan was working to bring destruction to this early church family. We have already seen the growing aggression from forces outside the church, that Satan would use to silence the Apostles and kill the church, but in our section today, we will see how Satan used a family within the church community to launch his attack.

The healing of a lame man in the Temple caused quite a stir (Acts 3) and led to the arrest of Peter and John (Acts 4:1-4).