Grace Church San Diego

Acts chapter twelve is the apex of the book of Acts. Like that point at the top of the first hill on a roller coaster.  The story has us climbing, the coaster is cresting, and gravity is just about to take over.  You can feel it, right?  A brief pause.  Right there...that’s chapter twelve.

You see, for eleven chapters the story has been a Jewish story.  Yes, there have been hints of what is coming.  Philip in Samaria, the Ethiopian Eunuch, Cornelius, and the happy report of Barnabas in Antioch.  You can sense we are on the edge of something big.  The Gospel is set to go global.  By chapter thirteen we find the  Gospel speeding out and away from Jerusalem, 300 miles north and west to the city of Antioch, and the mission will fall into the hands of a gentile church.  But not yet.  

Chapter twelve is the pause just before the plunge.  This is a last look at the church we’ve grown so familiar with and as we pull away...from up on top, the tracks laid out twisting and turning below...Luke pauses and offers us the account of Herod the King and with it a fresh perspective on this Gospel campaign.  One last deadly lesson!  The advance of the Gospel is the advance of God's glory.

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