4 Things That Caused the Early Church to Spread Like Wildfire

The opening pages of the book of Acts show us the church God used to launch the movement that we call Christianity. On their opening Sunday, 3,000 people came to faith in Jesus Christ. At their second public gathering, over 5,000 were added to their number. Historians and scholars go on to tell us that within six months of Pentecost, there were over one hundred thousand new Christians in the city of Jerusalem. And here’s the reality: Every single one of us trace our faith back to this moment that began with a handful of Christians in Acts 2.

When you realize the magnitude of what happened through this group of people, it raises a question: What was it about them that enabled them to be so mightily used of God? This was a ragtag group of nobodies. Nobody knew their names, nobody knew their platform, nobody knew where they’d come from. Yet history records that they were used by God to literally turn the world upside down. And I think if we look closely at Acts 1:1–14, we can find four characteristics of the early church that we can apply to our own lives. Read More