The apostle Paul (Photo by John Scalzi)

One of the most remarkable brute facts of history is the coming into existence of the Christian church. What was it that caused a group of uneducated Jewish people to believe something as bizarre as that their humiliated and executed leader had after three days been raised bodily from the dead and was now to be worshipped as Lord of the whole cosmos? And how was it that so many thousands from all over the Roman world, both Jews and Gentiles, came to believe this message so rapidly, and to live transformed, counter-cultural lives, even in the face of strong opposition?

The Book of Acts in the Bible records this triumph of the Gospel. It finishes with what may seem an anticlimax, with the great apostle Paul under house arrest in Rome. But in fact this is the climax of the book. Paul had previous been accused of "acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus" (Acts 17:7, ESV), but in the final verse of the book we read of Paul, in Caesar's own city, "proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance" (Acts 28:31, ESV). What a victory!

Two other verses in the book say something very similar, and, coming at key turning points in the narrative, they give us some clues to the overall shape of the book.

The first of these is Acts 12:24: "But the word of God increased and multiplied" (ESV). This comes immediately before a lengthy section on Paul's missionary journeys, and closes a lengthy section on the spread of the Gospel through "Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8), with Stephen's pre-martyrdom speech in Acts 7 at the centre.

The second of these verses is Acts 19:20: "So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily" (ESV). This rounds off the account of Paul's missionary journeys, which has at its centre the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, and leads us immediately to Paul's journey to Jerusalem and Rome, hinging on Acts 23:11: "The following night the Lord stood by him and said, 'Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome'" (ESV).

That Gospel that was proclaimed then is the same Gospel that is continuing to spread and triumph today, in China, Africa, South America and throughout the world.