People: the early church
The apostles, missionaries, and ordinary believers who carried the news about Jesus across the Roman world.
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Card 1 of 8
Who was the apostle Paul?
A Pharisee named Saul who persecuted the first Christians until the risen Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus. He became the leading missionary to the Gentiles and wrote thirteen letters of the New Testament.
He was a Jew from Tarsus, in what is now Turkey, and a Roman citizen, trained in the law in Jerusalem. Saul was his Hebrew name and Paul his Roman one; he was not renamed at his conversion, but Acts switches to "Paul" once his mission to the Gentiles begins. He made three long missionary journeys, planted churches across the eastern Mediterranean, and was eventually taken to Rome as a prisoner. Tradition says he was beheaded there under Nero.
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Who was Stephen?
One of seven men chosen to care for widows in the Jerusalem church, who became the first Christian martyr, stoned for his preaching.
His long speech to the council retells Israel's history as a story of rejecting God's messengers. As he was stoned, he prayed for his killers, echoing Jesus on the cross. A young man named Saul, the future Paul, stood by approving and holding the coats. The persecution that followed scattered the believers and spread the message beyond Jerusalem.
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Who was Barnabas?
A generous early believer who vouched for Paul when others feared him and became Paul's partner on his first missionary journey.
His real name was Joseph, but the apostles called him Barnabas, "son of encouragement". He sold a field and gave the money to the church. He and Paul later split over whether to take John Mark with them again, after Mark had deserted them on the first journey. Barnabas took Mark; Paul took Silas.
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Who was Timothy?
Paul's young co-worker and closest disciple, to whom two New Testament letters are addressed.
He was from Lystra, with a Jewish mother and a Greek father, and his mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures. Paul calls him "my true child in the faith" and sent him on missions to troubled churches. He is named as co-sender of six of Paul's letters.
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Who was Luke?
A companion of Paul, traditionally a doctor, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.
Together his two books make up over a quarter of the New Testament, more than any other author. In parts of Acts the narrative suddenly switches from "they" to "we", which is usually taken to mean Luke was travelling with Paul at those points. Paul calls him "the beloved physician".
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Who were Priscilla and Aquila?
A Jewish-Christian married couple, tentmakers like Paul, who worked and travelled with him and hosted churches in their home.
They had been expelled from Rome when the emperor Claudius banished the Jews. In Ephesus they took aside a gifted preacher named Apollos and explained the way of God to him more accurately. Priscilla is usually named first, which was unusual and suggests she was the more prominent of the two.
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Who was James, the brother of Jesus?
The leader of the church in Jerusalem, who did not believe in Jesus during his ministry but became a believer after the risen Jesus appeared to him.
He is a different person from James the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve. At the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 he gave the ruling that Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised. The letter of James is traditionally attributed to him. The Jewish historian Josephus records that he was stoned in AD 62.
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Card 8 of 8
Who was Cornelius?
A Roman centurion who became one of the first Gentiles to receive the Holy Spirit and be baptised, after Peter came to his house.
Before Peter was summoned, he had a vision of unclean animals and heard God tell him not to call unclean what God had made clean. When the Spirit came on Cornelius's household, Peter concluded that God shows no partiality. It was the turning point in the church opening fully to non-Jews.