10-minute track · 16 days
Acts
From an empty tomb to the edge of the empire in sixteen days. The unlikely, unstoppable start of the church.
Day 1 · about 10 min
Luke 24:28–53; Acts 1:1–11
Acts is the second half of a two-part work; the same writer, Luke, penned both. So today we stand on the seam, reading the end of one book and the beginning of the next as one continuous scene. Jesus is alive, His friends are still catching their breath, and He is about to hand them something to do — and something to wait for. Watch what He does with His hands.
Day 2 · about 10 min
Acts 2:1–41
Yesterday the followers of Jesus were told to wait in the city for the Spirit. Today the waiting ends. Pentecost was a harvest festival that packed Jerusalem with Jewish pilgrims from all over the known world — so watch what the crowd hears, and watch who stands up to speak to them.
Day 3 · about 10 min
Acts 2:42–47; Acts 3:1–26
Yesterday three thousand people believed Peter's message. Today we get two pictures of what happened next: first a quick snapshot of ordinary daily life in this brand-new community, then one afternoon at a temple gate where a man who has begged there for years asks Peter for money. Watch what Peter offers him instead — and notice where he points the crowd afterward.
Day 4 · about 10 min
Acts 4:1–31
The healed man from yesterday is still standing there, and now the temple authorities want to know who gave Peter and John the right to do this. It's the first arrest in the young church's life. Watch what happens when the two are released and the believers pray together — and notice what they ask for, and what they don't.
Day 5 · about 10 min
Acts 4:32–37; Acts 5:17–42
The church in Jerusalem is young — days old — and already two things are growing at once: a startling generosity among the believers, and the anger of the officials who had Jesus killed. Watch how the believers hold their money, and watch what the apostles do the morning after a night in jail. (We skip a hard story in the middle today; read all of chapter 5 anytime if you'd like the full picture.)
Day 6 · about 10 min
Acts 6:1–15; Acts 7:44–60; Acts 8:1–3
The church is growing fast, and with growth comes a very ordinary problem: some widows are being overlooked at the daily meal. The apostles' solution introduces us to Stephen — and today's reading skips most of the long speech he later gives, landing instead on how it ends. Watch what Stephen sees, what he says as he dies, and keep an eye on the young man minding the coats.
Day 7 · about 10 min
Acts 8:4–40
Last time, violence broke out in Jerusalem and believers fled for their lives. Watch what that scattering actually does: the message travels with them. Philip heads into Samaria — a neighboring people Jews had long kept their distance from — and then out to a lonely desert road. Notice who ends up hearing about Jesus, and how differently two men respond to what they see.
Day 8 · about 10 min
Acts 9:1–31
We last saw Saul standing by while Stephen was killed, then going house to house to arrest believers. Today he sets out for Damascus with arrest warrants in hand — and the journey does not end the way he planned. Watch the two conversations at the center of this story: one with a man on the road, and one with a believer who is asked to walk toward the very person he fears.
Day 9 · about 10 min
Acts 10:1–33
So far the good news has spread among Jewish believers and Samaritans. Today the story widens again — and it takes two people to do it. Watch the two halves of this chapter move toward each other: a Roman army officer in Caesarea, and Peter praying on a rooftop thirty miles down the coast. Notice how much of the work God does before either man understands what's happening.
Day 10 · about 10 min
Acts 10:34–48; Acts 11:1–18
Peter, a lifelong Jewish believer, has just walked into the home of Cornelius — a Roman officer, an outsider by every rule Peter grew up with. God sent him here through a strange vision he's still turning over in his mind. Watch how Peter opens his mouth, what interrupts him partway through, and what happens when he brings the story back home to Jerusalem.
Day 11 · about 10 min
Acts 11:19–30; Acts 12:1–19
The persecution that scattered the believers back in chapter 8 turns out to have carried the good news with it. In Antioch — a big, mixed, Greek-speaking city far to the north — something new starts happening, and the church in Jerusalem sends someone to look into it. Then the scene shifts back to Jerusalem, where a king decides the church is worth attacking. Watch how ordinary people respond when God does something they weren't quite braced for.
Day 12 · about 10 min
Acts 13:1–3; Acts 13:44–52; Acts 14:1–22
Back in Antioch, a mixed group of teachers — an African, a Cypriot, a man raised in a royal household, and Saul — are worshiping together when the Holy Spirit sends two of them out. From here we skip ahead past their first stop and a long sermon, and follow the road town to town. Watch how welcome and hostility keep showing up side by side, and notice what Paul does after the worst day of the trip.
Day 13 · about 10 min
Acts 15:1–31
The good news has spread far past its Jewish beginnings, and now a hard question surfaces: do non-Jewish believers have to take on the whole Jewish way of life — starting with circumcision, the ancient sign of belonging to Israel? Leaders gather in Jerusalem to work it out. Watch how they get there: who speaks, what evidence they weigh, and what they refuse to pile on people.
Day 14 · about 10 min
Acts 16:6–40
Paul and his companions keep trying to head one direction and finding the door closed — until a dream points them across the sea into Europe. The first church there takes shape in an unlikely place: outside a city gate, by a river, among a handful of women. Watch who ends up in this story. A cloth merchant, an exploited girl, a prison guard — not one of them the sort of person you'd pick to start something.
Day 15 · about 10 min
Acts 17:1–9; Acts 17:16–34
Paul moves on — first to Thessalonica, where a few weeks of teaching stirs a citywide uproar and a startling accusation, then to Athens, a city thick with statues and hungry for new ideas. Two very different crowds. Watch how Paul begins: not with a script, but with whatever his listeners already hold in their hands.
Day 16 · about 10 min
Acts 26:12–29; Acts 28:16–31
Last day in Acts. Between yesterday and today, Paul is seized in Jerusalem, held two years, and shipwrecked on the way to Rome — we're skipping ahead over all of it, because the thread of this book was never Paul's safety. It was the name of Jesus traveling. Today he stands in chains and tells a king how it began, and then we get the final scene in Rome. Watch where the story leaves us: not tied off, but still moving.
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