15 people
The early church
After Jesus rose and returned to the Father, his followers carried the good news out from Jerusalem to the wider world. The book of Acts and the letters introduce the people who did it: missionaries, hosts, teachers and new believers. Many of them were unlikely choices, and most of them learned as they went.
Paul
The Reformer
The persecutor who became the church's greatest missionary.
Barnabas
The Helper
The man who kept vouching for people no one else trusted.
John Mark
The young man who quit a mission trip and was later called “very useful.”
Stephen
A table server who preached the longest sermon in Acts and died forgiving.
Timothy
The Loyalist
A young, sometimes anxious pastor Paul trusted like a son.
Lydia
A businesswoman whose heart the Lord opened by a river.
Priscilla
A tentmaker who, with her husband, opened her home and taught a preacher.
Silas
A trusted leader from Jerusalem who sang hymns with Paul at midnight in a Philippian jail.
Apollos
The Achiever
A gifted preacher from Alexandria who was humble enough to be taught by a tentmaking couple.
Philip the evangelist
The Enthusiast
A man chosen to serve tables who took the gospel to Samaria and to an Ethiopian on a desert road.
Cornelius
The Reformer
A Roman centurion who prayed, gave to the poor, and opened the door for the Gentiles.
Dorcas
A disciple in Joppa, full of good works, whose sewing the widows held up at her deathbed.
Titus
A Greek believer Paul trusted with hard jobs: a tense church in Corinth and an unruly one in Crete.
Philemon
The Helper
A host of the church in his home, asked by Paul to welcome back his runaway slave as a brother.
Onesimus
A runaway slave who met Paul in prison and was sent home as a beloved brother.