Timeline of the Acts of the Apostles
The book of Acts in one line — thirty years from the upper room to a rented house in Rome, and the gospel loose in the world. Dates are approximate, as scholars reckon them; the events are Luke’s own order.
Pentecost
The Spirit falls; Peter preaches Christ crucified and risen; about 3,000 are baptized. The church is born preaching.
The Jerusalem church
Daily teaching, prayer, and fellowship; Ananias and Sapphira judged; the apostles imprisoned and delivered; deacons chosen.
Stephen martyred
Stephen’s defense before the council ends in stones — and in a dying prayer for his killers, while Saul watches the coats.
Scattered — Samaria and the Ethiopian
Persecution scatters the church; Philip preaches in Samaria and baptizes the Ethiopian treasurer on the Gaza road.
Saul converted
Blinded by glory on the Damascus road, the persecutor becomes the preacher; after Arabia and Tarsus, Barnabas brings him to Antioch.
Peter and Cornelius
At Caesarea the door of faith opens to the Gentiles: the Spirit falls on a Roman household before baptism.
The church at Antioch
Believers are first called Christians; Agabus prophesies famine; James is killed and Peter miraculously delivered.
First missionary journey
Paul and Barnabas: Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra (Paul stoned and left for dead), Derbe — then back, strengthening every church.
The Jerusalem Council
Grace alone settles it: Gentiles are saved “even as we” — by the grace of the Lord Jesus, without the law.
Second missionary journey
Timothy joins at Lystra; the Macedonian call crosses the gospel into Europe — Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, and eighteen months at Corinth.
Third missionary journey
Ephesus for over two years — “all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word”; then Macedonia and Greece; Eutychus raised at Troas; the Miletus farewell.
Arrest and the Roman road
Arrested in Jerusalem, Paul testifies before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, appeals to Caesar, survives shipwreck at Malta, and reaches Rome.
Paul at Rome
Two years in his own hired house, “preaching the kingdom of God… no man forbidding him” — the Prison Epistles are written. Tradition adds release, further journeys, and martyrdom under Nero (c. 64 – 67).