Acts 12-13

In Acts 12 there are many who are arrested and persecuted by Herod, who found that this was pleasing to the Jewish rulers, and it was at this time that he had James the Apostle, the brother of John put to death.  Peter is also arrested, however an angel of the Lord frees him from his chains, and leads him out the prison, without any of the guards seeing them.  Following his escape, Peter leaves that region in Galilee, and it is a short time later that Herod is struck down by God, and he dies.

Chapter 13 marks a transition in the story of this book, when Paul and Barnabas are commissioned by the elders in Antioch to go out and preach the gospel.  This is the beginning of what we call Paul’s first missionary journey, and after he and Barnabas are rejected by the Jewish rulers of the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch (a different Antioch), Paul tells them that they are going to preach the gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles.  There will be many times that Paul first tries to preach to the Jews in various cities, but he ends up going to the Gentiles when his own people reject him, and thus he is known as the Apostle to the Gentiles, just as Jesus had predicted when He called Saul on the road to Damascus.