The Young Church in Action

J. B. Phillips writes in the preface to his translation of Acts, that one cannot spend several months in close study of this book "without being profoundly stirred, and to be honest, disturbed. Because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in history.... Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth, valiant and unspoiled ... a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on this earth... for surely, this is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it became fat and short of breath through prosperity or muscle bound by over organization."