Acts 8:3

³But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Acts 8 marks a pivot point in the early church's story. The persecution that erupts after Stephen's death scatters believers from Jerusalem, and that scattering becomes the engine of mission. Philip, one of the seven deacons, takes the gospel to Samaria — a region and people long estranged from the