The church is about a day old, and Luke hands us a snapshot. Watch how he bookends it. Verse 43: “awe came upon every soul.” Verse 47: “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” The church didn’t work up either one. The awe came upon them, and the Lord did the adding. Everything the church does sits in between: they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, ate together, prayed, shared, and praised God. There’s no growth strategy anywhere in the paragraph. God is at both ends, with his people gathered around his word in the middle. And that word “awe” is really “fear,” the fear of the Lord. Luke puts fear and growth side by side again in Acts 5 and Acts 9. The risen Jesus builds his church, and his people stand in awe of him.
