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Acts 8:1 |
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And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.
Note 1 at Acts 8:1: It is amazing that the apostles were not scattered from Jerusalem also. They had already been imprisoned twice (Acts 4:3; 5:18), and as the leaders of the Christians, they certainly knew that they would be prime targets of this persecution.
They chose to stay in Jerusalem and James was killed by Herod (Acts 12:2) while Peter only escaped death by a miraculous intervention (Acts 8:3-19). Fourteen years after the conversion of Saul (Acts 9) the apostles were still living in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1) when Paul and Barnabas took the dispute over circumcision to them (Acts 15).
