“And you will be my witnesses, speaking of me everywhere: in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This statement, spoken by Jesus at the beginning of the book of Acts, is indicative of what was to come. Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles, believed to have been written by Luke the evangelist, document the beginning of the Christian religion and its dispersion outside Jerusalem (). But when it came to carrying the message of Jerusalem to the Gentiles, someone needed to bridge the gap between the Jewish and Roman worlds. This is exactly what the apostle Paul of Tarsus did. Over the course of three missionary journeys, Paul was able to pick up where Peter and other apostles left off in Jerusalem by spreading the word of the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire; and this was greatly encouraged by his birthright both as a Jew and a Roman citizen. Before Paul traveled through the Roman Empire on his three missionary journeys, the apostles primarily centered their preaching in Jerusalem. They carried their message almost exclusively to the Jews and it was not until Peter received a vision from God in Acts 10 that they began to have considerable interaction with the Gentiles. In fact, it can be said that in its early days, Christianity was just another Jewish sect (). The early Christians stayed together and worshiped in the same temple as their Jewish neighbors (Acts 2:44-46). At first they were well received by ordinary Jewish people and many converted. This was largely due to the miracles performed by the apostles and in the book of Acts it was written that “all the people esteemed them highly” (Acts 5:13). It was this popularity that protected the early Christians from the Jews...... middle of paper......usalem. If they would admit it, they would know that I was a member of the Pharisees, the strictest sect of our religion. Wherever he stopped to preach – usually in Jewish synagogues – he was able to convince both Jews and Gentiles to become believers and this was the case during his stay in Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13) . But his relations with his Jewish brothers were not always so cordial. This too can be demonstrated by Paul's experience in Antioch when, in Acts 13:50, some Jews "excited the influential nuns and rulers of the city, and they incited a mob against Paul and Barnabas and drove out the city." » These encounters were repeated throughout the book of Acts and Paul was stoned and imprisoned by the Jews several times for preaching the gospel. In this way, it appears that Paul was more successful in his encounters with the Gentiles..