The Book of Acts (40 Day Reading Plan)

Reference material prepared to accompany this resource. It is not written by Arnold Famini.

What the Book of Acts reading plan covers

Luke gives us the outline himself in Acts 1:8: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” That single verse is the table of contents for the whole book, and this reading plan follows it.

Chapters 1 to 7 keep us in Jerusalem, where the church is born at Pentecost, learns to share everything, runs into its first opposition, and buries its first martyr. Chapters 8 to 12 push the gospel outward into Judea and Samaria, often through persecution rather than strategy. Chapters 13 to 28 follow Paul across the Roman world until the book ends, famously and abruptly, with him preaching under house arrest in Rome.

Reading the Book of Acts with that structure in view changes how the individual stories land. Nothing in it is a detour. Every conversion, riot, shipwreck and sermon is Luke showing you the same thing happening again in a new place.

Why read the Book of Acts in 40 days

Forty days is long enough to be unhurried and short enough to keep the narrative in one piece. Read a chapter a week and you will lose the thread; read the whole book in two sittings and you will miss the detail. Forty days sits in between.

There is also something fitting about the number. Forty days is the span Jesus spent with the disciples between the resurrection and the ascension, which is exactly where the Book of Acts opens. It is the same stretch of time Israel spent scouting Canaan, and that Moses and Elijah each spent on the mountain. Scripture keeps using forty days as a period of preparation before something is sent out. That is what this plan is for.

How the pericope approach works

A pericope is a complete unit of narrative, a scene with a beginning and an end. Most reading plans divide a book by chapter count or by an even number of verses per day, which regularly cuts a story in half and asks you to pick it up tomorrow.

This plan divides the Book of Acts by scene instead. Some days are longer than others because the story is longer that day. You finish each reading having watched something complete happen, which is far easier to remember and far easier to discuss.

Each day then gives you one discussion question and space to write your own takeaway. The question is there to slow you down, not to test you. If you are reading alone, write the answer anyway. In my experience the difference between a reading plan you finish and one you abandon is almost always whether you wrote anything down.

Using the Book of Acts reading plan in a small group

The plan was built to work either way, but it is at its best in a group. A workable rhythm is five readings a week, then meet once to talk through the two or three scenes that provoked the most reaction. Eight weeks covers the whole book with room to breathe.

If you lead the group, resist the urge to prepare a lecture. The discussion question for each day is enough. Let people bring their written takeaways and read them out. You will find the quiet members contribute far more when they are reading something they already wrote than when they are asked to think on the spot.

For a Sabbath School class, the plan pairs naturally with a quarter. If you are mapping out a preaching or teaching year, my Sermonic Calendar for 2026 gives you the grid to slot it into.

Tips for finishing all 40 days

Pick a fixed time rather than a fixed goal. “After breakfast” survives a busy week; “every day without fail” does not. Attach the reading to something you already do without thinking.

Expect to miss days, and decide now what you will do when it happens. The people who finish are not the ones who never miss. They are the ones who pick up on day 12 instead of quietly starting over in January.

Read the harder passages out loud. The trial scenes and Paul’s speeches were written to be heard, and reading them aloud recovers something that silent reading flattens. You can compare translations at Bible Gateway when a verse is unclear.

Finally, do not stop at day 40. The Book of Acts ends mid-sentence on purpose. Luke is handing the story to you.

The six progress reports in the Book of Acts

One of the most useful things to know before you start is that Luke leaves you signposts. At six points he pauses the action and files a short progress report on how the church is doing. Once you can spot them, the Book of Acts stops feeling like a string of episodes and starts reading like a deliberately built argument.

They fall at Acts 6:7, 9:31, 12:24, 16:5, 19:20 and 28:31. Each one says some version of the same thing: the word of God kept spreading and the number of disciples kept increasing. What makes them worth marking in your copy is where they land. Every single one comes immediately after a section of serious trouble.

Acts 6:7 follows an ugly internal dispute about food distribution between two ethnic groups in the church. Acts 9:31 follows the murder of Stephen and the persecution that scattered the believers. Acts 12:24 follows James being executed and Peter being jailed. Luke is not being naive about hardship. He is making a claim about it: the church in the Book of Acts grows through opposition rather than in spite of it.

As you work through the reading plan, note each of these six verses when you reach it and look back at what you have just read. That habit alone will teach you more about the shape of the book than any commentary.

Four themes to watch for as you read

The Holy Spirit is the main character. The book is often called the Acts of the Apostles, but the apostles are frequently reacting to something the Spirit started. The Spirit sends Philip to a chariot, stops Paul from entering Bithynia, and picks Barnabas and Saul out of a worship meeting in Antioch. Read the Book of Acts asking who initiated each move, and the answer is rarely the person whose name is in the heading.

Prayer precedes almost everything. The upper room, the choosing of Matthias, the appointment of the seven, Peter’s release from prison, the sending of the first missionaries. Luke mentions prayer before the turning points so consistently that it functions as a structural device.

Opposition is normal. There is no stretch of the book where the church is left alone for long. Councils, mobs, courts, riots, shipwreck. If your working assumption is that faithfulness should produce a quiet life, the Book of Acts will disagree with you for twenty-eight chapters.

The gospel keeps crossing a line somebody wanted kept. Samaritans, an Ethiopian official, a Roman centurion, Greeks in Antioch, women of high standing in Thessalonica. Each time, someone objects, and each time Luke shows God settling the matter before the church catches up. This is the argument the book is actually making.

What each week of the reading plan covers

Week 1 (days 1 to 5): Ascension, Pentecost, the first sermon, the first community, and the healing at the temple gate. The church goes from a room of a hundred and twenty to thousands.

Week 2 (days 6 to 10): The first arrests, Ananias and Sapphira, the appointment of the seven, and Stephen’s speech and death. The cost becomes real.

Week 3 (days 11 to 15): Persecution scatters the believers, Philip in Samaria and on the Gaza road, and the conversion of Saul. The book’s chief opponent becomes its chief missionary.

Week 4 (days 16 to 20): Peter and Cornelius, the church at Antioch, Herod’s death, and the first missionary journey. The gospel formally goes to the Gentiles.

Week 5 (days 21 to 25): The Jerusalem Council, the split with Barnabas, and the second journey into Macedonia. The church decides what it will and will not require of new believers.

Week 6 (days 26 to 30): Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth. Paul preaches in a jail, a synagogue, a philosophers’ forum and a port city, and adjusts his approach every time.

Week 7 (days 31 to 35): Ephesus, the riot of the silversmiths, the farewell at Miletus, and the journey to Jerusalem. Paul says goodbye knowing what is coming.

Week 8 (days 36 to 40): Arrest, the defense speeches, the appeal to Caesar, the shipwreck, and Rome. The Book of Acts ends with Paul preaching from a rented house, unhindered.

Common questions about the Book of Acts itself

Who wrote it, and when? Luke, the same author as the third Gospel, addressed to the same Theophilus. Acts 1:1 makes the link explicit. Dating is debated, with most proposals falling between the early 60s and the 80s AD.

Why does it end so abruptly? Paul is under house arrest and the story simply stops. Some argue Luke wrote before the outcome was known, others that he ended where he did on purpose. The last word in the Greek is a single term meaning unhindered, which is a deliberate note to close on.

Is the Book of Acts prescriptive or descriptive? This is the question that generates the most heat. Luke is telling you what happened, not always what must always happen. Read it for the pattern rather than for a template, and let the epistles fill in the instruction.

Why are there three accounts of Paul’s conversion? Acts 9, 22 and 26. Luke narrates it once and then lets Paul tell it twice to different audiences, emphasizing different details each time. Comparing the three is one of the more rewarding exercises in the whole book.

How this differs from other Bible reading plans

Most plans that cover the Book of Acts do one of two things. They spread it across a year alongside other books, which means you meet Acts in fragments weeks apart and never feel its momentum. Or they run a chapter a day for twenty-eight days, which is tidy arithmetic but ignores the fact that Luke did not write in equal chapters.

Chapter 7 is a single long speech. Chapter 12 holds two unrelated scenes. Chapter 27 is almost entirely a storm at sea. Treating those as equivalent daily portions makes some days a slog and others over before you have settled in.

Dividing by scene fixes that. It also means the discussion question can be specific rather than generic. Instead of asking what stood out in chapter 9, the plan can ask about the moment Ananias argues with God about visiting Saul, because that scene is the whole reading. Specific questions produce better answers, alone or in a group.

The trade-off is that daily lengths vary. Some days you will read fifteen verses and some days you will read fifty. I decided that was a fair price for keeping the stories intact.

What to do after the 40 days

The most natural next step is Luke’s Gospel. Read the two back to back and you start noticing how deliberately the second volume echoes the first. Jesus is anointed by the Spirit and then sent out; the church is filled with the Spirit and then sent out. Both books have a long journey toward a city where the main character will be arrested.

The other obvious next step is Paul’s letters, read in the order the Book of Acts introduces the churches. Read Galatians near the first missionary journey, then the Thessalonian letters, then Corinthians, then Ephesians and Philippians from the imprisonment the book closes with. Suddenly the letters have faces and street addresses attached to them.

And if the reading has left you wanting to teach it rather than only read it, that is worth paying attention to. Take one week you found compelling and build four studies out of it for a small group. Nearly every Bible study I have written started exactly that way, as something I could not stop thinking about after a morning reading.

Frequently asked questions about the Book of Acts reading plan

Is the Book of Acts reading plan free? Yes. It is a free PDF, no sign-up and no email required. Download it with the button at the top of this page.

What translation should I use? Any readable one. The plan lists passages by reference, so it works with whatever Bible you already read.

How long does each day take? Most days run fifteen to twenty minutes including the discussion question. A few of the longer narrative scenes will take closer to half an hour.

Can I print it? Yes, and I would recommend it. The plan includes writing space for your daily takeaway, which is easier to use on paper than on a screen.

Can I use the Book of Acts reading plan with my church? Please do. Use it with a small group, a Sabbath School class, or a whole congregation. You do not need permission and no attribution is required.

Can I do the Book of Acts reading plan with children? Older children and teens manage it well, especially the narrative weeks. For younger children, read the passage aloud together and use the discussion question as a conversation at the table rather than something written. The Book of Acts is mostly story, which makes it far friendlier to family reading than the epistles.

Do I need to know the background of Acts first? No. Luke wrote it as a sequel to his Gospel, and the opening verses catch you up. Start on day one and let the story do the work. If you want context anyway, read the final chapter of Luke first, since the Book of Acts picks up precisely where that Gospel leaves off, with the same promise of the Spirit and the same small group of disciples waiting in Jerusalem.

The Book of Acts 40 Day Reading Plan was put together by Arnold Famini, a pastor and church planter in Manila. Browse more free resources, book reviews, or the sermon archive.