What changed them?

From hiding to fearless.

When Jesus was arrested, his friends ran. A few weeks later the same people were preaching in the same city that killed him. They were jailed and beaten, and some were killed. Paul, who had hunted Christians down, became one. Something happened to them. Follow the dates:

Tap a date to see it happen.

1. The night he's arrested“Everyone deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:50). Peter swears he never knew him.
2. Three days laterThe tomb is empty. That evening the disciples are behind locked doors, afraid (John 20:19). Then, John says, Jesus stands among them.
3. Fifty days laterAt Pentecost, Peter tells a crowd in Jerusalem, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it” (Acts 2:32).
4. Soon afterThe apostles are flogged and ordered to stop. They leave “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41).
5. A few years onPaul, who had “violently persecuted the church of God” (Galatians 1:13), meets the risen Jesus and starts preaching him.
6. About AD 44King Herod has James, John's brother, “put to death with the sword” (Acts 12:2). The others keep preaching.

People don't go from hiding to dying for a story they know they made up. They saw something.