Acts 4:4

4:4 But many of those who had listened to ¹  the message ²  believed, and the number of the men ³  came to about five thousand.

Acts 11:21

11:21 The ⁴  hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed ⁵  turned ⁶  to the Lord.

Acts 13:12

13:12 Then when the proconsul ⁷  saw what had happened, he believed, ⁸  because he was greatly astounded ⁹  at the teaching about ¹⁰  the Lord.

Acts 14:23

14:23 When they had appointed elders ¹¹  for them in the various churches, ¹²  with prayer and fasting ¹³  they entrusted them to the protection ¹⁴  of the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 16:31

16:31 They replied, ¹⁵  “Believe ¹⁶  in the Lord Jesus ¹⁷  and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Acts 16:34

16:34 The jailer ¹⁸  brought them into his house and set food ¹⁹  before them, and he rejoiced greatly ²⁰  that he had come to believe ²¹  in God, together with his entire household. ²² 

Acts 17:12

17:12 Therefore many of them believed, along with quite a few ²³  prominent ²⁴  Greek women and men.

Acts 27:25

27:25 Therefore keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God ²⁵  that it will be just as I have been told.

[4:4]  ¹ tn Or “had heard.”

[4:4]  ² tn Or “word.”

[4:4]  ³ tn In the historical setting it is likely that only men are referred to here. The Greek term ἀνήρ (anhr) usually refers to males or husbands rather than people in general. Thus to translate “of the people” would give a false impression of the number, since any women and children were apparently not included in the count.

[11:21]  ⁴ tn Grk “And the.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[11:21]  ⁵ tn The participle πιστεύσας (pisteusa") is articular and thus cannot be adverbial. It is adjectival, modifying ἀριθμός (ariqmo"), but has been translated into English as a relative clause (“who believed”).

[11:21]  ⁶ sn Again, the expression turned is a summary term for responding to the gospel.

[13:12]  ⁷ sn See the note on proconsul in v. 8.

[13:12]  ⁸ sn He believed. The faith of the proconsul in the face of Jewish opposition is a theme of the rest of Acts. Paul has indeed become “a light to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:47).

[13:12]  ⁹ tn The translation “greatly astounded” for ἐκπλησσόμενος (ekplhssomeno") is given by L&N 25.219.

[13:12]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “of,” but this could give the impression the Lord himself had done the teaching (a subjective genitive) when actually the Lord was the object of the teaching (an objective genitive).

[14:23]  ¹⁰ sn Appointed elders. See Acts 20:17.

[14:23]  ¹¹ tn The preposition κατά (kata) is used here in a distributive sense; see BDAG 512 s.v. κατά B.1.d.

[14:23]  ¹² tn Literally with a finite verb (προσευξάμενοι, proseuxamenoi) rather than a noun, “praying with fasting,” but the combination “prayer and fasting” is so familiar in English that it is preferable to use it here.

[14:23]  ¹³ tn BDAG 772 s.v. παρατίθημι 3.b has “entrust someone to the care or protection of someone” for this phrase. The reference to persecution or suffering in the context (v. 22) suggests “protection” is a better translation here. This looks at God’s ultimate care for the church.

[16:31]  ¹³ tn Grk “said.”

[16:31]  ¹⁴ sn Here the summary term of response is a call to believe. In this context it refers to trusting the sovereign God’s power to deliver, which events had just pictured for the jailer.

[16:31]  ¹⁵ tc The majority of mss add Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) here (C D E Ψ 1739 Ï sy sa), but the best and earliest witnesses read simply τὸν κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν (ton kurion Ihsoun, “the Lord Jesus”; Ì^74vid א A B 33 81 pc bo). The addition of “Christ” to “Lord Jesus” is an obviously motivated reading. Thus on both external and internal grounds, the shorter reading is strongly preferred.

[16:34]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “He”; the referent (the jailer) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:34]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “placed [food] on the table” (a figurative expression). Since the actual word for food is not specified, it would also be possible to translate “set a meal before them,” but since this is taking place in the middle of the night, the preparations necessary for a full meal would probably not have been made. More likely Paul and Silas were given whatever was on hand that needed little or no preparation.

[16:34]  ¹⁸ tn Or “he was overjoyed.”

[16:34]  ¹⁹ tn The translation “come to believe” reflects more of the resultative nuance of the perfect tense here.

[16:34]  ²⁰ tn The phrase “together with his entire household” is placed at the end of the English sentence so that it refers to both the rejoicing and the belief. A formal equivalence translation would have “and he rejoiced greatly with his entire household that he had come to believe in God,” but the reference to the entire household being baptized in v. 33 presumes that all in the household believed.

[17:12]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “not a few”; this use of negation could be misleading to the modern English reader, however, and so has been translated as “quite a few” (which is the actual meaning of the expression).

[17:12]  ²⁰ tn Or “respected.”

[27:25]  ²² tn BDAG 817 s.v. πιστεύω 1.c states, “w. pers. and thing added π. τινί τι believe someone with regard to someth….W. dat. of pers. and ὅτι foll…. πιστεύετέ μοι ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί J 14:11a. Cp. 4:21; Ac 27:25.”