The Book of Acts is not covered often in Bible studies, yet contains a number of interesting events in the early church.
It gives a look at how the church grew, adapted and spread with a number of tales within the larger story.
Signs of growth and maturing
There were a number of times in the book that the early leaders were imprisoned for preaching the gospel, then miraculously freed. An early example is Acts 5: 17-23 where like the other early examples the apostles when freed immediately escaped the area to where they were sent next as most people would in their situation. There was no concern for the situation of the guards, wardens, etc left behind to explain the disappearances to their superiors. But later we find in Acts 16: 25-34 when Paul and his party were imprisoned, they prayed and sang while imprisoned which the other prisoners heard, and when miraculously freed did not immediately run away to freedom but showed concern for the jailer responsible for them. This led to both the jailer and his family coming to belief in God and being baptized. I think this marks a major maturing to even aiming to bring those imprisoning them to God.
Firsts.. of many
First recorded falling asleep during a sermon - This my favorite for some reason (those that know me..). The first recorded effect of a long sermon putting someone to sleep is in Acts 20: 7-12. Our hero Eutychus had bravely stayed awake til near midnight. I note my version says 'Paul talked on and on'.. 8^D Then apparently as Eutychus was reclining too close to an upper floor window (or some versions say sitting in the window), he dozed off and fell out the window to the ground below. Depending on the version he was picked up or taken up as dead, but regardless Paul revived him and to all their relief he was taken home alive having survived the sermon. So this is also the first case of someone being saved from a sermon!
Arcs - tales occurring over a number of chapters and scenes
Paul's appeal arc - Paul wanted to get to Rome as he felt led to bring Christ to the gentile world and that was the capital and crossroad for the western world where Paul seemed to be led to - Acts 23:11. I'm not clear whether this was Paul's idea or he was being led to take this route, but he began making appeals at his many court appearances which eventually led to him ending up in Rome for the final years of his (recorded) life. He saw that the mid-level rulers didn't really want to deal with him so eventually appealed all the way to Caesar which they were glad to pass him on to. It really began with his appeal to his Roman citizenship (Acts 22:25) which apparently got his case more consideration including rights to further appeals. What's important to note in these last chapters of Acts is that Paul had many chances to make a deal, take lesser charges, etc to get out of these situations much easier, but he stuck with his leading to get to Rome to witness there.