It is not so clear if the five thousand (5,000) were only men or included women and children.1 Likewise it is not clear if these are people who lived in the city or also those in the surrounding villages and districts.2 The Greek itself uses a term that specifies men and this would imply that the church was now very large—more than 10,000 if one includes women and children.
Given the size of Jerusalem at the time, the number of believers would then account for anything from a tenth to a third of the total population. There are various different estimates of the size of Jerusalem at the time. Some suggest a population of 20,000-25,000, while others argue for 55,000 or even 95,000. If the church constituted a third of the total population, it is hard to envisage the authorities having the political power to implement an extensive programme of persecution (as seen in Acts 8:1–3).
In light of the difficulties that come with a large number of male converts, it makes sense to consider that women and children are also included in the figure of 5,000 and that this is an aggregate of all those who believed, not only those converted on the day.3 The inclusion of women is very likely given the fact that Peter and John were speaking in the court of the Gentiles, a place where both men and women could gather.
Whatever the exact size of the Christian population at the time, the comment about the number of believers serves to confirm that the opposition of Jewish authorities cannot and will not prevent the growth of God’s church.4
4 But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.