The Original "Christians" (Part 1)
a commentary on Acts 11 (Context)
Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to Biblit!
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Acts is a book filled with many amazing stories of people’s minds and beliefs being changed by Christ.
Chapter 11 is no different!
Let’s jump in!
Context
If you recall last week, Peter had just had a life altering revelation that the gospel is for all people, including the gentiles.
He then shared the gospel and many gentiles became Christ followers, were baptized, and received the Holy Spirit!
Well, wind of this amazing event came to the “circumcision party” in Jerusalem. That is literally what the Bible calls them. But they were the Jews back in Jerusalem who still believed Jesus came to save Jews ONLY.
As you can imagine, they had quite the fight to pick with old Peter when he got home.
They accused him of eating with uncircumcised men which would have made him ceremonially unclean by association. That was their main concern…*eye roll*
However, Peter told them what happened. And if repetition for Peter is important, it's just as important for us. Because here in Acts 11, Peter recounts the entire events of Acts 10.
Really hammering home to all of us reading Acts that the gospel is for ALL people over ALL the world!
And when Peter had finished, the other believers with him were amazed, fell silent, and then glorified God saying:
“Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11:18 ESV).
After this, we transition to another group of believers again.
Let’s back up for a second so you know where we are going.
Remember a few chapters ago when all the believers in Jerusalem fled after Stephen’s stoning and Saul’s persecution?
After that we transitioned to Saul and his amazing conversion.
Then we transitioned for a while to Peter and the amazing story with Cornelius we saw in our last Biblit.
Well, now we pick back up to the believers that scattered from Saul’s persecution.
Many of them scattered all around, to places like Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. Specifically, they were preaching the gospel to the Jews ONLY.
Now, as a little context, here is a map of where we are talking about.
For those listening, let me try and paint the picture:
Phoenicia is on the way up to Antioch traveling north from Jerusalem. It is in modern day Lebanon. Cyprus is a little island west of the mainland in the Mediterranean, and is still called Cyprus to this day. Antioch is a town north of Phoenicia in modern day Turkey, though it’s like right on the border of Syria.
For more reference, Antioch was at least 300 miles from Jerusalem. There seems to be some debate and some people say it could have been as much as 450 miles away. A little more research told me that the average distance traveled in a day back then was about 20 miles, so to reach Antioch could have taken up to 2 weeks!
Back to our story. So they traveled a good distance and shared the gospel with Jews ONLY.
However, some of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene (who are from way over in modern day Libya) came to Antioch and started preaching to the Hellenists as well. If you recall, the Hellenists were Jews from Greek dissent, spoke Greek, and lived that good old Greek lifestyle. They were often looked down upon by Jews reigning from holy Jerusalem.
However, after these missionaries saw some amazing conversions in Antioch they knew God was on the move and they sent word back to Jerusalem to bring good old Barnabas up to Antioch to help.
Barnabas came and saw the amazing work God was doing there and he himself went to Tarsus in search of Saul to ask for his help too!
Now, if we look back at the map, we know Tarsus (in modern day Turkey) was about 150 miles away, so this could have been a week-long journey to go find Saul.
After finding Saul, he brought him back to Antioch where they both stayed for a year preaching the gospel and growing the church.
In fact, the people in the church of Antioch were the first to be called Christians. It is still actually unknown whether this was a term they came up with or if it was a derogatory term used by outsiders.
Finally, this chapter wraps up with a man named Agabus, who filled with the Spirit, prophesies of a coming famine. After this prophecy many of the disciples in Antioch sent aid to the brothers and sisters living in Judea.
Specifically, they sent the aid by the hands of Saul and Barnabas.