Acts 11:19-26
As we move our study in to Acts 11:19-21 we will be transitioning through time. Luke uses this section to transition to his next major theme, which will be following Paul as he spreads the Gospel mainly westward towards Rome.
So that we can see the transition, lets look at 19-21 piece by piece. Acts 11:19 connects all the way back to the events first described Acts 8:1-4. Following that Acts 11:20 jumps forward to just after Acts 10, and between Acts 11:20 and Acts 11:21 is when the Apostle Paul was in Taurus and surrounding area, for a span of about ten years. Now, Acts 11:21 is ten years or so after Paul flees Jerusalem and heads to Taurus. This puts us around AD 47, which is roughly a decade and half since Pentecost.
This new section of Acts opens in the city of Antioch. Antioch was a major Roman city, and one that was known for its loose morals. This is predominantly a gentile community, but there was a large group of Jews living there. Simon the man that carried Jesus’ cross was from this area, and perhaps even Antioch. It is also possible, based on writings from around AD 160 that Luke himself was from Antioch. If that is true then its possible that during this movement is when Luke comes to the Lord, and perhaps met Barnabas and Paul. That is all personal speculation, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.
When the events open that Luke is recording for us in Acts 11:22, there is apparently already a church growing strong in Antioch. In Acts 11:19-20 we see that those that were fleeing persecution where sharing the Gospel as they went. They had great success in getting the word out and “a great number” of people were saved.
This a great illustration of how human thinking can often be so off the mark. If we were alive during the time of Acts 8:1-4, and Saul was hunting for us and our families we might be thinking that it was the worst thing ever. We might be doing all we could to find a way out of the persecution, praying that God would free us from it, yet with the benefit of hindsight we can look at what happened because of the persecution and perhaps see that it was really a good thing. If we look back a bit further, to Acts 6 and earlier, we can see the church is growing explosively… but only among the Jews in Jerusalem. It was the persecution that forced the Gospel out of the city and into the world.
This falls completely in line with the teaching of scripture, look for example at James 1:2 where we are told to count it as “pure joy” when we face trails. Or take a look at Jesus’ own words in Matthew 5:10 where we are told that we are blessed when we face persecution. He hammers that home again in Matthew 5:11. There are far too many references to detail out here, but the point simply is this: In our human understanding a time of trials and persecution is bad, but from the divine perspective they often can be for our own, or the even the entire world’s good. In this case persecution created a massive church plant in Antioch, and Antioch would later be known for sending out great missionaries. For example, The Apostle Paul would call this church home.
Acts 11:22 shifts the scene briefly from Antioch back to Jerusalem. At this time Jerusalem is still the head of the church, and the church leadership seems to be based out of Jerusalem. When they get word of the great success in Antioch, they send Barnabas to investigate. As mentioned in our previous study, this is the proper job of the church, to investigate and to test.
They decide to send Barnabas, and while no reason is given in the text for this choice it does appear to be a very wise one. We learned back in Acts 4:36 that Barnabas is from this area, which means he would not be seen as an outsider. Later in Acts 9:27 we learned that he was well respected by the church, so much so that he was able to get the hated terrorist Saul into the church. Now in Acts 11:24 we see that he is called a “good man” who is “full of the Holy Spirit and faith.” All this combined makes him the perfect candidate to investigate what is going on.
When he arrives, he is finds a church where God is really moving and decides to stay and help. The work apparently becomes too much for him, so he decides to go looking for Saul to help him. The word translated “to look for” here implies an intense or difficult search, which would fit if Saul is out evangelizing the area as we think he was at this time. It has been around a decade since these two are recorded as being together, and there are no cell phones yet.
Barnabas does find Paul and they stay in Antioch a year, most likely teaching the new believers there and shaping the church. Later, after the fall of Jerusalem, Antioch would be come the major center for Christianity, and we can easily credit Barnabas and Paul for shaping that foundation.
It here also here in Antioch the name “Christian” is coined. The word literally means “of the party of Christ.” It implies that you identify completely with Christ. We do not know who started it or why. The area was known for creating racial slurs and other negative comments. In 1 Peter 4:16 where the same word is used, it has a strong negative connotation. We can see that further when we look at other writings from that time, such as this:
Tacitus, writing near the end of the first century, says, “The vulgar call them Christians. The author or origin of this denomination, Christus, had, in the reign of Tiberius, been executed by the procurator, Pontius Pilate” (Annals xv. 44). From the second century onward the term was accepted by believers as a title of honor.[1]
Based on that it is easy to see that it could have been a very negative term to start. At that time Christians referred to each other as “the brethren,” and as Vine’s mentions it is not until the second century that we see Christians start to use this name for themselves. Up until recent years the name Christian has been very loosely applied in this country. At one point it was assumed that the name American and Christian were basically equivalent. That is far from the case today.
It is possible we are entering into an era here in America where the name Christian will be seen a negative term again, and it is very possible people will have to make a very hard call on whether to identify with Christ, or not. The big question for us who are Christians to ask ourselves is, should it come to that and should you be arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
Print This Post
[1] W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger and William White, Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1996).A