Acts 11

Suggested Thoughts.—The scale of God’s plans is large, and the fulfillment gradual and slow. For fifteen hundred years the Jewish people were the chosen recipients of his special regard and favors. But never for themselves alone. Instruments, favored indeed, but only instruments they were, trained by instruction and discipline, to testify of the one Jehovah, to receive and distribute his Word of Life. Yet, in the later centuries, God had also been training two other nations to take part in the great crisis of human history. Now that the Jewish nation has fulfilled its appointed function, all that is special in God’s dealing ceases. Now that Greek and Roman are prepared for God’s working in their behalf, above all, now that the time for humanity’s divine redemption has fully come, and the work of that redemption is complete, now the promise and the salvation of God takes a breadth and reach that includes all nations. And it is this wide transfer of divine blessings, it is the universal proclamation of the redemption in Christ Jesus, that we read in the occurrence narrated here.

Two expressions, found in this story in different connections, seem to be wonderfully adapted for inscriptions in our churches; one on either side-wall, where they may be read from pulpit and pew: We are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God! Every word is emphatic and quickeningly suggestive. And the other is equally profitable: Who (i. e., God’s preacher) shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved! Words that are spirit and life, words from Christ, about Christ, for Christ: words from the Word of Life, accompanied by the living Spirit, which are able to make wise unto salvation. Here we find the design, the sure, the only subject-matter, and right temper of preaching and hearing!

Peter’s first sermon to Gentiles may be beautifully and effectively summed up in its first and last expressions: Peace by Jesus Christ, Lord of all! Through his name every one who believeth shall receive remission of sins! Peace by pardon—redemption by faith!

Now, too, the world, of Jews as well as Gentiles, in heart are craving the message of peace by Jesus Christ, and remission of sins by faith in his name. Now, too, individual souls—and many—like Cornelius are desiring, praying! Shall we not send far and wide the living voice with the living gospel? B.

1. AND the apostles and brethren that were in Judæa heard that the Gentiles had also re- 2 ceived the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of 3 the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and 4 didst eat with them. But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded 5 it by order unto them, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four 6 corners; and it came even to me: upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I con- sidered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and 7 fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, 8 Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. 9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou 10 common. And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven. And, 11 behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house where I was, sent 12 from Cassarea unto me. And the spirit bade me go with them, nothing doubting. More- 13 over these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house: and he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men 14 to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; who shall tell thee words, whereby 15 thou and all thy house shall be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on 16 them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. 17 Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord 18 Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. 19 Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto 20 the Jews only. And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they 21 were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.

22. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: 23 and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart 24 they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and 25 of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, 26 for to seek Saul: and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

27. And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one 28 of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth 29 throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Cæsar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren 30 which dwelt in Judæa: which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Bar- nabas and Saul.

By cleaving unto Jesus is meant that we hold fast to his religion, abhorring the thought of apostasy—that we adhere to him as the Revealer of truth, avoiding every heresy and error—that we rest upon him by faith as our atoning Priest—that we kneel to him as our King—that we cling to his example—that we keep near him as the source of all spiritual, sanctifying influence—and that we abide in him as our everlasting portion and ultimate good. Abiding in Christ is abiding in his service, walking in his will, doing that which shall please him, and living to his glory. And this derives new force from the consideration that holiness, whether of heart or conduct—in other words, cleaving to the Lord in duty—can by no means be secured, except by cleaving to him in acts of personal faith and affection. J. W. A.

Let the central flame of Christian love burn in your hearts with an undying constancy and pureness. Let your sweet charity and patience and peace breathe as a fragrance throughout the society of believers. Let the sustaining and heavenly hope which comes through Christ impart its beauty to your character always, and shine with clear celestial luster throughout your life. Let your self-devoted labors for others reach out to them, and bring both them and us a blessing. Take what of influence from the spheres unseen you here may meet, and make it felt throughout the circles which you affect. Seek first of all in yourselves, at all times, the richest, brightest, most abounding experience of all that which the Spirit of God will work, through the gospel, in the hearts and minds of those who receive him; of all which study, prayer, and effort, beneficent action and the wisest self-discipline, can bring to the soul through Christ its Lord; of all which God imparts in his grace to those whom he chooses for his own. And then let this be spontaneously revealed, in endurance and in action, in your life and on your lips, in all the circumstances in which you may be placed. R. S. S.

1-18. This event was the crown and consummation of Peter’s ministry. He who had first preached the resurrection to the Jews, baptized the first converts, and confirmed the Samaritans, now, without the advice or coöperation of any of his colleagues, under direct communication from heaven, first established principles which issued in the complete fusion of the Hebrew and Gentile elements in the Church. It was no mere acquiescence in a positive command, but the development of a spirit full of generous impulses, which found utterance in the words spoken by Peter on that occasion, both in presence of Cornelius and afterward at Jerusalem. But the Church at Jerusalem was slow to learn the lesson involved in the tidings that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. When Peter returned to Jerusalem, he was accused by “those of the circumcision” because he had eaten with the uncircumcised. But his plain narrative of the whole transaction, crowned by the argument that, in the outoutpouring of the Holy Ghost, he had recognized that same baptism of the Spirit which Christ had promised as the sign of his presence with the apostles themselves, silenced every objection, and opened every mouth in praise to God for the great revelation which marks this epoch in the history of the Church: “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” S.

We note, here and throughout the Acts, in the record of personal contentions and church divisions, the same ingenuous frankness in telling the story of their own weaknesses and sins, that we read so often and plainly in the gospels. The bearing of this honesty of the sacred writers upon the truth of their writings is obvious.

19-21. The Gospel widely diffused through Persecution. Its first Great Triumph among Gentiles at Antioch.—The work of Christ thus far had only reached the limit of Palestine. As bidden at his ascension, the disciples had begun at Jerusalem, and

[Cyrene was the principal city of that district of northern Africa lying between Carthage and Egypt. It lies on a table-land with descending terraces to the sea. It was a Greek city, with a large settlement of Jews. B.] thence gone into Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Now a signal step in advance is taken; an earnest vital movement is begun among the Gentiles.

I take recurs (v. 19) to the fact previously stated (8:4), only specifying regions where the scattered believers went, and the single class of persons (Jews) to whom they preached the Word. The time is indefinite and considerably prolonged. Phenicia, here referred to, was a province of Syria on the Syro-Palestinian coast of the Mediterranean, extending northward from Mount Carmel one hundred and thirty miles in a strip of land bounded by the Lebanon range. It included Tyre, Sidon, Barytus (Beirut), and other cities. Cyprus is the large island, distant sixty miles from the Phenician coast, noted at that period for its productions and commerce, and for the luxury of its inhabitants. (See map, p. 61.)

After the dispersion of the disciples at Stephen’s death these two populous regions were ultimately reached, and the gospel preached to the Jews. But we learn (v. 20) that some of these preaching disciples, natives of Cyprus and of Cyrene in Lybian Africa, were moved by the Spirit to go to Antioch and there to preach to Greeks. They were prompted, we can hardly doubt, by tidings of what had occurred in Cesarea; for their movement followed close upon Peter’s ministry in the house of Cornelius. The method employed was the preaching of a personal Saviour, telling the story of Christ. Peter and Stephen to the Jerusalem Jews, Philip to the Samaritans and the Ethiopian, Peter to the Gentile company of Cornelius, and now these unnamed disciples to the Greeks of Antioch, alike dwelt upon the facts of Christ’s person and history. They unfolded the truths of salvation incarnated in his serving life, his suffering death, and his triumphant resurrection and ascension. And as before, so now, “the arm of the Lord is revealed” as directing and energizing this ministry of men; so that “a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.” Here we see the one only method of bringing truth and salvation effectually to men: man preaches peace by Jesus Christ, but God inspires and guides the preaching, and makes the truth preached quickening and sanctifying! B.

Hence we learn how much was accomplished in the first Christian propagandism by the easy, natural, and spontaneous influence of laymen. The first successes of Christianity in foreign parts were on this wise. Individual believers, dispersed abroad in the providence of God, imparted to others those glad tidings with which their own souls were gladdened. In those passages in the Evangelists and the Acts which relate to the promulgation of the Gospel, we find three several words, all of which are translated into our English word preach. The original word in verse 19 is the very word we should have employed to describe simple conversation. Their hearts were full of Christ, and so they talked everywhere concerning him. It was with them as when the news of some joyful event is abroad in the city; it spreads in advance of all messengers, throbbing along amid high-wrought enthusiasm, reflected from the countenance and repeated from the mouth of all you meet. W. A.

22. Impression made upon the Mother Church in Jerusalem by the Tidings from Antioch.—They had learned that God had also given to the Gentiles repentance unto life. Here God summoned them to behold a great and marvelous work. He put upon them a new and vast responsibility. For Antioch was then one of the three or four greatest cities of the civilized world. Lying on the river Orontes, about twenty miles back from the northeastern angle of the Mediterranean Sea, inclosed by the Taurus mountain range on the north and Lebanon on the east, by its harbor of Seleucia inviting the trade of the great sea, and through the open country beyond Lebanon accessible to the caravans of the East, it had every advantage to attract multitudes of all classes from every portion of the world. It was now the residence of the Roman governors, as it had been the capital of the Syrian kings, from whom it had received grandeur and name. Of great size, with immense and costly public and private structures, with temples, groves, and gardens, attractive with statues and works of art, almost rivaling Rome in extent and variety of its population, and surpassing it in the luxurious abandonment and worthless character of the people, Antioch was at once the most brilliant and the most debased, the greatest and the worst of the Oriental Greek cities under the wide Roman rule. Many Jews had originally settled here, because unmolested in their religion.

Under the pressure of their responsibility for helping on the movement of God’s Spirit in this great and wicked metropolis, the mother Church at once sent Barnabas thither. We remember him, first as Joses (Acts 4:36), and next as the endorser of Saul to Peter and James. As a native of Cyprus and familiar with Antioch, himself also of Greek

Plan of Antioch.

origin, with a transparently beautiful character and high natural and spiritual endowments, the selection and trust were eminently wise.

Note here, however, that it is the Church body that sends, not the apostles; and that an unofficial Church member, not an apostle, is sent. From henceforth the apostles act as such only upon certain occasions which call for the exercise of their special commission from Christ. Thus it appears that the offices in the Church by Christ’s appointment are limited to specific purposes, and always subordinated to the interests of the body of believers.

23,24. What Barnabas saw, felt, and did at Antioch, and what ensued.—He saw that which he had spiritual vision to discern, and spiritual desire to look upon. He saw the fruits of the grace of God, in a multitude of souls “turned to the Lord,” that is, converted. And spiritual vision and desire, through sympathy, naturally begat spiritual joy: He was glad. Yet further, his quick, glad, deep sympathy seeks and finds its true relief in active helpfulness. He enters at once upon a ministry of instructive exhortation. Only the key-note and substance of that exhortation is given us here. But it is very rich and full in its instruction.

Earnestly Barnabas counsels those who had turned unto the Lord to cleave unto Him with full consecration (so the word purpose implies) of heart. Cleaving or holding fast is only a keeping turned unto the Lord. Christ is the vital center of trust and of life; and through the heart’s cleaving, or close living union, to Him, the soul’s attachment and consecration is made firm and enduring. It is the old and always beautiful figure of the vine and its branches. Faith in the living Christ turns the heart to Him; and a grafting of the believer’s life into His life holds fast the once-turned heart. But let it be always remembered that, as the graft continues to live by the unceasing transmission of sap from the nourishing stem, so the believer’s life is maintained by unbroken communion with Christ. Personal love to a personal Saviour is made living and fruitful by continuous personal communion with Him! This is the one essential truth declared by Christ and by all these primitive preachers in preaching Jesus.

The Christlike character of this “Son of Consolation” is here happily embodied in three particulars: his goodness of heart and life; the principle from which that goodness proceeded, faith; and the Divine agent who wrought the inward principle and actuated the outward life—who “worked in him to will and to do.” Thus earnestly he taught the newly converted, and his inwrought faith and excellence confirmed his teaching. But the good effects were not limited to disciples. The same truths, so enforced by his manifest character through the

Holy Ghost, reached and converted multitudes besides.

25,26. A Year of Ministry in Antioch by Barnabas and Saul.—The hope and prospect of a yet larger ingathering, and the promise of a great and permanent prosperity for the growing Church of Christ, prompted Barnabas to seek help. Naturally he turns to Saul. He had recognized a Divine purpose in Saul’s conversion, and he, better than others, appreciated Saul’s qualifications for effective ministry. Under divine impulse, therefore, and without conference with the apostles, he sought Saul in his home at Tarsus. Together they return to Antioch, and together minister to the increasing Church for “a whole year.”

Thus gradually still, and by no appointment of men, is Saul brought into prominence. For not yet has he been specially commissioned by the Holy Ghost and ordained to his world-wide work. And thus simply, by the labors of two unordained disciples, was the mother Church of the Gentiles founded. Thus quietly, without notice or knowledge of men, was established a new and second center around which the great movements of the Church were to circulate. Thenceforth the Church of Antioch held the same relation to Gentile Christianity as that at Jerusalem held to Jewish Christianity.

Disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.—As a natural consequence, as soon as they were seen to be characterized by something distinctive, as compared with other sects or parties among the Jews, they received a name taken from their peculiar doctrines and practices. And since the faith, the love, and the hope of this body of believers was concentrated upon the person and work of Christ, it was especially appropriate that they should be called Christians. The name, doubtless, originated with the Gentiles, and was distinctive only, given neither in mockery nor opprobrium. B.—This much at least is evident, that they who called themselves His disciples must in a conspicuous manner have separated themselves from those who did not believe the gospel; that not only their regard for Jesus and their assent to his commands, but their confession of the Christ as their Lord and King, was the cause of their receiving such a name. Van O.

So from the world the Church received its best descriptive name; from heathen, in a heathen city, believers received their most appropriate and honorable title. “A Latin derivative from the Greek term for the Messiah, it is connected with the office, not the name, of our Lord.” The term is derived not from JESUS, the Saviour, but from CHRIST, the anointed of God, referring to His appointed and accepted work. So believers are fellow-workers, not fellow-saviours, with him; Christians not Jesuits. For their work they “have an unction (anointing)

Modern Antioch.

from the Holy One.” B.—Derived from the three-fold office of Christ, the Anointed One of God, to be Prophet, Priest, and King of the world, the name intimates the obligation of those who bear it to faith in him, to worship through him, and to obedience to him as the Christ, and it also declares their participation in his unction. The name Christian is also a protest against all religious titles derived from human leaders. This name was not given at Jerusalem, but at Antioch, a Gentile city—an intimation of the future diffusion of Christianity throughout the heathen world. W.—Before this, they were called by the Jews Nazarenes, or Galileans; and by each other, disciples, believers, brethren, or saints. But they now assumed the name of their great Leader. D.

27-30. The Predicted Dearth, and the Christian Charity of the First Gentile Church to their Needy Jewish Brethren.—The prophets here referred to were simply men specially inspired with helpful messages of various kinds. This message was a prediction, but its purpose was obviously helpful. The matter of verses 27 and 28 is introduced here only to set forth the charity of the Gentile Church that followed. In that charity, kindred with previous similar acts of the Jewish believers at Jerusalem, we see the unity of the Christian spirit. And what was in the beginning has been, is now, and shall be until need and relief become obsolete terms. Here, each was willing to give, and gave what he could. Judgment and conscience determined the measure of obligation, and each gave heartily; and the combined gift, the first evidence of their fraternal affection, was sent by their teachers, Barnabas and Saul, to Jerusalem. B.

One of the two events in the life of Paul which give us sure marks of time, is his journey from Antioch to Jerusalem with Barnabas, on the occasion of the great famine under Claudius, about the time of the death of Herod Agrippa I.—an event which we can fix with certainty to A. D. 44; and the visit itself could not be later than A. D. 45. S.—They carried from Antioch a contribution to sustain the Christians of Jewish origin at Jerusalem through the famine. From Jerusalem, and from Jews, came forth the spiritual things wherewith the Gentiles at Antioch were enriched; they only obey a law of the kingdom when they load the returning train with temporal gifts for Christian Jews in Jerusalem. Such reciprocal charities were eminently fitted to break down the partition walls and blend all believers into one. Arnot.

30. Elders. Hitherto Luke had applied the word to the elders of the Jews; henceforth the Elders are officers recognized in the Church. Thus the Church almost insensibly succeeds to the Synagogue, and supplies its place. W.—The office of presbyter, or elder, was the only permanent essential office of the Jewish church, and as such was retained under the new organization, without any formal institution, and therefore without any distinct mention in the history, such as we find afterward in reference to the organization of the Gentile churches, where the office had no previous existence, and must therefore be created by the act of ordination. J. A. A.