Acts 11:19-30

19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

27 During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) 29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.


Dig Deeper
There is an old saying that I used to hear a lot as a kid although I don’t hear it nearly as much anymore. It is the classic line, “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” On one hand I understand the point of that saying that is trying to get across to people that we shouldn’t be worried about the labels or names that other people might assign us. On the other hand, I disagree with the mindset of that saying. Names and labels do matter and they do carry meaning and they can really hurt people. But names can also bring a great deal of pride and identity to those who carry a certain name. Family names, for instance, can be very important to people. Your surname carries with it a great deal of history and identity. It tells the world who you are, what kind of people you come from, and even what is valuable to you as a human being.

Just as individuals can be given names and labels that help others identify them or pigeonhole them, so groups can receive names. Sometimes those names are meant to honor or identify them. Other times the name is meant to ridicule the group and put its in its place. When it comes to religious groups, the name that it chooses to give itself often says a great deal about what is truly important to that group. Many religious groups today have chosen to name themselves after a man who was important in their history or even a specific aspect of their belief, which I suppose says something important about what they truly value. Some of the groups, such as the Methodists, initially received their names as an insult from other groups (in the case of the Methodists, they were given the name as mockery of the methodical ways that they received from their founder John Wesley).

The early followers of Jesus seemed to have initially and informally called themselves the Way, and they referred to each other as believers, saints, disciples, or the most common term, brothers. They saw themselves as family and the frequent use of referring to one another as brothers and sisters denotes that belief. In this passage, however, we find the term “Christian” being attached to those who followed Christ. This is no small detail or simply an interesting factoid included by Luke into his account of the spread of the gospel. It probably started out as a bit of an insult or had an intent to demean. But it is important, for in that name we learn a great deal about this early community and what they believed and practiced. The Christians, as many other groups have done in history, took a name that was meant to put them down and instead they found great distinction, identity, and pride in it.

As Luke continued to chronicle the spread of God’s family to the people of all nations, he returned to those that were scattered following the execution of Stephen. Some traveled as far as Antioch, which was the third largest city in the Roman Empire behind Rome and Alexandria, and was something of a cultural center in the Roman world as well as a social and political hub in the region of Syria. Following on the heels of the door to the kingdom of God being thrown open to the Gentiles, big things began to happen in Antioch. This wasn’t just the conversion of one small household, as important as that was. The disciples in Antioch began to see Gentiles in Antioch, many of whom were probably from all types of nations, stream into the kingdom of God. They heard the good news that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, that the family of the Most High God had been thrown open to all people everywhere.

As a result, many believed and joined the family. In fact it seems that such a commotion of good news was beginning to happen in Antioch that the church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to report what was going on, surely, but even more importantly to help in the ministry work there. There were several men described in the book of Acts that are described as being full of the Holy Spirit but Barnabas was the only man that was also described as “good.” There was a special quality to Barnabas and his commitment to the other believers that went beyond the norm. Barnabas was highly thought of in the early Christian community and was a man of great godliness. What he saw in Antioch was not some worrisome outbreak of false or compromised teaching. He saw the fulfillment of the door that was opened at Cornelius’ house. He saw God’s one family of all nations finally taking shape.

But he also realized rather quickly that they were facing a problem in Antioch. They were, in fact, facing one of those rare occasions when someone finds that they are up against what we call “a good problem to have.” God was working so powerfully in this Syrian city that the work was evidently overwhelming the brothers and sisters that were there. In response Barnabas displayed the rare ability, through the guidance of the Spirit, to be able to identify the right worker at at the right time for the right ministry.

We aren’t told why Barnabas’ thoughts turned to Saul, only that they did. This was the second time in their lives that Barnabas had paved the way for Saul in the Christian community and we don’t know why he saw so much in Saul, but he certainly was earning his nickname “son of encouragement.” The truly shocking thing is that this was probably ten years after we had last seen Saul in the book of Acts. He had apparently returned to Tarsus and spent his time sharing the gospel announcement with the people in the regions around Tarsus. He also, no doubt, spent that time poring through the Scriptures and learning how the Old Testament Scriptures pointed to a Messiah like Jesus all along. Armed with that knowledge, he was ready to spread the gospel to the Gentile world. Saul was the right man for the job. He would come to Antioch and spend the next year working side-by-side with Barnabas teaching and building up the believers in Antioch.

It was during this time in Antioch that the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians. That has come to be a term that has, for the most part, become divorced from its original meaning, but it is worth taking a look at what that term would have meant in first century Antioch because it gives us great insight into what was being taught and lived out among those early Christians.

The term “Christ” now is almost seen as though it were Jesus’ last name but it is actually the English version of the Greek “Chrestos” which means “Messiah” or “Anointed One.” The term carried with it the connotation that the Christ was a king, and in the declarations of the early believers, the true king of the world. The Christ was the one promised by God through the Old Testament Scriptures. He would be the one who would sum up in himself everything that Israel was called to be in the world but had failed to be. He would represent God’s people and take on the punishment due to sinners so that those who had no justification to call themselves part of God’s promised family could do just that. Through the resurrection, Jesus had shown himself to be the Son of God, the Messiah. In declaring Jesus to be the Christ, then, the early believers were declaring that through the resurrection Jesus had shown himself to be the true King of the world. He had thrown open God’s family and called people of all nations to lay down their own identities and lives and enter into his identity by being baptized into his life.

This was the bold declaration of the early church and it was their central message. Jesus was the true King who deserved loyalty and demanded submission. All other ways of life and holders of power were mere pretenders. There was no king except the Messiah. There was no salvation outside of him and his people. And there was no other way to live eternally than to lay down one’s life and live for the Messiah and in the best interests of others. The Greek world saw all of this as mere foolishness. How could an average man who died on a Roman cross possibly be any sort of Messiah, let alone the true King of the World? Only a fool would follow this Messiah. Only a group of “Messiahists” or “Christians” would follow such folly. It may have been an insult on the lips of those who called these people Christians for the first time but they proudly wore the name Christian.

Luke ends this section by giving us two quick snapshots of important elements of the early Christian communities. One is that the miraculous gift of prophecy that came through the laying on of the apostles hands was present in Antioch. Those who were specially gifted, men like Agabus, continued to prepare and edify the body of believers.

They also continued to live like the family that they were. When someone was in need within the family of believers it was the shared responsibility of all of them to provide for their brothers and sisters. The believers in Judea were particularly hard hit by persecution and famines and the other believers, mostly their Gentile brothers and sisters around the world would continue to provide for them. They knew that God would provide for them just as Jesus had promised in passages like Matthew 6, but that he would often do so through th ebrotherhood of the church.

Devotional Thought
If someone who had no previous knowledge of Christianity in any way were to come to this country and observe your church what might they call you? Would they call you the “isolationists”? Would they call you the “holier than thouists”? Would they call you the “bash everybody elsists”? Would they call you the “serve the poorists”? Or would they also see that above all, your church family followed the Messiah as King? Would they call you the “Messiahists”? Is that truly the central message of your family of believers? What are some of the things that churches can start to stress over just following Jesus as the true king of the world?