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Acts 11:19-30 If you don’t have a Bible nearby, you can read this here before we chat! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2011%3A19-30&version=NIVUK
So all this talk about Gentile believers has led us to a town far from Israel called Antioch. The believing Jews were being driven out of Judea by persecution and we find them all the way over in modern day Turkey. Although they start by preaching to their fellow Jews, the message spreads to everyone around.
It’s kind of fun to hear that the believers in Antioch decided it was time to have their own name. They chose well because 2,000 years later, there are quite a few of us who still identify as Christians.
I’m guessing the conversation went something like this.
“Well, clearly we can’t call ourselves Jews. We haven’t converted to Judaism. For one thing, we don’t make sacrifices for sins. That’s been taken care of. Frankly, most Jews would be pretty upset at the thought of us calling ourselves Jewish. A lot of them don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah.
So we aren’t Jews. But we weren’t born believing in Jesus. We have come from worshipping lots of other gods, and we don’t do that anymore. We are definitely something new.
What even are we? What defines us?
We follow Jesus Christ. That’s what distinguishes us from Judaism. That’s what distinguishes us from any other faith. We believe that Jesus is the Christ.
OK, so, Christians?
That works!
Ok, so next time somebody asks, tell them you’re a christian.
And then we bump into Barnabus. This man is so incredibly underrated!! He just seems like this gracious, wise, calm, discerning presence. I want to hang out with this guy. Everywhere he goes he encourages people and helps them grow. He never takes centre stage but this dude was basically Paul’s mentor!
I really wish we heard more about this man. “A good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith.” Could you ask for a better epitaph? He goes to find Paul who was sent to Tarsus for his own safety a couple of chapters ago. He brings him to Antioch, and they work together there teaching and building the church. It’s a good thing they did, because this is going to become an enormously influential church throughout this book, even throughout history.
We get a preview of the kind of church it would become when a prophet from Jerusalem named Agabus visits Antioch and predicts a devastating and wide-spread famine which actually occurred only a few years later. The response of these newly christened Christians was to begin saving as much as they were able in order to send help to the believers in Judea who would be deeply impacted by the famine. So already I’m seeing the church of Jesus exhibiting faith and generosity as well as an understanding that they were part of a much larger body. They believed the prophet’s message and immediately began collecting a gift for people they didn’t know, who lived a very long way away. The church in Antioch, we will discover, was not content to keep the church in Antioch. They were always reaching beyond the walls of their city to share the good news that had rescued them.
This is a great reminder that our God is not only aware of our needs before we are, but he is working to provide for them, often in ways and through people we could never have expected.
