Paul Arrives in Antioch (Acts 11:19-30)

Paul had been out of sight of the church in Jerusalem for almost a decade after he was sent back to Tarsus by them. Those unknown years were years of preparation for him. Luke takes his readers back to the persecution initiated perhaps by Paul himself because he was heavily involved in the death of Stephen. That persecution had many effects on the church in Jerusalem. But Luke points out that the Lord was at work in the lives of countless others from the church there for the development of his kingdom and Luke mentions some of them in his brief description of the commencement of the church in Antioch. There are two Antiochs mentioned in the Book of Acts and this Antioch was located in Syria. It was a cosmopolitan city, with a population of about half a million. The church there was to play an important role for several centuries.

Commenced

Believers had been forced to leave Jerusalem by the persecution connected to Stephen and Luke mentions that some of them travelled north. As they did so, they continued to witness to Jesus, a reminder that persecution does not need to damper spiritual zeal and witness. They chose to do so among their fellow-Jews initially, but then in Antioch some of them decided also to tell Gentiles about Jesus. (The word translated Hellenists here could mean Jews influenced by Greek culture, but there would not be anything surprising about the believers witnessing to such. So it is better to see those witnessed to as Gentiles).

We might not be surprised at that development because we are used to hearing about people speaking to Gentiles concerning Jesus and evangelising them. Yet this was a major development in the early history of the church as God’s people spread the faith wider and wider into other people groups, of which there were several in Antioch. There are two details that we can observe about this development.

First, those who evangelised were what we call laypeople. There were no apostles or other leaders from Jerusalem among them. Those Jewish believers from Cyprus and Cyrene took the initiative and preached to Gentiles. Second, we can see that those believers stepped out of their comfort zones when they did this. Prior to doing so, they had spoken about Jesus in synagogues where both they and their listeners could consider how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament. Now they were speaking to a different set of people who did not share a reverence for the Old Testament. It is like us moving away from speaking to church people about the gospel to speaking to non-churched people.

It is evident that the Lord Jesus approved of their actions. Luke tells us that the hand of the Lord was with them and many believed in him. The author is showing us here how Jesus continues to bless his message even although he is now ascended to heaven. From there he helps his witnesses to testify and the initial outcome he gave was a large number of converts.  

Confirmed

It was customary for the apostles in Jerusalem to verify gospel work elsewhere – we see an example earlier in the Book of Acts when Peter went to Samaria to see the gospel work that Philip had engaged in there. Verifying included the idea of strengthening. The one they chose to send to Antioch was not one of the apostles who had been with Jesus. Instead they sent another leader, Barnabas, whom we had seen earlier as a generous man (he sold land to help the poor in the church) and he had also known about what had happened to Paul after his conversion and he introduced Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem.

I wonder why they chose Barnabas. We could say it was because of his nationality (he was from Cyprus and he probably he would have known some of the people who commenced the church in Antioch), and this is a reminder to us that suitable people ethnically should be set apart for special tasks. We also could say it was because of his name (Barnabas was a name given to him out of respect for his Christian life – he was the son of consolation who knew what to say to people needing encouragement). The apostles could be sure that the messages preached by Barnabas would be helpful for the new church in Antioch.

What was the need in the church in Antioch? They had conversions, many of them. Yet it looks that those who evangelised them were not able to edify them in the sense of teaching them about the doctrines of the Christian faith. This is not just an ancient problem. We are told that a common problem found in places today where large numbers of conversions occur is lack of teaching. A healthy church grows numerically and in understanding. The church in Jerusalem wanted the church in Antioch to grow and chose to send one of their most accomplished leaders to bring this about. I suspect that they did not need to ask him twice.

Colleagues

The scale of the spiritual need in Antioch was so great that Barnabas realised that he needed help in meeting it. Perhaps surprisingly he did not send a request to the church in Jerusalem that they should send another of their leaders to help him. Instead he remembered the gifted man he had introduced to the apostles several years previously and set off to find him in Tarsus. It looks as if he had some difficulty in locating Paul, perhaps because he was away from the city preaching the gospel. But Barnabas persevered, and eventually he found Paul and took him to Antioch. This was the beginning of a beautiful team ministry that would last for several years.

What kind of man was Barnabas? Evidently, at this stage, in their shared ministry Luke regards Barnabas as the leader because he names him first when referring to both. Later on in his account Luke will reverse the order, but in the initial period in Antioch we could say that Barnabas was modelling leadership attitudes and actions for Paul. So what would Paul have seen? I don’t think there is any evidence that Luke actually met Barnabas, so perhaps the description given of Barnabas here came to Luke from the mouth of Paul.

Barnabas was glad to serve the church and showed it by his willingness to travel many miles in order to do so. Indeed, in this chapter he is on the move and we could entitle it ‘the journeys of Barnabas’ from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Tarsus, from Tarsus to Antioch and from Antioch to Jerusalem. His personal comforts, even although he was a wealthy man, were not his main concern. He was prepared to go out of his way, or to go the extra mile, and that is an essential mark of any who lead in Christ’s church.

Barnabas, as a leader, used his eyesight in a certain way and that was to look for evidence of the grace of God. He was not snooping and analysing in a suspicious manner the way the new converts were living. Instead he rejoiced in watching new disciples take their first steps in the Christian life and he urged them not to follow him but to remain faithful to the Lord. He had no desire to have a church of Barnabas in Antioch.

Why did he do this? Because of his spirituality. We can easily tell where we are by the way we respond to new converts. Barnabas’ response revealed that he ‘was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.’ I suppose we could say that ‘good’ was his character and he became good because of the work of the Spirit in his life and because of the strength of his faith. Luke seems to be saying here that a person in whom the Spirit is working will have faith. Therefore, sanctification and anticipation of success, which I suspect is the aspect of faith highlighted here, go hand in hand.

And we can see that this happened because ‘a great many people were added to the Lord’. That is an unusual way to describe what happens to converts. What did Luke mean his readers to take from his description? One answer could be that they were all united to Jesus spiritually because that is what happens at conversion. A second answer could be that they are not added to anything else. Elsewhere in this book, Luke says that believers were added to the church. In this book, there is only one church and it is the church that is united to Jesus. We are united to one another because we are first united to Jesus.

Another feature of the leadership outlook of Barnabas was that he knew when he needed help and he did something about it. The first aspect indicated his honesty and the second revealed his humility because he did something publicly that revealed he was not superman. Imagine what would not have happened if Barnabas had not responded in this way. Luke would have had to write about someone else in the second half of his book because Paul would not have been there, including visits to places, as well as his Roman imprisonment, because in such locations he wrote all his letters. So we should say to God, ‘Thank you for making Barnabas the leader he was and for the benefits that have come to us because of what he did.’

The outcome seems to have been an increased public awareness of their existence because the disciples were given a new name by those who lived in Antioch. No doubt, the new name was connected to what they were speaking about. They spoke about Jesus as the Messiah, so they were called Christ’s ones. This obviously raises the question as to what the people who interact with us call us. It is very sad if they do not connect us with Jesus.

Confidence

After a year or so the church in Antioch had a visit by several prophets from Jerusalem. These individuals were persons to whom God revealed his mind about events in providence as well as about truths that we now find in the Bible. I suppose the question that we should ask regarding this prophecy by Agabus concerning a worldwide famine is why was it given in Antioch rather than in another place. The answer could be that God was testing the spirituality of the disciples in Antioch because it would be revealed in their response to this divine revelation. What was the desired response? Brotherly love expressed in an act of mercy by some who were Gentiles to those of another ethnic group. As we can see, the response was unanimous and yet personal, because while they all gave, each gave according to what he had.

Who could the disciples trust to deliver this aid to the churches in Judea? They chose Barnabas and Saul, and of all people leaders must be trustworthy. Maybe it does not mean too much, but it is worth noting that Luke does not say by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Instead he says hand, which could be his way of saying how united those two men were in the service of the Lord. We are not surprised to read in Acts 12:25 that they completed the task entrusted to them.

What an interesting period of a couple of years Paul had experienced. No longer in isolation around Tarsus, he was now in the centre of things in the growing church in Antioch and was once more in contact with the leadership in Jerusalem. He was seeing God do amazing things in a pagan city and he observed brotherly love in the lives of the converts. No doubt he was thinking about what God wanted him to do next in service for his Master.