Chapter 11 Acts 11

Peter Reports to the Jerusalem Church (vv. 1-18)

           The apostles and the other believers a throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 When Peter went to Jerusalem, those who were in favour of circumcising Gentiles b criticised him, saying, 3 “You were a guest in the home of uncircumcised Gentiles, c and you even ate with them!” 4 So Peter gave them a complete account of what had happened from the very beginning:
           5 “While I was praying in the city of Joppa, I had a vision. I saw something coming down that looked like a large sheet being lowered by its four corners from heaven, and it stopped next to me. 6 I looked closely inside and saw domesticated and wild animals, reptiles, and wild birds. 7 Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat!’ 8 But I said, ‘Certainly not, Lord! No ritually unclean or defiled food has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 The voice spoke again from heaven, ‘Do not consider anything unclean that God has declared clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and finally the whole thing was drawn back up into heaven. 11 At that very moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea arrived at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to go with them without hesitation. These six d fellow believers from Joppa accompanied me to Caesarea, and we all went into the house of Cornelius. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, ‘Send someone to Joppa for a man whose full name is Simon Peter. 14 He will speak words e to you by which you and all your family f will be saved.’ 15 And when I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 It is clear that God gave those Gentiles the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; who was I, then, to try to stop g God!”
           18 When they heard this, they stopped their criticism and praised God, saying, “Then God has given to the Gentiles also the opportunity to repent and live!” h

Interesting Stuff:

a Luke mentions not just the apostles but also the rest of the Christians both in Jerusalem and scattered in the neighbouring area of Judea. It was the reaction of these Jewish Christians to the response of the Gentiles to the gospel that was very critical for the future of the church.

b Some versions translate this as ‘circumcised believers’. These would refer to the Jewish Christians.

c Centuries of Jewish practice made them critical of what Peter had been reported as doing, especially in eating with Gentiles. The Jewish Christians were still bound by the Jewish food laws and felt that unless the Gentile Christians were circumcised and observed the Jewish food laws themselves, there could be no fellowship with Gentile Christians.

d We are now told the number of believers who followed Peter to Cornelius’ house.

e It was only here that we are told that the angelic message promised to Cornelius was that he would hear a message explaining how he could be saved together with his household.

f Other translations have the word ‘household’ which refers not just to Cornelius’ family but also to the slaves and individuals employed by Cornelius in his home.

g Peter could not deny the Gentiles the invitation to be baptised because he recognised that God was saving the Gentiles on equal terms with the Jews. He gave them the same gift of the Holy Spirit. By divine action, rather than by human choice, the door to salvation was being opened to the Gentiles.

h The Gentiles are also called to turn from their sin to God and receive His promise of eternal life.

Questions:

  1. What happened to Peter when he returned to Jerusalem (vv. 2-4)?

Describe briefly his report to the believers there (vv. 5-17).

2. How did the believers react after they heard what Peter had to say (v. 18)?

3. In what way was the conversion of Cornelius significant in the growth of the early church?

Summary of Section:

  1. The apostles and the other believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
  2. When Peter went to Jerusalem, those in favour of circumcising Gentiles criticised him for staying in the home of uncircumcised Gentiles and eating with them.
  3. Peter defended himself by giving a complete report of what happened from the very beginning:
    i) While he was praying in Joppa, he had a vision of something coming down from heaven that looked like a large sheet being lowered by its four corners.
    ii) It stopped next to him. He looked and saw domesticated and wild animals, reptiles and wild birds inside it.
    iii) Then he heard a voice calling him to get up, kill and eat.
    iv) He refused, telling the voice that he had never eaten any ritually unclean food.
    v) The voice spoke again and told him not to consider anything unclean that God had declared clean.
    vi) This happened three times and then the thing was taken back into heaven.
    vii) At that moment, the three men sent from Caesarea arrived at the house and the Spirit told Peter to go with them.
    viii) Six believers from Joppa followed him to the house of Cornelius who told them how he had seen an angel standing in his house.
    ix) The angel told Cornelius to send someone to Joppa for Peter who would speak words to them by which they would be saved.
    x) As Peter began to speak, the Holy Spirit came down on them just as he had on the apostles at the beginning.
    xi) Peter remembered what Jesus had said about John baptising them with water, but Jesus baptising them with the Holy Spirit.
    xii) He said that it was clear that God had given the Gentiles the same gift He had given them when they believed in Jesus. He was thus in no position to stop God.
  4. When the believers heard this, they stopped their criticism and praised God for giving the Gentiles the opportunity to repent and live.

Nuggets of Wisdom

  1. The conversion of Cornelius was a landmark in the history of the gospel’s advance from its strictly Jewish beginnings to its penetration of the Roman empire. His conversion was important not only because of the gospel’s advance but also because of the response of the Christians in Jerusalem to it. So Luke takes pains to point out here, as in his account of the conversion of the Samaritans, that the leadership of the Jerusalem church accepted Cornelius’ conversion.
  2. For a Jew, it was the thought of eating with Gentiles in particular that made the idea of entering a Gentile home so objectionable. This is because Gentile food to them was ‘unholy and defiled’. Their criticism of Peter was tantamount to saying that Peter had set aside Christianity’s Jewish features and thereby seriously endangered its relation with their Jewish nation.
  3. The whole story is told here a second time but through Peter’s lips. As he retold the story of the two visions, he must have been freshly impressed by how God had been at work in Cornelius and in himself, and how He perfectly prepared and arranged for them to meet through the two independently given visions.
  4. Nothing could be said by Peter’s critics to counter his argument that to maintain a barrier with the Gentiles would be to oppose God. God had acted and had clearly shown His will that His blessings are to be bestowed on Gentiles as well. They then stopped objecting and began to praise God instead.
  5. The inclusion of the Gentiles is to be Luke’s main theme in the rest of Acts. Beginning in chapter 13, Luke begins to record Paul’s missionary journeys to the Gentiles.

The Church in Antioch Grows (vv. 19-30)

           19 Some of the believers i who were scattered by the persecution which took place when Stephen was killed went as far as Phoenicia, j Cyprus, k and Antioch, l telling the message to Jews only. 20 But other believers, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, m went to Antioch and proclaimed the message to Gentiles also, telling them the Good News about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s power was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
           22 The news about this reached the church in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas n to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw how God had blessed the people, he was glad and urged them all to be faithful and true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and many people were brought to the Lord.
           25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus o to look for Saul. 26 When he found him, he took him to Antioch, and for a whole year the two met with the people of the church and taught a large group. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. p
           27 About that time some prophets q went from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, r stood up and by the power of the Spirit predicted that a severe famine s was about to come over all the earth. t (It came when Claudius was emperor.) 29 The disciples decided that each of them would send as much as he could to help their fellow believers who lived in Judea. 30 They did this, then, and sent the money to the church elders u by Barnabas and Saul. v

Interesting Stuff:

i These were the Hellenistic Jewish Christians.

j Phoenicia was a country stretching along the northeastern Mediterranean coast where modern Lebanon is now situated. Its important cities were Tyre and Sidon.

k Cyprus is an island in the northeastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. It was the home of Barnabas. See chap 13, note h for other details.

l Antioch was the third most important city in the Roman empire after Rome and Alexandria. This Antioch was located in Syria. Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch had large Jewish populations.
The first largely Gentile church was located here and it was from this church that Paul set off on his three missionary journeys.

m Cyrene was the capital of a district of Libya called Cyrenaica.

n In keeping with their policy of sending leaders to check on new ministries that came to their attention (Peter and John had earlier gone to Samaria to investigate Philip’s missionary service there [8:14ff]), the Jerusalem church now sent Barnabas to Antioch to look into what was happening there. In the wisdom of God, they chose Barnabas who, as later events turned out, was the best person for this task. True to his name as ‘One who encourages’ or ‘Son of Encouragement’, he encouraged the believers there and enabled the work of God to continue in that city. At the same time, God also used him to bring many to believe.

o There is no record of what Saul was doing between the time when he was sent away from Jerusalem (see 9:30) and when Barnabas found him in Tarsus. Most likely Barnabas went to look for Saul because he found that he could not handle the task of building up the church single-handedly and he thought Saul would be the best person to help him.

p It was most likely the non-believers who nicknamed this group of Jewish and Gentile believers ‘Christians’, i.e., ‘Christ followers’ or ‘those of the household of Christ’, or ‘belonging to Christ’. To the pagans of Antioch, these were the people who were always talking about one man named Christ, and so they became known as the Christ-people, the Christians. Just as in Palestine, the followers of the Herod dynasty were called Herodians, so, says Luke, in Antioch, the followers of Jesus Christ first came to be popularly known as Christians.

q The Jews believed that with the last of the OT prophets, the spirit of prophecy had ceased in Israel. But the coming Messianic Age would bring an outpouring of God’s Spirit, and prophecy would again flourish. The early Christians thus not only proclaimed Jesus to be the prophet foretold by Moses but they also saw prophecy as a gift from God to His people.

One important feature of the early church was the activity of prophets who were either attached to a local congregation or engaged in an itinerant (travelling) ministry. In Acts, prophets were engaged in both ‘foretelling’ and ‘forthtelling’. ‘Foretelling’ refers to the act of telling about events that would happen in the future (v. 28; 21:10-11). ‘Forthtelling’ refers to the speaking out of an inspired message of encouragement or exhortation from God (15:32). Prophets also preached, exhorted and explained the Scriptures.

r Agabus later foretold Paul’s imprisonment (21:10).

s Judea did in fact suffer severely from a famine at some point between A.D. 45 and 48.

t ‘Over all the earth’ refers to the Roman empire.

u This is the first reference to church elders in Acts.

v This is the second time Luke mentions Saul’s visit to Jerusalem after his conversion.

Questions:

  1. Describe how the church in Antioch-of-Syria was established, highlighting the roles of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, and of Barnabas and Saul (vv. 19-26).

2. Describe what happened when some prophets went from Jerusalem to Antioch (vv. 27-28).

How did the disciples respond to what they heard (vv. 29-30)?

Summary of Section:

  1. Some of the believers who were scattered by the persecution that took place when Stephen was killed, went as far as Phoenicia, Cyrus and Antioch. They, however, preached the Good News to the Jews only.
  2. Some men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and proclaimed the Good News about Jesus Christ to the Gentiles as well.
  3. The Lord’s power was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
  4. The news about this reached the church in Jerusalem, and so they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
  5. When he arrived and saw how God had blessed the church, he encouraged them to be faithful and true to God.
  6. Barnabas was a good man, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and many people were brought to the Lord.
  7. Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul and brought him back to help him teach the disciples at Antioch for a whole year.
  8. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.
  9. About that time, some prophets from Jerusalem went to Antioch. One of them Agabus predicted by the power of the Spirit that a severe famine was about to come over all the earth.
  10. The disciples decided that each of them would send as much as he could to help the Christians who lived in Judea.
  11. They then sent the money to the church elders by Barnabas and Saul.

Nuggets of Wisdom

  1. Luke wrote in 8:1 that as a result of the persecution that broke out after Stephen’s martyrdom, all the believ- ers except the apostles, scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Now he continues his story that some of them had gone beyond Judea and Samaria as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. However, most of the believers were only telling the mes- sage to Jews. It was only at Antioch that some of them shared with the Gentiles.
  2. Most likely the great number who turned to the Lord at Antioch would comprise both Jews and Gentiles. Thus the Antioch church became dif- ferent from other early Christian con- gregations spoken of thus far. It was a mixed body of Jews and uncircum- cised Gentiles meeting together for worship and fellowship in a common bond to Jesus of Nazareth.
  3. Thus news of the situation at Antioch was of definite concern to believers in Jerusalem. With the conversion of Samaritans, the conversion of some Gentiles in Caesarea, and now the report of a mixed congregation in Syrian Antioch, many in Jerusalem were doubtless fearful that the Christian mission was moving ahead so rapidly as to be out of control. The Jerusalem church, therefore, as in the case of the Samaritan conversions, decided to send someone to Antioch to check it out.
  4. We have no record of what Saul was doing between the time he left Jerusalem and when Barnabas found him in Tarsus. Barnabas was the one who had supported Saul when there was suspicion at Jerusalem about his conversion (cf. 9:27). He probably remembered Saul’s God-given com- mission to minister to the Gentiles, and needing help for the work among the Gentiles, Barnabas invited Saul to join him in the ministry at Antioch. They served together and taught the disciples there for a whole year.
  5. One important feature of the early church was the activity of prophets, charismatic preachers with the gift of prophecy, who might either be attached to a local church or be engaged in a travelling ministry.

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