Christians in Antioch
Acts 11:19-30 · Vern Peterman · Oct 1, 2017
Acts (2017-18), No. 37
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/41026163548891

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We'll be working our way through Acts of the Apostles 11, 19-30. These guys hugging, the guy with his face towards you, that's Barnabas. Just so you know what this is all about. We'll be talking more about this guy Barnabas, obviously, as we go through the passage.

One of the things just to kind of bring to your attention the book of Acts takes a rather major turn we call it a big turn right here right in this passage right here and From the beginning of the book of Acts Jerusalem has been the center of activity and we've seen activity go on in other places it has always come back to Jerusalem and Now we begin to see a significant difference here, whereas the apostles had moved from there and they would go out and then come back to Jerusalem. One of the things we found is that the intense persecution that began under Saul on the day that Stephen was martyred, we looked at around the end of chapter 7, the beginning of chapter 8, That began to move the church out of Jerusalem, just simply because it was not survivable to stick around for many of them, and so they went into other places. Being Jews at that point in time who were believers in Christ, they oftentimes sought out other places where Jews were already located, but certainly outside of Jerusalem. As of this passage that we're looking at today, the church in the city of Antioch will begin to be a major hub for the church. It will be a major hub for teaching and for sending of missionaries, as we'll soon see here.

You have on page one a kind of a chronology, and this is a thin outline. It doesn't have all the details one might look for, but it's basically to make it readable. And so what you'll see is the things in the last part of that outline that is from about 41, A.D. into just prior to 45 A.D. in that section of time, that's the time frame in which the things that we're looking at here will take place. We have the top there, the Roman emperors.

Tiberius is one who is mentioned earlier in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 3, verse 1. And then Claudius, of course, mentioned in this passage. Caligula is one who is not mentioned by name. He's actually one of this dynasty who is not mentioned by name. He is nonetheless significant in that he persecuted the Jews severely. So this is just following the time of Caligula and beginning with the reign of Claudius here when these events take place.

So Acts 11-19 reads like this, so then those who were scattered because of the persecution which occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phinehas. Initially the focus remained on the Jews so far as the spreading of the gospel. That's what this is telling us. This scattering is Acts 8. verses 1 through 4, and we will soon take a look at that specifically here. That's the scattering he's talking about. So they're going back in time, back to that scattering that began in April of 35 AD under Saul, who was then an unbeliever. It began on the day that Stephen was martyred.

So then the next thing, it says, speaking the word. This is speaking the gospel of salvation. One of the things that is interesting as we go through the book of Acts is that what is the gospel has different terms. In this case, it's speaking the word. We'll have other cases where it actually uses the word gospel. The word of God, different terms will be used for that message of salvation.

And so before this Acts 10.1 through Acts 11.18, when Peter brought the gospel to the house of Cornelius, we had the pattern there that the Jews only brought the gospel unto other Jews. And so that was the pattern. So even as they were scattered, they went to other Jews, they found other Jews, then they spread the gospel to those places. So here's Acts 8, 1-4, and this would have taken place in April 35 AD.

Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. On that day a great persecution began against the church, and the him, of course, being Stephen. the church in Jerusalem. So again, the persecution wasn't widespread at this point in time, it was focused on those there in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, so largely nearby, except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lament over him, but Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women.

So ultimately breaking apart whole households, not just causing distress in a household, but breaking apart whole households would put them into prison. Verse 4, therefore those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. This again is the spreading of the gospel, right? which is called in Acts by different things, in this case preaching the word.

You have on page two a couple of maps and there's one of them that shows most of the Roman Empire that's significant in the New Testament and the primary reason for the top one on page two is just to point out where Cyrene is. It is off the map in the second part So I just want to point that out.

Cyrene is in North Africa. It is in what is today the country of Libya. There is no place called Cyrene today. Cyrene is an archaeological site. The next nearby city, you may have heard it, is Benghazi. So if you've heard that, that's near where Cyrene is.

It is right across the Mediterranean due south from Greece. There's another kind of point of reference there. Almost everything else is farther to the east in the references we'll see in today's passage, and so that's why the going in this part here to the next map on the bottom of page 2, and primarily there to point out the locations of Jerusalem, the starting point, and of course referred to several times in the passage. You have Cyprus, which is an island that is out in the eastern Mediterranean, and it is the birthplace of Barnabas that we hear about here, and we'll talk more about this Barnabas fellow. So that's the place where Barnabas is from, and it'll continue to be of significance not only in this passage, and not only from the fact that Barnabas was born there, but as we go into Paul's and Barnabas' first missionary journey.

Also, we have there Tarsus. Tarsus is the home city of Paul. One of the things we pointed out in our Thursday night study, Tarsus was a university city very well known for its very high-level education. The personal tutor of the emperor Augustus was from Tarsus and so of course they picked the best of the best for the Emperor, right? So Tarsus was a place of great renown for its knowledge and and advancement.

And so we have that, and then we also have Antioch, which is the last one. By the way, that's to be distinguished. You might notice there's Tarsus, and then if you look up to the... I've got to be careful when I'm pointing, right? Because you can't see. You look up and slightly to the left, you'll see Antioch. Okay, that's Sidian Antioch. That's Sidian with a P, P-S, right? And so that's a different one. So this is Antioch on the Orontes River.

And so that is, and we showed the arrow there to point out, it's about 300 miles apart. 300 miles apart. It's very close to north of Jerusalem by 300 miles. And so those are some of the primary places we'll point out. Your map shows the limit of the Roman Empire, and I have that underlined here.

Just to point out, it says limit of the Roman Empire, and the question is when, because the Roman Empire constantly was shifting boundaries and that sort of thing. So this is to be looked at as an approximation, not specific to a particular thing for a long period of time.

So then we point out the last thing it mentions in the passage, Phoenicia. Phoenicia is the area starting from Tyre and Sidon in the south. It roughly corresponds to the country of Lebanon we have in our modern time here. And so that's what it's referring to is basically from Tyre and Sidon north into the area just south of Antioch. So those would be the geographic references, either by city, island, or region that we're talking about here.

Here's Acts 11, 20-21. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. Now, several things to point out.

Of course, this is Cyprus. This is the island that we saw on the map here. This is where Barnabas is from. We also have additional information about Barnabas that's important for us to talk about here. But the island of Cyprus, also Cyrene that we looked at, that was first mentioned back in Acts 2 as among the list of places where people are from. The first place is mentioned in the Bible. is where, you know, who gets to carry the cross piece that Jesus had when he collapsed? Simon of Cyrene. And by the way, his son's bone box has been located in Jerusalem.

So anyway, then we have They came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks the Greek speaking Gentiles is what that's referring to that is previously had people who were Hellenistic Jews and they would typically be called something like that Hellenistic Jews Hellenists and that sort of thing And they they were ones who were genuinely Jewish, but they were of cultural background and maybe language background Greek-speaking. And this particularly refers to Greek-speaking Gentiles, which would include most of the people in the Eastern Mediterranean were Greek-speaking Gentiles.

Then preaching the Lord Jesus, so this is again another term for the gospel of salvation. A pattern we find as we go through the book of Acts is that what's called the gospel of salvation is called different things and we're going to see additional changes. One of the reasons I think for this preaching the Lord Jesus, why isn't Christ in there? And I think one of the reasons we'll find here is simply because when you speak to the Greeks, Christ means something more to the Jews than it does to the Greeks.

And we'll talk about that in a minute here. And finally, turn to the Lord. We pointed out a few weeks back this word turned, sometimes in the King James translated converted or returned. This turned includes belief. It is not simply a turning, just like repentance in Acts does not simply mean a change of mind, but it includes in both cases the idea of belief is involved in that. So they turned to the Lord means that they believed the gospel and were saved.

Here would be an archaeological reconstruction of Antioch on the Orontes River. This is the Antioch that they're referring to in this one. This drawing is from the 2nd century, so just to let you know, this is not precisely the way things were, but it gives you a general idea. By the 2nd century, there were a few changes.

But in general, it is a pretty large city, up to a few hundred thousand people. So I would say up to almost a third of a million people in this one city. And this would give you part of an aerial view of this fairly large city. Can you imagine? This is extensive. To give you some sort of a relative idea, the greater Denver area has about three million people. That would include all the little outlying areas. So this would be about a tenth of that, all within this city here, just to give you some frame of reference.

We mentioned in previous weeks the Silk Road, and this is a map of the Silk Road as it was included in New Testament times. And this was trade between all the way from China and India into areas around Babylon and all that going into Rome. And one of the reasons we point that out is because Antioch was one of the first major cities that the Silk Road would encounter going into the northern part of the Silk Road trade, going into what we would call Europe. and into what is now in modern terms Turkey. And Tarsus right nearby was accessible both by roadway and would also be a prominent place of trade as well as it was a common shipping route between Antioch and Tarsus. So you'd have both land and sea routes between them carrying silk road trade. So there was a lot of commerce that was going on between Tarsus and Antioch.

So, one of the things you notice there is that preaching the Lord Jesus, the Gentiles would be less impacted by Jesus as the Christ, which to the Jews would mean the Messiah, the Anointed One, right? More impacted by Jesus as Lord, realizing that that implied His deity, that He had authority, that He would be sovereign over all and the Savior of all, okay? so that's why I think that the reference preaching the Lord Jesus would make a lot more sense to these Gentiles doesn't mean that they wouldn't talk about Jesus as the Christ but the emphasis here is certainly on on his sovereignty and his deity and his authority as this is brought around. The other thing it talks about, turn to the Lord, that would indicate a turning from everything pagan and even culturally Jewish to faith in the Lord, saved eternally, having a relationship with Christ, All those things would be included in turning to the Lord.

Now, put yourself in the mind, if you will, of these pagan Gentiles and what a wonderful, phenomenal thing it was for them to learn there is a God who loves them. Can you imagine that? You see, none of the pagan gods ever loved you. If you were a Gentile pagan, none, I mean none, of the pagan gods ever loved you. Here Paul would write to the church later on at Ephesus, which had previously been just dominated by pagan gods, especially Artemis, and he would write to them, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. You realize none of the pagan gods ever blessed anybody?

That was just an amazing thing. So what truly, truly good news the gospel was to them. Imagine having no God ever loves you. You're not going to get blessed. You're going to get the God's attention only if you do the right things and every single thing is by works and nothing else. Can you imagine that? Everything is by grace and you're blessed with every spiritual blessing.

It's no wonder when Paul started writing Ephesians and got started with those blessings, he kind of lost control of his pen. The pen just went on and on, right? Because the news was so good, people turned to the Lord. One of the other things we see in this passage, the hand of the Lord was with them.

That's really important for us to look at and to make note of. As we think about this, we proceed with things as a church body, even as we have our families and our homes. Even if you're as a single individual, we would do well to ask, not just make our plans. Oh, I'm going to do this and go there and do this and do that, and I'm not going to do this, and I'm going to be inclined to do that. is the hand of the Lord with us in what we're doing. This was a term that was used often in the Old Testament dealing with different situations, but here it was used in a rather different way in terms of what God is accomplishing in us as individuals, in our homes, in us as a church body, is the hand of the Lord with us in whatever we endeavor to do. This is a really good question to ask. Is the hand of the Lord with us? Is the Lord walking with us in this?

Acts 11.22, the news about them, that is what was going on in the church at Antioch, reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem. And they sent Barnabas off to Antioch.

And of course, first thing I saw, that's an amazing figure of speech. I used to yell really loud on the farm, and I'd yell up the hill to the gal who lived up the hill about an eighth of a mile away, because we had party line phones. But it was one of those things where calling somebody in your own party line was real strange. I mean, you had to dial a number that wasn't their ordinary number, and you had to hang up and wait for certain... Oh, and it was just really complicated.

It was a whole lot easier for me to just yell up the hill and say, Judy, pick up the phone! Right? And have her pick it up. But here you have something reaching the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and it's 300 miles away. Well, I couldn't yell that loud. Right? Even though I was a teenager, I couldn't yell that loud. So here's Jerusalem where the apostles were usually located. They would travel out from there using Jerusalem as home base. So now an amazing figure of speech here reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem 300 miles away.

And so it wasn't a matter of just pick up your smartphone and text. You know, hey, did you hear what this guy's doing? No, none of that. So this means people have to travel. And a good day's travel is about 20 miles. So at 300 miles total, that's a lot of days. But nonetheless, word got there.

So they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. We're going to see why they chose Barnabas in this particular instance. Here's Acts 11, 23, and 24. And when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, because he being Barnabas, He rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and considerable numbers were brought to the Lord." So, first of all, the he here is Barnabas. He was the guy who was sent. That's back in verse 22, right? And then we see this Barnabas, his nickname was the Son of Encouragement. By the way, what was his real name?

Anybody remember Acts 4.36? Joseph, you know he never gets called that again? So that was his real name. He never gets called that again.

Why? Because he is such an encouraging man. This is really cool. He's such an encouraging man that that nickname is what sticks. And what do we see here? He rejoiced and began to... encourage them all with a resolute heart. So, here is a guy who is known for his encouragement and he's encouraging. Well, what a surprise, right?

So, then the next thing, we have brought to the Lord, here is another term for salvation by faith. Brought to the Lord, they're brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, believing in the gospel. Considerable numbers were brought to salvation in Jesus Christ by faith. Now, one of the things to notice here is Barnabas witnessed the grace of God. You think about it, has anybody seen a pound of grace lying around? Like downstairs, you see it in the refrigerator?

You don't do that, do you? It's not a commodity. As a matter of fact, here we talk about grace all the time. I never have seen one flying by in the hallway. and never have seen a bit of grace just scooting down the aisle. It doesn't happen that way, does it? But can you imagine grace that is so evident that he witnessed it? That's grace. That's grace. So Barnabas saw grace in action. Grace lived out.

And it was so evident among these people here at Antioch that he actually witnessed the grace of God. Now that's very special. That is really great. That's fantastic. So here was a church with grace lived out. Grace overflowing. As a matter of fact, it didn't say if he looked real hard he could see a little bit of grace, you know, leaking out here and there. But he witnessed grace as the prominent description of this church body. So this is This is the grace of God expressed. God's unmerited favor at Christ's expense was lived out among these people. Lived out.

And by the way, how much did the law help here? Did he witness the law of God? No. He witnessed the grace of God. here's Acts 11 25 and 26 and he left for Tarsus to look for Saul and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch and for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch so one this is Barnabas again left for Tarsus to look for Saul and so we find that Tarsus is his home city He also mentions going there in Galatians 1.21. What's interesting is that Tarsus is not a prominently mentioned place except primarily in the book of Acts, at least in the New Testament. So we'll hear about it again. And then they met with, that is Barnabas and Saul, met with the church, all the believers there at Antioch. And this was after Barnabas had already seen and witnessed the grace of God among these people. So the disciples who were all the believers in Christ, and by the way, were they Jewish or Gentile there at Antioch? Yes. Both. So all the believers in Christ were disciples.

And then notice something else interesting too. If someone were to say, well, are you a Christian? You'd say, yes, I am. That term Christian was initially a term of outsiders. regarding those who were believers in Christ. It took time. Over time, it began to be something, oh yes, I'm a Christian, but it was actually a label of those who were outside primarily. And it's actually between Christian and Christians, plural.

It's not used that much in the New Testament. So one of the things we see here is Saul is brought into ministry. He is kind of hopped in and out, and we actually have a time when you don't see him that much, or mentioned even that much. Saul had spent face time with the Lord, learning from Christ, and also learning Christ.

So I make a distinction between that. So learning from Christ, but also learning Him personally. He'd been briefly in Damascus and in Jerusalem, then spent time in his home city of Tarsus. But he had spent personal time with the Lord. And as we go through the book of Acts, I'm convinced that this was not the only time that he had spent with the Lord. He would spend later time with the Lord. And we'll see some specific evidence of that and then some secondary evidence.

We'll see when we get there. In this passage, we see Saul, so later called Paul. He's going to be the apostle to the Gentiles. ministry, and where is this? This is Antioch at the invitation of Barnabas. From here on, with a few exceptions, we're going to find him to be prominent throughout the rest of the book of Acts. He will in fact be the the focus of the latter half.

One of the things that also comes out here in this passage, and certainly in these verses, Acts 25, 26, and then in verse 29, is this word disciples. It's a word used in all four Gospels and from Acts chapter 6 and chapter 21. The word does not have the same definition in all of those places, in the Gospels and in Acts. For example, Jesus had disciples. And those were the 12, right? And not all of the 12 continued on to be apostles, right?

And we find also in the Book of Acts, the word disciples does not begin until chapter 6, and then it is used for everyone who believes from the moment they believe, not just for special selected ones, right? everyone who believes from the moment they believe, male or female, and what we find eventually is Jew and Gentile both. Get called disciples all the way up to Acts 21 and we'll see why it ends in chapter 21. The use of the word disciples in Acts refers to those who believe in Christ for salvation with what is God's intent for disciples of Christ.

God's intent, for those who believe in Christ for salvation, that we be intimately in dependence upon Christ and learning Him personally. Jesus says in John 15, 8, this is fruitfulness, which comes from the Father's action, not from ours. Fruitfulness is what He is aiming for, for His disciples. The Father is looking for fruitfulness that happens from one thing, we abide. Okay? We abide.

John 13.35 has disciples loving one another, but that is also not independent of abiding in Christ. Being Christ's own disciple means that we love one another as we abide in Christ and He in each of us. Now, so it says then they taught considerable numbers, and you know what considerable numbers are. Like here's a trillion. That's a considerable number, isn't it? That's not quite what it means, is it? Alright.

So Barnabas would have taught them primarily from his background as a Levite who became saved by faith in Christ and learned directly from the teaching and testimony of the Apostles. So far as we know, Barnabas did not know Christ personally. But he learned directly from the teaching of the Apostles and from their testimony. And so he, being a Levite and having qualifications to serve in the temple, would then be able to take all of those qualifications and use them to help him through the Apostles' teaching to turn around and teach others. Then, Saul, however, would have his background as a Pharisee.

He was saved by faith in Christ and went all the way from maximum law all the time to maximum grace all the time. Full on, full out, pedal to the metal grace. Overflowing, drowning in the stuff in him. having been personally taught by Christ. Now imagine the differences between the background. Imagine if you were there. Here's Barnabas.

He said, I learned this and this and this and this from the apostles who taught me. Here's Saul, on the other hand, saying, I learned this and this and this from Christ, who personally taught me. I know Him. And from that I can teach you this. Imagine what that would be like. Here's Acts 11, 27, and 28. Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world. And this took place in the reign of Claudius. So a few things to point out. Apostles and prophets is a term, a word pair. We looked at those places this morning.

So that's Ephesians 2.20, 3.5, and 4.11. That's a word pair that's used those three times in the book of Ephesians with different insights for each of those times.

And those were gifts that were given, as Ephesians 4.11 says, by Christ to the church body, but they were temporary gifts. And so in this case, it points out prophets came down. The prophets were given in lieu of the New Testament being complete. That is, as the New Testament was completed, their role was superseded, right? But lacking it, it was a very necessary and helpful gift. So here's Agabus, and this isn't the last time we're going to hear from him.

Acts 21.10 also has Agabus providing additional prophetic insight regarding the Apostle Paul at that point in time. And finally, the world there was a term commonly used for the Roman Empire, and the fact that that's implied is indicated by the last part of this verse. It took place during the reign of Claudius, who reigned from January of 41 until October of 54 AD. And one of the things I'll point out, we don't want to get lost in chronology here, but there's several chronology packages, a whole bunch of different pieces of information, including information on the various emperors and whatnot, on the cabinet to the right.

If we run out, let me know. I'll be glad to get another set in your hands. But we won't be focusing on that here this morning. So let's talk about prophets, however. Paul wrote about apostles and prophets those three times we pointed out in the book of Ephesians, including the first one, Ephesians 2.20, that they were foundational. I built houses and worked on various projects, you know, and you don't keep building a foundation, do you?

Right? You eventually hope to start with the rest of it. And so one of the things is the apostles and prophets are as essential as a foundation is, but there is also a place for them to stop their part. Why? Because you're building the rest of the structure on the foundation. So this is a key thing.

The prophets were there at a critical point to fill in the guidance and spiritual information needs of the church body while the New Testament was being brought together and assembled. So the book of Acts lists a few sets of prophets, this Agabus is one of them, we'll see him again in 2110.

There's also Judas and Silas, Acts 15.27, and Philip's daughters, and it says there in Acts 21.9 that there are four of them. Also prophetesses at that point in time. So there were those. There were very likely, or I would say almost certainly, others. They're not named. But Agabus is the one who's pivotal at this point in time.

So prophets were active and had this spiritual gift that was given by the Holy Spirit during apostolic times. Just like the apostles, we don't continue to have apostles. There were prophets and we don't continue to have prophets. I don't care what name they come by or what church stands behind them. That's not the way the Lord's working these days.

When the New Testament was complete and was completed by the writing of the book of Revelation, that was the end of the apostolic era and the prophetic era. 1 Corinthians 13, 8-13 tells us about how the various apostolic gifts, including the gift of prophecy, ended.

Acts 11 29 and 30 in proportion that any of the disciples had means each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea and This they did sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. So One of the things I'm really glad for is they're going through in the first and second Corinthians class downstairs. They're going through some of the principles that the Apostle Paul lays out regarding giving. Those are given primarily in those two books towards the end in each case, and it has some very special guidance. Some of it's so special we even put it on our giving slot here in the back, quoting a part of that. It is giving by grace as opposed to what the law required The law had things spelled out, you know, you'll give this amount.

By the way, the law went way beyond the tithe. The tithe was a tenth. That's only of your agricultural produce. And by the way, if you live too far, you had to throw a party. And most people just don't know that. If you live too far away, and it didn't define what too far away was, you had to set aside 10% anyway and throw a party.

But there was also all kinds of other giving. Here, it's by grace, right? By grace. The other thing, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul so that the giving was done with financial stewardship. You didn't just kind of cast it out there. It's one of the reasons why we tell you, okay, if you give money to the hurricane relief, and we had more than one of those, right? If you give money to the hurricane relief, we don't just say we're just going to give it away.

We say who we're going to send it to, and there are places that have financial accountability. That's why we picked World Vision and Samaritan's Purse. They have financial accountability. We want that in place. This was a part of the financial accountability. They didn't just say, hey, let's give it to these guys and just let them run off with it. It instead was given to Barnabas and Saul, who would be responsible for the funds given to their delivery. And then finally to the elders, that is the elders in Jerusalem.

Here's what's interesting, and we'll look more at elders as we go through here. Here's what's interesting is that aside from Jesus' half-brother James, we don't know for sure the name of any elder in the entire New Testament. That is really amazing. And what that tells you is being an elder is not to be some high-profile It's not to be, hey, this is, you know, we have this big image to build up and all that. We've got consultants out there to help a pastor build up their brand, you know. I mean, it gets really sickening. The elders in Jerusalem, and we know James, and other than that, we don't know any of them, right? But they were the elders, and they were biblically qualified, right? And that was clear.

So one of the things to look at here in this passage, God is preparing Barnabas and Saul for the missionary and other roles that they're to begin shortly. So if you look at the timeline that we showed there at the beginning of this time and is in your handout, towards the end, and kind of off the scale there, is when they begin their first missionary journey together. And so this time of teaching there at Antioch is sort of a time of, okay, get ready, because you're going to be in a circumstance of establishing churches and teaching them, and what's that like, and how do you communicate with them? Include, okay, we've been talking to Jews for years, how do we include the Gentiles? So this is a learning point here and how do Gentiles understand things and they understand things very differently and so this is going to be an important learning point for them at the same time God is preparing this church at Antioch to be the sending church again and again for Barnabas in this first missionary journey, and then Saul later, as Paul, to serve with others as well.

And so we're seeing a preparation of both of Barnabas and Saul, soon to become Paul, but we're also seeing the preparation of the church for this repeated missionary activity, sending out. And so this is a neat thing to see. Here's what God's doing here. There are some other things I would ask us to consider prayerfully and carefully. Some of them we've talked about here. Witnessing the grace of God. Not that we're to do anything by, you know, what would Jesus do? Or what would Paul do? Or what would Barnabas do? Or what would the people at Antioch do?

But this thing of witnessing the grace of God, that is really, really cool. And the law has nothing to contribute to it, and neither does self-effort. But pondering, okay, what does that look like? That's a neat thing, and it's been brought out here. Barnabas saw in this church, which by the way, did the church need more teaching? Yeah, it had some growing to do. But even at that point, he saw and witnessed the grace of God evident among them. Next, the hand of the Lord was with them.

That as we look at things that we do as individuals, as we plan for, I'm going to do this, we're going to do this, as couples, in families, in the household, as we look as a church, the hand of the Lord was with them. That is a key part here as we look at things. Is the hand of the Lord with us as we do this and that?

Not just simply make our plans. Next, one of the things we see is being taught isn't just for data storage or developing expertise, right? It is possible to simply soak up a lot of information and to have that stop there, you know? I remember at one point in time, it used to be kind of a joke, we'd say, well, Holly Hills is the church of the white binder. You see, you have binders full of, OK, I took this class and that one and all the notes that went with it. But being taught isn't just for the data storage. It's not just for all the binders you can put on the shelf.

It's not just for developing expertise, but it's for turning around and put into life and practice. The next thing is Christ's disciples. You see the word disciples used repeatedly here. And learning, you know, what is that? And this being a disciple is ultimately, yes, we can say, okay, we're learning here in the church, but it is focused on being Christ's disciple, and that's not just a title. It is not knowing a lot about Christ, but it is being intimate with Him, depending upon Him, knowing Him personally, and that being lived out.

The famine was a big physical problem with a big spiritual opportunity. And one way you can look at it is even these hurricanes here are examples of that kind of thing. Are they a big physical problem? Yeah, really, really big. But they're also spiritual opportunities, and we want to take advantage of those as well. And of course, those we look at and say, okay, those are farther away. There are things among ourselves where there are physical issues of various kinds, and what is the spiritual opportunity that those present.

And finally, what's happening now is spiritual preparation for what God has next. Here's Barnabas and Saul, and they're teaching there for a whole year. They're at the church in Antioch, and that is getting them ready for, because they're teaching both Jews and Gentiles, that's getting them ready to go out and to establish churches and to teach and communicate these same truths in other areas nearby.

And so I think that's something for us to look at. What God is putting us through now has a purpose. It is getting us ready for what He intentionally has next for us. And that may include difficult things. It's a preparation for what God has next. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You as we look at this, just tremendous insights and just a few verses here. And we thank You for this very evident that you are working in specific individuals within the entire church body, that you would soon be using this church to send and help grow and establish others. And so we look to you to give a spiritual understanding and insight into these passages. and into the truths that are there, and ultimately that we and others may know you. And we just pray this, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.