Key verse: "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" (v. 26b). - Acts 11:19-30
Background: Right after Peter's encounter with Cornelius, Luke tells us about the Jewish and Gentile believers in Antioch. Acts 11:19 says that when the disciples were scattered after the death of Stephen, some went to Antioch but told the Good News only to the Jews. The next verse tells us that later on some of them began to speak to the Greeks as well, "telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus."
When Alexander the Great died, his empire was divided. The Ptolemies took Egypt and made Alexandria their capital, while the Seleucids took the area around Syria and made Antioch one of their central cities. The Romans conquered all this, but Antioch continued to be the capital of the province of Syria. Thus, it was important for the church to establish a stronghold in Antioch. Later on Antioch became one of the great theological centers of the early church.
When news of the Antiochene revival reached Jerusalem, the disciples sent Barnabas to Antioch to help. Barnabas recalled that God had set aside Saul of Tarsus to be an evangelist to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15). Now that Peter had officially opened the door to the Gentiles, and now that Gentile mission had begun in earnest, it was time to enlist Saul; so Barnabas went to Tarsus for him (Acts 11:22-26).
We read in Acts 11:26 that Saul and Barnabas taught in Antioch for a year. The New Testament distinguishes between preaching and teaching. Preaching is heralding the Gospel. The outline of New Testament preaching (in Greek, kerygma) is seen in the sermons in Acts: Jesus came into the world in fulfillment of the Scriptures, died on the cross for the sins of the world, has ascended to be Lord, and calls all men to repent and enter the kingdom.
Teaching (in Greek, didache) involves explaining the contents of the Scripture. Those who have been reached by preaching must be instructed in the Scriptures. Thus, the normal work of the church is teaching rather than preaching. Preaching reminds us of the basics, and we need it regularly, but the routine work is teaching. Paul and Barnabas spent a year involved in intensive adult education.
The church at Antioch was built up by means of Bible teaching. Ligonier's annual teaching conference begins tomorrow in Orlando. Pray that those attending will have teachable hearts and minds and that the teachers would faithfully and accurately present God's truth.
Let's review the situation of the world today in regard to the spread of Christianity, and what this new term Global South means. The Global South refers to the astonishing growth of the Christian church in Africa, Latin America, and Asia while the formerly dominant centers of Christian influence in Europe and America are weakening. For example:
"In a word," Mark Noll says, "the Christian church has experienced a larger geographical redistribution in the last fifty years than in any comparable period in its history, with the exception of the very earliest years of church history (21).
This is a great cause for Christians to rejoice in the sovereign grace of God. But what it does not mean is that the day of sending missionaries from our churches in the West is over. That would be a tragic misunderstanding of the situation. Partnership in mission with the Global South does not mean that all the unreached peoples of the world can be reached by people who are in the Global South. Don't buy into the idea that we should send our money, not our people. That would sound very much like: "Let them shed their blood, not ours; we'll just send money."
Many people have embraced the uninformed notion that it is always more efficient and culturally effective to support ministries in the Global South to do the work of missions rather than pay tens of thousands of dollars each year to send Western workers.
But it is both-and not either-or. It is uninformed, indeed misinformed, to assume that local churches or nearby missionaries in the Global South can always reach an unreached people better than Western workers can.
It is uninformed, first of all, because in pioneer, frontier missionary situations, there are no local churches to do the work. That's the meaning of being an unreached people.
And secondly, there is no assurance that being within five hundred miles of an unreached people makes you more effective in learning their language, and crossing their culture, and loving them, and teaching the truth. This is especially true if there are old tribal hostilities to be overcome in the local region. Such a strategy may sometimes be best; other times not.
"The day of Western missions is not over. It never will be over until Jesus comes."
The day of Western missions is not over. It never will be over until Jesus comes. There are many ways to partner with believers around the world, besides simply sending money. And we will be servants, not masters, in those relationships.
According to the Joshua Project, today there are 6,552 unreached people groups in the world out of a total of 16,309 ethno-linguistic peoples. And of these, the Joshua Project lists 1,540 of these as unengaged. You can find out the ever-changing, current statistics by checking www.JoshuaProject.net. There is a huge and glorious work yet to be done, and it will take the whole church, not just part of it to get it done.
Now, with that background, let's turn our attention to Acts 11:19-26. This is the story of how the gospel of Jesus came to the Gentles in Antioch of Syria and how that city became a sending base for missions.
What I would like to do with this text is to draw out eight implications for the global challenge we face in partnership with the Global South. I have asked the Lord to help me choose words so that one or more of these eight implications will penetrate hundreds of hearts that he has been preparing for this work. Some of you are ready and only need guidance. Others of you are sensing a change of life on the horizon, and you need God to push you over the edge of your dream. And some you will be awakened to a new calling from the Lord for the first time today. And the rest will, I pray, rededicate yourselves to aggressive involvement in sending. There are only three kinds of people in relation to missions: goers, senders, and disobedient.
1. Someone must cross the cultural barriers separating unreached peoples from the gospel.
Some of you are being called to this hardest of all work. Look at Acts 11:19-20:
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.
The Hellenists in this context means Greek-speaking Gentiles. Until now, the gospel was spreading mostly along the mono-cultural lines of Judaism from synagogue to synagogue (with the exception of Cornelius in Acts 10). But in Antioch, someone broke through the barriers of language and culture and spoke the gospel to the Gentiles.
"God will raise up the workers and send them out."
Is that you? Is God stirring you, moving you? Would you consider giving your life to this? There is no other
way for the church to fulfill her mission in the world. God will raise up the workers and send them out. What an honor we have to send them. And what an honor it would be if you were one of them.
2. Don't wait to be forced out by persecution.
Look at Acts 11:19: "Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled." The believers in Jerusalem were not leaving on mission voluntarily. It took a persecution to force them into mission.
Little did Stephen know that one of the great effects of his death would be the mission of the church outside Jerusalem because people were driven away. So my point is simply this: don't wait till someone has to die to move out of America - or across the street to the Somalis or the Native Americans. God has his ways to loosen our roots and move us. Some of them are gentle - like a still small voice - and some are severe - like the death of a great man. Tune your heart and discern how God is leading. Do it before you have to do it.
3. The hand of the Lord will be with you as you follow him into mission.
Acts 11:21: "And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord."
When Jesus gave the Great Commission in Matthew 28:20, he closed with a promise, one of the sweetest in the Bible - one that has sustained many missionaries in the darkest hours: "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Jesus gave us this promise so that as you sit there and ponder how he may be changing your whole life-course, you will have ringing in your ears: Don't be afraid. I am going to be with you. I am going to be with you.
4. Be willing to serve a work that God has already begun.
Acts 11:22-23: "The report of this [pioneer breakthrough in Antioch] came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose."
Barnabas was not the first on the ground in Antioch. He did not begin the work. He was sent to serve what someone else began. He was building where someone else had laid the foundation. Some of you are called to do this. It is a noble work.
It means that dozens of jobs that are done here at home in the midst of thousands of churches and tens of thousands of Christians could be done in a place where the church is younger and smaller. Many of you are being loosened from your roots these days to make such a move.
5. The main prerequisite for this work is not great gifts, but great grace.
Acts 11:23-24: "When he [Barnabas] came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all
to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord."
There is no reference here to Barnabas's gifts, but only to his graces - that is, his spiritual and moral qualities, not his skills. Verse 24: he was good. He was full of the Holy Spirit. And he was full of faith. The effect was that God worked. He added people to the Lord. God is not mainly looking for great gifts. He is looking for great faith that is willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit and then does good. God may be calling you not because you have great gifts, but because he has taught you to trust him implicitly. I don't mean there are no qualifications. I mean they may not be as insurmountable as you think.
6. When you sense God's leading, recruit others to go with you.
Acts 11:24-25: "So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch."
Acts doesn't tell us that God told Barnabas to do this. It just says he did it. He needed help and he knew someone who would be a good helper. So he recruited him. And Saul came. Don't be afraid of saying to a friend, "Would you consider going with me?" or to a couple, "Would you consider going with us?" Many times in history God has called a person through the forthright requests of others.
7. Don't neglect to teach the converts.
Acts 11:23 says that Barnabas "exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose." And in verse 26, it says that Barnabas and Saul together focused on teaching. "For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people."
What if God sends a great awakening? What if he gives a great harvest and grows the church with a great response the way he did in Antioch? Verse 21: "A great number who believed turned to the Lord." Verse 24: "A great many people were added to the Lord." What will you do if God sends such blessing?
Don Carson tells of talking to woman who had been converted during the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905. That conversation was, he says, "an inexpressibly glorious half hour." But then he commented on how sad it is that so little of the revival was preserved. "Almost nothing was done to capture or develop theological schools, multiply Bible teaching, or train a new generation of preachers." So Carson makes this amazing pledge, and I turn it into an exhortation to some of you:
Should the Lord in his mercy ever pour out large-scale revival on any part of the world where I have influence, I shall devote all my energy to teaching the Word, to training a new generation of godly pastors, to channeling all of this God-given fervor toward doctrinal maturity, multiplication of Christian leaders, evangelistic zeal, maturity in Christ, genuine Christian "fellowship."
"All over the world, the cry is for trained, strong, Bible-saturated leaders."
In other words, he would do what Barnabas and Saul did. They saw a great ingathering, and they taught and taught and taught. They strengthened the believers. They sank the roots of the people down deep. They brought stability. They built a foundation for missions.
All over the world (you read this in all the literature), the cry is for trained, strong, Bible-saturated leaders. What will your part be in raising them up?
8. Be open to a significant change in your life.
Some of you know that God is making you restless where you are. You sense deeply that what you are doing now is not what you will be doing for long. Others of you need to think seriously about whether your present secure and established position maybe is not a path to security or an exit ramp to retirement, but a runway for taking off into something new in missions.
Here's what happened to Saul and Barnabas. They are faithfully ministering to the church in Antioch. It is a fruitful ministry of teaching. Look at Acts 13:1-3:
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
So much for secure, stable, and established life in Antioch. Barnabas and Saul are now thrust into global missions. They will blaze the trail into uncharted territory. This is not why either of them had gone to the church in Antioch. But God spoke, and they went.
This is not why most of you came to Bethlehem either. But God may have plans you never dreamed of. This last point is simply be open and prayerful about a significant change in your life.
Many Antiochs to Come
The Legacy of Antioch is that it was a mission church that became a sending church through the partnership of Barnabas and Saul, who in the end were sent out by the church to which they were sent. Once Bethlehem was a young, newly founded, Swedish Antioch. But now she is a 138-year-old passionate, sending, strengthening Jerusalem.
And oh, how many Antiochs there are around the world yet to be created and yet to be strengthened, where we can send our Global Partners - our Barnabases and our Sauls and our unnamed men and women of Cyprus and Cyrene who cross the cultural chasms to reach the lost? Will you be one of them? Will you rededicate yourself to support those who go and to hold the ropes with rock-solid faithfulness?
The people I would like to call forward for special prayer and to make a public statement are those who are seriously planning or praying toward cross-cultural missions longer term (longer than two years).
