Pastor Jeremy M. Thomas
Fredericksburg Bible Church
107 East Austin
Fredericksburg, Texas 78624
830-997-8834      jthomas@fbgbible.org
A0852 – December 28, 2008 – Acts 11:19-30 – The Church In Antioch

Acts 11:19-31 Οἱ μὲν οὖν διασπαρέντες ἀπὸ τῆς θλίψεως τῆς γενομένης ἐπὶ Στεφάνῳ διῆλθον ἕως Φοινίκης καὶ Κύπρου καὶ Ἀντιοχείας μηδενὶ λαλοῦντες τὸν λόγον εἰ μὴ μόνον Ἰουδαίοις. 20῏Ησαν δέ τινες ἐξ αὐτῶν ἄνδρες Κύπριοι καὶ Κυρηναῖοι, οἵτινες ἐλθόντες εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν ἐλάλουν καὶ πρὸς τοὺς Ἑλληνιστὰς εὐαγγελιζόμενοι τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν. 21καὶ ἦν χεὶρ κυρίου μετʼ αὐτῶν, πολύς τε ἀριθμὸς ὁ πιστεύσας ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον. 22Ἠκούσθη δὲ ὁ λόγος εἰς τὰ ὦτα τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς οὔσης ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ περὶ αὐτῶν καὶ ἐξαπέστειλαν Βαρναβᾶν [διελθεῖν] ἕως Ἀντιοχείας. 23ὃς παραγενόμενος καὶ ἰδὼν τὴν χάριν [τὴν] τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐχάρη καὶ παρεκάλει πάντας τῇ προθέσει τῆς καρδίας προσμένειν τῷ κυρίῳ, 24ὅτι ἦν ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ πλήρης πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ πίστεως. καὶ προσετέθη ὄχλος ἱκανὸς τῷ κυρίῳ. ω 25ἐξῆλθεν δὲ εἰς Ταρσὸν ἀναζητῆσαι Σαῦλον, 26καὶ εὑρὼν ἤγαγεν εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν. ἐγένετο δὲ αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐνιαυτὸν ὅλον συναχθῆναι ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ καὶ διδάξαι ὄχλον ἱκανόν, χρηματίσαι τε πρώτως ἐν Ἀντιοχείᾳ τοὺς μαθητὰς Χριστιανούς. 27Ἐν ταύταις δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις κατῆλθον ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων προφῆται εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν. 28ἀναστὰς δὲ εἷς ἐξ αὐτῶν ὀνόματι Ἅγαβος ἐσήμανεν διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος λιμὸν μεγάλην μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι ἐφʼ ὅλην τὴν οἰκουμένην, ἥτις ἐγένετο ἐπὶ Κλαυδίου. 29τῶν δὲ μαθητῶν, καθὼς εὐπορεῖτό τις, ὥρισαν ἕκαστος αὐτῶν εἰς διακονίαν πέμψαι τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ ἀδελφοῖς· 30ὃ καὶ ἐποίησαν ἀποστείλαντες πρὸς τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους διὰ χειρὸς Βαρναβᾶ καὶ Σαύλου. (NA27)

Acts 11:19-31 So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. 20But 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. 21And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. 22The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. 23Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; 24for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. 25And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; 26and 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. 27Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28One 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. 29And in the 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. 30And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders. (NASB95)

Review the Doctrine of the Church. Three points. First point, the baptism of the Holy Spirit first happened in Acts 2. Predicted by Christ in Acts 1:5, Proclaimed as Past by Peter in Acts 11:15-16. Only logical location is Acts 2. Our second point, that’s great and all but what does it accomplish? It places a person in the body of Messiah, that’s 1 Cor 12:13. The body of the Messiah is not Jew or Gentile but a new entity, the Church. 1 Cor 10:32 says do not offend either Jew or Gentile or the Church of God, three distinct entities. And that’s our third point, that the body of Messiah is indeed the Church, that identification is made in. Col 1:24. So, we conclude that the Church began in Acts 2, it did not begin in the OT, in the OT and the Gospels you have the nation Israel, in the NT Acts and the Epistles you have the Church, two distinct entities. Only the latter is the body of the Messiah. You had Jews entering the church in Acts 2, Samaritans in Acts 8 and Gentiles in Acts 10. On each occasion you had tongues and that was to authenticate the incorporation of the new group into the new organism, the Church.

Finishing up verse 18, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” And this is going to have a number of repercussions we’ll get into more next time. What repercussions? Namely, that the Church is now severed from Judaism. Early on the Church was seen as a sect within Judaism but with the new revelation at Cornelius’ house the Church was severed from Judaism. The first separation was in Acts 8 when the Hellenistic Jews broke with Judaism, Stephen was the first to make the break but in Acts 11 the native Hebrews break from Judaism, so the Church is becoming a distinct entity and therefore in chapter 12 the persecution arises again, this time more intensely, more concentrated, it’s going to center on the apostles. Look at the problems the apostles Jews are facing in chapter 12 vv 1-3, James the brother of John is put to death, in v 3 Peter is arrested, this is an intensified conflict between Church and State basically for pragmatic reasons, Herod Agrippa was a politician and whatever pleased the Jews he would do. And so they wanted to persecute the apostles so he persecuted the apostles. And of course, whenever we see persecution what quickly follows? Growth, numerical growth as well as spiritual depth growth, and the witness is going to go out as we hit chapter 13 because chapter 13 is the first missionary journey of Paul.

So we’re moving into a significant section of the early Church, Acts 11:19-15:35 is the next section of the Book of Acts, and this section deals with the birth of world missions. And it begins to translate and emphasize a shift from Jerusalem to Antioch, and then of course eventually to Rome because we said the book of Acts is a book of transition, a theological transition from the early days of the kingdom offer to Israel to the Church. Now we go into a geographical transition from the days in the city of Jerusalem to the days in Antioch and eventually to the city of Rome. And with this there is a transition from a Jewish majority to a Gentile majority. The church started off exclusively Jewish, then some Samaritans came in, now today we find a tremendous response from the Gentiles to the gospel. And this is the point where we develop the mechanics of world missions, how the Holy Spirit’s strategy worked in the early church and this will be a good example for how we ought to set our strategy in terms of world missions. So hopefully we’ll get some pointers on how to be most effective in world missions. Then we can apply these principles to our own missions activity at Fredericksburg Bible Church.

You’re going to see right away the strategy of early missions in Acts is somewhat different from modern strategy and probably better in that they followed an urban strategy; they went into the metroplexes, the high population cities, the hub cities of the ancient world. And they did their first evangelism in those packed urban areas. Why did they do this? Several reasons. First, it’s just more efficient to do it that way, the apostles only had so many days in their life, they could only witness to so many people, so you go to where the most people were. They did not go out to the remote tribes, they didn’t have anything against the tribes, it’s just that cities are the concentration points and if you get a response there then the gospel will trickle down into the remote areas. Second reason they did this is that the big cities had the universities; the new intellectuals were in the cities and if you want your ideas to get consideration on a large scale you first have to take them to the dissemination point of the great ideas, and that’s the university campus. So they took Christianity to the university campus. In our day the big ideas are coming out of Harvard, Yale, Berkley, Princeton, MIT, these are the big idea places, so the early Christians went to the big idea places. They wanted their thought form to be considered among the top intellects, some of which eventually believed the gospel and ended up in high places, influential places. So the strategy of missions in the Book of Acts is urban first, rural second. Once the urban areas of evangelized then the evangelism naturally expands into the surrounding areas.

In the passage before us, the rest of Acts 11, we go from verse 19-26 and in this section we have the Church being trained by teachers. And then in the last passage, vv 27-30, the first physical disaster hits the Christians and we see how the believers responded to help the Jerusalem church. 

So beginning in verse 19 we’ll read to verse 26, “So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. 20But 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. 21And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. 22The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. 23Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; 24for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. 25And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; 26and 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.” 

Notice the emphasis on the number of those believing and the teaching that followed. Verse 21 “and a large number who believed turned to the Lord,” verse 24 “And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord,” the emphasis so far is on numerical growth. Then in verse 26, “for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers.” So this section is highlighting the growth of the church numerically and then spiritually by means of the preaching of the word followed by the teaching of the word. Emphasis on content always in the early church, not experience, but content, this was how growth happened in the past and this is how growth happens in the present. The word of God must be central.

Now, verse 19, we go back to the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen. Stephen was murdered in Acts 7 after his brilliant speech. The Sanhedrin had sought to put him on trial but he put them on trial and for it he was murdered, the first martyr of the Christian Church. And when that happened, there was a man there named Saul and in Acts 8:1-4 Saul who was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisaic zealot, picked up the gauntlet and started murdering men and women of the Hellenistic camp. He didn’t go after the native camp, and that’s an important distinction because starting in chapter 12 the gauntlet is taken up against the natives, so by the next chapter it doesn’t matter whether you’re native or Hellenistic, the persecution will be leveled at both. But up to this point the natives in Judea and Samaria who were believing Jesus was the Messiah were enjoying peace (Acts 9:31). But the Hellenistic camp was scattered by Saul in Acts 8 and here we run into some of them and here’s their story, here’s what they had done. According to verse 19 they made their way to three places: Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, lets’ look at these. 

Phoenicia isn’t on this map, but its modern day Lebanon, just north along the coast. That’s where the modern terrorist organization Hezbollah is entrenched, they’re funded by Iran. So they traveled up the Levantine trade route into this region of Phoenicia, then from there you have a split, some of them take a ship out to the island of Cyprus, and others continue on to Antioch. Cyprus, that’s where Barnabas was from, he’s going to figure prominently in this passage. Then Antioch, Antioch is up in Syria on the Orontes River, about 15 miles from the coast. This river is in recent news because Iran and North Korea are producing plutonium in a Nuclear Facility located on that river near Antioch. So you have some out on the island of Cyprus and some on the mainland in Antioch. If Barnabas was from Cyprus who do we know from Antioch? Early church historian Eusebius said Luke, the author of Acts was born at Antioch, the Anti-Marcionite Prologue says the same. Two sources tell us that Luke was a native of Antioch and if that is in fact true then he was probably converted to Christ during this episode and then he got with Paul and started writing about Christ. The Western text adds a phrase that adds credence to that idea. And so this is a very important city for Luke. And this was a large city, this was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire. First you had Rome, then you had Alexandria, in the north of Egypt and third you had Syrian Antioch. The population here was between 500,000-800,000. Jews made up 15 percent of the population, you also had people from the Orient and Romans of course. So this was a cosmopolitan city, a large city and a morally corrupt city. The Roman satirist, Juvenal, complained, “The sewage of the Syrian Orontes has for long been discharged into the Tiber.” by which he meant that Antioch was so corrupt it was defiling Rome, more than 1,300 miles away. That does away with a little pre-requisite Christians like to put on the gospel; namely, that if you’re a good boy, a nice moral individual who abides by society’s laws then the gospel is for you but if you’re a filthy criminal you need to clean up your life first, then we’ll give you the gospel. The early evangelism got the largest response among people that were absolutely perverted; they worshipped in the cult of Artemis, the cult of Apollo, the cult of Astarte, and connected with each one of them there was lavish prostitution; sex and religion, a recurrent theme in ancient and modern pagan worship. And so sometimes those farthest from Christ realize they are in great need of Christ, having a keen awareness of their depraved nature.

But notice there’s a little problem, a little myopia in their missions, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. The gospel was supposed to go to all men. But in verse 20, there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, and by Greeks he means the Gentiles Greeks not Hellenistic Jews. And this could never have happened were it not for the Gentile Cornelius being converted under Peter’s preaching. So when they realize the way had been paved and Peter had been involved in Gentile evangelization some of them from Cyprus, the island out here, and others from Cyrene, North Africa, they started speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. Notice they didn’t preach Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ but the Lord Jesus. Why did they do that? Because Christ is a Jewish term for the Messiah. It’s distinctively Jewish in flavor, but Lord Jesus is distinctively Greek in flavor. For the pagan Greek man on the streets Caesar was Lord, by which they understood he was savior, he was sovereign; Caesar was the embodiment of the state and the savior of the state. So in preaching the Lord Jesus these Greeks knew very well what was being said, Jesus was Lord, not Caesar. And this is what sets up the clash later on between Rome and the Christians. The persecution the Christians faced was not because they worshipped Jesus as Lord but because they worshipped Jesus and Jesus alone as Lord. They refused to worship Caesar. Rome said you can worship all the gods and goddesses you like so long as you worshipped Caesar too. But the Christians couldn’t in good conscience worship Caesar too. They worshipped Jesus and Jesus alone for He alone was Lord. And thus they were ripped to shreds in the Coliseum. 

Verse 21, And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. They were getting tremendous results, this is where the transition between a Jewish majority to a Gentile majority really started to accelerate. Luke was perhaps a part of this group. Verse 22, The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Barnabas we’ve already met in chapter 4. He had grown up in Cyprus, just across the way from Antioch, so he’s an obvious choice, he knows the people, he knows the culture, he knows the city, and he has a certain spiritual gift to go with this that make him the perfect candidate for the job. That spiritual gift is in his name, bar meaning “son of” and nabas, “exhortation,” “son of exhortation.” That was his spiritual gift. He had the spiritual gift of encouragement. These are the people that come alongside you when you’re depressed and they give you an encouraging word. Well that was Barnabas’ spiritual gift. And Barnabas was especially interested in encouraging new converts, he was interested in helping new believers get started in the Christian life so he would come alongside these new believers and patiently work with them. One new convert he came alongside was Saul back when Saul was a little punk kid Barnabas took him under his wing. So maybe you have this gift, you may have other spiritual gifts too, Barnabas also had the gift of giving, it just came natural, he wasn’t interested in the accolade, he was just thankful for what the Lord Jesus gave Him so he wanted to give to others. A believer can have several gifts or he can have just one gift, we all have at least one and probably others. These gifts need to be developed through practice. And as you grow in the word of God you’ll see more clearly what your gifts are and they’ll develop over time and that should be your major area of ministry to others. 

In verse 23 he arrives and begins to exercise his gift, Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; This really pleased Barnabas, he was getting a first hand witness of the grace of God. He knew what happened at Cornelius’ house but this is a lot bigger, numbers wise. And this caused him to rejoice. So Antioch is a key city for Gentile Christianity. We can say that if Christianity began in Caesarea it rose to prominence in Antioch. This city is going to be the city Paul uses as a base for his missionary journey’s to the Gentiles starting in chapter 13. So Antioch is the focus from Acts 11:19-15:35. And as Gentile Christianity grew numerically Barnabas exercised his spiritual gift, he encouraged them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord and what this encouragement is, this is a verb that means to come alongside, he would come up to this weak fledgling Gentile believer and he would encourage him to press on, to persevere in the one in whom they had believed, to be steadfast and loyal in service to Him whom they now belonged, and its an imperfect meaning he kept on doing this to all the new Gentile believers. And it shows that new believers need a lot of encouragement, needs a lot of help getting going in the Christian life. 

Now this is the true follow up procedure to evangelism. They didn’t just evangelize people and leave them on the doorstep. They followed up. But it became apparent, verse 25, that Barnabas was not cut out for the kind of follow up they needed. With hundreds of new believers coming in Barnabas could encourage them, he had that gift, what gift he did not have was teaching. Barnabas knew his place, he knew his limitations. He was not one of these believers that thought he could do it all and just get out of my way and I’ll handle this. He reserved his primary ministry to the areas he was gifted in. But he thought about who could teach these Gentile believers and Saul came to mind. Now remember, it wasn’t last week when Barnabas and Saul met in Jerusalem, that was thirteen years ago, they hadn’t seen each other since, so Saul apparently had made quite an impression on him back in Jerusalem and when this influx of Gentiles was coming to the Lord the Holy Spirit brought to Barnabas’ mind the very man who was commissioned to go to the Gentiles, the apostle Saul. 

And so, verse 25, he left for Tarsus to look for Saul. And the verb to look for there implies a difficult search. He didn’t just walk into Tarsus and find Saul at home with ma and pa on the family hearth. Saul, when he got home thirteen years ago was thrown out of the house, his parents disowned him, they had sent him away to college and when their son came back instead of being a Jewish rabbi he was a Messianic Christian. “We didn’t send you to college to become a Christian. What’s all that about?” And so his dad apparently disowned him and threw him out of the house and his mother had nothing to do with him either, and the scars of this remained with Paul because in his epistles he would often say, when he was instructing Christian fathers, he says: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath.” Apparently that came out of personal experience; his own dad provoked him to wrath because of his over reaction to this. 

So Barnabas had to search out Saul. Where was he? According to Gal 1:21-23 he was in Cilicia and northern Syria and for thirteen years he had been preaching the Lord Jesus, he was cutting his teeth on the Scriptures, getting things sorted out. So now he’s had some ministry experience, he’s had some persecution and he’s had more time to think about the word of God and develop his gift of teaching. And this just goes to show, you don’t become a Christian one day and a teacher in the Church the next. Saul himself who was well-schooled in rabbinic Judaism from infancy, knew the original languages, had believed in the Lord Jesus Christ in his 20’s and was now in his mid 30’s needed time to mature before he was ready to teach others. Now this is a lesson the church has not paid attention to very well. Always telling some new believer, some guy who just came in off the streets and had a big experience, “Oh, you ought to be teaching a Sunday School class,” or something. Ridiculous. What is a baby going to teach? Let me tell you, this even extends to seminary students. You go to seminary and graduate and you think you know something. Heck, I’ve been here four and a half years, I was the number one recommended student at the entire seminary and I’m still cutting my teeth on the Scriptures. And I imagine I will be for the next six years or so. It takes about 10-15 years of 60 hours of study a week to basically get a handle on all the issues. We’re a biblically illiterate society. You’re lead to think after Seminary you know a lot, are you kidding, you learn some big words, you get a taste of some of the issues but really you’re still a neophyte. But because you’ve been to seminary, you’ve heard a thing or two, “Oh, look at me, I’m a Bible scholar.” What are you kidding me. You may have a fat head but you’re not Bible scholar. I’m no Bible scholar. You want to hear a Bible scholar, go listen to men who’ve been doing this their whole lives, men like John Whitcomb or Ron Merryman, now, you listen to those guys and you’ll hear depth, men who have soaked for six or seven decades in the Scriptures. Well that’s where Saul had been for the last 14 years, soaking in the Scriptures. And only after that was he ready to take on the task of teaching at the Antiochian church. 

Verse 26 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.” Now looking at Paul’s method of teaching, we know in Ephesus he taught during the afternoons, in the ancient world you’d wake up and go to work in the cool of the morning and at noon the heat of the day was coming on and at noon everyone took a siesta, then about 6 o’clock everyone went back to work for a couple of hours, and during those afternoon hours Paul would teach, for five to six hours a day, Bible doctrine, Bible doctrine, Bible doctrine, they hammered it out six days a week, that’s thirty hours of Bible a week. 

Now, let’s say he was real conservative in Antioch and he just taught two hours a day, two hours of teaching times six, because he taught six days a week. That’s twelve hours of teaching per week. Now that’s the teaching schedule of the early Christians, lest it be said that we have too much emphasis on the word of God at Fredericksburg Bible Church, we have a max of three hours a week and some people think, “Oh, that’s too much, we need to cut back, have some more music or something.” What would you do if you had twelve hours of teaching? I tell you one thing, you’d learn something. You go to some other Christian groups and first you have about 30 minutes about how many people showed up to Sunday School and how we’ve got 3 months to fulfill our $300,000 pledge commitments for the new building fund and how you’d better tithe ten percent or God’s going to get you, then you have about an hour of praise and worship and then you’re down to fifteen minutes left for teaching. And the quality of the teaching is basically, on a scale of 1-10, a -5 but it doesn’t matter because everyone’s still hyped up from the solid hour of praise and worship. You could say anything. So actually less than half an hour of teaching a week.
 
And yet a very conservative Saul taught two hours every single day. Now you figure it out; that is 24 times the teaching hours that average Christians get in America. Is it any wonder that these people turned the world upside down; vast amounts of teaching, we don’t come close, even at Fredericksburg Bible Church, to Saul’s emphasis on teaching, it was teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, throughout the Book of Acts. You don’t find any place in the Book of Acts, never once… never once do you find Paul saying “Now people, memorize these four spiritual laws and we’ll go down every street and knock on every door, and if you’ll do that we’ll give you ten big brownie points so you can get a pin.” That’s not the way evangelism occurred in the Book of Acts. Why is it that you have no exhortation to evangelize? Because it was a natural byproduct, it was not done in the Church, it was done by the Christians on the job in the street. And they could evangelize, they could open their mouth and articulate the Creator-creature distinction, they could explain the Fall and mankind’s sin dilemma and how that was resolved in Jesus Christ. They could do that because they had twelve hours of Bible teaching a week. That was the tremendous base that these people operate from. And you can image if we had that same base today what would happen to our society. 

And the result, close of verse 26, the disciples were first called Christians, a term Christian used only three times in the NT and in every case it comes from the lips of non-Christians, this was not a flowery title the believers came up with, the pagans gave them this name. But notice it does not say they gave it to the believers but to the disciples. The disciples in the Book of Acts were the believers in training, this wasn’t every believer, just those who were the dedicated pupils of Christ, those who day in day out were sitting there listening to Saul, asking questions and learning, those were the followers of Christ, the guys getting twelve hours a week of Bible doctrine. Now what is the significance of this title Christian? What new development does this reveal? It reveals that the Christians are a distinct group. They had been looked upon as a sect within Judaism up to this point but now they are looked upon as distinct from Judaism. And thus, as a distinct group the Jews start persecuting them in chapter 12. 

Alright, that brings us to this short section at the end of chapter 11. So far in the passage what we’ve seen is the growth of the Gentile populace in the church, first numerically, there was a tremendous influx of Gentiles believing in the Lord Jesus at Antioch. With Barnabas as the encourager and Saul as the teacher these people grew in maturity, they were building a base in Antioch, a spiritual depth base. Now we see the application of the doctrine in vv 27-30. 

This is an emergency situation. It’s the second emergency the Church faced, the first one was the widow controversy of Acts 6, that was an intrachurch situation, the second one is a food shortage, this is an interchurch situation, this is going to involve cooperation of two local churches. So let’s read, verse 27, Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28One 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. The word “world,” oikoumenos, means the Roman Empire, And this took place in the reign of Claudius.  Claudius Caesar reigned from 41-54AD, this famine or the series of famines and crop failures that occurred during Claudius’ reign are recorded in Josephus, The Book of Antiquities, recorded in Seutonius’ Lives of the Caesars, recorded in Tacitus’ Annals, recorded in Dio Cassius’ History and recorded in Orosius’ History. So we have adequate extra-Biblical data that substantiates this series of famines, it wasn’t just one great famine but it was several crop failures during that time that really stressed the economy of the Roman Empire. 29And in the 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. Judea was apparently the hardest hit region. 30And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders.

Let’s walk through and then we’ll get into giving money, the proper way of doing it and so forth. Verse 27, Now at this time some prophets came down, they had prophets in the early church, as long as the NT canon was open there were prophets, they did two things, forth-tell, which means just to expound Bible doctrine and fore-tell, which is to tell things about the future. They did this by special revelation from God. This is no longer active in the Church today, the NT canon is closed and the next prophet to come is Elijah. If someone comes and says they’re a prophet and they’re not Elijah then they’re a false prophet. Well this man Agabus came before the close of the NT canon and he was foretelling a great famine throughout the Roman Empire which thing came to pass in the reign of Claudius. To be specific the years 46-47AD. Verse 29, And in the 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 with that we get into the Doctrine of Giving. I’m not building the doctrine from here; this is an illustration of the later doctrine in Romans and the Corinthian epistles. The first point we want to make is that it was not all the believers giving. It was the disciples, those who had not only been born again but had received training in the Scriptures. Why is this important? Because you have to know what God has done for you if you’re going to give out of the right motive. You don’t come up to a new believer and say, “Alright, now that you’re in our society you need to start giving to our society.” You let people have some room to grow, make sure they understand grace and once they understand what Christ has done for them and nothing can separate them from the love of Christ, then giving becomes the natural thing to do. Second point, the disciples gave as they had means. They did not give above their means. Some Christians think they’re going to get a big fat smile from God if they give more than they can possibly afford. But what does 1 Tim 5:8 say, “If any man does not provide for his own…he is worse than an unbeliever.” Men, you’re first responsibility is Divine Institution #1: Responsible Labor. You work to provide for your family and if you aren’t doing that then according to the word of God you don’t need to give, you need to get to work or get some skills so you can work. Third point to the Doctrine of Giving is that it is purely voluntary. Saul wasn’t breathing threats at them, “You better give and if you do God will bless you and if you don’t you’re robbing God.” Most pastors, because they’re on a performance basis, are always trying to raise funds, most of them so they can put it into their own pocket. Saul could care less about money. If he’d cared about money he never would have told his wealthy father he was a Christian, for by doing so he was disinherited. All Saul had to say was, “Look fellas, we’ve got a food shortage in Judea, would you like to help?” That’s all there was to it. If you want to help that’s great if you don’t want to help that’s great too. But obviously the believers who had means to help were motivated to help. Not to get brownie points with God but because they were thankful to God for His abundant grace in Jesus Christ. Giving is always in response to what God has done first for us, not to get something from God. Before we get to the fourth point, first point, only the disciples were giving not the new believers. Second point, they gave as they had means, not more or less. Third point, it was purely voluntary not under compulsion. Now, those are the three most abused points of this doctrine. Every other week in some churches you have a sermon on tithing. And if you don’t give 10% you’re not in good standing with the Church. If these characters knew anything about the Scriptures they would be able to weasel out of you 22.5% because that was the average annual tithe in OT Israel, not 10%. And if they read the Bible they would also know that the tithe was the nation tax of Israel, it was the Federal Income Tax. And the majority of those funds went to support Bible teaching in the nation Israel, that’s why they had a national tax, to support the priests who had to study the law and teach the law to the people. Now think what would happen if we took the Federal Income Tax of the United States of America and rather than funneling it into the pockets of elitist bankers we put it toward the training of Bible teachers? This country would be a very different place to say the least. All that to say, there is no tithe for the NT believer; that was an OT tax for the nation Israel. In the NT Church each man is to give as he has purposed in his own heart. Now we come to our fourth point, Rom 15:26. If the first three were the most abused points of the doctrine, the fourth point is the most ignored point of the doctrine. And that is, giving to Jewish believers first. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. 27Yes, they were pleased to do so, and they are indebted to them. And here’s the doctrine. For if the Gentiles have shared in their spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things. Now, have you as a Gentile believer benefited from the Jewish people? Your Messiah is a Jew, all your spiritual blessings come from the Abrahamic Covenant, that covenant wasn’t made with you, that covenant was made with the Jewish people, you were grafted in by the grace of God into their blessings, you’ve become a partaker in their spiritual things. Therefore, are you not indebted to minister to them in material things? So let’s lay out the order of giving. Biblically speaking the order is Jewish believers first, Gentile believers second, the world third. What are most churches doing? Exactly the reverse; world first, Gentile believers second, Jewish believers third. It’s exactly the reverse of what the Bible says and that’s because people don’t read the Bible. Now look, it is not the job of the church to solve world hunger, it is not the job of the church to supply foreign aid, it is not the job of the church to solve the AIDS epidemic or any of these humanitarian causes. It is the job of the church to provide for fellow believers, starting with Jewish believers. There are poor widows and orphans in Jerusalem right now and there are organizations in the United States that collect contributions for these Jewish believers. Organizations like My Firstborn Son at www.myfirstbornson.org. There are other funds like the Joshua fund that are headed up by men like Joel Rosenberg that also focus on the Jews. The biblical method is to give first to fellow believers? Why? What’s the logic? The logic is that we are to be a light unto the world, we are supposed to take such good care of our own that the world says, “Hey, look at that. How do you get that level of love among yourselves?” Now, lets apply what we’ve learned to our situation in Acts 11. The firs tpoint is this is the disciples giving to the Jerusalem church. The disciples were well-trained and they were evidently gracious that they were partaking in the so great Jewish Messiah. They saw their indebtedness, but they also saw that they were saved by grace through faith and nothing could separate them from the love of Christ. So they could give freely of their own heart. They gave each as they had means and not more than they could afford. They were sensible people. Now I wonder what would happen if the Church followed this procedure? Might cause another Reformation. For once the body of the Messiah doing things the Messiah’s way. What a radical idea.

So let’s conclude. Today we have seen in vv 19-26 the Gentile Church rising to prominence in Antioch, they didn’t convert them on Monday and send them out to evangelize on Tuesday, they trained them, trained them for a full year, 12 or more hours a week of Bible under a master teacher, Saul, coupled with encouragement to persevere by Barnabas. So essentially their building a base here. A base of spiritual depth centering on Bible knowledge. The result is going to be the base for Paul’s missionary journeys. So there’s strategy here, obviously not the strategy of men but the strategy of the Holy Spirit, they didn’t know this was going to be the base, they didn’t know Saul was going out on missionary journeys from here, that’s all Monday morning quarterback. But in the thick of it we observe the Spirit’s strategy. And finally the application of the doctrine in giving to the Jewish believers who were facing a starvation situation. We’ve just looked at the doctrine. Let’s close with a word of prayer.