The Apostle to Antioch

When word reached Jerusalem that the gospel had crossed to the Greeks at Antioch, the mother church sent Barnabas to investigate; he came, saw the grace of God, rejoiced, exhorted the new believers, and then went to Tarsus to fetch Saul — and it was at Antioch, in that year of their joint teaching, that “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:22–26). This file follows Barnabas’s mission to Antioch, his recruitment of Saul, the naming of the Christians, and the famine relief he and Saul carried back to Judea.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Gospel Reaches the Greeks

After the martyrdom of Stephen, persecution scattered the Hellenist believers from Jerusalem, and they carried the word as they went (Acts 11:19). Most preached only to Jews, but some — “men of Cyprus and Cyrene,” Hellenist Jews of the diaspora like Barnabas himself — came to Antioch and “spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus” (Acts 11:20, RSV). Antioch, the great Syrian metropolis and third city of the Roman Empire, thus became the site of the first deliberate preaching of the gospel to Gentiles in numbers, and “a great number that believed turned to the Lord” (Acts 11:21, RSV). This was something new and momentous: the gospel was no longer a movement within Judaism but was becoming a community of Jews and Greeks together. The news of it reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 11:22).

Jerusalem Sends Barnabas

Faced with this unprecedented development, “they sent Barnabas to Antioch” (Acts 11:22, RSV). The choice was inspired. Barnabas was trusted by the Jerusalem apostles, whose surname he bore; he was a Cypriot Hellenist, at home in the Greek-speaking world the gospel was entering; and he had already shown the discernment to recognize true conversion in the case of Saul (Acts 9:27). He was, in short, exactly the man to evaluate a mixed Greek congregation without either suspicion or naivety. Some manuscripts and commentators read his commission as an investigation — Jerusalem sending its envoy to see whether this Gentile development was sound (Acts 11:22; Bruce, Acts, 1988).

What Barnabas did upon arrival is the heart of the episode and the clearest single window onto his character that Acts provides. “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” (Acts 11:23, RSV). He did not come to police or to constrain; he came, saw God’s grace at work among the Greeks, and rejoiced in it, and his ministry to them was paraklēsis — exhortation, encouragement — the very thing his name meant (Acts 4:36; 11:23). Luke then pauses to give Barnabas one of the rare direct character-notes in Acts: “for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord” (Acts 11:24, RSV). The son of encouragement, seeing the new Gentile church, blessed it, strengthened it, and watched it grow.

Fetching Saul

The work at Antioch outgrew one man, and Barnabas’s next act again reveals the encourager. “So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch” (Acts 11:25–26, RSV). Saul had been sent home to Tarsus years before, after the Hellenists at Jerusalem sought his life (Acts 9:30), and had dropped from Luke’s narrative. It was Barnabas who remembered him, sought him out — the verb suggests a search, Saul not being readily found — and drew him back into the center of the mission. The man Barnabas had vouched for at Jerusalem he now recruited at Antioch. For the future Apostle to the Gentiles, this was the recall to the work that would define his life; and again it came through Barnabas (Acts 11:25–26; see Vouching for Saul). “For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people” (Acts 11:26, RSV). The order of names still places Barnabas first; Saul is the junior colleague he has brought in.

“First Called Christians”

It is in this same verse that Luke records a fact of permanent significance: “and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26, RSV). The name Christianoi — “those of Christ,” “Christ’s people” — was coined at Antioch during the year of Barnabas’s and Saul’s joint teaching. Whether it was given by outsiders (perhaps the Roman authorities, the Latin-style ending -ianus designating a partisan or follower) or adopted within, the point Luke makes is that the community of Jews and Greeks who had turned to the Lord acquired here, for the first time, a name of its own — a name marking it as no longer simply a sect within Judaism but the people of Christ (Acts 11:26; Bruce, Acts, 1988; Keener, Acts, on 11:26). That the name was born in the church Barnabas had been sent to shepherd, and during the ministry he shared with Saul, ties Barnabas to the very moment the Church acquired its enduring name.

The Famine Relief

The Antioch episode closes with an act that displays the new church’s communion with Jerusalem and Barnabas’s continued role as its trusted agent. Prophets came down from Jerusalem, and one of them, Agabus, foretold “by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius” (Acts 11:27–28, RSV). The disciples at Antioch resolved, “every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea; and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul” (Acts 11:29–30, RSV). The famine relief is the first recorded act of one church materially supporting another across distance — Gentile-and-Jewish Antioch sending aid to the mother church in Judea — and it was entrusted to Barnabas and Saul. They discharged the errand and returned to Antioch, “bringing with them John whose other name was Mark” (Acts 12:25, RSV) — Barnabas’s cousin, now joining the company for the journey to come (Colossians 4:10; see Barnabas and Mark).

Thus the Antioch chapter establishes the whole platform for the first missionary journey. Barnabas has shepherded the first great Gentile church, recruited Saul to share the teaching, presided over the year in which the disciples were first called Christians, and led the relief mission that bound Antioch to Jerusalem. When, in the next chapter, the Holy Spirit says to the church of Antioch, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2, RSV), it is sending out the two men whose joint ministry the Antioch episode has just established — with Barnabas, still, named first.

See Also

References

  • The Acts of the Apostles 11:19–30; 12:25; 13:1–2. (RSV consulted.)
  • Colossians 4:10. (John Mark the cousin of Barnabas.)
  • Bruce, F. F. The Book of the Acts. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988. (On Acts 11:19–30 and the name “Christians.”)
  • Keener, Craig S. Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012–2015. (On Acts 11:26 and the Antiochene church.)
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Homily 25 (on Acts 11:19–30). Trans. NPNF I/11.