Acts 11 - The Infant Gentile Church

Acts 11 - The Infant Gentile Church

1-18: Peter recaps the Gentile conversion and demonstrates that it was the fulfillment of the vision he had of the unclean animals.

19-24: The Church at Antioch is established and Jerusalem sends Barnabas to teach them. Barnabas goes to Tarsus and seeks out Paul and brings him to Antioch where they teach together. And it is here that "the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." Being Orthodox Christians under the Antiochian jurisdiction we are very familiar with this line of Scripture. It is a point of boasting and is included in our "tag-line" on the Antiochian website.

Chrysostom comments on the scattering of the Church due to persecution:
When Stephen was slain, when Paul was twice imperiled, when the apostles were scourged…then the nations received (the word), then Samaritans…Therefore, they went about discoursing also with Gentiles. ‘But some them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, after they came to Antioch, began speaking to the Hellenists, preaching as good tidings the Lord Jesus.’ For it is likely then both that they knew the Greek language and that there were many such in Antioch.


27. The Church in Jerusalem continued to keep a connection with Antioch by sending prophets.

Agabus: Saint Agabus was one of the Seventy Apostles chosen and sent forth to preach by Christ (Luke 10:1).

The holy Apostle Agabus was endowed with the gift of prophecy. He predicted (Acts 11:27-28) the famine during the reign of the emperor Claudius (41-52), and foretold the suffering of the Apostle Paul at Jerusalem (Acts 21:11). St Agabus preached in many lands, and converted many pagans to Christ.

Agabus endured fierce sufferings for Christ and was found worthy of a martyr's crown.

28. The great famine took place in 44-51. It began in Judea and spread to Greece and then to Italy.

29. The church in Antioch sent assistance to Jerusalem by way of Barnabas and Paul.

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