Today’s Passage: Acts 11
In this chapter Peter comes back to Jerusalem, and the first thing that meets him is not welcome but a complaint. The believers there are troubled less by what he preached than by what he ate, that he had sat down at the table of uncircumcised men. So Peter simply tells them the whole story from beginning to end, and when he finishes there is nothing left to argue about. The church falls silent and then breaks into praise: God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life. From there Luke widens the view. Believers scattered by persecution carry the message north to Antioch, some of them speaking now to Greeks as well as to Jews, and the hand of the Lord is with them so that great numbers believe. Barnabas is sent to see it, and he goes to find Saul, and for a full year the two of them teach a growing church where the disciples are first called Christians. Then, when a famine is foretold, that same young church gathers relief and sends it south to Judea. These are not three separate lessons but one long climb, and the whole of it says one thing: God has opened the door of life to the nations.
As you read, hold this: God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.
Context The world of Acts 11
The welcome of the Gentiles was the kind of thing that could have torn the young church in two, and so Peter does not defend himself with argument. He brings witnesses, the six brothers who went with him, and he lays out the events one after another in order. A healthy church tests a new work in the same way, by holding it up to the Word of God and to what the Spirit has plainly done.
Antioch of Syria was the third great city of the empire, a crowded and cosmopolitan place and a strategic one, and the name is worth remembering, because the missionary journeys of the years to come will set out from here.
When Agabus foretells a famine that came to pass under the emperor Claudius, an event the historians of that age also record, we receive it as a true work of the Spirit in the days of the apostles. But this house does not look for that office to return today, as though the church still awaited new revelation equal to Scripture. The canon is closed and complete, and the Spirit now works by applying that finished Word to our hearts.
There is a lovely reversal at the end of the chapter. The gift travels from Antioch down to Judea, from the younger church to the older, the daughter caring for the mother who first handed her the gospel.
Acts 11:1–18 (BSB)
¹ The apostles and brothers throughout Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him ³ and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.” ⁴ But Peter began and explained to them the whole sequence of events: ⁵ “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me. ⁶ I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. ⁷ Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’ ⁸ ‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ ⁹ But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into heaven. ¹¹ Just then three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. ¹² The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s home. ¹³ He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. ¹⁴ He will convey to you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.’ ¹⁵ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He had fallen upon us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of God?” ¹⁸ When they heard this, they had no further objections, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”
Word study "The same gift" — isēn dōrean (Acts 11:17)
Greek: ἴσην δωρεάν (isēn dōrean), pronounced EE-sane do-reh-AHN. Strong’s G2470 + G1431.
The gift was equal, not some lesser measure of the Spirit set aside for Gentiles. Peter’s reasoning runs straight and simple: if God gave them the very same gift He had given to those of us who believed in the Lord Jesus, who was Peter to stand in God’s way? The church can only agree, and its agreement becomes worship. God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.
The news runs ahead of Peter, and the controversy runs with it, for in that world whom you would sit and eat with was never a small matter but a question of what you truly believed. So Peter tells it all again in order: the vision let down from heaven, the Spirit’s command to go, the angel who had appeared in the man’s house, the promise that a message would save the whole household, the Spirit falling upon them just as He had fallen at the beginning, the Lord’s own word about being baptized with the Holy Spirit, and at the end the same gift given to them as to us. If God had done all this, who was Peter to hinder Him? And the church that had come with a complaint answers instead with worship.
Acts 11:19–21 (BSB)
¹⁹ Meanwhile those scattered by the persecution that began with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message only to Jews. ²⁰ But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus. ²¹ The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
Out of the same scattering two roads open. Some of the believers still speak the message only to their fellow Jews, while others, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, begin to tell the Greeks as well the good news about the Lord Jesus. Luke is careful to say why it bore fruit: the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to Him. What happened in Cornelius’s house was no single exception, then. The reaching of the nations was becoming a wave.
Acts 11:22–26 (BSB)
²² When news of this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. ²³ When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts. ²⁴ Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. ²⁵ Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, ²⁶ and when he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. So for a full year they met together with the church and taught large numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.
Jerusalem sends Barnabas, and he proves to be a man with an eye for grace, for when he arrives and sees what God is doing he is glad, and he urges them all to hold fast to the Lord with all their hearts. Then he goes looking for Saul in Tarsus and brings him back, and for a full year the two of them teach the gathered church, so that under all this growth there is real depth as well. And here the name is given for the first time: Christians. To belong to Christ becomes a public thing, a name that others use for them, and it is one more sign of the same grace, that people once outside are now marked as His.
Acts 11:27–30 (BSB)
²⁷ In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. ²⁸ One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world. (This happened under Claudius.) ²⁹ So the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. ³⁰ This they did, sending their gifts to the elders with Barnabas and Saul.
Here the gift of prophecy is bent toward love. A famine is foretold, and the disciples answer not with fear but with giving, each one setting aside what he is able, and the relief is carried to the elders in Judea by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. The church that had just received the bread of life now sends bread of its own to those in need.
Study notes Going deeper
Notice first how Peter answers his accusers. He does not argue them down with clever reasoning; he simply tells them what happened, one thing after another, and lets the plain testimony do its work. His defense is a witness, not a technique.
Notice too where the argument ends. The objections fall silent, and the silence turns into praise, the whole church glorifying God that He has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.
And when the church at Antioch grows, Luke does not credit the skill of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene. He writes that the hand of the Lord was with them (11:21). The increase was God’s own doing.
See, finally, that the growth and the teaching belong together. Barnabas and Saul spend a full year instructing the new believers, for a church that is filling with people also needs to be filled with the Word.
"For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." Acts 1:5 (BSB)
"I will also make you a light for the nations, to bring My salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 49:6 (BSB)
"It is not that others should be relieved while you are burdened, but that there should be equality. At the present time your surplus will meet their need, so that in turn their surplus will meet your need. Then there will be equality." 2 Corinthians 8:13–14 (BSB)