Acts 11:19-30 Part 1
June 30, 2002
Nicknamed Christian (Part 1)
Nicknames are those endearing handles given to friends to describe their character with a simple word. Take the following examples:
They call her 'AMAZON': she's so big at the mouth.
They call him 'ARCHEOLOGIST': his career lies in ruins.
They call her 'CEMETERY': she is always so GRAVE.
They call him 'A.T.& T': he is always talking.
They call her 'DUSTY': She has been on the shelf for a very long time.
They call him 'JIGSAW': when faced with a problem, he goes to pieces.
They call her 'LILY': she always goes out with the dead ones.
They call her 'MICROSCOPE': she magnifies everything.
They cal him 'LIBERTY BELL': He is half cracked.
Nicknames are chosen because they reflect an aspect of a person which sums them up. In Acts 11:26 we are told that it was in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. Ancient Antioch was famous for its humor, especially the coining of nicknames. When a brigade of chanting devotes of Nero led crowds in adulation, this band of imperial cheerleaders with their ludicrous homage was quickly dubbed Augustinai.
The term Christian consists of the Greek for Christ/Messiah (Christos) with the Latin ending ianus, meaning belonging to, identified by. So the nickname means belonging to Christ, or Little Christ. It’s Latin ending and the treatment of the title Christ as a proper name probably means the name originated not in the church, but given by the populace.
The nickname Christian is found only twice more in the New Testament, both times in the context of interaction with unbelievers. In Acts 26:28 King Agrippa, upon hearing of Paul’s conversion, questions whether in such a short time that he too would become a Christian. In 1 Peter 4:16 Peter encourages his readers that if any suffers as a Christian, “let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in that name.” The first extensive use of the term Christian by a Christian was by Ignatius of Antioch around the turn of the second century.
But in our passage this morning the context tells us why that name was applied. What happened in that church which caused the most famous appellation, Christian, to be applied to those called by God tells us much of what should mark our lives today. READ Acts 11:19-30.
Christians enfold new people 19-21
Luke opens this transitional section of his book to Theophilus by recapping what transpired back in chapter 8. The persecution which arose over Stephen resulted in the spread of the church. Rather than stamp out this new faith, it grew, disseminating over the empire, both geographically and culturally.
The movement took hold in Phoenicia, a strip along the Mediterranean coast beginning north of Caesarea, stretching upwards of a hundred miles, half way to Antioch. This is modern day Lebanon.
Next listed is the island Cyprus, home country of Barnabas whom we read about in Acts 4 and 9.
Skipping over Antioch, in v20 we are told about men of Cyrene, a location first referred to in Acts 2 at Pentecost. This North African coastal town is home to Lucius of Cyrene mentioned in 13:1.
But the focus in our passage is on what happened in the city of Antioch.
Antioch enjoyed its own municipal government and was the seat of the provincial administration of Syria. It’s population was ½ million, making it the 3rd largest city in the world, behind only Rome and Alexandria in size, wealth, and vice. The city was proverbial for its lax sexual morals; a reputation mainly due to the cult of Artemis and Apollo at Daphne, where the ancient Syrian worship of Astarte, with its ritual prostitution, was carried on under Greek names. Within the city the wooded “Pleasure Park”, where people would come and commit all kinds of immorality in full view of everyone. But a new chapter in the city's history was now to begin, for Antioch was about to become the metropolis of Gentile Christianity.
Just as Jerusalem was known for its religious atmosphere, Athens for its intellectualism, and Rome for its power, Antioch was known for its cosmopolitanism. All sorts of people lived there--Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Jews, Romans, and Greeks--and there was an attitude of tolerance toward all in this city. This was a melting pot of Western and Eastern cultures. Cicero praised its art and literature. Juvenal referred to its reputation for immorality, writing of the Orontes River pouring pollution in the Tiber. – the invasions of Rome by eastern superstition and depravity.
In the city of Antioch the church first focuses on the Jews, enfolding them into the body. (v19)
The simple word used for what they did says much. ”Speaking” the word...the simple sharing of conversation with people. As the believers were scattered by the persecution they engaged not in eloquent verbosity by well trained orators, but relied on ordinary interactions. Yet notice the focus of their enfolding – they spoke to no one except Jews. They did what we do, what is most easy and certainly not wrong – they interacted with people like themselves. Be it a cultural block or a simple language barrier – they went after their own kind.
But something changes in v20. There are those from outside the city who come to Antioch and the church is never the same. These outsiders start bringing in “other” types of people. Perhaps because those from Cyprus and Cyrene themselves were outsiders, they were less inhibited by the cultural barriers. Understanding what it is like to be an outsider, they sought out other disaffected groups. Perhaps they heard what took place a couple hundred miles to the south in Caesarea with Peter and Cornelius, so they spoke to Hellenists, that is, to Greeks.
Luke then qualifies the speaking done by these men from Cyprus and Cyrene who arrived in Antioch. They spoke by preaching the Lord Jesus. There is an intentionally, a purpose to what they are doing. Conversations are fine with one’s friends and neighbors, but now there is deliberate crossing of cultural and racial barriers.
The name Christian should be synonymous with this kind of enfolding. Like the church in Antioch, Cornerstone must transcend racial, ethnic, social and economic divisions. What makes this difficult are the hurdles we must cross to remove any offense other than the gospel itself.
The hurdle of modern evangelistic methods perpetuate divisions by reiterating principles for church growth that tells churches to target specific groupings, even narrowing this down to a particular age-range or marital status. It will always be a struggle to overcome prejudices in the church, but we must conquer this proclivity. Diversity in unity – with unity in Jesus Christ – is to be fostered and cherished among God’s people. It is itself a powerful evidence of the healing power of the gospel, to a world that is enslaved to its divisions and hatreds. (Keddie, You Are My Witnesses, 135-36)
There is the hurdle of our own comfort when new faces, different face, come into our body.
Notice again who does this work. It is the outsider who reaches the outsider. The job of the insider is to welcome the new comer, to be a part of the enfolding. You may not be called to leave your suburban friends to reach out to the radically different person. But you are called to love them when they are brought here.
Imagine you’re the first wave of new believers in Antioch. You come from good Jewish stock, have always been well behaved, trying to obey the Law of Moses. You recognized your inability to keep the law and heard about the Messiah taking your sins. The exchange of your sinfulness for his righteousness sounded great, so you became a part of this new group. Then someone in the fledging church gets the bright idea that we should tell non-Jews about this Messiah.
Soon the Gentile pig farmer is part of the church and other than being a bit smelly, he seems to be a nice enough guy. But the next thing you know on Sunday morning in walks a temple prostitute...and he sits down next to you. Now this is going too far!
We do not have the option to keep a kosher church. Christians enfold people who are different, who make you feel uncomfortable, that cause you to question: “Are they Christian?”
There is an open house this afternoon at the One-2-One Teen Center in Waukesha. This is the very kind of place you may or may not be called to help. But if and when youth from this center walk into our church, you have no option, but to love them, enfold them, to be a Christian, a little Christ, to them.
Will Cornerstone be a place where we require people to get their lives in order before walking through these doors? Will we seek to merely replicate our own kind, demanding circumcision, kosher diets of people in order to associate with us. Rather, if the single mother who has made numerous poor decisions comes to us, we must seek to enfold her by providing care for her kids and nurture for her that does not demand she conform to us before we accept her. Will you feel uncomfortable with a couple living together and attending this body? Cornerstone, like the church in Antioch, must be willing to deal with the messiness of confused and sinful lives if we are to see real change.
Christians encourage young believers 22-24
What happens when these new believers are enfolded into the church. The work has then only begun as they now must be encouraged to grow in the grace of Christ. Word soon spread that the church in
Antioch was not quite like it was in Jerusalem. Their music was different, prayers were uttered in other languages, the style of preaching not quite the same and those fellowship dinners, you wouldn’t believe the food they allowed these Christians to eat – so much of it was unclean.
But notice what the straight-laced, traditional church in Jerusalem did in response to these reports? Rather than sending someone on a fault-finding mission, they send Barnabas on a fact finding mission.
Sometimes missionaries today hesitate to tell all that is happening in their work, believing that unorthodox strategies or methods required by cross-cultural witness will not be understood by the folks back home, The early church never manifested such lack of trust. There was both trust and accountability going hand in hand among the churches.
The choice of Barnabas, aka Joseph, was quite natural as he already proved himself trustworthy. In Acts 4 we are told Joseph’s nickname, Barnabas, meant “Son of Encouragement”. Again and again he proves himself to be an encourager by selling land to meet the needs of the poor, by taking Saul of Tarsus under his wing, despite the fact that Saul’s past reputation made him too hot to handle. When he arrives notice what he sees: God’s grace.
His focus was not on their changed lifestyle or that they had a mature church with all the right mix of gifts, although those elements may well have been present. Rather his focus was on the right aspect – God’s grace at work in the hearts of sinners.
For this reason he is glad and encourages them, to do what his nickname means. Just as it was God’s grace that made them what they are, so his encouragement is to keep moving in that direction, to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.
The glue of their perseverance in salvation is a personal relationship with Christ embraced from the inside out, not the external mark of circumcision and Jewish practice. And such must be the case for new converts to Christianity from any culture. If the heart is first abiding in Christ as Lord and Savior, the new ways of living will necessarily follow as the person learns to walk according to God’s will as revealed in his Word.
The phrase “steadfast purpose” means "according to a set plan". They were not just to haphazardly go about the Christian life, but to engage with intent and purpose. They were not simply to come to church and enjoy the fellowship, and the feelings of glory and excitement that knowing the Lord gave them. They were to remember that they needed to learn more of him. They had to seek the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ intelligently, through the Word of God. That is his provision.
Barnabas was faced with converts who were not “raised right” that is, they would have brought some of the messiness of their past with them. Dysfunctional paganism would cry out for some good organizing by Jewish Law. Rather, Barnabas pointed them to faith.
How do you encouraged a new believer?
It is all to easy for us who first hand know the pain of disobedience to God as well as the changes he has made in our lives, to want to set the fledging Christian straight. We want to tell young Christians how to so structure their life so as to avoid sinful patterns, but in so doing, we neglect to encourage them to grasp the only power to change their life. It is far to natural for us to disciple good Pharisees looking to their own goodness to please God rather than disciple sinners to flee from their own efforts to trust Christ alone.
For those of us who have been Christians for many years may forget what struggling with certain sins was like. Through the years those blatant, socially unacceptable sins have been replaced by sins equally offensive to God, but accepted by one another. We have developed the skill of hiding our sins so that others see us as having our act together...and that can be very dangerous to the young believer.
Our lives should be sufficiently transparent so that we can be point to God’s grace in our lives and invite others to see God’s grace as well, to call people along side, the very meaning of the word exhort in v23, us and together look in faith to Christ.
We must be able to look beyond the imperfections and sins in the young believer to see where God’s grace is at work. But that is a messy business. It is easier to see the ashes of sin than to see the living embers of grace that can be fanned into flame. Barnabas was able to do this, we are told in v24, because he was a good man. This description is rarely used of a person in Acts, but his goodness is defined by what follows
He was full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. His goodness echoes his Savior. His goodness was not that he was a positive person nor that he behaved himself, but reflecting his utter dependence on Christ. It was faith that enabled Barnabas to hone in on God’s grace at work in the church in Antioch. No wonder Luke concludes v24 saying that many were added to the Lord.
A couple years ago just after Bill House went home to be with the Lord, Joyce lost his wedding band, which she wore around her neck, in a sizeable pile of goat muck. Anyone standing there would see nothing but the worst, that which is so precious covered in that which is so disgusting. Scott Hinks came to the rescue with a metal detector and quickly found the prized possession.
Faith does not ignore the sin, the mire, but it is tuned to the work of God in a person. It does not lie by calling sin good, but finding the good that God is doing and honing in on that, focusing on those areas in which God is at work.
Unfortunately, we too often typify the rewritten version of the great hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers. An anonymous writer rewrote this hymn to reflect more honestly the situation in too many churches when he wrote:
Backward Christian soldiers, Fleeing from the fight,
With the cross of Jesus, Nearly out of sight.
Christ our rightful master, Stands against the foe;
Onward into battle, we seem afraid to go.
Like a might tortoise, Moves the church of God.
Brothers we are treading, Where we’ve often trod.
We are much divided, Many bodies we,
Having different doctrines, but not much charity.
Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane,
But the cross of Jesus Hidden does remain.
Gates of hell should never ‘gainst the Church prevail,
We have Christ’s own promise, but we think it might fail.
Sit here then ye people, Join our sleeping throng.
Blend with ours, your voices in a feeble song.
Blessings, ease and comfort Ask from Christ the King,
But with our modern thinking, We won’t do a thing.
But the good news of the gospel is that God not only transforms us sinners when we come to Christ in faith at the beginning of our Christian life, but each and every day we are alive. God’s grace is at work in Cornerstone and we need faith like Barnabas to see it, for God is at work changing us to reflect him. Why? Because we bear his name, we are Christians.
Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, offered WGN Chicago Radio sports-talk host David Kaplan $50,000 to change his name legally to "Dallas Maverick", an ingenious marketing scheme. When Kaplan politely declined, Cuban sweetened the offer. Cuban would pay Kaplan $100,000 and donate $100,000 to Kaplan’s favorite charity if he took the name for one year. After some soul searching, and being bombarded by e-mails from listeners who said he was crazy to turn down the money, Kaplan held firm and told Cuban no. Kaplan explained,
"I’d be saying I’d do anything for money and it bothers me. My name is my birthright. I’d like to preserve my integrity and credibility."
You and I have been given a powerful birthright, adopted by the Father, joint-heirs with the Son, indwelt by the Spirit. We must seek to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.
The task is impossible for us to do, but God’s grace is far greater than our sin. We are called to obey, but in order to obey, we must trust, trust that our heavenly Father has supplied the means to obey, that is, the work of Christ, applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit.
