Acts11chapter 11

Acts 11:1-3

The apostles and brethren in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God, and the report reaches Jerusalem before Peter does. Those of the circumcision, Jewish believers still holding the law's own boundary markers as binding, contended with him on his arrival. Their charge, thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them, aims at table fellowship rather than the gospel itself, since a Jew who shared a Gentile's table shared his ritual uncleanness by the custom of the day.

Acts 11:4-6

Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning and expounded it by order, the phrase carrying the sense of a case laid out point by point for a hearing, not a casual retelling. He returns to the trance at Joppa, the great sheet let down by four corners holding fourfooted beasts, wild beasts, creeping things and fowls, the same vision Luke has already narrated in chapter ten and now repeats in Peter's own mouth. Luke gives the vision entire twice within two chapters because the point of the book is that God, not Peter's own preference, opened the door to the nations.

Acts 11:7-10

The voice's command, Arise, Peter; slay and eat, meets Peter's protest that nothing common or unclean had ever entered his mouth, the same fidelity to the food laws he kept through the whole vision. The answer, what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common, is repeated three times, Luke's marker for a settled matter rather than a passing impression. The vision addresses ceremonial food distinctions on its face, and Peter will draw out its wider reach, that no man is to be called common or unclean, only once Cornelius's messengers stand at the door.

Acts 11:11-14

Behold, immediately there were three men already come unto the house pins the timing exactly, the vision's meaning arriving in the same hour as the men who will draw it out into practice. Peter goes with them nothing doubting because the Spirit himself bade him go, and six brethren from Joppa accompany him as witnesses he will need before this very council. He recounts the angel's word to Cornelius, that Peter would tell him words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved, salvation resting on a message received, not merely a vision seen.

Acts 11:15

As Peter began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning, the beginning being Pentecost itself, so Peter reads Cornelius's household as a second outpouring rather than a lesser blessing. The parallel is a pattern for the Spirit's ongoing work in the church: as on us at the beginning is Peter's own measure, and the beginning set the standard, not the excepated afterward. Both readings agree on what Luke records here, that God gave the Gentiles the same gift he gave the Jewish believers, with no lesser measure.

Acts 11:16-18

Peter remembers the word of the Lord, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, the same promise of 1:5 now landing on a Gentile household rather than the upper room. His question, what was I, that I could withstand God, closes the case: since God gave them the like gift, opposing it would mean opposing God himself. The circumcision party held their peace and glorified God, saying that God had granted repentance unto life to the Gentiles also, the strongest resolution the chapter could reach, agreement rather than a vote.

Acts 11:19-21

Luke now doubles back in time to those scattered by the persecution that arose about Stephen, near the start of chapter eight, and traces where that scattering carried the word, as far as Phenice, Cyprus, and Antioch, but at first to Jews only. Some Cypriot and Cyrenian believers broke that pattern at Antioch, speaking to the Grecians, the Greek-speaking population of the city, and preaching the Lord Jesus to them directly. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord, an unplanned mission that becomes the seedbed of the Gentile church at Antioch.

Acts 11:22-24

News reached the church at Jerusalem, and Barnabas, whose name means son of consolation, is sent to investigate, the same trusted go-between who earlier vouched for the converted Saul. He saw the grace of God and was glad, exhorting the new believers with purpose of heart to cleave unto the Lord rather than imposing a test of conformity on them. Luke's own verdict on him, that he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, explains why much people was added to the Lord under his ministry.

Acts 11:25-26

Barnabas departed to Tarsus to seek Saul, a decision that shapes the rest of the book, since it is Barnabas who brings the church's future missionary in from years of obscurity after his flight from Jerusalem in chapter nine. A whole year they assembled with the church at Antioch and taught much people, the first sustained teaching ministry the two men share. It was here, and not in Jerusalem, that the disciples were called Christians first, a name likely coined by outsiders in the city as a nickname for the Christ party rather than one the believers chose for themselves.

Acts 11:27-28

In these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch, evidence that the prophetic gift Joel promised at Pentecost was already an ordinary feature of the church's life rather than a one-time sign. Agabus, named again later at 21:10, signified by the Spirit a great dearth throughout all the world, and Luke adds his own historical footnote, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Roman and Jewish historians of the period both record repeated grain shortages under Claudius's reign, including a severe famine in Judea, so the fulfillment Luke notes is not a claim standing alone in the record.

Acts 11:29-30

The disciples at Antioch determined to send relief to the brethren in Judea, every man giving according to his ability, the church's first recorded act of financial fellowship between a Gentile-heavy congregation and the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. They sent it by the hands of Barnabas and Saul, the same two men just named as teachers, entrusted now as couriers of the church's charity as well as its word. The pattern anticipates the collection Paul organizes among the Gentile churches in his later letters, the nations owing a material debt to the mother church that gave them the gospel.