Actschapter 11
30 verses · BSBActs book hub →
Speaks with:Acts 10×10Acts 15×6Acts 9×5Acts 14×3Galatians 2×3Acts 13×3
Summary
Chapter summary
Peter's Jerusalem report. Controversy settled: 'then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.' The church at Antioch; the disciples first called Christians. Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus.
Context
History · Luke — Acts overview
- A. 1–18 Peter Explains Himself to Jerusalem
- B. 19–26 Antioch: Where They Were First Called Christians
- C. 27–30 Agabus Foretells Famine and Relief Is Sent
The outline
A.Peter Explains Himself to Jerusalemvv. 1 to 18
Read vv. 1 to 18 →B.Antioch: Where They Were First Called Christiansvv. 19 to 26
Read vv. 19 to 26 →C.Agabus Foretells Famine and Relief Is Sentvv. 27 to 30
Read vv. 27 to 30 →
The world behind this chapter
Acts 11The history
Antioch was the third city of the Roman empire, after Rome and Alexandria — perhaps a quarter of a million people, sitting on the trade road from the Euphrates to the sea, with its port at Seleucia sixteen miles downriver. It was cosmopolitan, notoriously pleasure-loving, and had a large, long-settled Jewish community.
That mix is why the breakthrough happened there. Scattered believers from Cyprus and Cyrene started speaking to Greeks as well as Jews, and a mixed congregation formed that no one had planned.
The nickname "Christians" was coined here. The ending Luke uses is Latin in flavour, the way a political faction was labelled — Caesar's men, Herod's men. Outsiders were naming them after the person they would not stop talking about.
Agabus's famine warning fits the record: the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54) saw repeated grain shortages, and Josephus describes a severe famine in Judea around AD 46 in which a foreign queen bought grain to feed Jerusalem. The relief sent from Antioch is the first recorded church-to-church aid.
What it meant to them
For the first readers, Peter's defence settled an argument. He does not appeal to his own authority; he simply narrates what God did, step by step, and the objection dies in the room.
Antioch then showed what a mixed church could be. A congregation of Jews and Greeks, taught for a full year by Barnabas and Saul, responded to news of famine hundreds of miles away by sending money — each according to his ability. That instinct becomes a theme of Paul's whole career.
Sources cited
- F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (NICNT)
- Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Acts 11. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.