Acts 11
Peter defends his visit to a Gentile's house before his critics in Jerusalem, recounts the whole episode in order, and produces a silence that turns into praise; meanwhile, Antioch becomes the new missionary centre.
Summary
News reaches Jerusalem that the Gentiles too have received the word of God. When Peter goes up to Jerusalem, the circumcised party criticizes him: you went to uncircumcised men and ate with them. Peter explains the whole episode in order, beginning with his rooftop vision at Joppa. He adds a detail not in chapter 10: as the men from Cornelius arrived, the Spirit told him to go with them, and he remembered the word of the Lord: John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Peter asks: if God gave them the same gift as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? When they hear this, the critics fall silent and glorify God, saying: then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. The endorsement is important: the Jerusalem church is on record as accepting the Cornelius baptism before any formal controversy arises.
Those scattered after Stephen's death had been preaching only to Jews. But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, came to Antioch and began preaching to the Greeks, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. A great number believed and turned to the Lord. The Jerusalem church hears and sends Barnabas to Antioch. Barnabas, a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith, sees the grace of God and is glad; he encourages all of them to remain faithful with steadfast purpose. A great many people are added. Barnabas then travels to Tarsus to find Saul and brings him to Antioch, where they work together for a whole year and teach a great many people. In Antioch the disciples are first called Christians. During this time, prophets come down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and one of them, Agabus, predicts by the Spirit that a great famine will come over all the world — which occurs under the emperor Claudius. The disciples send relief to the brothers living in Judea, sending it by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
- Acts 1Chapter 1 is a prologue and a hinge.
- Acts 2Pentecost is the structural and theological engine of the whole book.
- Acts 3Chapter 3 is the first miracle narrative in Acts, and its structure follows a pattern the book will repeat: the sign, the crowd, the sermon, and the opposition (which comes in chapter 4).
- Acts 4Chapter 4 is the first formal opposition scene in Acts, and it establishes a pattern: arrest, interrogation, the apostles' refusal, release, prayer, and the Spirit's confirmation.
- Acts 5Chapter 5 is one of the most dramatically concentrated in the book.
- Acts 6Chapter 6 is transitional but efficient.
- Acts 7Chapter 7 is the theological and dramatic climax of the Jerusalem section.
- Acts 8Chapter 8 is the first chapter of the middle section — Judea and Samaria — and it works by juxtaposition.
- Acts 9Chapter 9 contains the first telling of Paul's conversion (the other two are in chapters 22 and 26), and it is worth reading all three consecutively to see how Luke shapes each one for its audience.
- Acts 10Chapter 10 is the structural pivot of the first half of Acts and one of the most carefully constructed chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 11Chapter 11 has two movements.
- Acts 12Chapter 12 is the last major Peter chapter in Acts, and it works as a deliberate counterpoint to the Herod material.
- Acts 13Chapter 13 is the beginning of the long Pauline section, and it opens with a scene worth pausing over: the Spirit speaks during a worship service in Antioch — while they are worshipping and fasting — and sets Barnabas and Saul apart for a specific but unnamed work.
- Acts 14Chapter 14 completes the first missionary journey and its most memorable episode is the Lystra scene (verses 8-20).
- Acts 15Chapter 15 is the structural centre of Acts and one of the most important chapters in the New Testament.
- Acts 16Chapter 16 is one of the richest in Acts.
- Acts 17Chapter 17 covers three cities and demonstrates the range of Paul's rhetorical repertoire.
- Acts 18Chapter 18 is relatively measured in tone after the drama of chapter 17.
- Acts 19Chapter 19 is the longest account of Paul's settled ministry in any city and falls into two parts.
- Acts 20Chapter 20 is the most elegiac in Acts.
- Acts 21Chapter 21 is the beginning of the long arrest sequence that occupies the rest of the book.
- Acts 22Chapter 22 is the second telling of Paul's conversion (the first is in chapter 9, the third in chapter 26).
- Acts 23Chapter 23 is structurally a thriller: the Sanhedrin hearing (verses 1-10), the night vision in the barracks (verse 11), the assassination plot (verses 12-22), and the extraordinary military escort to Caesarea (verses 23-35).
- Acts 24Chapter 24 is the first of three formal hearings in Acts — before Felix (24), before Festus (25), and before Agrippa (26) — and it establishes the pattern the others follow: Jewish accusation, Paul's defence, Roman incomprehension of the internal religious question, and a procedurally inconclusive result.
- Acts 25Chapter 25 is a pivot chapter.
- Acts 26Chapter 26 is the third and final telling of Paul's conversion (compare chapters 9 and 22) and the most rhetorically elaborate.
- Acts 27Chapter 27 is one of the most detailed sea narratives in ancient literature and is written in the first person plural (the we-passage resumes at verse 1), which gives it its immediacy.
- Acts 28Chapter 28 is the ending the book has been building toward, and it rewards slow reading.