Acts 11:19-30 – This passage of Acts focuses on some of the early missionary activities of the Church. They were grappling with who to send, where to send them, and where to go.

They reported on who went, where they went, and what the Lord accomplished through the Church’s faithfulness to send out missionaries, and through the faithfulness of those who went.

It tells us how they were funded, both through individual generosity, and through the corporate generosity of one church supporting another whenever hard times would hit one region over another.

It’s truly remarkable how similar the early church and the modern church are! I mean, of course, transportation and communication and technology have all advanced, but the essence of the mission and the calling into missions and the practicalities of missions are all very similar today as they were then!

God loves the world – in fact, John 3:16 tells us that God SO loves the world! And He still calls individuals to go today – and He still calls churches to send them, and He still accomplishes eternal, Kingdom-sized things throughout the world through churches’ faithful sending, and missionaries’ faithful going – it’s awesome!

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

Acts 11:25

This chapter of Acts takes place in the year 43 A.D. This is about six years after Saul’s conversion to faith in Jesus. And during those last six years, Saul has been doing mission work in Damascus, Arabia, Jerusalem, Syria, and Cilicia near his hometown of Tarsus.

And these verses tell us that Saul and Barnabas did ministry together in the city of Antioch for an entire year. Antioch was the Roman capital of Syria, and had a population at the time of about 250,000 people, making it quite a large city for that time in history.

Then it tells us that “the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.” This wasn’t a name they gave themselves, but rather it was an identifying label assigned to them by the Romans – and the reason we know this is because the word “Christians” wasn’t a Hebrew or Aramaic word. It was a Greek word, and it meant “followers of the Christ,” which was the Greek word for the Hebrew “Messiah,” which means Savior from the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible.

So “Christians” was the Greek word that the Romans used to label those who were the followers of the Savior sent by God to save the world. Y’all, God SO loves the world!