Thoughts on and Lessons from the Antioch Mission

We might cite a number of ‘missional’ passages in Scripture—Old and New Testaments.  Yet where might we turn and what might we learn from missional support texts?  One text is Acts 13.1-3, which gives a very abbreviated narrative of a particular group of Christians in the city of Antioch (today in Turkey).  They are part of the Antioch Christian Community but seem to form a special Antioch Mission, and they send two of their members on a new dimension of Christian mission.  Barnabas and Paul are sent out on a mission to the Gentiles in distant lands, reaching beyond the Hebrew and Hellenistic Jews.  Luke writes:

Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Of note in this passage is the international ‘air’ that is already present in this group of Christians.  Antioch on the Orontes in (ancient) Syria is in view.  It had been the western capital of the Persian Empire and was the third greatest city in the Roman Empire.  Though representing the renown of the city in the 4^th century AD, the following comment applies to the earlier centuries as well:

Antioch was a good choice for exporting the Gospel.  As Ammianus Marcellinus wrote about the city in the 4th c. AD, though in regard to a long history of importance,

Next Syria spreads for a distance over a beautiful plain. This is famed for Antioch, a city know to all the world, and without a rival, so rich is it in imported and domestic commodities’ (14.8.8).

Note the importance of the city for international trade.  For centuries, Tyre, to the south, also held this reputation.  Ezekiel 27-28, for example, makes note of its international renown and trade (cf. Zechariah 9.3).  In Paul’s day, Antioch held the title for trade in the eastern Mediterranean.  (Remember, Tyre was destroyed by Babylonian invaders at the time of Jerusalem’s fall in the early 6^th c. BC.—prophesied by Isaiah in 23.1)

We know that Barnabas was from a Mediterranean island to the west, Cyprus (Acts 4.36).  His nephew, Mark, joined the first mission and—no surprise—the first place the mission team headed was Cyprus.  We meet Barnabas first in Jerusalem, however, a benefactor of the church there.  The Jerusalem church sent him to Antioch when word arrived that great numbers had become Christians.  Barnabas, in turn, went to Tarsus to find Paul, and the two of them ministered in Antioch for a year (Acts 11.22-26).

Simeon is mentioned next.  He might have been dubbed ‘Niger’ (the Latin word for ‘black’) because he was black, unless this was some sort of reverse nickname like calling some big loaf, ‘Tiny’.  He has a good Jewish name, so I doubt he was a blond-haired German.  He might have been black and, if so, likely from East Africa.  Blacks were particularly associated with the region south of Egypt at the time rather than south of the Saharan desert, an ambiguous region with negligable contact at the time.  We must remember that North Africa was not black but Egyptian, Carthaginean, Numidian, Berber and the like.  Was Simeon a connection to the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8?  (‘Ethiopian’ at the time also meant ‘black’, not necessarily the country or peoples of ‘Ethiopia’ today.)  This is largely speculative, of course, but we might have a nickname to do with hair colour for all that matter.  (In fact, some ancient texts from the Middle East call Assyrian people by the name ‘black hair’.) 

The next chap was from North Africa—from the major city in the region of Libya (Acts 2.10).  Lucius.  We know of someone else from Cyrene, named Simon—the man who was commandeered to carry Jesus’ cross (Matthew 27.32).  Mark adds that he was the father of Alexander and Rufus (15.21).  Mentioning these names in the Gospel most likely was because they were known to the early Church, not just being mentioned as historical figures.  They were likely in the Church and could testify, or their children later in the century could report, that these events took place.  Also note that people present on the Day of Pentecost included persons from Cyrene (Acts 2.10).  So, there were several Cyrenean Christians in the early Church; now also Lucius.  Cyrene had an established historical and trade connection with Cyprus.  Moreover, believers from Cyrene and Cyprus came to Antioch to proclaim the Lord Jesus to Hellenists (Greek speaking Jews) (Acts 11.20).  A proselyte (Gentile associated with the Jewish faith) from Antioch served as one of the men chosen to serve the Jerusalem Hellenistic believers (Acts 6.4).  Here, too, would have been a connection between the early Church in Jerusalem and Antioch.  Acts 11.19 says that the persecution in Jerusalem after Stephen’s death travelled resulted in the Gospel spreading to Hebrew-speaking Jews in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.  The Jewish Diaspora was a ripe field for the early Christian missionaries, while Greek speaking Jews also spread the Gospel to other Hellenists.  The missionary activity of the early Church preceded Paul, but the mission of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13, what God called them to, was a final step in international missions: taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.  What should one call this community?  They were not Jews, nor Jewish proselytes.  P. Terentius Afer tells us that  ‘... the disciples of the Philosophers take their names from the Philosophers themselves...’ (The Eunuch 2.2).  At Antioch, followers of Jesus Christ were called ‘Christians’ (Acts 11.26).  The name stuck.

Manean is another member of the Antioch community.  He is mentioned as a lifelong friend of—of all people—Herod the tetrarch.  Now, of Herods there are aplenty, but we know this one.  He was one and the same as Herod Antipas, who ruled a tetrarchy of lands (including Galilee) on either side of the Jordan in Jesus’ day after his nasty father’s, King Herod the Great’s, death in 4 BC.  Herod the Tetrarch was the brute who divorced his wife to marry another—his brother Philip’s wife—the poster child of Jesus’ comment about divorce (Matthew 5.32; 19.9; Mark 10.11-12; Luke 16.18; Romans 7.3).  In Roman times, elites did not accumulate wives by polygamy but regularly divorced them to marry another.  When John the Baptist called him out for this as an adulterer (Mark 6.17-18), he had him imprisoned.  Apparently, John laid into Herod for other things too—‘all the evil things that Herod had done’ (Luke 3.19).  His adulteress wife, Herodias, asked for John’s head to be served on a platter (Mark 6.21-29).  This is also the Herod around at the time of Jesus’ death, and yet there is a reserve in Mark’s account about what is otherwise a nasty ruler.  Mark says that Herod himself feared John because he knew him to be a righteous and holy man.  Herod kept him safe and ‘heard him gladly’ (Mark 6.20).  Still, Jesus warned disciples against the ‘leaven of Herod’ (Mark 8.15).  Luke reports Herod’s demise in Acts 12.  He had killed James, the brother of John.  Hailed as a god, and receiving the praise, Luke tells us that God’s angel struck him, and he died eaten by worms.

After reading all this, you might join John in being a ‘Never Heroder’.  So, it might horrify you to run across Manean in Acts 13 and learn that he was a lifelong friend of the scourge himself.  You might be further triggered to learn that one of the faithful women disciples of Jesus was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager (Luke 8.3)!  Jesus’ travelling mission in the hills of Galilee was not all about multiplying loaves and fishes, it needed funding.  Joanna, as well as others, provided for the ministry out of their own means.  How many Christians there were in Herod’s household, we will never know.  We might be fairly certain that there was a John the Baptist connection, if indeed Herod liked to listen to him despite his accusations of sinfulness.  Who was this Manean?  Joanna and Chuza’s son?  Ah, the speculation.  Yet there would have been a connection between them, if not familial.  And here, now, Manean is in Antioch.  We have already noted a fleeing of persons after Stephen’s martyrdom.  Manean may have packed his bags at this time, too.

Saul—our Paul—too was part of this Antioch Community.  We might remember that he was from a Diaspora family in Tarsus with both Roman citizenship and close connections to Jerusalem.  Paul was educated there under rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22.3), a revered teacher of the Law and member of the Sanhedrin (Acts 5.34).  He was a right ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews’ and a Pharisee to boot, a strict follower of the Law (Philippians 3.5).  Then Jesus grabbed him, so to speak.  His life was turned upside down on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians when he encountered the risen Christ (Acts 9, 22, 26).  We have to read with a little imagination between Galatians 1 and reports in Acts about Paul’s early Christian life, and we have already noted several things.  We noted that Barnabas, sent to Antioch by the Jerusalem church to check in on the revival, then brought Paul from Tarsus to minister with him there.  After causing persecution for the Christians because of his evangelism and disputation with Hellenists again in Jerusalem (first because of Stephen, then because of Paul), Paul was sent home to Tarsus (Acts 9.29-31).  Prior to the Jerusalem church sending Paul away to Tarsus, though, Paul evangelized regions in Syria, Israel and, we might assume, Arabia, since we know he spent time there (Galatians 1.17).  This would have been desert regions east, perhaps also south, of Syria and Israel.

So, before the Antioch Community sent Paul and Barnabas on the so-called ‘First Missionary Journey’, we had already a flurry of early Christian mission.  This took place firstly among Jesus’ disciples in Israel and Samaria.  The Jerusalem Church was the epicentre of the early Church.

The causes or contributions to the early Church’s mission included:

·       The Old Testament texts about a ‘return from exile’ of the Jews, which John and Jesus applied to their day, that involved an inclusion (and judgement) of Gentiles and God’s universal reign

·       Jesus’ commissioning the disciples to go from Israel to all nations with the Gospel (Matthew 24.10; 28.18-20; Acts 1.8)

·       Jewish Diaspora visitors from regions far and wide hearing the Gospel and witnessing signs of the Holy Spirit at one of the three great pilgrim festivals, Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection (Acts 2)

·       Gentile proselytes in the synagogues representing an international network already in place

·       Targeted ministry of believers to other regions, including distant lands

·       Growing experience in evangelization, beginning in Jesus’ ministry and including from the beginning cross-cultural ministry

·       Waves of persecution in Jerusalem scattering believers (Saul, Stephen, Paul)

·       Church funding experience in Jesus’ ministry (Luke 8.1-3) and in Antioch for famine victims abroad (Acts 11.28)

Then we come to Acts 13.  This introduces a new phase of missions in the account of Luke in Acts as it involves crossing the boundary from Jews and proselytes to Gentiles with no connection to Jewish, let alone Christian, teaching.  Paul’s mission might have been linguistically confined to areas speaking Greek, but his planned mission to Spain would have required Latin and possibly translators to reach non-Roman colonists.  The Church’s theology, Biblically based, had the entire world in view for its mission from the start.  Some Jews visiting Israel for Pentecost came from outside the Roman empire (Parthians and Medes and Elamites). If the story of Thomas going to India is true (cf. Acts of Thomas), then that would also represent the early Christian mission going beyond the Empire. 

The Antioch Community was itself the result of mission among Jews and Hellenists within the Roman Empire.  People came from other regions, forming an internationally minded community in a trade centre of the empire.  It probably had some financial ability to fund such a mission (Acts 11.28, and given the wealth of the city in trade).  Those mentioned in Acts 13 were called by Luke ‘prophets and teachers’ (verse 1).  Teachers would explain the Old Testament prophetic words about the restoration of Israel and the inclusion of the Gentiles, especially from Isaiah—though this is a major theme in the Scriptures.  Prophets could speak the present word from God, and this is precisely what they did:

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  ³ Then after fasting and praying they laid hands on them and sent them off (Acts 13.2b-3).

The Antioch Mission takes this next step in mission not out of a boardroom but in the context of worship, prayer, and fasting.  We might suppose that there was some discussion and planning, but Luke emphasises the spiritual commissioning in a context of worship.  The Spirit speaks through a prophet in the community.  Then others lay hands on them to commission them for service.  No doubt, they sent them off with financial backing.  One final observation is that the missionaries were chosen, ordained, and sent for ministry.  They were given over to the work that the Spirit had called them to do.  We might be careful in saying this—we value decency and order—but I do think that the calling needs to trump the work.  People need to evaluate those called more than the work they do.  A church that keeps having missionaries report are in danger of questioning their calling.  Let missionaries report, especially for prayer support, but not be in constant fundraising mode to show that what they do meets certain criteria, especially criteria the supporting church invents on its own and changes from year to year.