The Church Scattered

January 7, 2018

The Church Scattered

Summary and Goal

As the gospel escaped Jerusalem and spread to places like Antioch, the gospel has continued to spread throughout Middle Tennessee through the Middle Tennessee Initiative. Use this Sunday to celebrate your campus and call them to greater involvement in the Middle Tennessee Initiative.

Main Passages

Acts 11:19-21

Session Outline

1. Taking the Gospel to Your Own (Acts 11:19)

2. Taking the Gospel to Others (Acts 11:20)

3. God Empowers the Gospel Message (Acts 11:21)

Theological Theme

God empowers the gospel message for salvation when we are faithful to speak it, even when our circumstances are dire.

Christ Connection

Just as Christ commissioned His followers to be His witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth, He empowered their faithfulness to the Great Commission.

Missional Application

The Great Commission is for all believers. Believers are a sent people, called to faithfully communicate the glorious truth of Christ in all circumstances of life.

Historical Context of Acts

Purpose

To give an accurate account of the birth and growth of the Christian church

Author

Luke (a Gentile physician)

To Whom Written

Theophilus and all lovers of God

Date Written

Between A.D. 63 and 70

Setting

Acts is the connecting link between Christ’s life and the life of the church, between the Gospels and the Letters.

Key Verse

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” –Acts 1:8

Key People

Peter, John, James, Stephen, Philip, Paul, Barnabas, Cornelius, James (Jesus’ brother), Timothy, Lydia, Silas, Titus, Apollos, Agabus, Ananias, Felix, Festus, Agrippa, Luke

Key Places

Jerusalem, Samaria, Lydda, Joppa, Antioch, Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, Derbe, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Caesarea, Malta, Rome

Special Features

Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Because Acts ends so abruptly, Luke may have planned to write a third book, continuing the story.

–Excerpted from the Life Application Study Bible (NIV). Tyndale House Publishes, 2003.

Introduction

Corrie ten Boom was a watchmaker in the Netherlands at the time the Nazis invaded her country. Initially, her family hid Jews and others who aligned with the resistance in the closets of their home. Their relief efforts expanded to providing ration cards for Jews so that they could acquire food in the occupied Netherlands. Eventually, though, a Jewish informant told the Gestapo of the ten Boom family’s efforts. Corrie ten Boom and her sister were sent to three different concentration camps.

Throughout her time in the various camps, aside from the three-month period of solitary confinement, Corrie and her sister Betsie held worship services at the end of each day’s harsh work. When she was released due to a clerical error, still mourning her sister’s death fifteen days earlier, Corrie opened a rehabilitation center for concentration camp survivors, continuing her work of Christlike compassion.

There is a temptation to think of the spread of the gospel happening in a sort of euphoric state, in which everyone responds with openness to the followers of Christ. Yet reality paints a much different picture. Like Corrie ten Boom, the spread of the gospel takes place when Christ followers faithfully act upon the opportunities presented them to share His story—even if those opportunities occur in treacherous circumstances.

• Describe a time when God opened a door for you to talk about Jesus in an unlikely situation. What need or cause presented the opening?
• How aware are you of the needs in your own neighborhood? How would you like to see that change in the next six months?
• In which spheres has God given you unique influence? What would you say are the top two ways you could serve the people in those spheres?

Session Summary

In this week’s session, Luke described how the gospel spread from a huddled group of Jewish believers in Jerusalem to Gentiles in Antioch. The event marked the beginning of the universal spread of the gospel, regardless of ethnicity. Interestingly, what spawned the movement was a forced diaspora of Jews from Jerusalem due to harsh persecution. Observing the messengers of the gospel reveals that the spread of the gospel was the result of men who harvested the opportunities presented to them for gospel witnessing.

1. Taking the Gospel to Your Own (Acts 11:19)

Verse 19 serves as a bit of a disruption in the timeline of Luke’s account in Acts. At the beginning of the verse, Luke looped back to Acts 8:4 where he described the scattering of the believers due to the persecution led by Saul, who would become the apostle Paul. The reason for reverting at this point was thematic; Luke was focusing on the spreading of the gospel to Gentiles. After tracing the ministry of Peter up through his defense of the gospel going to Gentiles in Acts 11:18, Luke resumed the description of the activity of other believers as a result of the persecution. In doing so, listing the names of Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch made it clear that Luke was turning his focus toward those believers who traveled northward when the persecution broke out. The cities are listed in order of arrival, moving northward from Jerusalem, with ship travel being necessary between them.

The fact that there was such a great distance between the three cities made the qualifying statement about the spread of the gospel all the more surprising. Specifically, they spoke only to other Jews about Jesus. The importance of recognizing how these events historically coincide with Peter’s evangelistic ministry to the house of Cornelius is that it demonstrates God’s desire for the gospel to go to the world. Peter was an apostle (if not the lead apostle), but these men recorded in verses 19-21 were not only not apostles, they are not even named.

• Would you say that it is easier to talk about Jesus to people that are like you and have a shared background, or people with whom you are completely unfamiliar? Why do you think so? Can you give a personal example?
• Who would you say culture has identified as “untouchable,” or those who should be avoided? In your opinion, what should gospel ministry to them look like?

As the gospel spread beyond Judea and Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth—according to the Acts 1:8 model—verse 19 still depicts a narrow approach to evangelism. The reason for this is the inconceivable nature of the idea of Gentiles embracing the Jewish Messiah. It was unimaginable to the Jews who were fleeing Jerusalem because of the persecution they were enduring. It would be difficult to say whether the more significant factor was the hatred between Jews and Gentiles culturally or the inherent disregard of the Gentiles pertaining to fulfilled prophecies of the Messiah. Both factors were present. What Luke revealed in the next verse, then, was a scandalous paradigm shift.

2. Taking the Gospel to Others (Acts 11:20)

Among the fleeing evangelists, though, were a small group of daring souls. Luke did not mention their names, only their places of origin—Cyprus and Cyrene. The mark of distinction that made the mention of their hometowns important was their initiative to share the gospel with those believed to be outside the realm of the news of the Messiah. Perhaps that is the reason that Luke recorded the content of their message as “proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus.” As scholar F. F. Bruce explains, “to present Him as Messiah to people who knew nothing of the hope of Israel would have been a meaningless exercise, but the Greek terms kyrios (‘Lord’) and soter (‘Savior’) were widely current in the religious world of the eastern Mediterranean.”

• What distinctive features of the way you were raised influence your understanding of Jesus? How did you perceive Him growing up? How have your experiences shaped that?
• Who do you know that has a similar understanding and/or background? Why is that important to understand? How might God have uniquely formed you for that purpose?

The significant undercurrent of the introduction of Hellenist evangelists from Cyprus and Cyrene is that they were not from Jerusalem. When they began sharing with Gentiles about the good news of the Lord Jesus, they were uniquely qualified to share that message precisely because they were not from Jerusalem. Their Hellenized background (meaning they spoke Greek and practiced the customs of Greek life) combined with their faith in Jesus Christ made them a perfect bridge between the two worlds. Taking the gospel to those who had never heard of Jesus occurred to them because they shared so much commonality of background with them.

3. God Empowers the Gospel Message (Acts 11:21)

“The Lord’s hand” is a common metaphor for communicating the power of God at work. In this particular instance, the Lord was working in conjunction with his faithful, unnamed servants as they faithfully took advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves. This validation was extremely important in Luke’s record because of the completely unprecedented nature of what the Cypriot and Cyrenian evangelists were embarking upon. In fact, it was unprecedented enough that when Peter undertook the same evangelistic work to the Gentiles, a faction from the church in Jerusalem was dispatched to investigate.

What form did the validation that God was at work take? Saved souls. Specifically, “a large number who believed turned to the Lord.” God’s desire is for those far from Him to become close—to be saved. The best sign that God is at work among His people is the evidence of changed lives as hearts turn to Christ.

• How does knowing that it is God who empowers our ministry efforts shape your thinking about your own ministry service?
• What is your feeling on pioneering ministry in a place it has not previously been? Does it excite you? What areas are the most appealing to you in middle Tennessee?

Antioch was the perfect city to become the hub of Gentile Christianity. Centuries of equal citizenship for all had brought a myriad of people groups from all over the world, even as far as China. Its cosmopolitan culture created a wide variance of those that experienced the gospel. The degree to which it became known for its Christian culture in the midst of all of the nations is a testament to what God can and will do when His people are faithful to take the gospel with them as they go.

Conclusion

It would be difficult to imagine a book of the Bible more readily applicable to the church today than Acts. As we consider the Middle Tennessee Initiative and our devotion to take the gospel to Middle Tennessee while ministering to the community’s various deep needs, the correlation with Acts 11:19-21 is clear.

First, the gospel is spread when we are faithful to proclaim it in the real-time circumstances we experience. Some of those experiences may be enjoyable. Some of those experiences may feel much like the persecution that caused the Jewish flight from Jerusalem. Either way, Jesus has a place in all of them. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Great Commission’s force is “As you are going into the world….” That means that believers must search for the opportunities to serve others and proclaim the gospel in the course of every day.

Second, going frequently means being with those who are different than us. From a gospel perspective, it goes beyond merely being with them to investing in them for the sake of salvation. Middle Tennessee is no less cosmopolitan than Antioch with regard to the variation of backgrounds, nationalities, and even religions. Taking the gospel to its corners, then, will require the same pioneering spirit for the Gospel that the evangelists from Cyprus and Cyrene displayed centuries ago.

Third, God’s hand will be at work for the purpose of salvation. Any hesitation we may feel about our own limitations or over-confidence we may feel as a result of our own gifting must be seen in light of the fact that it is God’s hand at work that causes salvation. When it is with us, though, salvation will be the result. We can rest knowing that, in the midst of our faithful service, it is God’s hand that empowers the work. Indeed, He is the God who saves!

• How is God prompting you to serve others in your community? What particular causes or areas weigh heavily on your heart? What gives you a sense of burden?
• How confident are you in your ability to communicate the gospel and your own testimony? What would you say if the opportunity presented itself at your first appointment tomorrow?
• Describe a time when you unquestionably felt the power of God at work. What happened? What evidences of life change did you see? How did it impact your desire to experience it again?

Acts 11:19-21

11:19. We cannot proceed further in Acts 11 without linking this verse with Acts 8:4: Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Luke picks up precisely on that wording and continues the story of the dispersion of Hellenistic Jewish Christians after the death of Stephen. We know what happened to Philip; now Luke wants to tell us how God is about to do a new work in a most unlikely place.

Here it is again—another “meanwhile” passage by Dr. Luke. Most of these escaping Hellenists were not as radical as some would have thought. They carefully preached the message only to Jews in three places Luke names—Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. The Phoenician plain extended seventy-five miles along the coast of middle Syria from Mt. Carmel to the Eleutheros River. Presumably, the scattered witnesses visited cities like Ptolemais, Tyre, Sidon, and even Zarepahth (cf. Acts 21:3-7).

Others took to the sea, escaping to the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, approximately one hundred miles off the Syrian coast. All these cities (including Antioch) were steeped in Hellenistic culture, logical places for the refugees to land. They would have had no trouble explaining their faith in Christ to Hellenists like themselves. As in the early ministry of Paul, these scattered Christians first went to synagogues and preached to Jews.

11:20. Antioch was different. The word Greeks seems synonymous with Gentiles in this context, and Luke fully intends us to see the link with what has been building throughout the last three chapters. Presumably, the men from Cyprus and Cyrene were Hellenists who had been in Jerusalem at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom. Instead of returning home, they headed north to Antioch. So Antioch developed contact with both these places (Barnabas came to Antioch from Cyprus, and one of the first missionary candidates was Lucius of Cyrene, 13:1).

This aggressive evangelism by anonymous preachers throws our heavily-programmed modern church into stark and feeble contrast. Never mind that they had been driven from their homes and scattered. Never mind that God led them to one of the most wicked cities of the Roman world. They had a message to deliver— the good news about the Lord Jesus. Notice they didn’t preach a coming Messiah; that appropriately related to Jewish groups. Even though the Greeks in Antioch may have been proselytes, they possessed only a small portion of the zeal Jerusalemite Jews held for the coming of the Messiah.

Before we leave this verse, just a word about Cyrene. This Libyan city in North Africa lay some 2,000 feet above the Mediterranean and ten miles inland from the coast. For several hundred years it was viewed as an oasis in the desert before it became a part of Egypt in 231 b.c. The Simon who carried Jesus’ cross came from Cyrene (Luke 23:26), and we know Cyrenians were present at Pentecost (2:10). The Greeks had intended to make Cyrene “the Athens of Africa,” but the Romans cut short that plan.

11:21. God blessed these sincere Christians who were willing to share the gospel so that in Antioch a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord. The church erupted at Antioch, and a new thing happened. Both the Ethiopian eunuch and Cornelius reached out to Christians, inviting the gospel. Here Jewish Christians aggressively take the gospel to Gentiles. The church has begun to turn the world upside down. The second congregation of the New Testament comes together as the Gentile effort expands.