In the middle of Acts 13, we read that Paul and his companions came to the city of Pisidian Antioch in central Asia Minor, different from their sending church in Antioch on the coast of Syria. On the Sabbath, it says they entered the synagogue and sat down. And after the reading of the Law […]
After being commissioned by the church at Antioch (Acts 13), Barnabas and Saul went first to Cyprus, the birthplace of Barnabas. There they began their ministry with a practice that would become a pattern for Saul (Paul); namely, proclaiming the word of God first in the synagogues of the Jews. They were finally summoned by […]
One of the Acts of the Holy Spirit recorded in the book of Acts was the first formal commissioning of missionaries from a local church. It was the church in (Syrian) Antioch, the church where the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). The commissioning of Barnabas and Saul is in Acts 13:2-3: And when […]
Who is truly sovereign? That is one of the themes of Acts 12. King Herod Agrippa of Judea was part Jewish, and curried the favor of the Jewish religious leaders of his day by arresting and mistreating Christians and putting James the apostle to death (vv. 1-2). Herod then made a symbolic move to further […]
In Acts 12, the apostle Peter was arrested under orders by Herod (v. 3) who then placed Peter in prison under maximum security (v. 4), likely to be executed after the Passover feast to the delight of the Jews (vv. 3-4). But (v. 5): So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him […]