Acts 11 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~AD 36-46, spanning Peter's report and the founding of the church at Antioch
Location
Jerusalem, then Antioch in Syria, the third largest city in the Roman empire
Audience
Theophilus and Luke's Greek-speaking readers, including believers in mixed Jewish and Gentile congregations
Situation
Peter defends his visit to Cornelius before the Jerusalem believers, and news arrives that scattered believers in Antioch have begun preaching to Greeks, prompting the church to send Barnabas, who fetches Saul from Tarsus.
Key Background
Antioch sat on the Orontes river in Syria with a population in the hundreds of thousands and a large established Jewish community, which made it the natural place for a mixed congregation to form. The nickname Christian appears here for the first time and follows a Latin pattern for naming a person's political or household followers, so it was likely coined by outsiders rather than chosen by the group. The famine relief sent to Judea at the end fits a documented food shortage under the emperor Claudius in the mid-forties, and sending money to Jerusalem was a recognised way for diaspora Jewish communities to express solidarity with the homeland.
Now the and the brothers and sisters throughout Judea heard that had also embraced
So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who on confronted him,
saying, "You went into the homes of and ate with them!"
But Peter laid it all out for them from the beginning, step by step:
"I was in the city of praying, and in a I saw something coming down — like a huge sheet being lowered from the sky by its four corners — and it came right down to where I was.
I looked closely at it and saw all kinds of four-footed animals, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds.
Then I heard a voice say to me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'
But I said, 'Absolutely not, Lord! Nothing or has ever touched my lips.'
But the voice from heaven spoke a second time: 'What God has stop calling off-limits.'
This happened three times, and then the whole thing was pulled back up into the sky.
Right at that moment, three men who had been sent to me from showed up at the house where I was staying.
The told me to go with them These six brothers also came with me, and we went into the man's house.
He told us how he had seen an appear in his house and say, 'Send men to Joppa and bring back Simon, the one called Peter.
He will tell you a message through which you and everyone in your will be
"As I began to speak, the of on them just like it on us at the very beginning.
Then I remembered what the Lord had said: 'John people in water, but you will be in the Breath of God.'
So if God gave them the exact same gift he gave us when we in the Lord Jesus, the — who was I to think I could stand in God's way?"
When they heard this, they had nothing more to say. They praised God, saying, "So then, God has given even non-Jewish people the chance to and
Now those who had been scattered by the that broke out after was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and but they only shared the message with Jewish people.
But some of them — men from Cyprus and — went to Antioch and started telling the about the Lord Jesus too.
The was with them, and a huge number of people and to the Lord.
News about this reached the in Jerusalem, so they sent to Antioch.
When he arrived and saw the evidence of he was overjoyed and encouraged them all to to the Lord with all their
Barnabas was a good man, of the of and of in And a large number of people were brought to the Lord.
Then Barnabas went to to look for
and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the there and taught large numbers of It was in Antioch that the were first called of the
During this time, some came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.
One of them, named Agabus, stood up and — through the — predicted that a severe was about to hit the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of
So the followers decided that each of them would send help, to their to the and living in Judea.
They did this, sending their to the through Barnabas and Saul.