The passage we are studying today describes how the gospel advanced into the city of Antioch where “the disciples were first called Christians” (v. 26). At first glance, it can be really easy to miss the significance of what was taking place at this specific moment in the history of the church.

But when if do your research, you will find that Antioch was basically the Las Vegas of the Middle East during the time in which we are studying; Antioch was the third largest city in the known world, it comprised of at least five different ethnic cultures, it was known for its: over the top depravity, it was full of Pagan idol worship (including the use of ritual temple prostitution), and godly Jews made up only seven percent of the population.2

Antioch was pretty much, one of the dirtiest places on the known earth at the time and it would seem as though it was probably one of the last places that any religious person would go to – especially when you think about the percentage of the population that were disciples of Jesus.

But this was the place where God chose to have his disciples named as Christians. God literally chose the darkest and dirtiest corner of the earth to have his disciples named after himself by the culture.

Let that sink in for a moment. In the darkest and dirtiest corner of the earth, something was so radically different about this tiny little cultural subset of early disciples, that the putrid culture they lived in actually named them after the Messiah they followed. This tiny little group of disciples had so impacted the filthy culture they lived in that they received a name from that very culture.

Why did this happen? How did this happen? If you were to ask someone in America about what it means to be a Christian, you will probably get a hundred different conflicting answers. If you ask someone in a third world country about what it means to be an American, they will most likely tell you that to be an American is to be a Christian.

Being a Christian at the time that our text was written, actually meant something that was worth dying for. But today, the term “Christian” has been watered down to mean nothing more than a national identity, a political ideology, or an identity that is based upon religious preferences during the holidays. The challenge in front of us today is to think about what it actually means to be a Christian in the cultural context we live in.

Now it is true that the Las Vegas of our time is definitely a melting pot of cultural darkness and filth. Christy and I went to Vegas last year for our twenty-year anniversary and it was fun, but it was also a little bit alarming; we definitely experienced some things that I will not elaborate on here, but I am sure you can imagine all sorts of things. The question I remember asking myself was “What would it look like to live here as a Christian”?

The reality is that wherever we live in America, we inevitably live within some of the shocking realities of Sin-City. So, what did it look like to be a Christian in the Sin-City of Antioch and how should we be challenged to be Christians in the Sin-Cities of America today? The short and simple answer is that Christians are called to be about the business of advancing the gospel. The gospel of Christ, crucified, risen, and returning, is meant to be spoken, preached, or proclaimed. The gospel was never meant to produce little huddles of so-called sanctified saints who huddle up in their basements or church buildings once or twice a week while avoiding the culture around them.

The gospel must be spoken throughout the sin-cities we do life in and the first thing we learn about speaking the gospel, in the text we are studying, is that the gospel is meant to be spoken to all people regardless of cultural differences or cultural darkness. There is literally no place on earth that Jesus was unwilling to go to. Look at the text with me…

19Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. 20But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 22The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, 24for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord. 25So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. 27Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

#1: WE MUST SPEAK THE GOSPEL TO ALL PEOPLE (VV. 19 – 21)

In verses 19 – 21 we see that the disciples are being scattered all over the known world because of Stephen’s persecution back in chapter 7 and that as the disciples are being scattered, they take the message of the gospel with them and while some of them speak the gospel only to their fellow Jews, others begin to speak the gospel to the Gentiles (following in Peter’s footsteps from chapter 10). The result of the gospel being spoken to all people is that “the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord” (v. 21). The point of this section of our text is that the early disciples did not try to confine the gospel to their inner circle; they literally began to see that the gospel is for all people.

This realization would later lead the apostle Paul to say in 1 Corinthians 9:22 that he had “become all things to all people, that by all means” he might be able to save a few by speaking the gospel to everyone. He even listed out Jews, law abiding citizens, outlaws, and those who lived with particular weaknesses as his main mission field. Moral of the story, is that the apostle Paul understood that we must speak the gospel to all people regardless of the cultural barriers we often encounter.

I would encourage you to begin making friends with people who are very different than you. Spend intentional time with them. Practice a humilitive posture. Ask good questions about their lives. Learn what gets them out of bed in the morning. Come to understand what frustrates them and what hardships they are facing. Ask the Spirit of God to show you specific ways that you can pray for, minister to, serve, and come alongside your newfound friends. Be slow to speak, quick to listen, and slow to anger.

Speak often of your love for Jesus and testify to what he has done for you and is doing in you. Do not make your newfound friends into some kind of evangelism project. No one likes to be a project, but everyone wants a good friend who genuinely loves and cares for them. Earn the right to be heard and then speak the gospel with gentleness and respect. The result might just be that you join the ranks of the kind of Christian who actually leads people to believe upon the name of Jesus for salvation.

#2: WE MUST SPEAK THE GOSPEL WITH OUR LIVES (VV. 22 – 24)

In verses 22 – 24 we learn that the church in Jerusalem heard that the gospel was producing many new believers from every conceivable background in the Sin-City of Antioch. So, they sent Barnabas to check things out and when he saw that the grace of God was at work in saving people from every conceivable background in that city, he joined in on the work of making disciples by encouraging the disciples to “remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose” (v. 23).

The reality is that the Lord blessed Barnabas’ ministry because the text tells us that “he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” and the result of his lifestyle matching his message is that “a great many people were added to the Lord” (v. 24). At the end of the day, a revival began to take place in the Sin-City of the Middle East because Barnabas was not only faithful to speak the gospel with his words to everyone, but he was also faithful to speak the gospel through his life.

One of the major criticisms of unchurched and unbelieving people today regarding the church, is that the church is full of stuffy, clean cut, fanatical, nationalistic, hypocrites. In other words, all too often, the image of what it means to be a Christian today, is the image of uptight people who wear their “Sunday Best” on Sunday mornings as they attend church gatherings, who also have a tendency to freak out over every sinful thing going on in the culture at large, while pushing a political agenda more than the gospel, as they cling tightly to Bibles wrapped in American flags, while committing flagrant sins of gossip, slander, covetousness, greed, division, spiritual pride, judgment of the lost and broken, as well as sexual sin of every variety.

This depiction does not even begin to take into account the centuries of atrocities and abuses that the church has dished out in the name of religion (the Crusades, burning heretics at the stake, separating entire families to push the agenda of celibate priesthood, etc.). The point here is that we must speak the gospel with our lives in contrast to the hypocritical façade that Christians have exuded for centuries. We must speak the gospel with our lives.

#3: WE MUST SPEAK THE GOSPEL WITH OTHER FAITHFUL DISCIPLES (VV. 25 – 26)

In verses 25 – 26 Barnabas must have realized that the work of ministry was far too heavy for him to handle on his own so he recruited Saul (who would later be known as the apostle Paul) and they shared the ministry of speaking the gospel to all people with words that were backed up with their lifestyles and it is precisely here that as the church in the Sin-City of the Middle East began to explode, the citizens of Sin-City began calling the disciples, Christians.

It is quite possible that the term “Christian” was originally a derogatory term3 but nevertheless, it was the term that was used to describe believers and people were becoming believers on a daily basis because disciples were speaking the gospel in unity with other faithful disciples. There is no such thing as a “Lone-Ranger-Christian”. Disciples are made in the midst of gospel centered community; this means that both evangelism of the lost and training of the saved is to be done in community. Jesus established this pattern when he sent his disciples out to minister in pairs (Mark 6:7 – 13; Luke 9:1 – 2).

I would encourage you to not only be engaged in the small groups ministry of the church but to also find two or three friends to work together with to establish relational, evangelistic, discipleship strategies so that you can be about the ministry of speaking the gospel together with your mouths, and with your lives.

#4: WE MUST SPEAK THE GOSPEL THROUGH OUR GENEROSITY (VV. 27 – 30)

In verses 27 – 30 some prophets come to visit the church in the Sin-City of the Middle East and while they are visiting, one of them foretells of “a great famine over all the world” that is about to happen. The disciples decide to take up a generous offering to send to the church in Judea and then they send that offering to the church with Barnabas and Saul.

Initially this whole thing may not seem very significant. But if you think about the fact that these Christians were living in the Sin-City of the Middle East, then it is not a stretch at all to understand that greed was one of the major idols of their time. It would have been culturally acceptable to just store up some money to help themselves. But these early Christians chose to live counter cultural by practicing generosity.

Sadly, this is not always the tale of the tape in the American church. Typically 80% of a churches budgetary needs are covered by 20% of its membership because Americans are better at being greedy with what God gives them rather than being generous with what they are supposed to steward. This should be a challenge that is met with joy-filled obedience in the church since Christians are the ones who proclaim the gospel of a Savior who did not spare a single drop of blood or single piece of his shredded flesh for the salvation of his enemies.

The fact that we serve such a generous Savior should result in Christians being the most generous people on the face of the planet. If a church is full of generous Christians who understand the cost of their salvation, that churches budget will not suffer, and their will not be a needy person among them. If a church cannot tell this kind of story of generosity then it begs the question of just how costly that church believes her salvation was. We must speak the gospel through our generosity my friends.

CONCLUSION…

In conclusion… early believers were first called Christians in the third largest city of the known world where sin, evil, depravity, and darkness were running rampant in a population that boasted a mere seven percent as followers of Jesus. These early Christians were known for their proclamation of the gospel to everyone they came into contact with. As they spoke the gospel it was obvious that their lives matched their words. They were not fanatical street corner preachers and their generosity shocked the socks off the feet of the prevalent preoccupation with greed. The Las Vegas of the Middle East was getting rocked by Christians who were willing to put everything on the line for the sake of speaking the gospel.

The reality is that they were taking their cues from their Savior whose broken body and shed blood had ransomed and redeemed them from their previous lives of sin and hatred towards God. These people had spent significant time at the foot of a bloody cross. They had wrestled with the victorious triumph of their Savior in the doorway of an empty tomb. They had their vision locked upon the hope of the promise of eternity in Heaven.

Nothing could stop them from speaking the gospel to all people. Nothing could stop them from living their lives in ways that adorned the message they spoke. Nothing could stop them from linking arms with other faithful Christians. And nothing could stop them from being generous in the midst of a culture that was suffocating under the heavy oppression of greed.

     1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).

     2 Kent, Hughes, Acts: The Church Afire, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1996), 158.

     3 Ibid., 162.