11:19-30 The Church in Antioch.
As earlier in Acts, so here also the dispersed persecuted believers served as missionaries to previously unreached groups of people. It is as though one blew on the white cottony head of a dandelion and saw the component seeds dispersed to produce new plants. So the dispersed believers became seeds. As Jesus once said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24 NIV). The word in Greek for this dispersal is related to the noun from which we get the term “Diaspora”. Just as in centuries past the Jews themselves were dispersed by invading Assyrians and Babylonians, and thus founded important centers of Jewish settlement and culture in places like Egypt, North Africa, and Asia Minor, so now Jewish believers in Jesus re-enact that scenario, founding their gospel-centers (“churches”) throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.
They traveled to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. We already learned in ch. 9 that some had fled to Damascus. Doubtless other regions received their shares of refugee Jesus-believers. But Luke is interested in the above-mentioned region, because he is already making a transition from the Jerusalem Church to the Pauline churches of Asia Minor and Greece, and Antioch will be his base of support: his “sending church”. And of course, Cyprus play a major role in his first missionary journey (Acts 13:4-12).
Luke notes that some of these dispersed believers (those from Cyprus and Cyrene [North Africa]) began to speak not only to Jews, but also to Greeks (Luke uses the term “Hellenists” here to denote a non-Jewish group, therefore not as he used the word in Acts 6:1, where it refers to Greek-speaking Jews).
Stott (Acts, 200) correctly points out that the word “also” shows that Jewish evangelism was not being abandoned in favor of Gentile evangelism. Even in the much later missionary work of Paul, whenever he entered a new Gentile city, he began his ministry in the existing synagogue(s) and only afterwards concentrated on Gentiles (Acts 13:5, 14; 14:1; 17:1-2, 10). This customary practice was part of what he meant by affirming that the gospel was intended “first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom 1:16; 2:9-10). Jesus’ words to the Phoenician pagan woman also agree: “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs” (see Mark 7:25-29).
21 This unusual (Semitic-sounding) expression “the hand of the Lord” is found again in Acts only in Acts 13:11, where it expresses God’s judgment on one who sought to stop the advance of the gospel in Cyprus. But Luke uses it in the same way as here in popular speculation about the powerful future of John the Baptist: “Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him” (Luke 1:66 NIV).
The expression is an OT one (יַד־יְהוָה, Greek χεὶρ κυρίου, occurring 24 times there (in the LXX Ex 9:3; Num 11:23; Judg 2:15; Ruth 1:13; 1Sam 5:3,6,9; 7:13; 12:15; 1Kings 18:46; 2Kings 3:15; 2Chr 30:12; Ezra 7:6; Job 12:9; Is 41:20; 59:1; 66:14; Ezek 1:3; 3:14,22; 8:1; 33:22; 37:1; 40:1). In the OT references the “hand of the LORD” is against his enemies and upon (not "with") those he empowers for good. Always, it signals direct divine intervention, often in the form of a miracle.
21 When Luke describes these pagan Greeks as believing and turning to the Lord, he uses an expression that Paul uses as a paradigm of Gentile conversion in 1 Thess 1:9-10: “you turned to God from idols (ἐπεστρέψατε πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων) to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” In the NT this verb "turn" is not, however, always used for good turning: it is also used of turning from God or his gospel to evil and damnation (Gal 4:9; James 5:19; 2Peter 2:22). What its two uses have in common is that a significant change takes place in a person’s spiritual orientation, either a good or a bad change.
Since manuscripts in the “Western” textual tradition in Acts introduce v. 28 with the words “when we were gathered together”, some have concluded that Luke was present and owed his own conversion to this activity in Antioch, which one church tradition claims was his home city.
The Greek behind “News of this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem” [NIV] involves an expression (εἰς τὰ ὦτα) that is OT (LXX) language (Gen 20:8; 23:13,16; 50:4; Ex 10:2; 11:2; 17:14; 24:7; Is 5:9; 36:11; 49:20; Jer 33:15) and appears in the NT inevitably in the mouth of a Hebrew- or Aramaic-speaker (Luke 1:44; 9:44; Acts 11:22; James 5:4). It is not Luke’s own way of expressing himself, and may represent the language of his Jerusalem source. Furthermore, combination with the same passive verb Ἠκούσθη “it was heard” as in Acts 11:22 occurs in Isa 5:9, where an oracle (a direct utterance of God) is described. This suggests that the Jerusalem church did not “hear of” the events in Antioch by human messengers, but by a revelation to a Christian prophet there, perhaps Agabus whose base of operations was Jerusalem (Acts 11:28; 21:10).
Ch. 12
In this chapter we see Luke’s realistic attitude as a historian, not just recording the sensational successes of the earliest Church, but also its setbacks. Although the believers were aware that it was God who was their true Leader and Guarantor of their ultimate victory, like all groups they highly regarded their human leaders and to a great degree depended upon them. To lose one's leaders is always an enormous setback.
The material presented in ch. 12 is not ordered strictly chronologically with reference to the surrounding chapters, but topically. Acts 12:1-19 describes two attacks upon the Christian leadership, and 12:20-25 God’s judgment upon Herod Agrippa not only for his murder of James and attempted murder of Peter, but because of his blasphemous acceptance of divine honors. He stands as an example of Paul’s statement: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7 NIV).
1 Luke’s rather vague “about that time” (kat’ ekeinon de ton kairon) shows that he has less precise information about the incidents recorded in this chapter. Perhaps he is using a secondary source.
The “King Herod” referred to here is a grandson of the man who figures in the birth stories of Jesus. After a period in which the Roman Emperor experimented with Roman governors over Judea, he returned to the earlier policy of using client rulers from the family of Herod the Great. This man’s full name was Herod Agrippa, the first by that name. Since he was descended from Herod the Great’s first wife, Mariamne, Agrippa had Jewish lineage and was much more popular in Palestine than his grandfather. He also had good connections in Rome, where he was a close friend of the emperor, Caligula.
3 But despite his popularity on those grounds Agrippa needed to constantly build his support by measures which “pleased” the Jewish population. One of these was “violent” opposition to the Jesus movement in Jerusalem. Politicians often find it useful to attack Christians, since we are committed to non-violence and non-retaliation. It would not have pleased the people if Agrippa had launched a bloodbath against all of the Jesus people, since many of them were family members of other influential people in Jerusalem. The best policy was to intimidate the leadership of the group. His first target was James (Hebrew Jacob), the son of Zebedee, brother of John. This is not the James who was Jesus brother and later assumed the Jerusalem leadership (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9,12; James 1:1; Jude 1:1). The phrase “killed with the sword” does not refer to a sword fight, but to beheading. James was executed in the same manner as John the Baptist. In Matthew 20:20-23 Jesus had predicted a violent death for this man and his brother John (“you will indeed drink from my cup [of suffering and death]”. We do not know, however, why he was a particular target of choice for Agrippa.
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