Acts 11:19-26: Jesus is the Common Ground

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. - Acts 11:19-26

Previously, all the Jewish believers had considered Jesus as a Jewish answer to a Jewish problem. But in Antioch, some of them thought: "Why not see what the non-Jews think about this Messiah?" and were pleasantly surprised that quite a few of them were receptive to the good news.

Now all the first generation Jewish believers heard that something was going on in Antioch, so they told Barnabas, "Go, see what's happening up there? Give us your first hand impression." So he went and learned the history of this new non-Jewish movement among the followers of Jesus. There must have been something missing, though. Maybe this new thing was so new that no one knew quite what to make of it. But there was a first rate thinker and Bible scholar that they knew about. He had changed his name and returned to his home town of Tarsus after a recent life changing experience. Maybe he could figure it out how to make sense of it all. So Barnabas took a detour and, found Paul, and brought him back to this new thing: this new group that wasn't Jewish or Greek or Roman, but was known by their common bond to this Messiah Jesus and were thus called Christ-ians.

There is a lesson here: how all other bonds or backgrounds are replaced by the superceding bond of our relationship with Jesus. We can find a lot of annoying things with people who are different from us, but Christ is the common ground that makes the rest relatively unimportant.