Scripture—Old and New Testaments--offers many passages on 'mission'. It is a major theme in the Bible even though the word does not appear in the Hebrew and Greek and only four times in the English Standard Version. (The English word comes from the Latin, mittere, to send.) One important text for the Church's understanding of mission is Acts 13.1-3, which gives a very abbreviated narrative of a particular group of Christians in the city of Antioch (today in Turkey). They are part of the Antioch Christian Community but seem to form a special Antioch Mission, and they send two of their members on a new sort of Christian mission.
Thinking about this mission, we might also draw out some lessons for ongoing mission today. Barnabas and Paul are sent out on a mission to the Gentiles in distant lands, reaching beyond the Hebrew and Hellenistic Jews. Luke writes:
Now
there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who
was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the
tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While
they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for
me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and
praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the mission is God's. This is not the 'missio Dei' theology that has been touted by those uncomfortable with the exclusive message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and with the exclusivity of the Church. Quite the opposite. By this point in Acts ,we know what the mission is all about: a proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ for the whole world. This message is not formulated as an aid agency or any good works promulgated internationally. It is message-centric. What can the delivery of the Good News that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead mean to each person in every culture? The answer is that it creates communities of believers who, like exclusive Israel in the Old Testament, give exclusive devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. These communities or assemblies, churches, become communities of faith, love, and hope. The mission is Jesus, the ministry is the church's. When people broaden the 'mission' beyond activities like Bible translation, evangelism, church planting, and teaching for the church, it is not 'holistic' but diluted. The church has many ministries, but there is one mission, and Luke offers many illustrations of this in Acts.
Of note in this passage is the international ‘air’ that is already present in this group of Christians. Antioch on the Orontes in (ancient) Syria is in view. It had been the western capital of the Persian Empire and was the third greatest city in the Roman Empire. Though representing the renown of the city in the 4th century AD, the following comment applies to the earlier centuries as well: Antioch was a good choice for exporting the Gospel. As Ammianus Marcellinus wrote about the city in the 4th c. AD, though in regard to a long history of importance,
Next Syria spreads for a distance over a beautiful plain. This is
famed for Antioch, a city know to all the world, and without a rival, so rich
is it in imported and domestic commodities’ (14.8.8).[1]
Note the
importance of the city for international trade.
For centuries, Tyre, to the south, also held this reputation. Ezekiel 27-28, for example, makes note of its
international renown and trade (cf. Zechariah 9.3). In Paul’s day, Antioch held the title for
trade in the eastern Mediterranean.
(Remember, Tyre was destroyed by Babylonian invaders at the time of
Jerusalem’s fall in the early 6th c. BC.—prophesied by Isaiah in
23.1)
We know that
Barnabas was from a Mediterranean island to the west, Cyprus (Acts 4.36). His nephew, Mark, joined the first mission
and—no surprise—the first place the mission team headed was Cyprus. We meet Barnabas first in Jerusalem, however,
a benefactor of the church there. The
Jerusalem church sent him to Antioch when word arrived that great numbers had
become Christians. Barnabas, in turn,
went to Tarsus to find Paul, and the two of them ministered in Antioch for a
year (Acts 11.22-26).
Simeon is
mentioned next. He might have been
dubbed ‘Niger’ (the Latin word for ‘black’) because he was black, unless this
was some sort of reverse nickname like calling some big loaf, ‘Tiny’. He has a good Jewish name, so I doubt he was
a blond-haired German. He might have
been black and, if so, likely from East Africa.
Blacks were particularly associated with the region south of Egypt at
the time rather than south of the Saharan desert, an ambiguous region with negligible
contact at the time. We must remember
that North Africa was not black but Egyptian, Carthaginian, Numidian, Berber
and the like. Was Simeon a connection to
the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8?
(‘Ethiopian’ at the time also meant ‘black’, not necessarily the country
or peoples of ‘Ethiopia’ today.) This is
largely speculative, of course, but we might have a nickname to do with hair
colour for all that matter. (In fact,
some ancient texts from the Middle East call Assyrian people by the name ‘black
hair’.)
The next chap was
from North Africa—from the major city in the region of Libya (Acts 2.10). Lucius.
We know of someone else from Cyrene, named Simon—the man who was
commandeered to carry Jesus’ cross (Matthew 27.32). Mark adds that he was the father of Alexander
and Rufus (15.21). Mentioning these
names in the Gospel most likely was because they were known to the early
Church, not just being mentioned as historical figures. They were likely in the Church and could
testify, or their children later in the century could report, that these events
took place. Also note that people
present on the Day of Pentecost included persons from Cyrene (Acts 2.10). So, there were several Cyrenean Christians in
the early Church; now also Lucius.
Cyrene had an established historical and trade connection with Cyprus. Moreover, believers from Cyrene and Cyprus
came to Antioch to proclaim the Lord Jesus to Hellenists (Greek speaking Jews)
(Acts 11.20). A proselyte (Gentile
associated with the Jewish faith) from Antioch served as one of the men chosen
to serve the Jerusalem Hellenistic believers (Acts 6.4). Here, too, would have been a connection
between the early Church in Jerusalem and Antioch. Acts 11.19 says that the persecution in
Jerusalem after Stephen’s death resulted in the Gospel spreading to
Hebrew-speaking Jews in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. The Jewish Diaspora was a ripe field for the
early Christian missionaries, while Greek speaking Jews also spread the Gospel
to other Hellenists. The missionary
activity of the early Church preceded Paul, but the mission of Paul and
Barnabas in Acts 13, what God called them to, was a final step in international
missions: taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.
What should one call this community?
They were not Jews, nor Jewish proselytes. P. Terentius Afer tells us that ‘... the disciples of the
Philosophers take their names from the Philosophers themselves...’ (The
Eunuch 2.2). At Antioch, followers
of Jesus Christ were called ‘Christians’ (Acts 11.26). The name stuck.
Manean is
another member of the Antioch community.
He is mentioned as a lifelong friend of—of all people—Herod the
tetrarch. Now, of Herods there are
aplenty, but we know this one. He was
one and the same as Herod Antipas, who ruled a tetrarchy of lands (including
Galilee) on either side of the Jordan in Jesus’ day after his nasty father’s, King
Herod the Great’s, death in 4 BC. Herod
the Tetrarch was the brute who divorced his wife to marry another—his brother
Philip’s wife—the poster child of Jesus’ comment about divorce (Matthew 5.32;
19.9; Mark 10.11-12; Luke 16.18; Romans 7.3).
In Roman times, elites did not accumulate wives by polygamy but
regularly divorced them to marry another.
When John the Baptist called him out for this as an adulterer (Mark
6.17-18), he had him imprisoned. Apparently,
John laid into Herod for other things too—‘all the evil things that Herod had done’
(Luke 3.19). His adulteress wife,
Herodias, asked for John’s head to be served on a platter (Mark 6.21-29). This is also the Herod around at the time of
Jesus’ death, and yet there is a reserve in Mark’s account about what is otherwise
a nasty ruler. Mark says that Herod
himself feared John because he knew him to be a righteous and holy man. Herod kept him safe and ‘heard him gladly’
(Mark 6.20). Still, Jesus warned
disciples against the ‘leaven of Herod’ (Mark 8.15). Luke reports Herod’s demise in Acts 12. He had killed James, the brother of
John. Hailed as a god, and receiving the
praise, Luke tells us that God’s angel struck him, and he died eaten by worms.
After reading
all this, you might join John in being a ‘Never Heroder’. So, it might horrify you to run across Manean
in Acts 13 and learn that he was a lifelong friend of the scourge himself. You might be further triggered to learn that
one of the faithful women disciples of Jesus was Joanna, the wife of Chuza,
Herod’s household manager (Luke 8.3)!
Jesus’ travelling mission in the hills of Galilee was not all about
multiplying loaves and fishes, it needed funding. Joanna, as well as others, provided for the
ministry out of their own means. How
many Christians there were in Herod’s household, we will never know. We might be fairly certain that there was a
John the Baptist connection, if indeed Herod liked to listen to him despite his
accusations of sinfulness. Who was this
Manean? Joanna and Chuza’s son? Ah, the speculation. Yet there would have been a connection
between them, if not familial. And here,
now, Manean is in Antioch. We have
already noted a fleeing of persons after Stephen’s martyrdom. Manean may have packed his bags at this time,
too.
Saul—our
Paul—too was part of this Antioch Community.
We might remember that he was from a Diaspora family in Tarsus with both
Roman citizenship and close connections to Jerusalem. Paul was educated there under rabbi Gamaliel
(Acts 22.3), a revered teacher of the Law and member of the Sanhedrin (Acts
5.34). Saul was a right ‘Hebrew of the
Hebrews’ and a Pharisee to boot, a strict follower of the Law (Philippians
3.5). Then Jesus grabbed him, so to speak (Philippians 3.12). His life was turned upside down on the road
to Damascus to persecute Christians when he encountered the risen Christ (the story is reported three times in Acts
9, 22, 26). We have to read with a
little imagination between Galatians 1 and reports in Acts about Paul’s early
Christian life, and we have already noted several things. We noted that Barnabas, sent to Antioch by
the Jerusalem church to check in on the revival, then brought Paul from Tarsus
to minister with him there. After
causing persecution for the Christians because of his evangelism and
disputation with Hellenists again in Jerusalem (first because of Stephen, then
because of Paul), Paul was sent home to Tarsus (Acts 9.29-31). Prior to the Jerusalem church sending Paul
away to Tarsus, though, Paul evangelized regions in Syria, Israel and, we might
assume, Arabia, since we know he spent time there (Galatians 1.17). This would have been desert regions east,
perhaps also south, of Syria and Israel.
So, before the
Antioch Community sent Paul and Barnabas on the so-called ‘First Missionary
Journey’, we had already a flurry of early Christian mission. This took place firstly among Jesus’
disciples in Israel and Samaria. The Jerusalem
Church was the epicentre of the early Church.
The causes or
contributions to the early Church’s mission included:
·
The Old Testament texts about a ‘return from
exile’ of the Jews, which John and Jesus applied to their day, that involved an
inclusion (and judgement) of Gentiles and God’s universal reign
·
Jesus’ commissioning the disciples to go from
Israel to all nations with the Gospel (Matthew 24.10; 28.18-20; Acts 1.8)
·
Jewish Diaspora visitors from regions far and
wide hearing the Gospel and witnessing signs of the Holy Spirit at one of the
three great pilgrim festivals, Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ crucifixion
and resurrection (Acts 2)
·
Gentile proselytes in the synagogues representing
an international network already in place, with the Hebrew Bible already translated into Greek
·
Targeted ministry of believers to other regions,
including distant lands (made easier by Roman roads and the pax Romani since Augustus Caesar)
·
Growing experience in evangelization, beginning
in Jesus’ ministry and including from the beginning cross-cultural ministry
·
Waves of persecution in Jerusalem scattering
believers (by Saul, because of Stephen's martyrdom, because of Paul's ministry)
·
Church funding experience in Jesus’ ministry
(Luke 8.1-3) and in Antioch for famine victims abroad (Acts 11.28)[2]
Then we come to
Acts 13. This introduces a new phase of
missions in the account of Luke in Acts as it involves crossing the boundary
from Jews and proselytes to Gentiles with no connection to Jewish, let alone
Christian, teaching. To be sure, Paul began ministry in synagogues of the Diaspora, but he quickly was ousted and began evangelising in the marketplace and elsewhere. Paul’s mission
might have been linguistically confined to areas speaking Greek, but his
planned mission to Spain would have required Latin and possibly translators to
reach non-Roman colonists. The Church’s
theology, Biblically based, had the entire world in view for its mission from
the start (cf. Matthew 24.14). Some Jews visiting Israel for
Pentecost came from outside the Roman empire (Parthians and Medes and Elamites).
If the story of Thomas going to India is true (cf. Acts of Thomas), then that would also represent the early Christian
mission going beyond the Empire from the earliest time.
The Antioch
Community was itself the result of mission among Jews and Hellenists within the
Roman Empire. People came from other
regions, forming an internationally minded community in a trade centre of the
empire. It probably had some financial ability
to fund such a mission (Acts 11.28, and given the wealth of the city in
trade). Those mentioned in Acts 13 were
called by Luke ‘prophets and teachers’ (verse 1). Teachers would explain the Old Testament
prophetic words about the restoration of Israel and the inclusion of the
Gentiles, especially from Isaiah—though this is a major theme in the Scriptures. Prophets could speak the present word from
God, and this is precisely what they did:
While
they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for
me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying
they laid hands on them and sent them off (Acts 13.2b-3).
The Antioch Mission
takes this next step in mission not out of a boardroom but in the context of
worship, prayer, and fasting. We might
suppose that there was some discussion and planning, but Luke emphasises the
spiritual commissioning in a context of worship. The Spirit speaks through a prophet in the community. Then others lay hands on them to commission
them for service. No doubt, they sent
them off with financial backing. One final
observation is that the missionaries were chosen, ordained, and sent for
ministry. They were given over to the
work that the Spirit had called them to do.
We might be careful in saying this—we value decency and order—but I do
think that the calling focus needs to trump the work focus.
People need to evaluate those called more than the work's success (by human standards). A church that keeps having missionaries
report is in danger of questioning their calling. Let missionaries report, especially for
prayer support, but not be in constant fundraising mode to show that what they
do meets certain criteria, especially criteria the supporting church invents on
its own and changes from year to year. 'Set apart for me ___ for the work to which I have called them.'
[1] Ammianus Marcellinus, trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1935-1940).
[2] Writing about this, Tacitus say: ‘Several prodigies occurred in that year. Birds of evil
omen perched on the Capitol; houses were thrown down by frequent shocks of
earthquake, and as the panic spread, all the weak were trodden down in the
hurry and confusion of the crowd. Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were
regarded as a token of calamity. Nor were there merely whispered complaints;
while Claudius was administering justice, the populace crowded round him with a
boisterous clamour and drove him to a corner of the forum, where they violently
pressed on him till he broke through the furious mob with a body of soldiers.
It was ascertained that Rome had provisions for no more than fifteen days, and
it was through the signal bounty of heaven and the mildness of the winter that
its desperate plight was relieved’ (Annals 12.43). Tacitus,
Complete Works of Tacitus, trans. Alfred John Church, William Jackson
Brodribb, and Sara Bryant (New York: Random House, Inc., 1942).
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