Bible Commentaries

It is very interesting to note how slowly the prejudices of the Hebrew Christians gave way, and yet how amenable they were to the evidences as they appeared. The apostles and the brethren at Jerusalem felt that Peter had taken a wrong step, yet when he stated all the facts of the case and realized that the work was indeed that of the Spirit, they laid aside their prejudices and followed the light.

The apparent calamity of the scattering abroad of the Christians really issued in the great missionary movement which practically occupies the whole of the remaining part of the book. In Antioch a remarkable work followed the preaching of certain men with the result that the Church at Jerusalem sent Barnabas thither.

What he saw gladdened his heart, and, realizing the importance of the movement, he went to Tarsus to seek Saul. Then followed a year's work in Antioch under the direction of these men.

Agabus appears here, and once again in the narrative (21:10). On both occasions he is seen exercising the prophetic gift in its predictive element. A famine which he announced is matter of history. What is valuable in chronicling it in the sacred record is that it was a crisis which brought out the true Christian spirit of these Gentile Christians. There can be little doubt that they were conscious of the suspicion of the Jewish brethren; yet every man of them, according to his ability, contributed toward the relief which was sent by Barnabas and Saul to the sufferers in Jerusalem.