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This introduction leads us to Antioch and the movement that commenced there. It is with this that we are
concerned, and so we pass on.
Acts 12:24 to 16:5
Justification by faith
A 12:24. `But the word of God grew and multiplied'.
a Barnabas and Saul.
B 12:25.
b John Mark taken with them.
C 13:1-3.
Barnabas and Saul `separated'
by the Holy Ghost.
D 13:4 to 14:28. c1 Departure from Antioch.
d1 Justification by faith apart from law of Moses.
c1 Return to Antioch.
c2 Men from Judæa raise the question.
D 15:1-35.
d2 Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
c2 Men that had hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus bring the answer.
B 15:36-39. a Barnabas and Paul.
b John Mark taken to Cyprus.
C 15:40 to 16:4.
Silas and Timothy approved
by the brethren (15:26,27 and 16:2).
A 16:5. `And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily'.
At its opening Paul's ministry circled round a statement of truth and a conflict for that truth. The statement was
the glorious doctrine of justification by faith (13:39): the conflict was the fight against the Judaism which imposed
law and circumcision as necessary to salvation. We are therefore to become witnesses of one of the most important
controversies that the world has known; a controversy ever fresh in its applications; a fight for the faith in which we
are called upon to engage to this day.
By this time the church at Antioch had been established for at least a year (Acts 11:26), and the two men who
played so prominent a part in its inception and upbuilding were present among the prophets and teachers there
assembled (Acts 13:1). The passage concerning the apostle's namesake would probably flash across his mind: `Is
Saul also among the prophets?' (1 Sam. 10:11,12; 19:24); and, if it did, we can well imagine his prayer for grace to
finish his course, and not turn aside in the tragic manner of his namesake. He would probably remember that Saul
had persecuted David, even as he had persecuted the Lord.
We observe that Barnabas stands first and Saul last in the list of prophets and teachers given in Acts 13:1. That
order was soon to be reversed, but it is encouraging to remember that the great apostle Paul himself knew a few
years' discipline before he became competent for the fight.
We know practically nothing of Simeon, that was called Niger, nor of Lucius of Cyrene. Manaen is of interest
seeing that he was foster brother of Herod the Tetrarch. Both were children nourished at the same breast
(suntrophos), yet one is found numbered with the prophets, while the other killed one of the greatest of prophets,
and was banished in A.D. 41.
`As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work
whereunto I have called them' (Acts 13:2).
The words `I have called' (proskeklemai) are the perfect passive of proskaleo, and indicate that the call had
already been given to Barnabas and Saul, and was now to be put into effect. Hitherto the title of apostle had not
been used of either Barnabas or Saul, but from this time onward it became theirs. `When the apostles, Barnabas and
Paul heard' (Acts 14:14). Paul had been chosen as an apostle on the road to Damascus: `Unto whom now I send
(apostello) thee' (Acts 26:16-18). As he tells us, he had already been separated from his mother's womb