S T O T T B I B L E S T U D Y

Acts 11:22-24. The Greek mission is endorsed by Barnabas.
Acts 11:25-26. The Greek mission is consolidated by Saul.
Acts 11:27-30. The Greek mission is authenticated by good works.
Acts 11:25-26. The Greek mission is consolidated by Saul.
Acts 11:27-30. d). The Greek mission is authenticated by good works.
Acts 12:5-19a Herod's defeat.

News of this fresh development *reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem*, much as they had previously heard `that Samaria had accepted the word of God' (8:14) and `that the Gentiles [sc. Cornelius and his household] also had received the word of God' (11:1). Luke seems to be hinting that they felt the need to assure themselves that all was well, in addition to helping to nurture this young, multi-cultural church. This time they did not send an apostle, however. Instead *they sent Barnabas to Antioch* (22), whom Barclay called `the man with the biggest heart in the church', and who was known to be true to his name `Son of Encouragement' (4:36). *When he arrived* in Antioch, he immediately *saw* for himself *the evidence of the grace of God* in the converts' changed lives and new international community, and in consequence he both *was glad*, presumably expressing his joy in praise, *and encouraged them all* (`encouraged' being perhaps a deliberate play on his name) to *remain true to the Lord with all their hearts* (23). It was an exhortation both to perseverance and to whole-heartedness. Luke was obviously impressed with Barnabas' Christian character, and attributed his ministry to it: for (it is a pity that NIV does not translate this connecting particle *hoti*) *he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith*. It is no wonder that *a great number of people were brought* (literally `added', as RSV) *to the Lord* (24). The verb for `added' in verse 24 (*prostithemi*) has become for Luke an almost technical word for church growth. He used it twice in relation to the Day of Pentecost, first of the three thousand who were added that day (2:41) and then of the daily additions which followed (2:47). Later he wrote of `more and more men and women' believing in the Lord and being added to the church (5:14), while in Syrian Antioch `a great number of people' were added (11:24). This use of the verb *prostithemi* led the famous Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper to propose the word `prosthetics' to define missiology (although today it applies to the surgical replacement of limbs and organs), since it should be concerned with expansion of the church by additions to its membership. Hermann Bavinch responded that it would not be an appropriate term, however, because in the New Testament it is the Lord who does the adding (2:47), not human missionaries. We might also comment that the additions are not just to the church but to the Lord (11:24). When we see `the Lord adding to the Lord', so that he is both subject and object, source and goal, of evangelism, we have to repent of all self-centred, self-confident concepts of the Christian mission.

Acts 11:25-26. The Greek mission is consolidated by Saul

Barnabas' next action was to go *to Tarsus to look for Saul*(25), for Tarsus was Saul's home town to which the Jerusalem believers had sent him, when his life was threatened (9:28-30). That was seven or eight years previously. What he had been doing meanwhile we do not know, although in his letter to the Galatians he seems to indicate that he was preaching in Syria and Cilicia (Gal.1:21ff). Some commentators have suggested that it was during this period that he suffered some of the physical persecutions to which he later referred (2 Cor.11:23ff), and was disinherited by his family (Phil.3:8).

We cannot help admiring Barnabas' humility in wanting to share the ministry with Saul, and his sense of strategy also. He must have known of Saul's calling to be the apostle to the Gentiles (9:15,27), and it may well have been the Gentile conversions in Antioch which made him think of Saul. At all events *when* Barnabas *found him, he brought him to Antioch*, and then *for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church*, most of whose members were young and uninstructed believers, *and taught great numbers of people* (26a). They must have taught about Christ, making sure that the converts knew both the facts and the significance of his life, death, resurrection, exaltation, Spirit-gift, present reign and future coming. It was because the word `Christ' was constantly on their lips that *the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch* (26b)? Luke has so far referred to them as `disciples' (6:1), `saints' (9:13), `brethren' (1:16; 9:30), `believers' (10:45), those being `saved' (2:47) and the people `of the Way' (9:2). Now it seems to have been the unbelieving public of Antioch, famed for their wit and nicknaming skill, who, supposing that `Christ' was a proper name rather than a title (the Christ or Messiah), coined the epithet *Christianoi*. It was probably more familiar and jocular than derisory. Although it does not seem to have caught on initially, since elsewhere it appears only twice in the New Testament (Acts 26:28 and 1 Pet.4:16), it at least emphazied the Christ-centred nature of discipleship. For the word's formation was parallel to *Herodianoi* (Herodians) and *Kaisarianoi* (Caesar's people); it marked out the disciples as being above all the people, the followers, the servants of Christ.

Acts 11:27-30. d). The Greek mission is authenticated by good works

It was *during this time* Luke continues, that *some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch* (27). *One of them , named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world* (the *oikoumene* or `inhabited earth' being regarded as more or less coterminous with the empire). Luke adds in parenthesis that this predicted famine *happened during the reign of Claudius* (28). Claudius ruled from AD 41 to 54, but historians do not record `a severe and world-wide famine' (NEB) during this period. F.F.Bruce therefore proposes the more general expression `great dearth' (AV), adding that this period `was indeed marked by a succession of bad harvests and serious famines in various parts of the empire'. For example, Josephus wrote of a great famine which during the reign of Claudius oppressed the people of Judea, so that `many people died for want of what was necessary to produce food withal', although Queen Helena bought and distributed large quantities of corn and figs.

Luke's concern, however, is not so much with the fulfilment of Agabus' prophecy as with the generous response of Antioch's church. For *the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to provide help for the brothers living in Judea* (29). Moreover, their decision led to action. They were soon *sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul* (30), who, having ministered as evangelists and teachers, were glad now to minister as social workers also. This second visit of Saul's to Jerusalem, which Luke here records, seems (although not all scholars agree with this) to be the same as the second visit which Paul himself mentions in Galatians 2:1-10. The Parallels are striking. He writes there that he travelled `with Barnabas', that he went `in response to a revelation' (i.e. Agabus' prophecy), and that the leaders urged
him to `continue to remember the poor', which was `the very thing' he was `eager to do', namely in bringing the famine relief. One naturally wonders why, apart from the famine, the Jerusalem church was now so poor as to need this relief, and whether perhaps their extreme generosity which Luke has described in Acts 2 and 4 was a contributing factor. At all events, it was now the turn of the Antiochene believers to be generous. They gave *each according to their ability* (cf. 2Cor.8:3), just as the Jerusalem believers had previously distributed `to anyone as he had need' (2:45; 4:35). I have often wondered if Marx knew these two passages and bracketed them in his mind. For in his famous `Critique of the Gotha Programme' (1875), that is, of the united policy of the two wings of German socialism, he called for something much more radical than they proposed, when society can `inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!'

Whatever our political and economic convictions may be, these are plainly biblical principles, that is, ability on the one hand, need on the other, and how to relate them to each other. These principles should characterize the family of God. It is not an accident that the Jerusalem recipients of Antiochene relief are called `brothers' (29). More important still, this brotherhood or family included both Jewish and Gentile believers, and the fellowship between them was illustrated in the relations between the two churches. The church of Jerusalem had sent Barnabas to Antioch; now the church of Antioch sent Barnabas, with Saul, back to Jerusalem. This famine relief anticipated the collection which Paul was later to organise, in which the affluent Greek churches of Macedonia and Achaia contributed to the needs of the impoverished churches of Judea. Its importance to Paul was that it was a symbol of Gentile-Jewish solidarity in Christ, `for if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings', he wrote. `they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings' (Rom.15:27).

Acts 12:1-25) 2). Opposition: the church in Jerusalem

Luke has been recording one marvellous conversion after another - three thousand on the Day of Pentecost, the Samaritans, the Ethiopian eunuch, Saul of Tarsus, the Gentile centurion Cornelius and the mixed crowd in Antioch. In concentric circles the word of God was spreading. Luke is about to describe that great leap forward we call the first missionary journey. But first he has to chronicle a serious setback in the death of James and the imprisonment of Peter, both of whom were apostles and leaders of the Jerusalem church. Herod Agrippa 1 was the tyrant responsible for this double assault upon the work of God. At the time it must have seemed a grave crisis, although Luke is able to go on to chronicle the rescue of Peter by the intervention of God. Thus the destructive power of Herod and the saving power of God are contrasted. Indeed, throughout church history the pendulum has swung between expansion and opposition, growth and shrinkage, advance and retreat, although with the assurance that even the powers of death and hell will never prevail against Christ's church, since it is built securely on the rock. Herod Agrippa 1 was the grandson of Herod the Great. He shared some of his grandfather's characteristics, and after the emperors Caligula and Claudius had given him successive portions of Palestine territory, his kingdom was as extensive as his grandfather's.

a) Herod's plot (12:1-4).
*It was about this time* (Luke is deliberately vague, and scholars dispute the exact order of the events he chronicles in Acts 10 to 12) *that King Herod* (Luke accurately uses the title which the emperor Caligula had given him) *arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them* (1). He must have been well informed about Jesus and his followers, for his uncle Antipas had known and tried Jesus (Lk.23:7ff). He is also known to have been anxious to preserve the Roman peace in Palestine and therefore to have disliked minorities which threatened to disrupt it. It is fully in keeping with this policy that he sought to ingratiate himself with the Jews (who naturally despised him for his Roman upbringing and Edomite ancestry) by conscientiously observing the law and now by persecuting the church. So *he had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword* (2) or `beheaded' (NEB). Jesus had warned both James and John, who had asked for the best seats in the kingdom, that they would drink his cup and share his baptism (Mk.10:38-39), that is, participate in his sufferings. But it belongs to the mystery of God's providence why this was to mean execution for James and exile for John (Rev.1:9), whereas for the time being Peter escaped James' fate which Herod intended for him also. For *when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the feast of unleavened bread* (3), which immediately followed Passover, and during which Jewish law permitted neither trials nor sentencing. *After arresting him*, therefore, Herod *put him in prison*, perhaps in the Tower of Antonia at the north-west corner of the temple area, *handing him
over to be guarded*, in a maximum security arrangement, *by four squads of four soldiers each*, working by shifts so that each squad would be on duty for six hours at a time, or perhaps for only three hours during the night watches. *Herod intended to bring him out for public trial*, what we might call today a `show trial', *after the Passover*, including the days which the festival of unleavened bread lasted (4). Peter's trial would then, of course, be followed by his execution. The situation looked extremely bleak, even hopeless. There appeared to be no possibility of Peter's escape. What could the little community of Jesus, in its powerlessness, do against the armed might of Rome?

Acts 12:5-19a Herod's defeat.

The Jerusalem church will not have forgotten Peter's twoprevious imprisonments, although they had been at the hand of the Sanhedrin (4:3; 5:18). Nor will they have forgotten how Peter and John, after their first release, had joined the rest of the church in prayer, affirming that God was sovereign and that Herod Antipas and Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the Jews, had conspired against Jesus to do only what his `power and will had decided beforehand should happen' (4:23-28). As for the apostles' second imprisonment, an angel of the Lord had opened the doors of the jail and set them free (5:19); could he not do it again? So, even while *Peter was kept in prison, the church was earnestly praying to God for him* (5). Luke uses the adverb *ektenos* (JB, `unremittingly'; NEB, `fervently'), which he has previously applied to Jesus' intense agony in Gethsemane (Lk.22:44). They believed that somehow, whether or not by another miracle, God could grant release to the jailed apostle in answer to their prayers (cf. Phil.1:19; Phm.22). Here then were two communities, the world and the church, arrayed against one another, each wielding an appropriate weapon. On the one side was the authority of Herod, the power of the sword and the security of the prison. On the other side, the church turned to prayer, which is the only power which the powerless possess.

*The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance* (6). Luke deliberately stresses the thoroughness with which the apostle was being guarded against escape or rescue. Normally it was considered enough for a prisoner to be handcuffed to one soldier, but as a special precaution Peter had a soldier on each side of him and both his wrists were manacled, while outside the cell the other two soldiers of the squad were on duty. In spite of the seeming impossibility of liberation, and the extreme likelihood that on the following day he would suffer the same fate as James (in fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy that he would die as a martyr, Jn.21:18-19), Peter showed no sign of anxiety, let alone alarm. On the contrary, he fell fast asleep. Later Paul, in a similar situation in Philippi, was to pray and sing to God (16:25). This leads Chrysostom to comment: `It is beautiful that Paul sings hymns, whilst here Peter sleeps'. Both Luke's heroes, Peter and Paul, showed themselves to be equally defiant of death.

Then *suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared*. Our understanding of who this `angel' was will depend largely on our presuppositions, and in particular whether we believe in the existence of angels and the possibility of the miraculous. It is true that the word *angelos* can be translated simply `messenger' and that Luke used it of human beings several times in his Gospel, for example of the messengers John the Baptist sent to Jesus (Lk.7:24), of John the Baptist himself (7:27) and of those Jesus sent on ahead to get things ready for him (9:52). Consequently, I suppose one could just argue that a human messenger is meant here. Moreover, according to William Neil, some would regard Peter's release `as no less of a "miracle" if it were engineered by sympathizers among the guard'. And R.P.C.Hanson finds it `reasonable, to understand that Peter `managed to escape because of bribery, negligence or simply a change of mind on the part of the authorities'. But the key hermeneutical question is what Luke himself intended us to understand, and of that there is little doubt. He has already referred to supernatural angelic beings on about fifteen occasions in his Gospel and the early chapters of Acts, and his emphasis in this story is on a divine intervention through a heavenly agent. So, as if to make this fact unequivocal, *a light shone in the cell*, and the release was accomplished in a succession of swift actions, while Peter was still half asleep and uncertain if he was dreaming. Luke's narrative needs no further comment.

*When this had dawned on him*, for Peter was fully awake now, *he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark* (12). That it was natural for him to go straight there suggests that it was a well-known (even the principal) meeting place of the Jerusalem believers. The Mary to whom it belonged is known only as the mother of John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10), who is here mentioned by Luke for the first time and is soon to feature in his story again as the renegade member of the first missionary journey (12:25; 13:5, 13). Some commentators have speculated that this house of Mary contained the `large upper room, furnished and ready', which Mark himself mentions (Mk. 14:15) as the place where Jesus ate the passover with the Twelve before his arrest, trial and crucifixion. Perhaps it was also the house where the Twelve lived, and they and others met to pray, during the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost (1:12-14). It was certainly spacious, for it had an outer entrance or vestibule where Peter knocked, and presumably a courtyard between this and the main house. It was here at all events, although in the middle of the night, that *many people had
gathered and were praying* (12).

When *Peter knocked at the outer entrance*, the praying group must have immediately imagined that they had received a visit from the secret police. As they waited in suspense, *a servant girl named Rhoda* who figured so prominently in this episode that her name was remembered and recorded) *came to answer the door (13). When she recognised Peter's voice*, because it was customary in those days for visitors to call out as well as to knock, *she was so overjoyed that she ran back*, leaving Peter standing outside the door, *without opening it, and exclaimed, `Peter is at the door!' (14). `You're out of your mind,'* they told her. It is ironical that the group who were praying fervently and persistently for Peter's deliverance should regard as mad the person who informed them that their prayers had been answered! Rhoda's simple joy shines brightly against the dark background of the church's incredulity. *When she kept insisting that it was so*, because she was sure she had rightly identified Peter's voice, they changed their tune and said, `*It must be his angel*' (15), referring to what was loosely called `guardian angels' (cf. Mt. 18:10). As F.F.Bruce puts it, `The angel is here conceived of as a man's spiritual counterpart, capable of assuming his appearance and being mistaken for him'. *But Peter kept on knocking and when*, at last, *they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished* (16). They must also have broken into a chorus of noisy greetings, for *Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet*, perhaps fearful of the danger if the clamour woke up the neighbours, *and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison*. He then gave them a simple instruction: `*TellJames* (that is, the Lord's brother, who seems already to be recognized as the leader of the Jerusalem church, cf. 15:13, 21:18; Gal. 1:19; 2:9, 12) *and the brothers* (the rest of the Christian assembly in Jerusalem) *about this.' Then he left for another place* (17). This was definitely not Rome, as the apocryphal *Acts of Peter* suggested, and as some Roman Catholic commentators used to argue, adding that he stayed there for twenty-five years as the first pope. Luke means simply that he went into temporary hiding, whether or not anybody knew where. What we do know is that a year or two later he was in Antioch (Gal. 2:11), and then back in Jerusalem for the meeting of the Council (15:7ff).

Perhaps the most important statement of the whole narrative of Peter's deliverance is in verse 17: `the Lord had brought him out of prison.' The dramatic details Luke includes all seem to emphasize the intervention of God and the passivity of Peter. Peter was asleep, and the angel had to nudge him awake. His chains fell off. The order to dress was given as though by numbers: `Get up; put on your clothes and sandals; wrap your cloak around you; and follow me'. They passed the guards on duty in the corridor, who were presumably in a deep sleep, and the external prison gate opened automatically. Peter himself did not know if it was all fact or fantasy, reality or dream. *In the morning*, on the very day on which Peter was to be tried and executed, *there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter*, for their prisoner was nowhere to be found (18). When the news reached Herod, he first *had a thorough search made for him*, and then, when he *did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and*, because in Roman law a gaoler who allowed his charge to escape was liable to the penalty to which the prisoner had been condemned (cf. 16:27; 27:42), *ordered that they be executed.* (19a).

Nex:. Acts 12:19b-24. c). Herod's death.