According to 11:23, when Barnabas arrived in Antioch and saw the grace of God, he “rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain with the Lord with purpose of heart.” We have pointed out elsewhere that grace is God in the Son as our enjoyment. This grace is the resurrected Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) to bring the processed God in resurrection into us to be our life and life supply so that we may live in resurrection. Therefore, grace is the Triune God becoming life and everything to us. The grace that was seen by Barnabas must have been the Triune God received and enjoyed by the believers and expressed in their salvation, change in life, holy living, and in the gifts they exercised in their meetings, all of which could be seen by others.
Acts 11:24 says, “For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a considerable number was added to the Lord.” The Greek word translated “full” is pleres, an adjective form of pleroo according to the usage in Acts here and in 6:3, 5; 7:55; and Luke 4:1. Being full of the Spirit is one’s condition after being filled with the Spirit inwardly and essentially, as mentioned in Acts 13:52.
Acts 11:25 and 26 say, “And he went away to Tarsus to hunt for Saul; and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came about that for a whole year they were gathered in the church and taught a considerable number. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” The Greek word rendered “Christians” is Christianos, a word of Latin formation. The ending ianos, denoting an adherent of someone, was applied to slaves belonging to the great families in the Roman Empire. Those who worshipped the emperor, the Caesar—Kaisar—were called Kaisarianos, which means adherents of Kaisar, the people belonging to Kaisar. When people believed in Christ and became His followers, this caused some in the Empire to consider Christ as a rival of the Kaisar. At Antioch they began to call the followers of Christ Christianos (Christians), adherents of Christ, as a nickname, a term of reproach. That the disciples in Antioch were given such a nickname as a term of reproach indicates that they must have borne a strong testimony for the Lord, a testimony that made them distinct and peculiar in the eyes of the unbelievers.
Today the term Christian should bear a positive significance, that is, a man of Christ, one who is one with Christ, not only belonging to Him, but having His life and nature in an organic union with Him, and who is living by Him, even living Him, in his daily life. If, according to 1 Peter 4:16, we suffer for being such a person, we should not feel ashamed. Rather, we should be bold to magnify Christ in our confession by our holy and excellent manner of life to glorify God in this name.
In 11:27-30 we have a record concerning the communication between the church in Antioch and the churches in Judea. Acts 11:27 says, “And in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.” In the New Testament prophets are those who speak for God and speak forth God by God’s revelation, and who sometimes speak with inspired prediction.
Acts 11:28 tells us that one of these prophets “named Agabus rose up and signified through the Spirit that there was about to be a great famine over the whole inhabited earth, which occurred at the time of Claudius.” Claudius was a Caesar of the Roman Empire. In the fourth year of his reign, about A.D. 44, there was a famine in Judea and the neighboring countries.
Acts 11:29 and 30 say, “And the disciples, according as any one of them was prospered, determined each one of them to send things for dispensing to the brothers dwelling in Judea; which also they did, sending it to the elders through the hand of Barnabas and Saul.” Verse 30 indicates that in the early days the finances of the church were under the management of the elders. According to 1 Timothy 3:3, an elder was to be not fond of money. Money is a test to all men. An elder must be pure in money matters, especially since the church fund is under the elders’ management.
In Acts 11:30 we see that the things from the church in Antioch were sent to the elders in Jerusalem through the hand of Barnabas and Saul. Here Saul, through Barnabas, was brought into the service among the churches.