Dave's Diary

Daily Readings: Acts 13 and Psalm 81

So much happened in Acts 13, but it all happened from the home-base of this wonderful fledgling Church in Antioch. Here, for the very first time in history, followers of the Jesus-Way were called “Christians” (11:26). And here, by an amazing work of God’s grace, people from different backgrounds, social classes and ethnicities found themselves joyfully coming together in the Christian Faith-Family.

Their two strongly Jewish Christian leaders were Saul and Barnabas, but they were joined in ministry by “Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch)”.

Simeon’s nickname means “Black”, so he was very likely from somewhere like Ethiopia originally. Lucius was from Cyrene, in North Africa (probably a man of Arabic origin). And Manaen had the remarkable “claim to fame” of having been raised in royal circles, alongside Herod the Tetrarch (who had presided at one of Jesus’ trials).

This community is a demonstration of the truth that the LORD who created all of us longs for an eternal family of people from every tribe, language and nation (Rev. 5:9 and 7:9). So, by His Spirit, He draws vastly diverse people to faith in His Son Jesus. Our privilege and duty as followers of Jesus is to humbly and graciously receive and respect one another despite our different ethnicities, languages and cultures of origin, and to allow the Holy Spirit to draw us together into our new culture – the Jesus-culture of love. In fact, even more than that, our call is to work towards this beautiful diversity through taking the initiative to build relationships across the barriers that divide others but are irrelevant when we have Jesus in common.

Life Application: Find a Christian of a different “tribe, language or nation” to you and have a conversation with them today, with the sole aim of building a connection and positioning yourself for Jesus to work in your heart through that connection.