Antioch #18

Antioch, a major Hellenistic city in Syria near the modern Turkish city of Antakya, became the operating base of the early Gentile church and the launching point for Paul’s missionary journeys. Following the scattering of believers that came after Stephen’s martyrdom, some who arrive in Antioch, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, begin doing something new: they “spake unto the Grecians, preaching the LORD Jesus” (Acts 11:20), and a great number of Gentiles turn to the Lord (Acts 11:19-21).

Birthplace of “Christians”

News of this reaches the church in Jerusalem, and Barnabas is sent to Antioch to investigate and strengthen the new believers. Seeing the grace of God at work, he goes to Tarsus to find Saul and brings him back to Antioch, where the two of them teach the growing church for a full year. It is there, Acts records, that “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26) — a name likely coined by outsiders in the city, but one the church would carry ever after. When a prophet named Agabus foretells a coming famine, the disciples at Antioch resolve to send relief to the believers in Judea, each according to his ability, entrusting the gift to Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:27-30).

Sending Base for Mission

Antioch, not Jerusalem, becomes the base from which the gospel spreads to the wider Gentile world. During a time of worship and fasting, the Holy Spirit speaks to the church’s prophets and teachers: “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them” (Acts 13:2), and after further fasting and prayer, the church lays hands on the two and sends them off on what becomes the first of Paul’s missionary journeys (Acts 13:1-3). Antioch is also central to the early church’s first major theological dispute. After Paul and Barnabas return, certain men come down from Judea and insist, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1), sparking a controversy sharp enough that the church sends Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, where the apostles and elders settle the question and send their decision back to Antioch in a letter (Acts 15:1-2, 15:22-23).

Today

Ancient Antioch’s ruins lie in and beneath modern Antakya, in southern Turkey near the Syrian border, a city that has suffered repeated earthquakes over the centuries, including a severe one in February 2023. Excavations in the twentieth century uncovered elaborate Roman-era mosaics, many now housed in the Hatay Archaeology Museum, though relatively little of the ancient city built by the Seleucids and expanded under Rome survives above ground. This Syrian Antioch should not be confused with Pisidian Antioch, another city of the same name in central Asia Minor that Paul and Barnabas visited during their first missionary journey (Acts 13:14).