Chapter 11
The Baptism of the Gentiles Explained.[a] 1 Now the apostles
and the brothers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted the
word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem the circumcised believers
confronted him, 3 saying, “You entered[b] the house of uncircumcised people and
ate with them.” 4 Peter began and explained it to them step by step, saying 5
“I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when in a trance I had a vision,
something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered from the sky by its
four corners and it came to me. 6 Looking intently into it, I observed and saw
the four-legged animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the
birds of the sky. 7 I also heard a voice say to me, ‘Get up, Peter. Slaughter
and eat.’ 8 But I said, ‘Certainly not, sir, because nothing profane or unclean
has ever entered my mouth.’ 9 But a second time a voice from heaven answered,
‘What God has made clean, you are not to call profane.’ 10 This happened three
times, and then everything was drawn up again into the sky. 11 Just then three
men appeared at the house where we were, who had been sent to me from Caesarea.
12 The Spirit told me to accompany them without discriminating. These six
brothers[c] also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He related to
us how he had seen [the] angel standing in his house, saying, ‘Send someone to
Joppa and summon Simon, who is called Peter, 14 who will speak words to you by
which you and all your household will be saved.’ 15 As I began to speak, the
Holy Spirit fell upon them as it had upon us at the beginning, 16 and I
remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water but
you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave them the same the gift he gave to us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I
to be able to hinder God?” 18 When they heard this, they stopped objecting and
glorified God, saying, “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the
Gentiles too.”
The Church at Antioch.[d] 19 Now those who had been
scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as
Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but Jews. 20 There
were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among them, however, who came to Antioch and
began to speak to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. 21 The hand
of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.
22 The news about them reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they
sent Barnabas [to go] to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw the grace of God,
he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness
of heart, 24 for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. And
a large number of people was added to the Lord. 25 Then he went to Tarsus to
look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. For a
whole year, they met with the church and taught a large number of people, and it
was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.[e]
The Prediction of Agabus.[f] 27 At that time some prophets
came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, 28 and one of them named Agabus stood up
and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine all over the
world, and it happened under Claudius. 29 So the disciples determined that,
according to ability, each should send relief to the brothers who lived in
Judea. 30 [g]This they did, sending it to the presbyters in care of Barnabas
and Saul.
Footnotes
11:1–18 The Jewish Christians of Jerusalem were scandalized
to learn of Peter’s sojourn in the house of the Gentile Cornelius. Nonetheless,
they had to accept the divine directions given to both Peter and Cornelius.
They concluded that the setting aside of the legal barriers between Jew and
Gentile was an exceptional ordinance of God to indicate that the apostolic
kerygma was also to be directed to the Gentiles. Only in Acts 15 at the
“Council” in Jerusalem does the evangelization of the Gentiles become the
official position of the church leadership in Jerusalem.
11:3 You entered…: alternatively, this could be punctuated
as a question.
11:12 These six brothers: companions from the Christian
community of Joppa (see Acts 10:23).
11:19–26 The Jewish Christian antipathy to the mixed
community was reflected by the early missionaries generally. The few among them
who entertained a different view succeeded in introducing Gentiles into the
community at Antioch (in Syria). When the disconcerted Jerusalem community sent
Barnabas to investigate, he was so favorably impressed by what he observed that
he persuaded his friend Saul to participate in the Antioch mission.
11:26 Christians: “Christians” is first applied to the
members of the community at Antioch because the Gentile members of the
community enable it to stand out clearly from Judaism.
11:27–30 It is not clear whether the prophets from Jerusalem
came to Antioch to request help in view of the coming famine or whether they
received this insight during their visit there. The former supposition seems
more likely. Suetonius and Tacitus speak of famines during the reign of
Claudius (A.D. 41–54), while the Jewish historian Josephus mentions a famine in
Judea in A.D. 46–48. Luke is interested, rather, in showing the charity of the
Antiochene community toward the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem despite their
differences in mixed communities.
11:30 Presbyters: this is the same Greek word that elsewhere
is translated as “elders,” primarily in reference to the Jewish community.
Source Catholic Bible: New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)
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