The Spirit of Solidarity

Introduction

Acts 11:27–30 ESV

27 Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). 29 So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. 30 And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

Eight years ago, in 2013, a somewhat historic conference took place in Jackson, MS at Mt. Helm Baptist Church. Mt. Helm is the oldest black church in that city. It began in 1835 with several enslaved black people worshipping in the basement of First Baptist Church of Jackson. This conference was a conversation on race and the church in the 21st Century. Eight years ago, something like this was still called an “historic” event.

Hard truths were discussed on how the church in America, particularly the majority white church, failed by putting ethnicity over unity. There’s no shortage of statements, commitments, and actions promoted by the church in the history of this country that turns our stomachs. I was born in 1968. A year before that more than 16 states still prohibited and punished interracial marriage. There certainly was no major outcry from the church on this matter. Indeed, in 1959 a Virginia trial judge stated in a case his legal rationale justifying the constitutionality of the prohibition against interracial marriage. He said,

“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

Things like this are hard to hear, but frankly, they’re not surprising. I lead into this message with it because there is a sort of “going in” that needs to take place. The terrible history of race and the church in America is real, but I want to invite us to go into this text. Here’s what I mean. The church was never problem free, but what we have in these four verses is like a treasured picture in your family photo album. It is a snapshot of real Christian history that points the way forward for the church. I want to invite us to "go in" and take ownership of this heritage of God's people, as what we ourselves must be determined to pursue. God created a need for these two large early Christian communities—the predominantly Jewish mother church of Jerusalem and Judea, and the predominantly Gentile church of Antioch—to recognize their need for one another, and to exhibit a Holy Spirit generated solidarity in Jesus Christ.

At this point in the book of Acts, the disciples of Jesus have a new identity. In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. In the verses right before our passage Luke, the author, writes,

Acts 11:25–26 ESV

25 So Barnabas 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 great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

William James Jennings writes,

Acts 11:25–30

like a new song that announces a new time in present time, it may often seem and sound strange. Christian in its plural form always equals a strange new future.

Now this new identity is being put to the test. I have two points for us under this topic The Spirit of Solidarity, Scarcity (27-8) and Solidarity (29-30).

Scarcity

At first glance, these four verses seem almost like a byword. Luke is about to transition back to Jerusalem and more persecution for the church. He’s spent chapters 10 and 11 telling us about the first significant expansion of Christianity outside the bounds of ethnic and cultural Judaism. Gentiles in large numbers are now turning to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. It’s so apparent in Antioch that these Jesus followers are not simply Jewish, that those outside of the church give the disciples a new name, Christians. So, these four verses are the concluding lines in the chapter, and all of the seemingly significant stuff like evangelism, conversion and discipleship has already taken place. But I’m glad these verses are here because it’s more like the icing on the cake than it is a byword. Cake tastes good by itself, but it’s better with icing. Matter of fact, some cake only gets its title when you add the icing… The expansion of the church to Antioch is good by itself, but it’s better with this picture of solidarity in the midst of scarcity. Luke says in vv. 27-28

Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And when one of them named Agabus got up, he indicated through the Spirit that a great famine was about to come over the whole world. This happened during Claudius’ reign.

The “these days” he’s talking about are the days he’s just described in v. 26, Barnabas goes to Tarsus to look for Saul, and bring him back to Antioch so he can help him teach and disciple these new disciples. So, for a whole year, Luke says they met with the church and taught a great many people. And at some point in that year, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Even though Antioch was about 310 miles north of Jerusalem, they came “down” from Jerusalem because it was higher in elevation. So, in the Bible, people are always either going “up to” Jerusalem or coming “down from” Jerusalem. So, some prophets came down to Antioch. In laying the foundation of the church you not only had apostles, but NT prophets. As Paul will say to the Ephesians in Eph. 2:20, the household of God is built on the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

These itinerant prophets, that is, these traveling prophets came to Antioch with a message. During one of those times Barnabas and Saul were meeting with the church, one of the prophets, Agabus, got up and by revelation from the Holy Spirit said, “There is a great famine coming, and it’s going to be over the whole world.” Now, “all the world,” meant, “all the Roman world,” or, “over the whole Roman empire” is how we would say it. So, at a time of what we might call great spiritual prosperity in Antioch, Agabus proclaims a message about great physical scarcity and suffering. He’s predicting the future before it happens, and Luke places this prediction in time and space. He says, this period of great scarcity and lack they predicted is the famine that took place during the reign of Claudius.

Claudius was the Roman emperor from a.d. 41-54. And his reign was marked by a long series of crop failures in various parts of the empire during his years. These places included Judea, Rome, Egypt and Greece. Egyptian documents reveal a significant flooding of the Nile in a.d. 45 that resulted in famine and sent grain prices through the roof over the whole empire. The famine spread to Judea during a.d. 46-48. Luke is obviously careful to let us know that the events he’s talking about are real events. The church in Antioch got early warning about the famine. It’s probably the case that the church in Jerusalem got early warning too since that’s where the prophets started out.

And the question is kind of just hanging out there. In response to this prediction of disaster, this prediction of scarcity, what is the church of Antioch going to do? The prophets weren’t sent to Antioch by the apostles like Barnabas had been sent. They didn’t come with instructions on what to do. They didn’t come to take an offering, to ask for help on behalf of the church in Jerusalem. They just came with a prediction of what was going to happen.

What was Antioch going to do? We know what they did, it’s right here in front of us, but the answer wasn’t obvious. Let me ask you a question. What happens around here when the local meteorologist predicts that a major snow storm is coming in the next few days? One of those 18” plus deals? All of us run as fast as we can to the store and buy up all of the shovels, the ice melt, the bread, the milk, the batteries, and whatever else we think we need to ride out the storm. We pile it up in our homes because we want to make sure that we don’t suffer any lack of anything we think we need when the storm hits.

What makes us think that the prediction of impending famine wouldn’t have produced in them the same sort of “look out for yourself” basic instinct that the threat of suffering and loss produces in us? What makes us think that their first inclination wouldn’t have been to begin hoarding food and materials and resources for themselves to ride out the famine. AS one commentator put it, they might have reasoned, “We need to take care of ourselves if we are going to be of any help to others when the time comes.”

Solidarity

But that’s not what they did. They responded to the prediction of great scarcity and lack with an expression of solidarity that only the Spirit of God could create. We’re told in vv. 29-30,

So among the disciples, as any had financial ability, each of them determined to send ministerial relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea. Which they did by sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.

What’s going to happen when the Gentiles in the Antioch Church find out that their Jewish family in the Judean Church are in need? Will old divisions rear its head, or is this new identity for real? Will this new identity result in a new way of living and acting? Because they understood the gospel message that Barnabas and Saul were devoted to teaching them, the Antioch church’s response was an immediate expression of love and care through sacrificial giving.

Notice that it wasn’t just the wealthy among them who said, we’ll give out of our wealth. Back in ch. 4 there is a wonderful picture of sacrificial giving in the church when people who owned lands and houses sold them and gave the money to the apostles so that there wouldn’t be any needy people in the church. That’s back when everybody was culturally Jewish, and people who had houses and lands (people who were well off) participated. Here, it’s everybody. Each one of them determined, according to their ability to send relief. Whether they had much, or whether they had little, they wanted to participate in this ministerial relief. Who are they sending it to? They are sending it to their brothers and sisters who live in Judea. Don’t miss that. They understand, we are now one people. There is a solidarity between us. We are no longer divided, but are united in Jesus Christ.

Here’s what they understood. They understood that because they were bought with a price, the blood of Jesus, they now belonged to God. They were not their own. What that meant was that everything they had also belonged to God. Therefore, we must do what we do with what we have out of obedience to Jesus. These believers in Antioch gave from what each had out of obedience to Jesus. And it is not the picture of reluctant obedience. It’s the beautiful portrait of spontaneous love driven obedience.

Here’s the picture Luke has been painting of how the message of the gospel, the message of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ, creates in us a Spirit formed solidarity across dividing lines and a love driven obedience to Jesus’s commands. Earlier in Acts Peter breaks tradition at the command of God and goes to fellowship with Gentiles in Caesarea. Then Luke tells us that when the persecution came after Stephen was martyred, the disciples were scattered. Some went as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch. But they shared the good news about Jesus only with those who were Jewish. However, there were these men from Cyprus and Cyrene who decided to go to the Greeks. The brothers from Cyprus and Cyrene went to the Greeks out of obedience to Jesus. They understood that the gospel wasn’t only for them and their kind. Now, these disciples in Antioch, growing in the faith understand that there’s a new purpose even for their money. They were now connected to believers throughout the world across geographical and ethnic boundaries. So, their means, whether they had a lot or a little, were to be used to help their brothers and sisters.

It is imperative that we do not miss the significance of this radical Gentile and Jewish solidarity in Jesus Christ. It is easy to overlook. Jennings asks a question in his commentary,

Acts 11:25–30

Why have Gentile Christians forgotten their radical beginnings? Because it was too much for us to take in—not only are we those outside of Israel who were never fully imagined to be brought in, but we grew in the cosmopolitan places of diaspora through the in-between pedagogy of an in-between Barnabas and an ex-killer Paul. Luke saw this tension between a church of home and a church of the mixture, and he narrated our joining.

This is what the Spirit does. He creates a union and a solidarity that is clearly supernatural. The greatest witness to the looking world that Jesus was who he claimed to be was not the miracles we read about in the book of Acts. It wasn’t the supernatural healings. It was the supernatural love across lines of deep division. It was the Spirit wrought reversal of hostilities and fractures.

Without Jesus, everything I do with everything I have is out of obedience to me. It’s Jesus who calls us to take every thought captive out of obedience to him. This includes sacrificially entering into the sufferings of others. The Antioch church had to respond to Agabus’s prophecy with answers to these questions. How are we to take God’s Word and apply it practically in our lives and community? How are we as a church, going to reflect the love of Christ to others who are different that us in response to this prophecy?

It’s not enough to talk about how grateful we are for salvation in Jesus Christ. It’s not enough to talk about the love of God and get good Bible teaching. The church in Antioch couldn’t have had better teaching. They were hearing directly from Barnabas and Saul. There was going to come a point when they would have to put what they heard and said they believed into action. And they would have to put it into action in a sacrificial and costly way. They couldn’t be content to use their resources only for their own efforts. Everyone who follows Jesus gets the privilege of putting what we say we believe into practice in a sacrificial and costly way. Salvation is free but...

You have to love their expression of solidarity. In Acts 11:21-22 we read that the apostles in Jerusalem had sent Barnabas to Antioch to check out what was going on with all of these Gentiles turning to the Lord. Now, the church in Antioch sends Barnabas, together with Saul, back to Judea carrying the funds they had collected. They weren’t hoarding their money. They weren’t even hoarding their teachers. We’re going to demonstrate our love and solidarity by sending you the best of what we have both financially and ministerially.

Imagine how humbled the churches in Judea were to receive much needed assistance from their Gentile brothers and sisters must’ve been. Humbled but grateful to receive assistance that they didn’t ask for, but that was freely and sacrificially given when the need was identified. Imagine how encouraged and empowered the Antioch church was to know that the Lord used them to further break down long standing hostilities. This is grace, and this is what grace does. It humbles people without degrading them and it exalts people without inflating them.

This history of grace and solidarity in Acts 11 belongs church’s family album just as much as much as the ugly stuff does. Let me ask this question. What are the divides in this community, in this city, that makes us desperate for the Holy Spirit to engender and sustain a supernatural solidarity expressed by this church? Where is the Spirit speaking to us about divides we’re content with that grieve him? It’s easy, and in some ways attractive, to talk about the ugly stuff of division. But may God give us grace to go in on the side of sacrificial solidarity; taking every thought captive in loving obedience to Jesus Christ.