Acts 13:1–2

Notice, before we set out with the apostles on their journey, how changed everything is. They start, note, not from the old centre, Jerusalem, but from Antioch, a city of the Gentiles. This matters. Jerusalem and the twelve apostles have lost their place in outward authority and power. The Holy Spirit calls Barnabas and Saul to the work, fits them for it, and sends them out, without the twelve having any authority over it.

Antioch, instead of Jerusalem, now became a centre for spreading the gospel. It was independent of apostolic authority, yet it did not break the unity of the Spirit by forming a separate church.

No one can deny that there were many gifted men here, five of high standing in full service of Christ, and this plainly in "the church at Antioch." "Churches" in the same place, each with its own minister, are ignored here as everywhere. This does not mean the believers may not have met regularly to break bread in many houses here and there, as we know they did in Jerusalem. Even so, in that city as in every other, they made up "the assembly" there.

From Acts 13:1, I see that at Antioch there were only five whom the Holy Spirit recognised as teachers: Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul. No doubt at every meeting it was only these five, one or more of them, whom the believers expected to speak. This was a settled ministry. But it was not an exclusive one. When Judas and Silas came (Acts 15:32), they were glad to take their place among the others, and then there were more recognised teachers.

Notice too that these five prophets and teachers are not listed by worldly rank or by church office. If they were, Barnabas would not have been first, and Saul would certainly not have been last. They seem instead to be arranged in the order of their spiritual birth… But the gracious power of the Lord, in keeping with His word in Matthew 20:16, was soon to make first in the testimony of His truth the man who here stands last.

Here the writer draws a distinction, we think, between a prophet and a teacher, since he mentions both… A prophet is someone who has the mind of God and can pass it on, whether he foretells the future or not. So Abraham is the first person in the Old Testament called a prophet, though he never, as far as we read, predicted any event (Gen. 20:7).

A teacher unfolds the mind of God to the assembly… The prophet is one whose ministry brings the conscience into the immediate presence of God. "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet," said the woman of Sychar, when her conscience was reached. In general, the teacher is for the understanding, the pastor for the heart, the prophet for the conscience.

This large church, made up mostly of Gentiles, had no fewer than five prophets and teachers among its members. Their names are given, and they teach us much. One had a surname that probably shows he was a black man (Niger means Black). One was notable enough to have been a foster-brother of Herod. Barnabas was a Greek-speaking Jew. Saul had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lucius may have been a Gentile. So it was clear very early that race and breeding are not what count most in the church, but the gift given from on high.

How different the paths of the two foster-brothers! Herod had ruled his own region for years, but had lately been sent into exile… The other, through grace, became an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ, called to reign with Him — and before His judgment seat Herod Antipas must one day stand to receive his sentence as the murderer of John the Baptist.

Do not confuse this ministering to the Lord with serving Him in preaching or teaching. It was no doubt mainly prayer and intercession. The idea that the Lord's Supper was involved is crude and unfounded... The fasting that went with their spiritual action toward the Lord confirms this. Fasting humbles the outward nature, so that the inner man may be before Him with an undivided heart.

We may well ask whether our service for God today is often taken up too easily. Would it not help spiritual power and effectiveness if we were more often found in this attitude before we began anything for God?... Our question is about waiting on God together, with fasting, before we start work in which all the saints have a common interest. The early Church understood this.

Many have thought of the Holy Spirit as only an influence, and not as a Person, equal with the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead. But Scripture shows plainly that He speaks and acts only as a Divine Person can speak and act. The present occasion bears this out. An influence cannot say, "Separate ME Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." This is the language of a Divine Person. It is the speech of sovereignty, and only a Divine Person is qualified to use it, out of a will that is all-powerful and wholly wise.

Whatever the channel, the word was not spoken to the church but to the fellow workers, to separate those two for the special work in front of them. It is the Spirit Who says, "I have called them." This was not the first time either Barnabas or Saul had been called with authority to the service of Christ. Even the younger of the two had worked openly and well for years, both in the gospel and in the church. Men in a hurry to find the rite of ordination in this passage end up with ordination carried out by brothers of lower rank than the two men themselves.

The Holy Spirit commands them to separate to Him Barnabas and Saul for the work to which He had called them... The definite and obvious source of their mission was the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit who called them to the work. He sent them out — an all-important principle in the Lord's ways on earth. We come out from Jerusalem, from Judaism, and from the authority of the apostles the Lord chose while He was on earth.

The occasion was momentous. It was the first regular going out from the assembly of messengers who would carry the gospel to Gentiles as well as Jews. Some features here belong to the apostles alone. Yet in the main it is a simple picture of the spirit of prayer, self-denial, dependence and fellowship that should mark the Church of God at all times. There may be no "prophets" now who can put the infallible "thus says the Lord" in front of their own words. But we have the "thus says the Lord" in His all-sufficient and infallible word, and we have the same sovereign Spirit, who can certainly make His will known.