and thence they sailed away to Antioch, whence they had been committed to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled.
Paul and Barnabas end their first missionary journey at the harbour they sailed from. The verse looks back to the send-off that started it, and it treats their work as finished.
The last half of the verse explains the prayer and laying on of hands back in Acts 13. One writer says it settles what that scene was, and what it was not.
The last part of verse 26 makes the meaning of what came before this missionary visit clearer still, if that was needed. It was in no true sense an "ordination" of Barnabas and Paul. As described here, it was their recommendation to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. Indeed Acts 15:40 suggests the same was done again on the apostle's second journey with Silas. The notion of holy orders founded on the beginning of Acts 13 is therefore false and out of place. It also strips the act of all its gracious meaning.
If it was not the giving of an office, what was it? Another writer traces the gesture back to its oldest use in Scripture.
Laying on of hands was practised as far back as Genesis, when a father or grandfather laid his hands on the children. It was a sign of recommendation to God by someone who was conscious of being so near to God that he could count on His blessing. So in the New Testament people often did this with no claim that it gave anyone a ministerial position. Here in Acts 13 it expressed a solemn and precious act of fellowship with these honoured servants of Christ in the special missionary work to which the Holy Spirit had called them.
The verse also tells us what the Spirit called them to. It was not a rank, but a job with an end.
We are also told what they were called to. They set out at once on this special work, and at the end of it they return to Antioch. There Scripture adds, "where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled." So it is as certain as Scripture can make it: the work in question was not an apostle's, prophet's, or teacher's office. It was simply an evangelistic mission to the needy fields of Asia Minor.
Two things stand side by side here. The Holy Spirit sent these men out, yet they came straight back to the assembly that had seen them off.
The Holy Spirit had sent them out with His own authority (Acts 13:4). That placed them under direct responsibility to the Lord, whose servants they were. Even so, they were quick to share all His doings with the saints. They call together the assembly they had gone out from, so that all could rejoice in His grace, and above all in His grace to the Gentiles. The church is not the source of mission, but the scene of communion with divine grace.
That return has a practical edge for anyone who serves.
It is quite true that the servant answers to his Master for how and where he works. Yet he is also responsible not to compromise the fellowship he has with the saints. Each servant is under the control of the Lord himself. Even so, he cannot act as a lone unit. He has to weigh how, where, and with whom he works, so as not to compromise the assembly he comes from. … In Acts 13:1-4 Paul and Barnabas start from Antioch with the commendation of their fellow believers. In Acts 14:26 they return and give an account of their work.
Notice which city they return to, and which one they do not.
It is to Antioch they go, not to Jerusalem; they return to their starting point, from where they had been recommended to the grace of God. On earth the Holy Spirit's work is linked with Antioch, but the power for it all comes from above.
- Grace sends. They went out commended to the grace of God, not licensed by an office. Reading Acts 13 as an ordination robs the act of its grace.
- Grace defines. They were called to one evangelistic mission in Asia Minor. They were not raised to the rank of apostle, prophet, or teacher.
- Grace sustains. Those who laid hands on them were near enough to God to count on His blessing. The strength for the journey was His, not theirs.
- Grace finishes. The verse looks back on a finished job. The work grace sent them to do is the work they completed.
- Grace is shared. The Spirit sent them and the Lord held them answerable. Still they came back to the assembly they left and gave an account, so all could rejoice together.
And having arrived, and having brought together the assembly, they related to them all that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of faith to the nations.
Paul and Barnabas come home to Antioch after their first long journey among the nations. The first thing they do is call the church together and give an account. They tell of God's work, not their own. The headline is a door: He opened it, and He opened it to people outside Israel — the Gentiles.
Their report put God at the centre, not the two men who had done the travelling. One writer draws out who was really at work:
The servants told what "God had done with them." God was the worker. They were only the instruments He was pleased to use. And it was God who had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. The first missionary journey had proved this beyond all dispute.
Notice the name on the door. This is not a door of law. One writer traces the widening entrance across three moments in Acts:
In Acts 10, we see God opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile. In Acts 14:27, we see Him opening "the door of faith" to the Gentile. In Acts 28:28, we see Him sending His salvation to the Gentile. But we search in vain, from cover to cover of the blessed Book, for a passage in which He places the Gentile under the law.
That is why faith stands at the entrance of the Christian life and not somewhere along the way:
Faith comes first, and that is only natural. It is by "the door of faith" (Acts 14:27) that we enter into blessing. And in our everyday lives as believers, "without faith it is impossible to please" God (Heb. 11:6).
If God opened it, then no human power decides whether it stays open. One writer links this moment to the promise of an open door in Revelation:
The Church's testimony stood firm in front of a hostile world, without human influence, human organization or human learning. The Lord "opened the door of faith to the Gentiles" (Acts 14:27) and no man could shut it. Again the Apostle can say, "a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Cor. 16:9). If the Lord opened a door for one man, many adversaries could not silence his testimony.
Antioch had let these two men go, but it had not commissioned them. That distinction shapes how the church receives them back:
The church however ought to take delight in acknowledging those whom the Lord sends. We find it so at Antioch (Acts 14:27), when Paul and Barnabas came back from a mission on which the Spirit of God had sent them. So the believers at Antioch "let them go"; but the Holy Spirit "sent them out" (Acts 13:3-4)… He has not given up His rights, or handed them over to the church or to anyone in it… Mission, like gift, belongs to the Lord; and He is the same still.
Telling others about your service can go wrong. One writer sets this scene beside the return of the twelve apostles to Jesus in Mark's Gospel. He finds two different reports:
If we gather the assembly of God's people together, as was the case with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, it should be to declare "all that God had done, and how He had opened the door" (Acts 14:27). But when, after service, we gather together to Jesus, it is to tell Him what we have done and taught. How good for our souls to look back over our acts and words in the presence of One Who will never flatter. Before Him we cannot boast, and from Him nothing can be hidden.
One writer asks whether that habit survives today:
When you come back from a happy and successful gospel campaign, do you dear evangelists gather the Church together to share the good news? Oh, you say, we should not like to put ourselves forward like that. The saints would not come together for that purpose. I am very sorry for the saints. If you went home and did it, some would probably say, "He thinks a great deal of himself." If that is so, at least one other thing is clear: the church today has lost its first love for the gospel, and its victories. In plain language, we are not so simple as they were in that day. God enlarge our hearts, for we need it.
- God opened. The verb belongs to Him. Paul and Barnabas report what God did with them. They were only instruments, and the journey settled who the worker was.
- A door of faith. Not law, not circumcision, not national standing. Faith is the entrance into blessing, and it comes first.
- Opened to Gentiles. Three moments in Acts widen the entrance to the nations. Nowhere does Scripture put the Gentile under the law.
- Opened to stay. No human influence, organization or learning propped that door open. No adversary could close it.
- Opened, so tell it. The Lord sends His servants, and the church delights to welcome them and hear the account. Tell Him first, where no one can boast — then tell the saints.
And they stayed no little time with the disciples.
Paul and Barnabas have just finished their first missionary journey, and the record of it ends with a long, quiet stay in the city that had sent them out. Why did they settle down for so long, and what does their choice of Antioch say about the assembly's place in the Lord's work?
They did not report to Jerusalem. They gave their account in the city that had sent them out.
They go to Antioch, not to Jerusalem. They return to their starting-point, where they had been commended to the grace of God. The work of the Holy Spirit is linked with Antioch here on earth. The power is all from above. There the apostles recount the great things which God had done for them, and how He had opened the door among the Gentiles. "And they remained no little time with the disciples."
The disciples they stayed with were the church at Antioch, the same company that had commended them at the outset.
They went out from the assembly, commended by the assembly. The assembly was the centre from which their service flowed, and back they came to it. They served the Lord in their individual responsibility to Him. They did not take their directions from the assembly. They took their directions straight from the Lord Himself. They served the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit and as guided by Him. But the assembly was their centre.
Another writer traces how long that link with Antioch lasted:
From this time Barnabas and Saul were fellow-workers and close companions in the work of the Lord, until the events recorded in Acts 15. Antioch would appear to have been their headquarters for a considerable time. From it they went out on the special missionary tour recorded in Acts 13, prayerfully commended by the assembly there. And to it they return.
The verse uses an understatement: "no little time." One commentator states it plainly:
We should bear in mind that the stay of Paul and Barnabas on their return to Antioch was not short.
Commentators differ on what filled those months. One reads the stay as relief after everything the journey had cost:
For a long time Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch. No doubt it would be a welcome break. Paul had endured hard toil, and he had passed through very turbulent times of persecution.
Another sees work taken up again, and links the stay to the report they had just given:
The assembly had sent them out from its heart, with the entire fellowship of the saints. They, on their part, were in fullest fellowship with the saints, and counted on their interest in the Lord's work. So they gave the saints a detailed description of what God had done through them in the proclamation of His word. They then resumed their labours in Antioch, for they "remained no little time with the disciples."
The verse closes a chapter, but it also sets up the crisis of the next one.
No one challenged them in Antioch itself during their long stay there, but then most in that church were of Gentile descent. Then certain men came down from the Jerusalem area. Everything changed with their teaching: keeping circumcision was absolutely necessary for salvation. Paul and Barnabas had not practised this.
The timing was God's doing, not chance:
It was of God that Paul and Barnabas should return to Antioch at this time. The question of how Christians stood in relation to the ceremonial law was just coming up for discussion, and it demanded an authoritative settlement.
- Sent — Antioch commended them to the grace of God. The power came from above, not from the church that sent them.
- Returned — They went back to their starting-point, not to Jerusalem. The assembly was their centre, but never the source of their orders.
- Stayed — The wording is modest, but the stay was long, not a passing visit.
- Filled — Commentators differ on what filled those months. Some see a welcome break after toil and persecution; others see work among the disciples taken up again.
- Positioned — God had them in Antioch just as the question of law and salvation broke out. The quiet stay became the doorway to Acts 15.