ACTS 11 – 12
Bible Study Notes Rev. Betsy Perkins
The Jerusalem Church Responds
- Why is it important to have missionaries report back to their sending churches? How does it help them and us?
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – Acts of the Apostles (RightNowMedia), 51:00 – 57:40
Peter Explains to the Jerusalem Church (11:1-18)
- Which group of members within the Jerusalem Church criticized Peter? What was their concern?
- How did Peter respond?
- Why does Luke take the time to repeat the whole story as he writes? What additional details do we learn (vs. 14-15)?
All these [details] are important as we ponder the ways God works and the ways in which God’s people sometimes need to explain themselves to one another – an important task in all generations, since God is always doing new things, but there is equally a danger in mere human innovations. (Not all bright ideas are good ideas; not all good ideas are from God.) Part of the difficulty, of course, is identifying the work of the Holy Spirit. There have been, in the last century or so, many movements which have claimed to be Spirit-driven, but which have resulted in all kinds of shameful behavior. There is a constant need, particularly among Christian leaders, to be anchored in prayer, humility and deep attention to the word of God and, as here, the words of Jesus.
N.T. Wright
- How can we know when to stand up for tradition or when God is doing a new thing? How can we be sure that we do not stand in God’s way?
The Jerusalem Church and the Antioch Church (11:19-30):
- The city of Antioch was a major crossroads of travel, culture and trade, so it was not surprising that the believers who fled Jerusalem passed through there at some point. What groups of people did these believers talk to about Jesus? What was the result?
- How does the home church in Jerusalem respond to this news?
- What do we already know about Barnabas? (Read 4:36-37, 9:26-27) What more do we learn about him in verses 22-24?
Luke’s commendation of Barnabas is moving, and theologically pregnant: he came and saw the grace of God, and was glad, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. In other words, what Barnabas saw was not just a large and motley crowd of unlikely-looking people crowding into someone’s house, praising God, and being taught about Jesus and the scriptures. What he saw was God’s grace at work. It took humility and faith to see that; Barnabas had both in spades, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit in him. N.T. Wright
- What does Barnabas think to do to encourage the new believers in Antioch?
Again and again the church needs not only the people who really can take the work forward but the people who, in prayer and humility, can spot the very person that God is calling. It isn’t always easy.
N.T. Wright
- ‘Christ’ is the Greek word for ‘Messiah’; the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ means ‘the anointed one’ or ‘God’s anointed king’. Why was the name ‘Christians’ given to those who believed in Jesus?
The followers of Jesus were thinking and speaking in such a way that they were thought of as ‘the king’s people’, ‘Messianists’, Christians. N.T. Wright
- Who is Agabus? What does he do / say? How does the church respond?
The church should always be open to the cry of the poor, from whatever quarter it comes, and should always be ready to respond by sending its best help and its best people. The first ‘Christians’ were not just known as ‘the King’s people’. They were known as people who, precisely because that ‘king’ was Jesus himself, were committed at the deepest level to giving themselves in love to one another and to all in need. N.T. Wright
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – Acts of the Apostles (RightNowMedia), 57:40 – 1:04:10
Persecution of Church Leaders (12:1-17):
- Why do some rulers choose to target or persecute a group of citizens?
To kill someone with the sword, as opposed to having them stoned as Stephen had been, strongly indicates that Herod either saw, or wanted people to think he saw, the Christian movement as a political threat. Certainly a movement whose very name, by this stage, stakes out a claim for Jesus as the true, anointed ‘king of the Jews’ cannot have been anything other than threatening to the person who bore that title as the gift of the Roman superpower. N.T. Wright
- The various King Herods ruled as kings over the Jewish people. This King Herod is Herod Agrippa I, grandson of King Herod who killed baby boys after Jesus’ birth, and nephew of the King Herod who killed John the Baptist and who is part of the trial of Jesus. Who is targeted in this wave of persecution? How do the people respond?
- What time of year it is when Herod arrests Peter? What is being celebrated?
- How does God rescue Peter? What makes it clear this is God’s deliverance not Peter’s escape?
- How had the church been praying for Peter? How do they respond to the answered prayer? What do they think has happened to Peter?
I find all this strangely comforting: partly because Luke is allowing us to see the early church for a moment not as a bunch of great heroes and heroines of the faith, but as the same kind of muddled, half-believing, faith-one-minute-and-doubt-the-next sort of people as most Christians we all know. And partly I find it comforting, because it would be easy for skeptical thinkers to dismiss the story of Peter’s release from jail as a pious legend – except for the fact that nobody, constructing a pious legend out of thin air, would have made up this ridiculous little story of Rhoda and the praying-but-hopeless church. It has the ring of truth: ordinary truth, down-to-earth truth, at the very moment that it is telling us something truly extraordinary and heaven-on-earthish. N.T. Wright
Herod’s Vanity and Pride (12:18-24):
- How does King Herod respond to Peter’s disappearance?
- While Peter is saved, Herod Agrippa comes to his earthly end. What was the cause of his death?
- Read Proverbs 16:18. How is this proverb true in this story? How have you seen it to be true?
- How has God opened the way for believers to be witnesses in Judea and Samaria as told in the first 12 chapters of Acts? We now move to Luke’s account of believers taking their witness to “the ends of the earth.”
In light of this passage and our discussion, what one truth about God and about yourself stand out as something to “take to heart” this week?
Are there steps you will take, by God’s grace, to more fully apply it to your life?
Resources: NIV Zondervan Study Bible, 2015
N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1 2008
Max Lucado, Life Lessons from Acts: Christ’s Church in the World, 2018
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – The Acts of the Apostles (RightNowMedia), 2014
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