Acts 11:19

They therefore that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none save only Jews.

III. THE CHURCH MOVES TOWARD THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH

The third and final great section of Acts begins here with Acts 11:19, where appears the first movement of the church to the ends of creation. Antioch, being the first way station, the scene of the first great Gentile congregation gathered out of paganism, where God gave the sacred name "Christian" to his people, where the erstwhile persecutor, known later as Paul, would begin those labors which would determine to a large extent the future character of Christianity. As Peter's name and personality had dominated that previous section of Acts, Paul's would dominate this.

This is a retrogression in Luke's narrative, going back to Jerusalem and memorable events there: the death of the first martyr, the first historical emergence of Saul of Tarsus, the dispersion of the disciples who went everywhere preaching the word, and the tribulation that accompanied those events.

Save only Jews ... Despite the fact of the great commission having been intended for "all nations," the first Christians, almost exclusively Jewish in a racial sense, understood this as "all Jewish nations"! It was this fundamental misunderstanding which lasted several years, and which precipitated the supernatural events leading to the inclusion of Gentiles. The whole purpose of Christianity would have been nullified and thwarted if the world-saving gospel should have been reduced to the status of another Jewish sect; and there was no way that Almighty God would have permitted such a thing. Acts 9,10, and 11 detail the dramatic, God-ordered events which stripped Christianity of its Jewish character and made a world-wide religion out of it.

The formula now becomes a sort of technical term, indicative of the MESSAGE, the last message of God to the world. It is called "the word of the kingdom," or "the word of life"; but it is never called "the letter," but the WORD of gospel.[20]