19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.
While the rest of Acts is going to focus on Paul, we would be remiss not to focus on some other heroes of the faith. We are into hero worship and probably always have been. This year alone Michael, The Odyssey, and Spiderman have set box office records all focused on a person. So far in Acts we have focused on Peter, Stephen and Phillip and are about to experience 16 chapters of Paul. The church in Corinth was in disarray because they were divided on hero worship of Paul versus Apollos and Paul had to tell them to stop worshipping anyone except Jesus. He told them in 1Corinthians 12 that the church should be called the body of Christ. In other words, the body doesn't glorify a thumb or a big toe or an ear, but all those parts are essential to a body that functions well. Today we need to focus on a "lesser" body part but without this part, would Paul even have played a positive part in church history?
"The men from Cyprus and Cyrene". Have you ever heard of them? Do we know any names? No, but it might make a good name for a Christian Rock Band. What happened was Jewish believers dispersed or ran from Jerusalem due to the murder of Stephen. This, in effect, served as the first mission thrust of the gospel because Christians can't keep good news to themselves. If you knew the cure to cancer and kept it to yourself, what kind of monster would you be? In the same way, if we know the path to hell and didn't try to warn people walking on that path, we would be uncaring, selfish people. These believers understood this and told the good news to the Jewish communities that they ended up in. Some ended up in Cyprus and Cyrene but rather than setting up a comfortable life there, took their families to gentile communities in Antioch feeling that the gentiles needed the good news, too.
Although Peter with Cornelius and Paul a missionary to the gentiles, get all the press, where would we be without "the men from Cyprus and Cyrene" in the salvation of the gentiles including me? They are in my spiritual family tree. Sure, Paul is in there too, but these guys are above Paul in my tree. How? Because they evangelized gentiles who then formed a church. Jerusalem heard about it and for whatever motives sent Barnabas to check it out. Barnabas saw it to be an authentic move of God and decided it needed a pastor to grow it properly and got Paul off the sideline. Paul was not depressed going, "woe is me I killed Christians", but rather was being taught in the desert by Jesus who was preparing him for his role. That being said, I'm sure he felt unworthy to serve like Moses in the desert of Midian who Aaron had to come get, and Barnabas was his Aaron.
The "men of Cyrus and Cyrene", who were probably pastoring the church didn't say when Paul and Barnabas arrived, "Hey, this is our church, we have it under control. We are in charge here." No. Like John the Baptist who was the hero but said "I must decrease and He must increase", they moved out of the way and let the "new heroes" take over. In fact, they probably even submitted to the authority of Paul, Barnabas, and the Church of Jerusalem. If they had an Instagram account, they would have lost all their followers. Thus, we never hear again from the forgotten heroes "the men of Cyrus and Cyrene" the top of my family tree. Hope to someday meet those guys in Heaven and thank them for their witness, obedience to leave their comfort zone, and humility to become nothing for the sake of the gospel. If not for them, I would be on the "Highway to Hell", not performed by my favorite Christian rock band.
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