49 - The Antioch Model

The Antioch church became the center of outreach to the Gentiles. They had successfully put behind them the issue of fellowship between Jewish believers and Gentile believers, and by this point in time (probably about 15 years after Pentecost) they were aggressively moving forward to evangelize Jews and Gentiles in other regions. They became a “home base” for missionaries who went all over the world. Paul, Barnabas, John Mark, Silas, Titus (Ga 2:1-3), and undoubtedly many more fanned out from that great metropolitan city carrying Christ to anyone who would listen.

We have much to learn from them. Their fruitfulness as a mission-church was not an accident. There was a careful process behind the way they did things, and if we look closely, they will teach us how to do the same.

This weekend is the first weekend of Advent. We, along with much of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world, are reflecting on the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to us as a “missionary” (Jn 3:16). Jesus left the glories of heaven to become one of us, a human, and to die for us on a cross (Php 2:5-8). God didn’t abandon us to our sin and confusion, He sent someone to rescue us. And then, after we have become His, He asks us to become like Him which, of course, means we too will become missionaries, we too will love sinful, confused people so much we will go after them to rescue them. After all, missionaries don’t sit and wait, missionaries get up and go.