May 20, 2019
Acts 11:19-26 New Life Version (NLV)
Encouragement is a great gift from the Lord to His Church. We all need encouragement in our faith if we are going to grow up into Christ. We start as new believers and we look forward toward the maturity that God’s Spirit brings about in our lives. True spiritual teachers are those who press us forward into maturity by encouraging us to trust and obey the Word of God while we love others. Every Christian should be a source of encouragement for his or her brothers and sisters in the faith. As we share our testimonies and reveal our experiences with God, it causes our faith to grow and broadens our view of the Gospel.
Peter’s testimony to the church leaders in Jerusalem that God was saving the Gentiles, caused the good news to flourish in Antioch. Many people came to Christ. God even used the persecution of believers in Jerusalem to spread the Gospel, because the believers headed out to other countries. The life of God went with the believers and that life created more life wherever the believers went. It was during this time, believers everywhere began to share their life experiences in Christ with others. It was in Antioch where the first Gentile church was founded and the term Christians or “Christ-ones” was used. Barnabas, an encourager, came and began teaching the new believers how to live in this new life they had been given in Christ. Even though the believers were from different races, cultures, and spoke different languages, Barnabas taught them about all they actually shared in common in Christ. This diversity of people sharing a unity of faith caused the church to increase.