¹⁹So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. ²⁰But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. ²¹And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.

The “diaspora” continued on—to the church’s advantage. Normally that word has been used for the Jewish Diaspora, the forced scattering of Jews from their ancestral land of Palestine. The first time was in 605 B.C. with the conquest by Babylon and the resettling of the Jews in foreign lands. They later returned to the land under the leadership of Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah. But the Roman conquest and fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 sent the Jews from the land again, only to return in A.D. 1947.

However, there was a significant diaspora involving a sub-set of Jews, those who had become followers of “the Way” (Acts 9:2), that is, devoted followers of Jesus Christ under the teaching of the twelve apostles. They were forced out of the land by their fellow Jews, under the primary antagonism of none other than Saul of Tarsus:

[A] great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles . . . Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. (Acts 8:1–4)

Now, in our passage, we begin to see that rather than defeat the Christian movement, the persecution served to spread it! Some made their way to the nearby island of Cyprus and the region to the north, Phoenicia, including one of its leading cities, Antioch. Many of the Christians evangelized only other Jews, but some who were more Hellenized (Greek in culture) focused on the Greek communities. Here we see Luke’s narrative using the term “Greeks” as a reference to the general cultural outside of Judaism. Although Rome had conquered most of the Mediterranean world and certainly had control over Israel, the culture from the previous domination by Greece still very much influenced the ancient world.

So we see that once Peter and the apostles had accepted the Gentiles as equal recipients of God’s grace, the expansion of the Christian movement began accelerating, building on the work in the city of Antioch.

Lord, may Your hand would be with me so that many in my city will turn to You.