Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
Which also they did, and sent it to the elders. Here, for the first time in the Acts, the term "elders" (or 'presbyters') is used to denote an office in the Christian Church. And as no definition is given of its nature and functions, these must be gathered from a comparison of the various passages where it occurs. That it was borrowed from the synagogue, and that the Christian churches were constituted after its model, and not that of the temple, is beyond reasonable dispute.
By the hands, [ cheiros (G5495 ), rather, 'by the hand'] of Barnabas and Saul - regarded jointly as one custodier. This-the reader should observe-was Saul's visit to Jerusalem after his conversion.
Remarks:
(1) We must advert hers again to the relation which the divine recognition of the uncircumcised Gentile believers of Antioch bears to that of Cornelius and his party. This, at Antioch, was the spontaneous outgoing of zeal for Christ and love to the souls of men: that (as Lechler well expresses it) was 'the legitimizing of this extra-official activity' by the Lord of the Church. 'God, in Cornelius, and in the apostle Peter (he adds), sanctioned the principle of the conversion of the Gentiles; but the first successful inroad into the territory of paganism-the founding of the metropolis of Gentile Christianity in the Church at Antioch-was effected not by Peter nor by any other apostle, but by simple members the Church.' Nor should we overlook the fact, already noted, that when a deputy was sent from Jerusalem to investigate this new state of things, it was not one of the Twelve, but an esteemed and influential "teacher," that was sent; nor did the apostles send him, but "the church which was at Jerusalem," the apostles probably just presiding and going cordially along with the measure.
(2) How beautiful is the large-hearted and loving liberality with which both parties treated each other-the Gentile Christians at Antioch, in welcoming a Jewish Christian who might have been supposed to come on an errand not altogether welcome, an errand wearing the appearance at least of distrust; and Barnabas, on his part, in not regarding with suspicion the spontaneous labours of those simple disciples of Cyprus and Cyrene, but then when he "saw the grace of God" in their Gentile converts (as if that had been the one thing to which he looked), recognizing it with joy, and finding at first nothing to do among them but to "exhort them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." The question of circumcision seems never to come up: he troubles them not on that subject, but simply counsels them to stedfast adherence to the Lord Jesus. And since the historian expressly ascribes this to his rare spirituality and benignant liberality, we cannot fail to draw the inference that characters such as his will be quicker to discern the grace of God in others-in however unusual a way it meets them-than small points of difference between them.
(3) What a spectacle does this church at Antioch present at the period to which the elope of this chapter brings us! It grows so on the hands of Barnabas that he has to leave it-to the care, no doubt, of those to whom it owed its existence-to fetch Saul from Tarsus as his fellow-labourer; and in the hands of these eminent men it so advances, that, out of ground broken from the hard pagan rock, it becomes a garden of the Lord, a church which, for vigour and enterprise, was fast outstripping that at Jerusalem, and which became the first contributor to the necessities of the saints there, and the originator of missions to the pagan. Indeed, in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, Christianity was regarded as an offshoot from Judaism-a heretical and impious form of it by its enemies, and by its friends as Judaism perfected; and so it would certainly have been regarded at Antioch had the converts there been exclusively Jews or Jewish proselytes. But the novelty of a church consisting Gentile disciples of a crucified Jew could not fail to attract general attention; and the name which their fellow-citizens gave them (no matter from what motive) - not Nazarenes, as they were called by the Jews, but CHRISTIANS-marks a memorable era in the development of the great purpose of God, that among the Gentiles was now to be preached the unsearchable riches of Christ.