Acts 11

1Word reached the apostles and the brothers and sisters all over Judea that even the Gentiles had accepted the word of God. 2Once Peter was back in Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took him to task. 3“You went in to men who are uncircumcised,” they said, “and you sat down to eat with them!” 4Peter then explained everything to them step by step, from the beginning. 5“I was in the town of Joppa at prayer, and in a trance I had a vision. An object like a huge sheet, held at its four corners, was being lowered out of heaven, and it came all the way to me. 6As I stared into it and studied it closely, I saw animals of the earth that walk on four feet, wild animals, creatures that creep along the ground, and birds of the air. 7Then I also heard a voice speaking to me: ‘Up, Peter! Kill and eat.’ 8But I answered, ‘Certainly not, Lord! Nothing unholy or unclean has ever passed my lips.’ 9A second time the voice spoke from heaven: ‘What God has made clean, you must not call unholy.’ 10Three times this took place, and then everything was drawn back up into heaven. 11At that very moment three men reached the house where we were. They had been sent to me from Caesarea. 12The Spirit told me to go with them without making any distinction between them and us. These six brothers traveled with me as well, and we entered the man’s house. 13He described to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, who said, ‘Send to Joppa and have Simon, also called Peter, brought here. 14He will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and your whole household.’ 15I had only begun to speak when the Holy Spirit came down on them, just as the Spirit came on us at the start. 16Then the Lord’s words came back to me: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17If, then, God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I? Could I hinder God?” 18At this they fell silent and glorified God. “Then God has given even the Gentiles repentance that brings life,” they said.

19Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered by the trouble that arose over Stephen made their way to Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. They spoke the message to Jews and to no one else. 20Some of them, though, were from Cyprus and Cyrene. When they came to Antioch, they spoke to Greek-speaking Gentiles too and announced to them the good news of the Lord Jesus. 21The hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. 22The church in Jerusalem got word of these things, and it sent Barnabas out to Antioch. 23On his arrival he saw the grace of God, and it made him glad. He kept urging everyone to hold fast to the Lord with firm resolve, 24for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a sizable crowd was added to the Lord. 25Barnabas then set out for Tarsus to search for Saul, 26and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. For an entire year the two of them took part in the church’s gatherings and taught a sizable crowd. It was in Antioch that the disciples first came to be called Christians.

27About that time prophets came down to Antioch from Jerusalem. 28Agabus, one of them, rose and, by the Spirit, foretold a great famine that would come on the whole world. And it came, in the days of the emperor Claudius. 29The disciples resolved that each of them would send something, as much as each could afford, as relief for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30And they carried it out, sending it to the elders in the care of Barnabas and Saul.