사도행전 11

Peter tells Jerusalem what happened in Caesarea

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!”^{a 4}Peter 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.^bc 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.

The good news reaches Antioch

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.^{de 21}The 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.

Agabus and the famine

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.