Given the challenges of sharing the Gospel today, continued reflection on Scripture seems key. I’ve often pondered the expansion of the church in Acts as Jesus described it, from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the Earth, and sought lessons to apply for today. In particular, the opening of doors to the Gentiles, the “ends of the Earth”, seems significant, and is worth understanding this better.

For example, when did the breakthrough to the Gentiles happen, and who was involved? Were the Apostles involved, such as Philip’s foray outside Judea? Were the Samaritans the start because some considered them Gentiles? Obviously Cornelius is a breakthrough case, but no more is mentioned until the Hellenists in Antioch, and were they Gentiles or just more Diaspora Jews?

The following represents some initial investigations into these questions, concluding that the breakthrough happened in Antioch, by unnamed disciples who were not part of the leadership.

Regarding Philip, there was an early church tradition that the Apostle and the one chosen as one of the Seven were the same person, and some have continued that view since there is no explicit statement of a difference in Luke. However, it seems most modern commentaries consider them to be two different people — the Apostle who was one of the Twelve, and the Evangelist who was one of the Seven. Although it seems impossible to be sure, I tend to agree with the latter view since Scripture says the Twelve did not want to deal with serving tables, so the fact that one of the Seven does exactly that seems to indicate they are different people.

This means that it was not one of the Apostles who went into Samaria initially; they followed later to validate the work.

Regarding the nature of the Samaritans themselves, it appears they were mostly thought of as a form of Judaism. It appears they worshipped Yahweh and shared roughly the same Pentateuch, and Josephus described them as Jewish apostates. Some ancient rabbis felt they were Gentile, but the predominant view now seems to be that they were a type of Jew, not Gentile.

I think there are a couple other reasons that evangelizing the Samaritans was not the same as reaching the Gentiles.

First, a big deal is made of the conversion of Cornelius as demonstrating that the Gentiles were accepted by God. Seems like this wouldn’t be a big deal if they had already worked through that with the Samaritans. Yes, it was also a big deal to reach the unclean Samaritans, since the Jerusalem church sent Peter and John to see what was going on (Acts 8:14), but I think that’s a separate big deal than reaching the Gentiles.

Second, Jesus’ sequence in Acts 1:8 specifically lists Samaria as different from the “ends of the Earth”. Although the latter term does sometimes mean just distant lands, it’s interesting that Isaiah uses that very phrase in relation to Gentiles in Isaiah 49:6, and Paul quotes that passage when “turning to the Gentiles” in Acts 13:46-47.

Thus, Cornelius is probably the first true Gentile convert but interestingly, nothing really happened as a result of that. God used the event to teach that Gentiles were accepted, but it doesn’t appear that anyone acted on the teaching. In addition, Cornelius wasn’t a pure Gentile in the sense that he was described as a God-fearer (Acts 10:2) and was physically still in Samaria. After this, Gentiles aren’t really in view again until the believers get to Antioch in Acts 11:19.

So Cornelius represented a theological or spiritual breakthrough, but not the next step in the mission. If Jesus and Paul were pointing to Gentiles when they used the phrase “ends of the Earth”, so that it really represented the next stage in the mission, then maybe that really happened at Antioch, when the Hellenists were reached in Acts 11:20.

But who were those “Hellenists”? Did they represent Gentiles or a different group of Jews?

Regarding the term “Hellenists” in Acts 11:20, it seems pretty universal to consider them as Gentiles. Some ancient transcripts actually have “Greek” in that verse, and many translations use the word “Greek” instead of “Hellenist”. Some commenters say the term really refers to the language, and perhaps some culture, adopted by the people being described. So in Acts 6, they are Jews who speak Greek, while in Acts 11:20 they are Syrians who speak Greek. In any case, it would appear that the new group being reached were Gentiles.

So, it seems that those initial events in Antioch represent the real start of the Gentile mission, the first real encounter with the “ends of the Earth”. It may be that some Gentiles were encountered elsewhere before that, but Scripture doesn’t describe that.

An interesting picture emerges when we bring these points together. Top spiritual leaders (the Apostles) stayed primarily in and around Jerusalem. Then the lower-level leaders (the Seven) reached into Samaria. The final breakthrough, to the Gentiles, was led by unnamed believers in Antioch.

It’s interesting how much commitment there must have been in those unnamed believers to break through to the Gentiles; clearly they were taking Jesus’ “go” command seriously. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised though, given the example prayer in Acts 4:23-20. It is a prayer for boldness to continue proclaiming the Gospel, right after some of them had been locked up for doing so! Clearly, proclaiming Jesus was seen as vital to believers at all levels of the church.

Now, what spiritual principles might we draw from this picture, and how would they apply today? That will be the subject of a future post.