Antioch Occupied for Christ
“And Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king’s country. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them,” etc. — Acts xii. 20-25; xni. 1.
THE account of Herod’s death, introduced into the narrative, accords in all main points with the statements of Josephus. He had removed his residence from Jerusalem to Csesarea, that he might be on the sea-coast, and in closer communication with Rome. On the occasion of a grand assembly, connected with an embassy from the commercial communities of Tyre and Sidon, he entered the theatre in his robes of state. His royal robes, studded with precious stones, glittered in the sun as he moved, and the obsequious multitude shouted, ascribing Divine honours to their idol, according to the custom of Roman mobs. The judgment of God fell upon the frail mortal, and he died soon after of a most loathsome disease.
So died the persecutor; “but the word of God grew and multiplied.” This precious note is inserted in the history for comfort to the Church in time of trouble. Fear not, little flock; greater is he that is for you than all that are against you. The word, a living power, had free course through the nations when the feeble monarch who attempted to quench it lay in his grave. Thus Pharaoh and his army sank in the sea, while Israel, emancipated, praised the Lord and resumed their march.
If the princes and peoples of the earth should combine in an effort to destroy all the grain that exists — to stamp out the staff of life — they would not succeed. The seed has life in itself. Some of it, as the destroyers bore it to their bonfires, would be spilt upon the ground, and be lost to view. The lost would live and spring. From its resurrection a manifold return would be obtained; and the fields would be sown and ripen — seed-time and harvest would follow each other, after the foolish exterminators had returned to the dust. In like manner the efforts of persecutors have proved abortive; they have not been able to extinguish the word of life. God has secured that there shall be seed to the sower and bread to the eater, both in the temporal and spiritual spheres, even unto the end of the world.
“The word grew:” the expression is general: but in point of fact the widespread result was made up of many individual conversions, as a river is composed of many drops all obeying the same law. In ten thousand separate seeds the word fell into ten thousand separate hearts, and each heart, rent for receiving the seed, was further rent by the seed, when it swelled and grew. There is no wholesale spiritual growth. The wide revival consists of many persons, each of them separately renewed in the spirit.
Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch. There is great significance in the going and coming of these messengers. These are the couriers of the Great King, carrying his commands from province to province of his realm. First, they carried from Antioch a contribution to sustain the Christians of Jewish origin at Jerusalem through the famine. That gift was well fitted as an instrument to remove barriers, and unite Greeks and Jews in the common faith. From Jerusalem, and from Jews, came forth the spiritual things wherewith the Gentiles at Antioch were enriched; they only obey a law of the kingdom when they load the returning train with temporal gifts for Christian Jews in Jerusalem.
Such reciprocal charities were eminently fitted to break down the partition -walls, and blend all believers into one.
By this time the Christian leaders were aware of the importance of Antioch. They determined to occupy it for the work of the kingdom. Foreseeing the expansion of missionary work both in and from the capital, Barnabas and Saul induced John Mark to accompany them and share their labour. He was the son of Mary, sister of Barnabas, in whose house the prayer-meeting was held while Peter was in prison, and to whose house Peter went when he was free. This young man would go to Antioch probably in two capa-? cities, — both as an assistant to the elder missionaries, and as a witness of their work, who might afterwards give evidence in J erusalem regarding its character.
On the return of the deputation from Jerusalem, the College of Evangelists was constituted at Antioch. Excluding John Mark as a junior and a new-comer, it consisted of five members. Besides the two missionaries already introduced to our notice, there were “Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of, Cyrene, and Manaen which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch.” The note attached to the name of this man is full of interest. He was fosterfellow of that Herod who slew the Baptist, and set at nought the Lord on the morning of his death.
Manaen thus seems to be another Moses drawn out of the water. Brought up in the company of an ungodly and licentious prince, he was nevertheless chosen as an object of mercy, and employed as a messenger of grace. Perhaps, like Moses, he had it in his power to obtain and keep a position near the throne; but, like Moses, he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. We have no account of his conversion; but, whatever may have been its date and its circumstances, it is certain that when he became a disciple of Christ he no longer set any value on his connection with Herod’s house.
The power and sovereignty of grace are frequently displayed in choosing one from the steps of a throne, and making him a vessel to bear the name of Christ. Manaen was snatched tfrom the side of a murderer, and numbered among the saints of the Most High. His name was blotted from the family register of the tetrarch, and written in the Lamb’s book of life. Those who have been saved, as it were by fire, who have been arrested and won in spite of the strong man’s greatest efforts to keep his goods in peace, have peculiar delight in looking back over the way by which the Lord has led them. On the other hand, those who remain in Herod’s house, entangled by its business and gains, should learn from this case that they are welcome to Christ. It was a true word that fell from lying lips, when the Pharisees murmured, “This man receiveth sinners.” Whosoever will, let him come.
There is scarcely a congregation of believers that lacks its Manaen, highly esteemed now as a brother in the Lord, who seemed destined in his earlier years as devotee and victim to the pleasures of sin. It is a peculiar delight to the Christian brotherhood, and a peculiar glory to Divine grace, when one who has been brought up for the world is snatched from the world, and admitted as an heir of the new kingdom. It is sweet to see the children of Christian parents born to the Lord in their childhood, through means of a pious nurture; but it is perhaps more gladdening and inspiring to see the goings of the Lord, when he puts forth his power to wrench subjects from the god of this world, and make them princes round his own throne.