Acts 14:24-28 meaning

Having appointed elders to all the new churches they had planted in the region of Galatia, Paul and Barnabas embark on a return journey to their home church in Syrian Antioch. They “commended” each church “to the Lord” (v. 23) as they passed through Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch (all of these cities or their ruins are in modern-day Turkey), telling these new believers goodbye for now, though Paul probably let them know he intended to return, as he would in Acts 16. 

Paul and Barnabas continue to preach the gospel even on their return journey. First they passed through Pisidia, the region where the city of Pisidian Antioch was, and came into Pamphylia, which was the region of southernmost Galatia, bordering the Mediterranean Sea (v. 24). 

Luke, the author of Acts, describes that they continue preaching about Jesus, again in the city of Perga, which was the capital of Pamphylia, built beside the Kestros river about 7 or 8 miles from the Mediterranean coast. It was in Perga where John Mark, Barnabas’s cousin, had abandoned the mission and sailed back to Israel (Acts 13:13). 

This return journey would total approximately 280 miles, from Derbe to the other Galatian cities then back south to Perga. 

Luke writes When they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia (v. 25), which was a port city some ten or so miles away. 

From the port of Attalia, Paul and Barnabas sailed to Antioch in Syria, from which they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished (v. 26). Their boat probably traced the southern coast of Cilicia all the way home to Syrian Antioch.

As Luke reminds his readers, Antioch was the church where they had started their mission trip. The church in Antioch was formed by Jewish-Christian refugees who had fled to Syrian Antioch years ago during the persecution spearheaded by Paul and the Sanhedrin (Acts 11:19-26). 

After this religious immigration, many local Greeks believed in Jesus due to the preaching of the Jewish believers, and the church in Antioch grew rapidly. It was there that the name “Christian” was first coined to describe followers of Jesus Christ (“Christ” or “Christos” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “messiah” or “mashiach,” both meaning the “anointed one”) (Acts 11:26).

Ironically, though it was Paul’s persecution of the Christians that drove them to Antioch where they began this church, Paul eventually ended up serving as a teacher there. While an enemy of Christ, Paul had set events in motion which would form the Antiochian church where he would later minister as an apostle of Christ, after his conversion and appointment as an apostle. This serves as an example of God working bad circumstances into good results that benefit those who trust and obey Him (Romans 8:28).

In Acts 13:1-3, Paul, Barnabas, and other prophets and teachers in the Antiochian church together received a command from the Holy Spirit to send Paul and Barnabas on this first missionary journey into the western world. This is what Luke refers to here as them having been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had accomplished (v. 26). 

God had told Paul and Barnabas to go on this journey, and they had, in His grace (or “favor”), fulfilling the commission and returning with much accomplished. That much was accomplished was because the power of God worked through them (the grace of God). This included performing miracles, a miraculous restoration of Paul’s health after being stoned, and subsequent protection. 

They had spread the gospel through the island nation of Cyprus, and they had planted at least four or five church communities in the Galatian cities of Derbe, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, and Perga. There could also have been more which Luke does not name in his accounting. 

There are a few references to Paul and Barnabas preaching in the regions surrounding these cities, in addition to the cities proper (Acts 13:49, 14:6). The length of this, Paul’s first missionary journey, is not specified. But at the least it seems Paul and Barnabas were gone for many months, if not a year or more.

The believers in Syrian Antioch were doubtless excited to hear all about the journey and its results:

When they [Paul and Barnabas] had arrived and gathered the church together, they began to report all things that God had done with them and how He had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles (v. 27). 

They (Paul and Barnabas) recount the places they had been, the people they had met, and the attesting miracles that the Holy Spirit had performed through them. These are the things that God had done with them. This would include events such as the blinding of the magician Elymas in Salamis, the wonders done in Iconium, the healing of the man born lame in Lystra, and Paul’s miraculous survival and recovery from being stoned (Acts 13:9-11, 14:3, 9-10, 19-20). 

Paul and Barnabas had embarked on this journey from Antioch after the Holy Spirit had directed them to be set apart for a special ministry. The church had “fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, [and] sent them away” (Acts 13:2-3). The believers in Syrian Antioch would not have known whether they would ever see them again. 

Now the church at Antioch is hearing of the miraculous works God had performed through Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas are likely making this report because the church at Antioch had been a ministry partner with them in both financial support as well as prayer. The Antiochian believers who had gathered to hear the report are surely both amazed as well as encouraged by what they are hearing. 

Paul and Barnabas tell the Antiochians how God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. The gospel has spread so far beyond Israel, to the Greeks in Syria whom Paul and Barnabas were addressing, to the Jewish and Gentile Cyprians, and to the scattered Jews and Gentile Galatians (Anatolia, modern-day Turkey). God had indeed opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. 

Over and over, Luke uses words like “many” or “a large number of people” to describe the quantity of new believers throughout Paul and Barnabas’s mission trip (Acts 13:43, 49, 14:1, 21). Many Gentiles had walked through the door which God opened to them, putting their faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. 

After such weary travels full of weeks at sea, weeks walking on long Roman highways, days spent preaching and teaching, the hostilities and abuses endured, the work spent establishing churches, Paul and Barnabas had earned some rest: And they spent a long time with the disciples (v. 28). 

Paul and Barnabas remain in Antioch with the disciples there for an undisclosed period of time, though Luke says it was a long time. The pair needed this time of rest before taking another journey. They would soon head to Jerusalem to debate and decide what was to be done about all these Gentiles who believed in the Jewish Messiah. 

The next chapter is a pivotal one. The elders and apostles will agree with Paul that these Gentile believers have no obligation to follow Jewish religious customs. The Apostle Peter will speak a key part, asserting that both Jews and Gentiles are saved by grace. 

The name “Peter” appears over fifty times in the book of Acts. After the next chapter, Peter’s name will appear no more. Luke shifts away from the apostleship of Peter and God’s work through him, how he opened the door to the gospel for the Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48). For the remainder of the book of Acts, Luke will completely focus on the apostleship of Paul and God’s work through him taking the gospel to the Gentiles.