Acts 11 in the early church

The apostles and brothers throughout Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him

and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me.

I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.

Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’

‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’

Just then three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying.

The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s home.

He will convey to you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.’

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He had fallen upon us at the beginning.

Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of God?”

When they heard this, they had no further objections, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

Meanwhile those scattered by the persecution that began with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message only to Jews.

But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus.

When news of this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

and when he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. So for a full year they met together with the church and taught large numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world. (This happened under Claudius.)

So the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.