Through The Bible in a Year - August 27, 2026

“Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.” - Acts 13:1

Five names. Five completely incompatible people—at least by every human measure.

Barnabas: a Jewish man raised in Greek culture, comfortable among Gentiles. Simeon called Niger: a man of African descent, considered ethnically impure by Jewish law, likely Simon of Cyrene who once carried Jesus’s cross to Golgotha, and watched Him die. Lucius of Cyrene: a man with a Roman name but with African descent, representing a part of Africa that Israel once conquered. Manaen: raised alongside Herod the Tetrarch—the man who not only beheaded John the Baptist, but also sent Jesus to Pilate to be crucified. Saul: the man who had led violent persecutions against the early Christians, dragging families from their homes, overseeing their imprisonment and death.

These were the leaders of the first missionary-sending church in history.

If you had survived the persecution Saul led, walked into that church, and seen him leading worship—that would have been almost unbearable. And yet the Spirit was saying: this is what Christ’s church looks like. Not uniformity. But unity achieved by Christ’s pardon and the Spirit’s power.

Such unity in worship and mission would not have been possible without the work of the Holy Spirit. Imagine surviving Auschwitz, finding your way to a church in America, walking through the doors for your first Sunday service—and the worship leader is a Nazi general who has since come to faith.

The unlikely image is actually reflected in the presence of Manaen and Saul at the church in Antioch.

For the early church to thrive, its members had to believe not only that “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” but also that God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all. The gospel levels everyone. When sinners are leaders in the church, it’s because Someone has cleansed their sin. Someone who could cleanse people as broken as these can also deal with the sin in your life too. If He could save them and if He could use them, then He has a message for you.

The church doesn’t achieve unity by finding people who are already alike because they have no issues in their past and no cause for tension in the present. It achieves unity when the grace of God becomes greater in our eyes than the divisions between us.

Respond: Who in your church or community feels like “a bridge too far”? Who makes you think, “I can accept most people, but not that person”? The person with that political view. That past. That background. That sin you know about.

Yet, the Spirit that assembled a church leadership team in Antioch that should have been impossible is still in that business.

This week, ask honestly: “Am I willing to let the Spirit define who belongs in my community—or am I defining it myself?” Ask God to show you a person you’ve been keeping at a distance and take one step toward them because Christ died for them as He did for you.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I confess that I draw lines around who belongs in your Church that You haven’t drawn. I find it easy to welcome people like me, but harder to welcome those whose past, background, or difference makes me uncomfortable. You assembled Barnabas and Simeon and Lucius and Manaen and Saul in one leadership team. I know that you desire to build Your Church today with such grace applied by the power of the Spirit. So, blow away my categories and my excuses for distance. Enlarge my welcome. Build unity in me that only Your grace can explain. In Jesus’ name, Amen.