The book of Acts begins with the amazing growth of a local church in Jerusalem. Then it leaves Jerusalem and follows the missionary ministry of Paul, who was sent out from Antioch—not Jerusalem. As a young missionary I pondered this change in trajectory, eventually becoming convinced that the Lord was saying something through these events.
Later as I began to preach this message and to record it in a book, I came across a striking statement by Don Richardson from his book Eternity in Their Hearts: “Hundreds of millions of Christians think that Luke’s Acts of the Apostles records the twelve apostles’ obedience to the Great Commission. Actually it records their reluctance to obey it.”
Richardson was categorically stating that the believers in Jerusalem who had received the Great Commission from the lips of Jesus largely failed to fulfil it. His statement confirmed the message the Lord had been giving me.
So what is this message? To begin with, let’s look at the contrast between Acts 1:8 and Acts 8:1. The Lord Jesus had deliberately chosen to speak the words of Acts 1:8 as the very last words He uttered before ascending into heaven: “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” He clearly defined the work of the church as beginning in its home area and not stopping till the ends of the earth were reached.
But then about a decade later, the Lord had to permit, as a wake-up call, the loss of the best and the brightest of the next generation of church leaders, Stephen. As a result of that one event, “A great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Acts 8:1).
The parallels here are obvious—Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria are mentioned in both verses. But it took persecution to propel the believers out of Jerusalem and into the next two spheres. And even then, the “ends of the earth” were not included. That only began to happen miles away from Jerusalem through Paul and his call to reach the Gentiles in Acts 9:1-16; through the establishment of the Antioch Church in Acts 11:19-26; and then through the sending out of Barnabas and Saul to the Gentiles in Acts 13:1-3—again, from Antioch and not from Jerusalem.
But how could these persecuted believers, who had paid such a huge price to follow the Lord Jesus, go into a city like Antioch — which was a cross-cultural city where the Jews were the smallest population and the last to arrive, alongside the Greeks and the Syrians — and yet only preach to the last and the least, their own Jewish people? “Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only” (Acts 11:19).
Why did it take ‘nobodies’ from a small island and from North Africa to break the mould and start preaching to those from other cultures than their own? How could the first twelve chapters of the book focus so centrally on Jerusalem, and then, after that, Jerusalem drops out unless Paul visits the city?
How could the book begin with that amazing bunch of apostles who had walked with Jesus, Peter and John and the others, and yet, from chapter 13 onwards, essentially focus on one man, the Apostle Paul, who as one ‘born out of time’ was not one of their number? How could Paul in Acts 9 be sent home from Jerusalem instead of being trained in cross-cultural mission and sent out?
These questions form the basis of the Antioch Factor message, which came into being through a series of events. After receiving a call from the Lord to serve in China, in 1969 I set out for Taiwan. China was going through the Cultural Revolution at that time, and the door was closed. I eventually entered China in the 1980s but remained in close contact with Taiwanese brothers and sisters.
One of these brothers—Chou Shen-Ju, the senior pastor of Bread of Life Church in Taipei—had been a student worker with me in Taipei in the 1970s. A decade or so later, he was seeing amazing growth in the local church. I wrote to him and pleaded with him, using Isaiah 54:2-3, to stretch the church’s tent east and west and north and south, not just to Taipei or even within Taiwan.
Later he responded by saying they had just built a twelve-story central church building in Taipei. Would I come and turn the brothers’ and sisters’ eyes outwards after a period of focusing on the construction project? I responded by preaching the message of the Antioch Factor. I still teach the course each year in their Bible school.
Chou Shen-Ju’s son, now the senior pastor, recently stated that their first response had been to church plant or embrace Chinese-speaking churches across the world, of which there are now some five hundred. But his generation had heard and acted upon the challenge not just to reach to their own people, but to Revelation 5:9’s “every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
Up till now this message has been mainly shared in Chinese communities in the Chinese language across several Asian countries. This year, however, the FieldPartner team felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to produce a new, shortened English version of the Antioch Factor course.
I believe God is calling the global church to follow the model of Antioch, not Jerusalem, and to carry a heart for the nations, not just our own people. It was in Antioch and under the ministry of Barnabas, the son of encouragement, that Saul the former persecutor of the church became the apostle of grace. And so our “Antiochs” need to continue to prepare and equip those we send, making sure we remember them in prayer and honour them for what they do. That is our prayer for this course and for this message. A 30% discount is available until October 23rd with the discount code ANTIOCH30.
We also recognize that most readers here at A Life Overseas already live Antioch lives! But what about churches and other Christian friends ‘back home’ who do not? Maybe even your own sending church doesn’t fully share God’s heart for every tribe and tongue and people and nation. If you contact us, we’d be happy to give you a sample of the course first so that you know what you are promoting if you recommend it to them.
Learn more about the Antioch Factor course at our website, or order a paperback or Kindle version of the book online.
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Ross Paterson’s original call from God, in the early 60s, was to serve China — her people and her Church. He has been faithful to that call, going first to Taiwan as a missionary in 1969. He has been involved in establishing and operating a number of internationally respected ministries. Today, Ross travels across a number of nations, preaching and teaching and sharing their desire to see the church of Jesus Christ embrace a biblical burden for world mission. Ross is the author of several books, including The Antioch Factor.
