antioch

Acts 13&14 is such an exciting episode.
Paul and Barnabas set out and go preach the gospel around a host of different cities, go through severe persecutions, lots of people are saved, the gentiles believe and they pass back through encouraging all the new converts on their way home.
and then get back to Antioch and tell everyone all about it.

i kept thinking as i read through some of Acts that Antioch would have been such an exciting place. for some reason believers are first called Christians there (probably because their lives and words had such a focus on Christ) and Paul and Barnabas were always there and coming back to there and spending years there teaching and telling of the things God had done through them.

i'd love to have been there as the two of them came back from a trip, to welcome them and hear all their stories. i'd love to have passed one of them in the marketplace or woken up excited on the sabbath to hear them teach in the synagogue. the early church days were so beautiful and thrilling, and it's great to read about it and remember that it was all real.