Acts 11 Round Two: I Don't Know. God Did It

What if the greatest barrier to breakthrough isn’t the world out there but the walls we keep inside the church? Acts 11 throws those walls into the light as Peter returns to Jerusalem with a story that redefines the possible: Gentiles received the Holy Spirit just like the first believers. No insider shortcuts, no second-class status—just the same promise, the same power, and the same unmistakable fruit that silences objections and turns critics into worshipers.

We walk through Peter’s vision in Joppa—a sheet from heaven, a command that challenges tradition, and a voice that reframes holiness around God’s declaration, not our assumptions. When the Spirit falls on Cornelius’s household “as at the beginning,” Peter connects the dots back to Jesus’ promise of Spirit baptism. The takeaway is both bold and simple: when God gives the same gift, we dare not stand in His way. From there, the scene shifts to Antioch, where persecution scatters ordinary believers who speak about Jesus to anyone who will listen. The Lord’s hand is with them, and a mixed community forms that becomes a launchpad for mission and a new identity—followers first called Christians.

Barnabas steps into Antioch not as a gatekeeper but as an encourager. He recognizes grace, strengthens it, and then tracks down Saul of Tarsus because a growing church needs deep teaching. For a full year they shape a people who live generous, grounded lives. When the prophet Agabus foresees a famine, the church responds with practical love, giving as each is able and sending relief to Jerusalem through trusted hands. It’s theology that moves, worship that serves, and a pattern of Spirit-led leadership that still speaks to churches today.

If you’re tired of the myth that only the prominent matter, Acts 11 is your antidote. God uses ordinary faithfulness to start extraordinary work—Peter’s next right step, Antioch’s nameless witnesses, Barnabas’s humble eye for grace, Saul’s steady teaching, and a community’s open-handed generosity. Listen to be challenged, encouraged, and re-centered on the Spirit who still expands the circle. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find it. Then tell us: where are you seeing “God did it” moments in your world?

Contact us-

Ask a Question
Send Encouragement

Take a Next Step-

SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.

Socials-

Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.

The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene In Acts 11
• 1:13 Why Peter Must Explain Himself
• 3:10 Peter’s Vision And Defense
• 5:18 The Church Accepts God’s Work
• 6:03 Antioch’s Gentile Breakthrough
• 8:10 Barnabas Recruits Saul
• 9:45 Prophecy Of Famine And Relief
• 10:50 The Power Of Ordinary Faithfulness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Acts chapter 11. And if I were to give this one a title, it would be, I don't know, God did it. Because that's what's about to happen. Peter is about to have to go back to Jerusalem and explain himself. Because up until then, all they've been doing is sharing the gospel to Jewish people. But now it's the Gentiles, and all they can say is, ah, God did it, guys. I don't know what to tell. Yeah. We're going to jump into that in just a moment. As well as I love the idea that God isn't just doing this through the famous or the prominent, but God is doing this through everybody. And we're going to get into that in just a moment. But as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to YouTube videos, listen to the podcast. Thank you so much for doing that. Please be sure to leave us a five-star review. Also, I'd love for you to go to our Bible breakdown discussion and let us know what God has been doing in your life recently. Give us something good. I want to, I want to hear some good news. What has God been doing in your life? And just bring some praise to God today. Because that's what's going to happen right here is Peter is going to have to go back and he's going to have to explain what just got through happening. So let me let me catch you up if you've been missing a couple of days. The Bible teaches us that Jesus told them to wait in Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit is coming. And when he comes, he's going to change everything. And that's what happened in Acts chapter 2. The Holy Spirit came down and he filled everyone in the room. And as he infilled everyone in the room, he empowered them for the work of ministry. So they went out immediately, started speaking in other languages as there were people from all over the known world that were there. The Holy Spirit filled uh Peter and he began to preach the gospel. And it then predictable resistance started to happen until eventually Stephen was the first martyr. And so it caused them to scatter everywhere. But the gospel continued to grow and it was amazing and it was awesome. Then a guy named Saul was persecuting them, but then Jesus just slapped him to the ground and just said, Hey, stop that. And it was amazing. He ended up becoming a Christian, obviously, and started spreading the gospel until they finally just sent him home. That's he's from Tarzan. You go on back home for a little while. And then in the last chapter, the Bible tells us that God finally said, Hey, look, we need to spread this to everybody. And so he sent Peter to this Gentile town, this Gentile household, and they received the Holy Spirit just like in Acts 2. But here's the thing: that hadn't happened yet. This is the first time that had happened, and they're not entirely sure that that was supposed to happen. And so someone's gonna have to do some explaining around here. So Peter stays with Cornelius and his household for several days because they didn't know nothing about no Jesus. They knew about Yahweh, the God of God of Israel. Jesus, he's here, you know, he's well, he is, but but now the Holy Spirit, you're gonna have to explain that, Peter. So that's what he does. He does it, he explains it. Well, now we see what happens next because he's got some some explaining to do, right? And so if you have your Bibles open with me to Acts chapter 11, let's dive in to see what Peter is going to say for himself now that all of this is happening. So chapter 11, verse 1 says this. Soon the news reached the apostles and the other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of the Lord. But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. You entered the home of Gentiles and you ate with them? How could you, they said. Then Peter told them exactly what happened. He was like, Guys, I was in the town of Joppa, and while I was praying, I went into a trance and I saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down with four corners from the sky, and it came right down to me. Then I looked inside the sheet and there was all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles, birds. I heard a voice say, Get up, Peter, kill and eat. So I said, Oh, no, no, no, no, Lord. I have never eaten anything that our Jewish leaders or Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean. But the voice, it said again, hey now, don't call something unclean if God has made it clean. This happened three times before the sheet, and all that it contained was pulled back into heaven. And then three men had been sent from Caesarea, and they arrived at this house. And the Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and soon we entered the home of a man who had sent for us. We told him how the angel had appeared, or he told us how the angel had appeared to him in his home, and said, Send messengers to Joppa, summon a man named Simon Peter. He will tell you and everyone in your household how you can be saved. As I began to speak, Peter continued, I mean, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning. Then I thought about the words that he had said, Jesus, John the Baptist baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us, we believed in the Lord Jesus, who was I to stand in God's way? And when the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, We can see that God has also given Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life. Isn't that the greatest testimony either? Uh I don't know, man. God did it. All I did was kept taking the next step, what God called me to do, and before I knew it, a miracle happened. Wouldn't that be the greatest testimony of all of us? All I know, man, is I kept being faithful to what God called me to do. And before I knew it, God had done a miracle. That is amazing. Well, watch what happens next. Verse 19. Meanwhile, believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen's death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. And they preached the word of God, but only to Jews. However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Serene began preaching to Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. Power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord. And when the church of Jerusalem had heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. And when he arrived and saw this evidence of God's blessings, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord. Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, strong in faith, and many people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to go look for Saul. Remember, they had sent Saul home, they didn't know what to do with him. So it was like, hey, look, look, man, just go home. And so he went home. But when Barnabas found him, he brought him back to Antioch, and both of them stayed there with the church a full year, teaching large crowds of people. It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians. During this time, some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them's name was Agabus, and he stood up with one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius. So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, everyone giving as much as they could. They did this, entrusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem. You know what I love about this second half? Is up until this time, the main church was in Jerusalem. But now, without any prompting from anyone prominent, just listening to the power of the Holy Spirit, these people who had been scattered because of persecution had started preaching the gospel to Gentiles as well. And they started a church probably of at least half Gentiles. We don't know, but a lot of Gentiles in Antioch. And what we also know is that eventually Antioch became one of the prominent churches of the time, and we have no idea who started that church. It was just people who were just obeying the Lord, trusting him, taking next steps, and before they knew it, they had started a church and it was doing great things. As we said earlier, if you have always been voted the most likely to succeed, if everything always goes your way, you always get the job, you always have this, whatever, I've got great news for you. God can still use you, but often God uses the least likely to succeed, the ordinary, the normal, the ones that won't stand out in the crowd to do the greatest things for him so that he can receive the glory and that we can just be part of the kingdom of God. Man, what an amazing lesson for all of us. You don't have to be prominent, you don't have to be the top of the ladder. You don't have to, everyone doesn't have to know your name and you don't have to build a platform. Just be faithful. That was the message that Peter told them. Guys, I didn't do this. I was just being faithful with what God gave me. And look at what God did. And then you have these nameless people that go to Antioch, just being faithful with what God was doing. And God started to do amazing things through their faithfulness. God does amazing things through daily faithfulness. So never let anybody lie to you and say that you've got to do something significant in the eyes of men to do something amazing in the eyes of God. Faithfulness is one of the greatest things you can do because when you are faithful to God, God can take it and do more than you could ever imagine. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to walk in faithfulness. I pray today that you will fill us full of your goodness, your mercy, and your power so that we can stay faithful and do what you've given us to do today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Jesus said in Acts 1, verse 8, he said this. Say it with me. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. My prayer today is that you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and you'll be a witness to your world. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Acts chapter twelve.