Read Acts 11:19-26
After the death of Stephen, the believers in Christ were scattered throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria. And as they went they preached. Some of the scattered Christians — men of Cyprus and Cyrene — when they reached Antioch, began to tell of Jesus to the Greeks. These men do not seem to have been ministers or men set apart as preachers. They were what we call laymen. But they were men full of the Holy Spirit and who could not repress within them the fire of love for Christ. We must not think that because we are not ministers or elders or Sunday-school teachers, therefore we have no commission to speak the Word of Christ. Every Christian ought to be a witness for the Lord Jesus wherever he goes. “He that heareth, let him say, Come.” Every Christian man and woman, boy and girl, who knows of Christ should go out and tell of Him, and keep telling of Him all the week.
We know that God blessed their labours, for it is said, “The hand of the Lord was with them.” The hand is that with which one works. The hand of the Lord means the power of the Lord. Theses men did not go in their own name, with only their own strength. They had faith in Christ, and wherever they went Christ went with them and wrought in them. When they spoke, His power was in their words. We must not think that this was simply a blessing for the apostolic days; it was as much for our own days as it was for the time in which this story belongs. Jesus commanded His disciples to go into all the world, to preach the gospel to every living creature, and He gave them the promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
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