For some, the word "pagan" sounds like a put-down. I use it only as a matter of fact. A non-Christian is one who does not follow Christ. A pagan is someone who is not part of an identifiable religious group. Most pagans have a religious worldview that is taken a little from here and a little from there. Often their thoughts are not well researched. They hear something that sounds good and add it to their thinking. They believe it and live by it until something else comes along that they like better. The mix and match style of believing can include contradictory thoughts at the same time. In the old days, this was called pagan thought, now it is called postmodernism and it is quite common.

This passage starts something new in the book of Acts. Christians take the gospel to pagans. In the Acts 1:8, Jesus tells them they will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Doubtless, they thought he meant witnesses to Jewish people who were scattered throughout the world. This notion changed as the gospel opened up to Samaritans and even the God-fearing Gentile, Cornelius. At least in those cases, the people had some understanding of the things of God and were looking for them. But pagans had no background to understand who the Messiah would be.

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord (v 20). This was shocking to the Church. First, that the gospel could be taken directly to those who never heard anything about the God of the Bible. Second, that the pagans believed and turned to the Lord.

More and more, the people we meet will be pagans—nice people who don’t know anything about Jesus or Christianity. I have found that pagans are often less resistant to listening to the gospel than the semi-pagan (those who think they know a lot about Christianity but do not know Jesus). Pagans will listen with interest while you tell your sincere beliefs. They are used to hearing of "spiritual" ideas and may offer to tell you theirs. This is why Richard Fay’s method of sharing the gospel (Sharing Jesus without Fear) is good for pagans and semi pagans alike. They may or may not have any understanding that the Bible is the Word of God, but they are willing to believe that you think it is the Word of God and listen to what you think is significant to you. The Holy Spirit can work in anyone’s heart. We should not limit our witness only to those we think are ready to receive it.

If we are to share the gospel with pagans, we have to be intentional. Few pagans wander into a church for no reason at all. They may come when invited, but it is really foreign territory to them. We need to go to where the people are. I suppose that the Christians in Antioch took the gospel to others in their profession. Perhaps they talked in the marketplace were people gathered. One thing we know is that they took the gospel to where the pagans were.

So it is with us. We have people all around us who do not know anything about the gospel (hard to believe, with all the media and church presence, but it is true). We have things that put us out among them. We have relationships with people in business. We share connections through sports teams. We golf, boat, or have some other recreation in common. Jesus said that we are his witnesses.

The last part of verse 26 says: The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Note what happened. Something new has happened in the minds of the people. There had been Jewish followers of Christ and even God-fearing Gentile followers of Christ. This group in Antioch did not have any of those things to tie them together. Their only common tie was that they believed in Christ. Before they had differing ethnic ties and differing social connections. They were not a group that could be described by anything else besides their common connection to Christ. These were like brothers and sisters, but they had nothing in common except that they all had faith in Jesus.

There are things that tie us together socially. Some of us are tied closer to some than others. This is normal. But the thing that ties us together as Christians is not our background, our social status, our hobbies or our professions, but our common faith in Christ. This unity in Christ for the sake of Christ alone was powerful in pagan Antioch. It is also powerful in postmodern America. Remember that like the early church in Antioch we are called Christians. Christ takes strangers and makes us brothers and sisters