MESSENGERS SENT TO JERUSALEM
Messengers to Jerusalem.
So it was "determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question."
The Church in Antioch evidently believed Paul and Barnabas to be in the right, for when they started on their journey they were escorted on their way by the Church. As they passed through Syro-Phoenecia and Samaria, and told the Saints who greeted them how the Gentiles had been converted, they "caused great joy unto all the brethren."
Paul's Third Visit.
This was Paul's third visit to Jerusalem since his conversion. The first was three years after he joined the Church, when he spent two weeks with Peter, and then had to flee for his life. The second was when he accompanied the messengers who brought relief to the Saints in Judea during the famine. That was the time Peter was sentenced to be killed. Fifteen years had passed since he left Jerusalem for Damascus with papers to arrest all Christians whom he found! Now he enters the city as the defender of one of the greatest truths that the Christian Church or the world can know; namely, that God is no respecter of persons, but will bless every nation as it obeys the principles of life and salvation.