We know the names of those who traveled with Jesus and went on to be used by God to start the first church in Jerusalem. These are the disciples who became the apostles. Peter, James, John, and nine others. We know their names.

We know the names of the men who started churches all over modern-day Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, and beyond. Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, and several others were used by God to begin an incredible movement of church planting.

But there was a critical moment in which Evil, through the Jewish leaders and their persecution of the church, attempted to snuff out the church, attempted to close it for good. In Acts 8, it says that persecution broke out amongst those in the church in Jerusalem, causing many to flee from the city to go elsewhere to seek refuge. It was in that moment that the church was in real peril. Would it continue to grow? Or would it die? Would this large church go on to live? Or would it simply be a footnote in history?

A few chapters later, following the start of the persecution in Jerusalem, we receive an answer. The believers from Jerusalem continue what they had learned in this first church as they move out of the city, and then they are joined by others as well.

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Acts 11:19-21

As these believers head out into new locations, what do they do? They continue to do what they learned to do in Jerusalem. And the result is that now, in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch – which are in modern-day Lebanon and the island of Cyprus – these relatively new believers go to tell others and to share the Gospel.

In fact, they do a great work and see great results there in Antioch, and that new location, that new church where they would first be called Christians, becomes a church that may be considered amongst one of the greatest mission-sending churches of all time.

But what were their names? What were the names of these people who went to Antioch and began to share to Gospel, making disciples, and ultimately starting this church?

We don’t know.

The Bible doesn’t tell us their names.

We see that Barnabas comes later and he goes to get Saul to come teach the church for a year. We see the names of three other leaders in the church as we read the first few verses of Acts 13. But these first believers that escaped persecution and made a decision to continue to tell others in this crucial time? No, we don’t know their names, and that is a wonderful fact in the midst of this incredible work.

That is wonderful because, as I mentioned before, this was a critical time, and this was a critical decision. It would be much easier to retreat. It would be much easier to pull back and have a “personal faith”. It would be much easier to huddle together, to simply stay together without telling anyone else. After all, they were no longer in Jerusalem. The people around them didn’t necessarily speak the same language as them. The culture was different. And they didn’t have their leaders any longer. The apostles had stayed in Jerusalem. They were on their own. They were strangers in a strange land.

Yet they made the decision to be bold. With those that they could speak and proclaim the Gospel, they spoke and told others of the best news that they could possibly tell them: Jesus Christ is the Messiah for whom the world has waited and he offers them forgiveness of sins so that they can be reconciled to the one true, and only God, the creator of the world.

We should not care if the world knows our name. There is only one name that the world needs to know, the name of Jesus. He is the one to be lifted up. He is the one to be glorified. Our names can pass away, but his name will live forever. In him, we also will live forever, under his one and only name.

So like those that went before us, like those who left Jerusalem and went to Antioch, let us go and risk great things for him. Let us go to tell others of his name and how the world can know God, only through his name. Let us go to our neighbors, or let us go to another part of the world. God has different callings for each person, but this is the calling that Jesus has already given to each of us: To go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them also to obey what he taught us to do, lifting up one name and only one name – the name of Jesus.