em were reluctant to preach to anyone except their fellow Jews, but the people who lived elsewhere felt more at ease among the Gentiles and were more willing and able to communicate with them. However, this does not mean they were preaching a sanitised Gentile Gospel, devoid of the Torah. It was still a Jewish message, preached mostly by Jews. The message was the same, and only the audience had changed, and until the Council of Jerusalem met in 50AD they were expected to fully convert to Judaism in order to believe in the Jewish Messiah.
When news of what was going on in Antioch reached the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. The first thing he did was to go to Tarsus and get his old friend Paul, and they worked together for a year, building up the church. (Acts 11:21-26).
What was the date when Barnabas went to get Paul? This can be tentatively worked out from the prophecy of Agabus about the famine, and the appointment of Claudius Caesar as Emperor.
And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be a great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. (Acts 11:27-28).
Claudius was appointed Emperor in 41AD, and this verse implies that the prophecy was made before his appointment. "In these days" means the year when Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch, so Barnabas must have gone to Tarsus to get Paul in 40AD at the latest.
Paul had been left in relative obscurity since 35AD and it must have been a difficult time. He knew that G-d had called him as the Apostle to the Gentiles, but his recent history of persecuting the Believers prevented him from carrying it out. In any case, the church was not yet ready for ministry to the Gentiles. When Barnabas came to get him, he must have been very much relieved.
He enjoyed a year of ministry in Antioch from about 40-41AD, and then he went to Jerusalem on his famine relief visit in 46AD. It is not clear what he was doing from 41-46AD. He might have been in Antioch, continuing his ministry with Barnabas, or he might have gone on a few short journeys elsewhere, but there is nothing worthy of any special mention.
He went on his famine relief visit to Jerusalem in 46AD, and at that time there was the persecution that resulted in Peter's imprisonent and miraculous escape, described in Acts 12. At the end of Acts 12, Paul and Barnabas returned from Jerusalem to Antioch. Peter also came to Antioch, and they had their argument about the question of circumcision, described in Galatians 2:7-14. Then the church at Antioch sent out Paul and Barnabas on their first evangelistic journey.
Assuming that the prophecy of Agabus was made before Claudius Caesar became Emperor in 41AD, and consequently the latest date for Barnabas to go to Tarsus to get Paul was 40AD, then Peter's vision and his visit to Cornelius could have been at any time between 35 and 40AD. If the assumption regarding Agabus is false, then we have a wider time frame, from 35 to 45AD, but we continue this discussion on the basis that it's true.
Peter's vision was an act of Divine providence, because without it the second generation Believers who began preaching to the Gentiles would have been considered outright heretics. The early Jerusalem Believers never had any thoughts of ministry to the Gentiles, who were totally excluded from the church for at least the first five years until 35AD, and maybe the first ten years until 40AD. After that, the Judaising controversy raged for another 10 or 15 years until it was finally settled in Jerusalem in 50AD.
From the day of Pentecost when the church was founded, it took a total of 20 years for them to welcome the Gentiles without hindrance.
We have already seen how Paul's letter to the Galatians was written at some time during his first evangelistic journey, between 46 and 50AD, and he is obviously irritated that the Judaising Controversy has not been resolved. Galatians is probably the first of his letters to be written.
The book of Rom