<p>11:20 <i>But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they reached</i> <em>Antioch</em><i>, spoke to the Gentiles also, preaching the Lord Jesus</i>- Why was it specifically here that the persecuted Jewish believers began to share the word with the Gentiles? The term used for &quot;Gentiles&quot; here can also mean 'Hellenists', i.e. Greek speaking Jews. Perhaps it was initially to them that they preached, but the ethnicity of these people in Antioch was unclear, and so it became impossible to divide full Gentiles from Greek speaking Jews- and thus the Gospel was spoken to the Gentiles. According to Plumptre, &quot;It was a centre of vice, featuring the harlot-priestesses of Daphne and Apollo who on occasions engaged in public ceremonies &quot;stripped of clothing&quot;.&nbsp;Heathenism in its most vulgar and debasing forms dominated the life of the people&quot;. One can assume therefore that there would have been Jews there who had intermarried with Gentiles; and yet in this immoral city, the Gospel took off. Antioch became as it were the Jerusalem of the Gentile church. But it's rather like a church being founded in some deeply immoral area of a modern city; again, the Lord's choice is strange at first blush. It would've been so hard for the Jewish conservative Christians to accept that there had been mass conversions of Gentiles in such a place.</p>