<p>13:1 <i>Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers</i><i>- </i>The prophets 'spoke forth' God's word under inspiration, and the teachers relayed, distributed and interpreted this.</p><p><i>Symeon that was called Niger</i>- Perhaps the same person as Simon of Cyrene who carried the cross (Mt. 27:32). Simon is listed here next to Lucius, who was also from Cyrene. The thief and the centurion were likewise converted, and the faith of Joseph, Nicodemus and probably others was brought out into the open by the cross. Like Samson, the Lord won victories even in His death. The spiritual turn-around in Simon is a type of what is experienced by all whom the Lord compels to carry His cross. He was passing by, going somewhere else, full of his own plans, going about to establish his own righteousness... and then, out of the blue, he was called to what he much later realized was the greatest honour a man could be called to: to accompany the Son of God and carry His cross, right to the end. We are left to imagine him plonking it down, as if to say to Jesus 'Now you've got to do the rest', and then slipping off into the crowd. Cyrene was where there was a strongly orthodox Jewish community (cp. Acts 6:9). Simon was probably dark skinned, &quot;called Niger&quot;, a countryman, a simple man, who had perhaps come up to Jerusalem in his zeal to keep Passover. What a comfort it was to the Lord to see a black man carrying His cross; for He had earlier said that all His true followers would carry the cross behind Him (Mt. 10:38; 16:24). The Hebrew writer seemed to see Simon as typical of us all when writing of how we must go out of the city with the Lord, &quot;bearing his reproach&quot; (Heb. 13:12,13, probably using 'reproach' as a parallel to 'the cross'). He would have seen in Simon a prototype of all His future, suffering, humiliated followers; &quot;impressed&quot; by the predestined calling, almost against our will, to carry His cross (Mt. 27:32 RV mg.). And was it accident that this prototype was almost certainly a black man, when perhaps ultimately it may appear that a large proportion of the faithful body of the Lord Jesus will have been black people? If indeed Simon was a black Jew (cp. modern Falashas) who had come up to keep the Passover, it would have been annoying beyond words for him to be made unclean by the blood of the Lord, which was inevitably on the stake after His first attempt at bearing it after His flogging. Not to mention the shame for a zealous Jew in having to carry the cross of this Jesus of Nazareth. Yet it would seem that he was later converted, and he in turn converted his wife and son (Mk. 15:21 cp. Rom. 16:13). Mark rarely records proper nouns, but he makes a special effort to mention that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It would therefore seem that these men were well known in the early church.</p><p><i>And Lucius of Cyrene</i>- Perhaps one of the men of Cyrene converted at Pentecost (Acts 2:10) who fled to Antioch from the persecution in Jerusalem.</p><p><i>And Manaen the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul</i>- The mention of Herod's title was perhaps to demonstrate how the Gospel had spread amongst the elite, and also within the circles of those who had been so bitterly opposed to it. This is a tacit reference to the immense power of the message.</p>