Acts 11:19-21

Now they which were scattered abroad Luke here resumes the thread of his narration in the very words wherewith he broke it off, chap. Acts 8:4; travelled as far as Phenice To the north; Cyprus To the west; and Antioch To the east; preaching the word to none but the Jews only Not being at all apprehensive that the Gentiles were to share the blessings of it. And some of them Who bore a part in this work; were men of Cyprus The island so called; and of the province of Cyrene in Africa; which when they were come to Antioch Then the capital of Syria, and, next to Rome and Alexandria, the most considerable city of the empire; spake unto the Grecians Here, instead of Ελληνιστας, Hellenists, the Alexandrian manuscript, which is favoured by the Syriac, and some other ancient versions, reads Ελληνας, Greeks; which reading common sense would require us to adopt, even if it were not supported by the authority of any manuscript at all; for as the Hellenists were Jews, there would, in the common reading, be no opposition between the conduct of these preachers and those mentioned in the preceding verse. “Here, undoubtedly, we have the first account of the preaching of the gospel to the idolatrous Gentiles: for it is certain there is nothing in the word rendered Greeks, to limit it to those that were worshippers of the true God, such as all those were to whom it had hitherto been preached; nor is there the least hint in the New Testament of the two different periods that some speak of, in the first of which they suppose it was preached only to those called proselytes of the gate, and in the second to those who were before idolaters. It is well known, that as the Greeks were the most celebrated of the Gentile nations near Judea, the Jews called all the Gentiles by that general name.” Doddridge. And the hand of the Lord That is, the power of his Spirit; was with them Crowning their pious labours with success; and a great number Of the Gentiles, who were before idolaters, were so effectually enlightened and wrought upon by their discourses and miracles, that they believed in the one living and true God, and in Jesus Christ whom he had sent; and turned unto the Lord Dedicated themselves to the service of God through him, with an humble dependance on his merits and Spirit.