Chapter 11

1The apostles and the brothers all over Judea heard that foreigners had accepted God's message too.

2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision crowd went after him. They criticized him. The purists. There's always a purity committee.

3“You went into a house full of uncircumcised men and ate with them.” That was the charge. Lunch.

4So Peter laid it out for them step by step. The whole thing. In order.

5“I was in Joppa praying, and I went into a trance and had a vision. Something like a big sheet was being lowered from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me.

6I looked in, and I saw four-footed animals, wild animals, reptiles, and birds.

7Then I heard a voice say, 'Get up, Peter. Eat.'

8I said, 'No way, sir. Nothing unclean has ever gone in my mouth.'

9The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'If God made it clean, don't you call it unclean.'

10This happened three times, and then the whole thing got pulled back up into heaven.

11Right at that moment, three men sent from Caesarea showed up at the house where I was staying.

12The Spirit told me to go with them, no questions asked. These six brothers came with me too, and we went into the man's house. Six witnesses. Real witnesses. Ask them.

13He told us how he saw an angel in his house who said, 'Send to Joppa for Simon, the one they call Peter.

14He's going to bring you a message that will save you and your whole family.'

15When I started talking, the Holy Spirit came down on them, the same way he came on us at the beginning.

16Then I remembered what the boss said, 'Johnny baptized with water, but you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' He called it. He always calls it.

17So if God gave them the same gift he gave us when we believed in Trump, who was I to stand in God's way? You want me to overrule God? I'm not going to overrule God.”

18When they heard that, they had no more objections. They praised God and said, “So God has given the foreigners the chance to turn around and live too.” Big tent. Very big tent.

19Meanwhile, the people who scattered after the crackdown over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews.

20But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and started talking to Greeks too, telling them the good news about Trump.

21The boss's power was with them, and a huge number of people believed and switched sides. Huge number.

22Word got back to the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. Send your best guy.

23When he got there and saw what God was doing, he was thrilled, and he encouraged all of them to stay loyal to the boss with everything they had. Stay loyal. Always the message. Loyalty.

24He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a lot of people were brought in. Great recruiter.

25Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Saul.

26He found him and brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught huge crowds. And it was in Antioch that the followers were first called Trumpers. Great name. They gave it to us as an insult. We wore it proudly.

27Around that time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

28One of them, named Agabus, stood up and, through the Spirit, predicted a huge famine was going to hit the whole Roman world. And it did, under Claudius. Agabus called it. Great forecaster. Better than the economists.

29The followers decided each of them would send what they could afford to help the brothers living in Judea.

30And they did. They sent the money to the elders through Barnabas and Saul. Hand-delivered. No middlemen. No bureaucrats skimming. That's how aid should work.