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¹ It wasn't long before the word got out that outsiders had been invited into God's outfit. ² But when Pete got back to Jerusalem, some of the boys who rode for God tried to get on his case. ³ "What do you think you are doing going in a Gentile's house?" they accused.

⁴ Pete was upfront with them about what had happened. ⁵ "I was staying in Joppa," he said. "I had been up on the roof doin' some talkin' to God, and he gave me a vision. A tarp come down out of heaven right in front of me. ⁶ Inside the tarp was all kinds of animals, birds, and reptiles. ⁷ There was a voice that said, 'Stand up, Pete. Kill something and eat it.'

⁸ "'I can't do it,' I said to the Lord. 'I ain't never eaten unclean stuff and I'm not gonna start now.'

⁹ "But then the voice said, 'It ain't your job to declare something clean or not. If God says to eat it, then it is clean and you can eat it.' ¹⁰ This happened about three times, and then the tarp was hauled back into heaven.

¹¹ "It was at this moment that three men from Caesarea arrived to fetch me. ¹² The Holy Ghost told me to go with 'em even though they were Gentile outsiders. I took these six cowboys with me, and we did go in the house of the man who'd sent for me. ¹³ He told us about how an angel had visited with him and said, 'Send some men to fetch Pete from Joppa. ¹⁴ He'll tell you how you and everyone else can be saved.'

¹⁵ "When I opened my mouth to talk," Pete continued, "the Holy Ghost filled 'em like it had done when it first filled us. ¹⁶ Then I recalled what Jesus said, 'John baptized with water, but I'm gonna dunk y'all with the Holy Ghost.' ¹⁷ It was God who did the givin', not me. And if God is givin' outsiders the same thing he gave insiders, then who am I to question that?"

¹⁸ This shut everyone up, but for just a second. After that, everyone began praising God. Many people agreed, "God has now given outsiders a chance to come onto the ranch and live forever!"

The Antioch Church

¹⁹ Now there were many cowboys who had scattered when Steve was killed. They went to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch in Syria. They stuck to tellin' Jewish folks about Jesus. ²⁰ But there were some of them, particularly some cowboys from Cyprus and Cyrene, who started telling Greeks about the good news of Jesus Christ. ²¹ God was with them, and many folks started riding for the Lord.

²² News got back to Jerusalem about what was happening. Barnabas was sent to check things out in Antioch. ²³ When he got there, he beheld quite a sight. He encouraged all the new cowboys to remain true to the brand and ride for the Lord with all their hearts. ²⁴ Barnabas was a good cowboy who was filled with the Holy Ghost and full of faith. He showed many people how to ride for God's outfit.

²⁵ Barnabas struck a long trot for Tarsus to find Saul. ²⁶ When he found him, they both went back to Antioch. For an entire year, these two cowboys met with all the cowboys in Antioch and taught them how to ride for Jesus. This was the first place the term "Christian" was used to describe a cowboy ridin' for the Lord.

²⁷ During this time, some prophets came up from Jerusalem. ²⁸ One of them, Agabus, relayed a message he'd got from the Holy Ghost that there was going to be a severe famine. It ended up happening during the reign of Claudius. ²⁹ So the cowboys in Antioch got together a bunch of stuff that would help out the other cowboys living in Judea during the famine. They all gave as much as they could. ³⁰ Barnabas and Saul took the gifts back to Jerusalem to the leaders of God's outfit there.