Agabus, by any other name, would still be, um…different.

Agabus—now there’s a name you don’t hear very often, if ever.  He’s only really mentioned twice in the early church account of Acts, as a prophet, which means he was a bit open to doing unconventional things….but that’s a different story.

The first time we see him is in the town of Antioch in the middle of a church service, doing what prophets do:

“During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch.  One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.)   So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, everyone giving as much as they could.  This they did, entrusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem.”

The Bible is full of big-names that show up on the Sunday School flannel graphs (dating myself, I know).  Bigger-than-life personas like Paul, Moses, David, Peter, et. al.  And I love them, but I really like hearing about the little guy, the behind the scenes crew, and even the no-namers.   Agabus’ prediction came true, no surprise there, but what is significant is that playing his “small” part helped create one of the first Christian disaster relief efforts that may have saved many lives and impacted eternity.

Take home lesson for me:

There are no “small” players on God’s team.

 Doing faithfully what God’s calls me to do may not earn me a place in the history books or a spot on the nightly news, but faithfulness to God comes with its own reward.  And I think the hungry people in Judea would have agreed.

Acts 11: 27-30 Tyndale House Publishers Inc (2008-06-01). The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: Nlt) (Kindle Locations 19797-19801). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

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