What does Acts 15:35 mean?

Many years before, in response to Paul's persecution against the church, Jewish Jesus-followers from Cyprus and Cyrene fled Jerusalem. They traveled 300 miles north to Syrian Antioch. They were the first to spread the offer of salvation through Jesus to not just Jews but to a significant number of Gentiles. In response, the church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to determine if their faith was legitimate. Barnabas found a community of new believers hungry for spiritual training. He sent for Paul, who had since come to faith in Christ, to help him disciple the young church (Acts 11:19–26).

Paul and Barnabas have spent significant time sharing the gospel and bringing Jews and Gentiles together as one people under Christ (Acts 13—14). A recent attack by Jewish believers from the sect of the Pharisees threatened that unity, but the apostles and elders from the church in Jerusalem have again affirmed their attachment (Acts 15:1–33).

Syrian Antioch was one of five different cities named "Antioch" and the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Only twenty miles from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, it was a trade hub between Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Europe. It was here that Jesus-followers were first called "Christians," likely in a derogatory attack that the believers turned into a mark of honor (Acts 11:26). In the ensuing centuries, scholars and theologians from Syrian Antioch were active in illuminating biblical theological truths that we still hold today.