RETURN TO MAIN MENU
RETURN TO BOOKLETS MENU

SIMON (AND OTHERS FROM CYRENE)
IN THE EARLY CHURCH.

Every significant phase in the founding of the Christian Church was international. Black Africans and white Europeans were present together at: -

1. The Crucifixion of The Lord Jesus Christ.
2. The growth of the first church in Jerusalem.
3. The first international team - which began taking the Gospel to an international community.
4. The growth of the first international church at Antioch.
5. The nurture, preparation and commissioning of St Paul to be an apostle.
6. The growth of the church in Rome (before either Peter or Paul arrived there).

It is highly probable, though not absolutely proven, that one man, Simon of Cyrene, was involved in each of the first five of these stages and his family in the sixth.

This is his story, and that of others from Cyrene.

1. AT THE CRUCIFIXION.

THE FLOGGING.
It began when Pontius Pilate ordered that Jesus be flogged. Pilate had an angry mob to appease and hoped that he might satisfy them by whipping the prisoner.

It did not work. The mob was not drawn from the common people of Jerusalem. It was a deliberately roused rabble, urged on by Caiaphas and his followers. So when Pilate brought Jesus out to show them His bleeding back, they merely went on shouting for His death.

(It is quite unfair when people blame “The Jewish People” for what happened. Every nation has a few rogues like Caiaphas, and an occasional mob, but these people were neither typical nor representative.)

Weaker men had died under a Roman flogging, but Jesus was strong. He had been a carpenter, lived an open air life and had exceptional powers of endurance. He even succeeded in carrying the heavy cross part of the way.

The hated word, “AGGAREUEIN.”
Roman rule was harsh. Any man from their conquered subjects could be ordered into harsh labour and made to carry heavy loads. This hated word meant forced burden-bearing and was a symbol of subservience.

Jesus had used the word once, when He told His disciples, “If they force you to go one mile, offer to go two,” (Matthew 5:41). In this way conquered people can take the initiative from their conquerors.

The Roman executioners needed a man to carry the cross for the last part of the way. They could have chosen anyone, but they wanted to avoid offending local people. It was Passover day when forced labour would be doubly offensive, and the crowd was in an ugly mood. So to be safe, they chose a foreign visitor.

They knew Simon was a foreign visitor to Jerusalem because he was black.

We do not know what he felt. He had every right to be angry at the harsh law of AGGAREUEIN. He had even more right to be angry that they should pick on him instead of local people. But he may have thought more of the strong brave man beside him to whose raw bleeding flesh Simon’s own strength could give some small relief. What he certainly did not know was that his own name was about to pass into history.

What the Gospel Writers say of Him.
Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Matthew, writing in Jerusalem and knowing the church from the point of view of the Jewish Christians there, mentions Simon as if he were a stranger. “A man named Simon from Cyrene,” - he knew the name and the incident but nothing more; (Matthew 27:32).

Luke was a member of Paul’s team of travelling apostles to the gentiles. He simply writes, “Simon” as if referring to someone he knew; (Luke 23:26).

Mark, however, adds, “The father of Alexander and Rufus,” (Mark 15:21). Mark had been in Antioch when Paul set out on his travels from there. This is one of several clues which lead us to follow Simon to Antioch.

2. IN THE CHURCH AT JERUSALEM.
Jesus intended the church to go international very soon. He told the first apostles to make disciples of all nations. They were to begin at Jerusalem but move on rapidly into its surrounding districts and then to “the uttermost parts of the earth.”

They began well. The church at Jerusalem soon numbered thousands, but while it was fast to grow it was slow to internationalise. There were even problems in coping with two languages, Hebrew and Greek, until the apostles wisely appointed Stephen and six others as Greek-speaking assistants.

There was actually a Cyrenean Synagogue in Jerusalem. Simon may not have been Jewish by birth but the fact that he was there for the Passover shows he had followed the Jewish religion. He probably went to that Synagogue with his fellow Greek-speaking Cyreneans and this was one of the places where Stephen discussed and debated the Gospel message, (Acts 6:9).

Did Stephen find unexpected support from one of the Cyreneans?

Was Simon there when Stephen was stoned to death?

At this point in the story we seem to run out of clues - except that there is a trail which leads to Antioch; so let us follow it.

3. THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL TEAM.
After Stephen was killed there was a wave of bitter persecution against the church. The result was that the Christians scattered. This was exactly what Jesus had told them to do; so the persecution actually helped God’s plans.

As they travelled, groups of Christians told the story of Jesus and delivered the message of forgiveness in His Name. But still they went only to their own people.

The group which broke through the internationalisation barrier was the first international Gospel team. Actually it was intercontinental. African Cyreneans joined with European Cypriots to carry the message to the multinational society of Antioch.

Acts 11:19-21 is one of the most significant passages in the Acts. It marks a major turning point in the church’s history. “Those scattered by the persecution following Stephen’s death, went all the way to Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, delivering their message as they went - but only to Jewish people like themselves. Then at last some Cypriots and Cyreneans arrived at Antioch and began to tell the Good News to Greeks as well. God was with them and many believed their message and turned to the Lord.”

At last, somebody was taking seriously The Great Commission which Christ had given to reach all nations. But it was not the original apostles who started it, they followed later. It was this mixed group from Cyrene and Cyprus.

Was Simon among them?

4. ANTIOCH - THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CHURCH.
Antioch, not Jerusalem, was the launching pad of Christianity. There the word “Christian” was coined. There Jews and Gentiles together prepared themselves for the task of reaching the world. From there, Paul and Barnabas and Silas and others set out on their journeys.

In Acts 13:1-3 we find that this church was led by a group of five. Saul (later Paul) and Barnabas were two of them. Two others were Simon and Lucius. Lucius was called, “Lucius of Cyrene.” Simon was “Simon called Niger - or Black Simon.”

Almost certainly Lucius and Simon had been part of that mixed Cyrenean-Cypriot team which brought the Gospel to Antioch. These were the church leaders who laid their hands on Paul and Barnabas, commissioned them and sent them out on their mission.

And it is highly probable that “Black Simon” was the man who had carried the cross.

5. THE NURTURE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.
About eleven years later when Paul was writing to the church at Rome - which he had not yet visited - he sent greetings to, “Rufus and his mother who was also a mother to me,” (Romans 16:13).

So we have a mother and son with whom Paul, at some time, had lodged - but not in Rome because Paul had never yet been there. Where, in all his travels, had Paul most needed a family to take him into its heart, a woman to “be a mother to him” even for a short time?

A likely place was Antioch where Paul, then Saul of Tarsus, had been nurtured from convert to apostle.

Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus.

Was it Simon’s family which took in the dynamic convert and gave him spiritual parenting until he was ready for the work God had called him to?

Years later Paul wrote, “No way will I ever boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ - on which I am crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me,” (Galatians 6:14).

Maybe as he wrote, he was remembering his friend, host, and mentor, back in Antioch who had told him the story of the cross as no one else could tell it for he had been closer to it than anyone but Christ Himself. Small wonder, if so, that the cross meant so much to Paul.

6. ROME.
And was Simon of Cyrene already in Heaven when Paul wrote greetings to his son Rufus, now in Rome with his mother?

Perhaps Simon had set his family such an example that after his death they were not content to sit at home in Antioch but moved on and reached Rome before any of their colleagues came there.

Once again these Cyreneans and Cypriots, and the Antioch church they had founded, seem to have been one step ahead of the original apostles.

7. MIXED AND UNITED.
God loves variety-in-unity. His plan was always for an international Church, ever since His first promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed. The Great Commission was to go to the uttermost parts of the earth and make disciples of all nations.

Peter led the team which founded the Christian Church.

Paul led the team which extended it northwards and westwards into Europe. Others went south and east.

Between them, linking them and setting them all in motion was the Cyrenean-Cypriot team. Without its example the first apostles might have stagnated and Paul’s team might never have existed.

It consisted of people on the move away from their homes - Cyreneans not in Cyrene, Cypriots not in Cyprus - travelling together and serving together.

They arrived in a very mixed cosmopolitan town of Antioch and from there the Church exploded into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-linguistic organism which is still growing.

Only in Heaven will the full story be told.