[Barnabas and Saul had returned to Antioch after leaving the collected funds in Jerusalem, see Acts 11:29-30. They also brought with them Barnabas' cousin, John Mark, see ; . The Acts of the Apostles now shifts its focus from Peter and the church in Jerusalem to Saul (who will soon be called Paul) and his missionary journeys to the Gentiles.
About ten years earlier, the first Christians had come to Antioch because of the severe persecution in Jerusalem, see . Many had since come to faith, and Barnabas had been sent there to help, see . Due to the rapid growth, more teachers were needed, so Barnabas sought out Saul in Tarsus, see Acts 11:24-26. Eight years had passed since Saul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. It is therefore in this large church in Antioch that people now gather for prayer and fasting.] But in
Antioch [in Syria], in the church that was there, there were
[active] prophets and teachers:
both
(Gk. te) Barnabas
[who had come from Jerusalem to help the new congregation, see ] and Simeon,
who was called Niger
[meaning black/dark in Latin and probably indicating that he was from North Africa – may have been the same Simeon who carried Jesus' cross, see ], and Lucius from
Cyrene [who was probably among the first to come to Antioch, see ],
[in addition] Manaen
who had grown up with
[who was foster brother/childhood friend of] the tetrarch Herod
[Herod Antipas, who had John the Baptist beheaded (), ruled over Galilee from 4-39 AD], and Saul.
[The grammar in this verse, the word for "and" (Gk. kai) between the first three and last two names, suggests that the first three were prophets and the last two were teachers. These five people from very different backgrounds formed a shared leadership in the church. Saul's Hebrew name was Saul, which means "asked for in prayer," but from onwards and throughout the rest of the New Testament, he is referred to by his Greek name Paul, which means "the little one."] 
