Acts 11:27

And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch.

And in these days came prophets - that is, 'inspired teachers, or persons speaking with supernatural authority;' a class with which we shall frequently meet in the sequel, who sometimes (as on this occasion) foretold future events, though that is not at all necessarily implied in the use of the term. In the lists of the divinely-instituted church offices (; ) they stand in rank next to the apostles, in virtue of their inspiration as revealers of the divine mind, and are associated with them as constituting the divine authority bit which the Church was to be ordered.

From Jerusalem unto Antioch. This was virtually a divine recognition of the Gentile Christianity of Antioch, and of the importance of that first of Gentile churches.