Acts
13:13-16a … Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga
in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on
from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went
into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets,
the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you
have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” So Paul stood up, and
motioning with his hand said:
They sailed from the western part of the island of Cyprus
to southwestern Turkey. Barnabas demonstrated intelligence and humility when he
brought Paul to Antioch to help with the church planting effort there. None of
us have anything that we haven’t received from God but (after intellectual
acknowledgement of that) we typically act like we are responsible for our
success. Barnabas obviously cared deeply about the Church of God. When he saw
it being blessed then that blessed him. Barnabas was “sent by the Apostles” and
the apostles even had a pet name for him. In Luke’s narrative his name is gone
and he is a companion of Paul. Being at peace when God is exalting you is
easier than being at peace when the Holy Spirit is making you a helper.
Barnabas somehow had the spiritual maturity to deal with it.
Luke also simply says “John left them” and the reactions
of Paul and Barnabas differed over this. Paul felt deserted by John Mark and
Barnabas - a relative of John Mark – felt differently. He had brought John Mark
on the trip with perhaps questionable direction from the Holy Spirit. We will
get to the verses indicating the difference of opinion in Chapter 15. It was a
point of stress between Paul and Barnabas in any case and this is when it first
became an issue. The relationship was healed later but these are real people
with real problems. It always has and it always will take a determined focus on
God to rest in His sovereign control of history. That is particularly true when
it is our history. It can be easier to trust God with history in general than
our history in particular. Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark are working through
these real struggles on the first missionary trip of the Church.
You may wonder why they passed through Perga and then on to
Galatia to get to Antioch of Pisidia. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he says
that he was ill when he first came to them. In Galatians 4:13-14 Paul writes, “You
know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at
first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise
me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.” It is at least
probable that Paul had a case of malaria from being down on the coast and decided
to head up into the mountains of Galatia to Antioch of Pisidia. This would have
put him at a higher elevation to recover. Perhaps Dr. Luke suggested the move
and the Holy Spirit, in his sovereignty, led them up into the mountains to
preach. This illness may have also caused the younger John Mark to doubt the
mission and to head back home. He may have asked, “Where is God if He can’t
heal Paul?” We know that Paul asked to be healed more than once.
Consider the spiritual opposition in the midst of this
outreach. Barnabas was learning to play second fiddle to Paul. John Mark
abandoned them and went home. Paul is both offended at being abandoned and struggling
with a serious debilitating illness. The relative success on Cyprus is gone and
they have a real struggle in western Turkey. We don’t know why John Mark bailed
out and we can think of many reasons for God to keep Paul healthy. The “health
and wealth” preachers would say Paul’s faith was weak. We love reasons for
everything even when they are nonsense. God knows the reason but He doesn’t
always share those reasons with us.
We have had a cult visiting homes in our neighborhood lately.
I went back to refresh my memory on the issues with that particular cult. They
have multiple errors in their teaching but one interesting error is that they
reject the idea that Paul was sick. They teach that his thorn in the flesh was
a group of false teachers. That is a very poor exegesis but they simply can’t
handle Paul being sick because he would – in their way of thinking – simply pray
and be healed. Job was essentially told that he wasn’t smart enough to know why
the bad things happened to him. We don’t like that answer. It doesn’t satisfy
us when our focus is on us instead of God. However, we need to remember that
God is sovereign even when things are not going well. We almost never know the
“why” of a thing even when we know the “how”. Even when we have a man like
Herod Agrippa I struck down after receiving blasphemous worship and we have a
partial explanation for his judgment we still don’t get to generalize to other
sudden deaths. I’d say the first missionary journal should be all about healings
and blinding magicians who oppose the work. God says not.
2
Corinthians 12:7-10 … So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the
surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a
messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three
times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said
to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that
the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am
content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For
when I am weak, then I am strong.
Well that would test your trust in God wouldn’t it?
However, if an omniscient God tells you that you have the grace you need then
you can believe that you have the grace you need … at least you should believe.
The possibility of Paul struggling over his lifetime with malaria, gives more deeper
meaning to his comments to the Corinthians that he was with them “in weakness
and in fear and much trembling.” We don’t see Paul with a problem in public
speaking in Acts. I can imagine some of the hard hearted and superficial
Corinthian Church saying, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily
presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” 2 Corinthians 10:10.
Paul’s sermon to the Jews and God fearing Gentiles here
in Antioch of Pisidia (found in the mountains of western Turkey) is somewhat like
Stephen’s sermon but also has Paul’s fingerprints on it. Some of the ideas we find
here turn up in the epistles.
Acts
13:16-22 … So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: “Men of
Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our
fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and
with uplifted arm he led them out of it. And for about forty years he put up
with them in the wilderness. And after destroying seven nations in the land of
Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450
years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they
asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin, for forty years. And when he had removed him, he raised up David to
be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of
Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’
In this first portion of his sermon, Paul names his
audience and lets us know that it contained both Jews and God fearing gentiles.
Paul has a God focus. This is a proclamation of God’s work among men. Paul’s
presentation is the history as “His story” or God’s story and must be
understood in that way. God chose, God made the people great, God delivered
them from Egypt, God destroyed the nations, God gave the inheritance, and God
gave them human leadership. Paul ends this section David because he was
faithful and the promises that David had from God.
Acts
13:23-25 … Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior,
Jesus, as he promised. Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of
repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his course,
he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me
one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’
The promises to David are fulfilled in Jesus as
proclaimed by John. John the Baptist faithfully knew his role and pointed to
Christ in his mission. John had a clear glimpse of the holy and divine. He knew
that he wasn’t worthy to do the task of the lowest disciple and untie Jesus’
sandals. As Jesus said, John was the greatest of men but less than the least in
the kingdom. John needed grace and he knew it. That should startle us into
recognition of our sinful state and our need of grace. We are not suitable for
the kingdom apart from His mercy and grace. As someone has pointed out, we
often sing amazing grace but really are not amazed by grace and often more
amazed by judgment.
In his preaching, Paul transitions from a proclamation of
God’s work in the world to a proclamation of the Gospel.
Acts
13:26-31 … “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you
who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who
live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor
understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath,
fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy
of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out
all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a
tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those
who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses
to the people.
Paul is careful to fit Jesus into the historical role he
established in the first portion of his message. He points out how ironic it is
that Scripture is read every Sabbath and that it was fulfilled by the
condemnation of Christ by those who read it. They carried out all that was
written of Jesus. Paul will come back to the response to this revelation and
warn them not to fall into the trap that those in Jerusalem fell into.
Acts
13:32-41 … And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the
fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also
it is written in the second Psalm, “‘You are my Son, today I have begotten
you.’ And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return
to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “‘I will give you the holy and sure
blessings of David.’ Therefore he says also in another psalm, “‘You will not let your Holy One see
corruption.’ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own
generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but
he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore,
brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and
by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not
be freed by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the
Prophets should come about: “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for
I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one
tells it to you.’”
We are freed from everything from which we could not be
freed by the Law of Moses. Here is a finger print of Paul in this message that the
Holy Spirit, through Paul, explains more fully in the book of Romans.
Romans
8:1-4 … There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from
the law of sin and death. God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh,
could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for
sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of
the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according
to the Spirit.
Here is Paul on his first missionary journey and in his
first recorded sermon preaching the Gospel to both Jews and gentiles. In his
own words Paul says, “it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the
gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not
scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus
(Galatians 4:13-14). The Holy Spirit moved in Galatia.
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