Acts 13:42-52

42 As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.
44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.

46 Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us:

“‘I have made you[f] a light for the Gentiles,
that you[g] may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’[h]”

48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

49 The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. 50 But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region. 51 So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.


Dig Deeper
Nearly ten years ago, a well-known Hollywood actor and producer began to formulate an idea of creating a detailed movie about the crucifixion and death of Jesus the Messiah. He took the idea to virtually every movie studio and producer in Hollywood and shopped his idea of doing the film in a gritty and fully realistic style, complete with the use of ancient languages and only English subtitles. The studios laughed him out of their offices, despite his great fame and previous movie success, and turned him down flat. Most of them called him crazy for even thinking of such an idea. But he would not be deterred so he decided to make the movie himself and fund every bit of it from his own personal fortune. Once the movie was made and was released in theaters, a worldwide phenomenon began almost instantly. The movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” was a smash hit and eventually raked in more than 600 million dollars in box office sales alone around the world. When the movie eventually came out on VHS and DVD, it sold nearly 2.5 million copies in one day.

But once that movie came out, many of the studios and movie critics were highly critical of it. The creator of the movie was criticized for making it himself and spurning the normal way to make and release movies but it seemed to smack more of pure jealousy than anything else. They had all had a turn at the movie and passed on it. They were like immature young men who broke up with a girl and then got jealous when she started dating someone else. They could have been part of the movie and helped to make it but they refused. As a result they would miss out on the massive profits and impact that the film had around the world. But it was their choice to not be part of it.

It might be safe to say that there was no human being in the first century outside of Jesus himself that wanted to see the Jews come to the eternal family of God through Jesus Christ and be part of God’s kingdom forever. Paul knew that Israel had been God’s chosen people and because of that they had certain opportunities that no other people had. So that made it all the more devastating for him to see them hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and reject it. He knew that heart all too well because he had shared in that same attitude at one time. But he had come to recognize that through the resurrection, Jesus had been shown to be the true Son of God and that only those who would lay down their lives and enter into his life through faith would enjoy the corporate status in Christ of being the children of God. That the majority of Israel was rejecting all of that pained Paul deeply. In Romans 9 he would painfully declare that “I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen” (Rom. 9:1-5).

Israel had been given the charge of being the faithful people of God and being a light to the nations but they had failed. What they had failed to do, Christ accomplished. He had faithfully done God’s will and fulfilled the role of the suffering servant culminating in his death on the Cross. He had declared himself to be the Messiah but Israel had rejected him as the holy one of God and had sentenced him to death. Yet, God vetoed that verdict and proved it monstrously unjust by raising him from the dead. Soon after, the good news was being declared by the apostles that all who would come to the Messiah in faith would be part of God’s family and receive the life of the age to come, dwelling in God’s kingdom forever. Some Jews listened and came and entered into Christ but most found the preaching of the gospel to be offensive and absurd. They would have no time for such blasphemy. But at any point, it all could have been theirs again. Everything that Israel had as the people of God could have been theirs forever in Christ but they were, much to Paul’s chagrin, rejecting that outright.

Despite this rejection by Jewish leaders and synagogues in city after city, Paul and Barnabas faithfully continued their practice of preaching first to the Jews in each city, usually in the local synagogue, and then to the Gentile. On this occasion there were many Jews and God-fearing Gentiles who continued to hear them out. Paul and Barnabas urged them to continue to be open to the grace that God had revealed in the life of the Messiah and when they showed up to preach on the next Sabbath, the place was packed with mostly Gentiles.

This apparently infuriated the Jews. Luke’s stated reason for their rage was jealousy. They had failed miserably in having such an evangelistic impact on the Gentile population and now in the span of a mere week, these men that they characterized as blasphemers and fools had done what they could only hope to do. They had drawn the Gentiles in huge numbers to their synagogue. It’s not hard to see why they were so jealous. Imagine showing up for a Sunday church gathering only to find that you can barely squeeze your way in because the place is packed to hear the very people that you have rejected as being outside of God’s truth.

Full of the Holy Spirit, Paul and Barnabas quickly responded to this petty jealousy with bold words. They made it clear to the Jews that they could have been a part of this. It was the role of Israel all along to be a light to the world. They rejected that mission and instead largely treated the pagan nations as unclean animals rather than human beings that were in the dark but needed to see the light. Jesus was that light and his gospel had been preached to them, offering them another opportunity to be part of God’s great ministry of reconciliation to the nations, but once again their own agenda superceded that of God’s. So the jealousy was really quite ridiculous. It was they who turned away. If this synagogue had been faithful to God and accepting of his Messiah then they would not be in danger of losing a large portion of their Gentile participants as well as a large number of Gentiles that had never been part of their synagogue.

The gospel had been rejected by a majority of the Jews and so would be made available to the Gentiles, not as a punishment for Israel’s rejection but as the ordained progression of the gospel (Rom. 1:16). It was made available first to the Jew, then the Gentile. This was a pattern that Paul would continue to follow throughout his ministry as he moved from town to town. While the Jews of that synagogue were filled with jealousy rather than the remorse that they should have been filled with, the Gentiles were thrilled. They understood the significance of what Paul and Barnabas were telling them. They grasped the full impact of the reality that they “were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus [they] who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:19).

The Gentiles had joined those that were appointed for eternal life. This doesn’t mean, as some might mistakenly take it, that only the Gentiles that were specifically predestined by God for salvation had responded while those that were created to reject the gospel did so. It is true that God always takes the initiative in salvation but each person is allowed the free will by God to accept or reject the gospel on their own terms. What has been appointed by God since the very beginning is that he would have a Messiah shaped family. In other words, God had always pre-determined that he would have a people for himself that would come unto him through the death and resurrection life of Jesus. When the Gentiles responded in faith, they joined the number of those that were appointed for the life of the age to come.

In the face of some success in preaching the gospel, the Jewish leaders were able to whip up support among the Gentiles that were sympathetic to them against the further spread of the message of the apostles. Many had heard the word and believed but many more had rejected. The response from Paul and Barnabas was significant. Shaking the dust off of one’s feet was the common action of a Jew upon leaving a pagan town or area. It signified that they were shaking off the sin and evil influence of those that had rejected the ways of God and returning to God’s people. It was a sign of both judgment and repudiation. Now the Christians were turning that around on those who had rejected the gospel. It was a sign that the Jews who rejected the gospel were no longer part of God’s people and would now find themselves outside of the family God while the Gentiles who had never been part of God’s family would continue in their status of alienation from the true people of God (cf. Lk. 9:5 10:11).

The constant rejection that they faced, however, did not leave them dejected. They were filled with true joy and the Holy Spirit, two states of being that go together. You simply will not have one without the other. Jesus had well prepared them for the fact that his people would face much more rejection than acceptance. The true gospel always divides, always offends, and always demands sacrifice. That is certainly a reminder for modern Christians who often seem to seek favor, acceptance, and comfort. Could it be that we are lacking the full measure of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the joy that he brings because we are unwilling to go where he is really leading?


Devotional Thought
Paul and Barnabas continued to spread the truth of the gospel whether their message was accepted and became popular or if it was widely rejected and resulted in their persecution. Do you have that same resolve to share your faith and preach the gospel to those around you or do you begin to falter when you don’t encounter immediate and continued success?