Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas
36 Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them, 38 but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. 41 He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Dig Deeper
As Christians we know that we are called to love and unity. We are called by Scripture to be of the same mind with one another. Does this mean, however, that we will never have conflict or disagreements with other brothers? Of course, reality and experience tell us that this will not be the case. But what should we think of such situations? How should we respond? We find some important lessons to be learned in response to those types of questions in one of the more stunning passages in all of the New Testament. At the end of Acts 15, two great brothers in the faith who had worked together faithfully for years coming into such sharp disagreement that they felt it necessary to part ways and split their ministry. Rather than just viewing this as a sad and unfortunate blight on the early church, we must realize that it was a very important time from which we can learn invaluable lessons that will guide us through some of our most difficult times today.
In Acts 15 we are told of a decision by Paul and Barnabas to go back through their previously traveled ground and strengthen the churches (Acts 15:36). Out of this decision, however, a sharp disagreement arose between these two dear brothers over what we today might call their ministry philosophy. Barnabas thought that it would be a good idea to bring Mark with them but Paul thought quite differently.
Mark was the son of a Christian woman named Mary (Acts 12:12) and the cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10). He had been with these two great men of the faith on a previous missionary journey but abandoned the mission in Pamphylia to return to Jerusalem for unstated reasons (Acts 13:13; 15:38).
The difference in opinion may seem like a small one to use standing on the far-off peak of a mountain separated by a valley of nearly 2,000 years, but the disagreement was sharp enough that it cause the two brothers with such a long history together (Barnabas had initially vouched for Paul and caused him to be accepted by wary and fearful Christians who thought Paul’s conversion might be a plot, and had invited him into the ministry in Antioch) to part ways and apparently never work closely together again.
One of the questions that we humans always seem to need to know in a disagreement of this nature is who was in the right and who was in the wrong. That is a particularly difficult question when it comes to this issue because this was not a case of doctrinal purity or heresy in the camp. It was a difference of opinion over which aspect of the Scriptures to emphasize in this particular case. The difficult aspect of this situation is that a case can be made that both men were in the right in one sense, a situation that often leads to the most intense disagreements.
When we look at Paul’s argument it seems to have been sound and logical. Mark had been with them and failed. We don’t know the details but it is safe to assume that it greatly affected Paul and it was probably rather damaging at the time to their mission. After all, no one who puts his hand to plow and starts looking back is fit for the kingdom, right? (Lk. 9:62). There is a great danger in putting trust into one who has proven himself to be unreliable (Prov. 25:19) and being faithful is an absolute requirement for ministry in the kingdom of God (1 Tim. 1:12; 1 Cor. 4:2).
Acts 15:40 seems to imply that the church, at least in some initial way, may have agreed with Paul. Paul and Silas were commended by the brothers as they left but no mention is made of Barnabas and Mark. It may have merely been decided, though, that Paul would continue on the official mission while Barnabas was breaking away from that and going to cover ground that was not on the initial itinerary but would still be beneficial and would enable more ground to be covered in the long run. It might also simply mean that despite Paul’s breaking away from Barnabas, Luke emphasizes that the church was not going to cut Paul off and would support his journey, while their support of Barnabas would go without saying.
But before we jump to Paul’s side in this, we should consider Proverbs 18:17 which reminds us that the first to present his case seems like the way to go until another comes along and presents his case. Let’s look at this from the perspective of Barnabas. We are not told specifically of Barnabas’ reasons but based on his previous actions they are not too difficult to presume. It is safe to say that Barnabas was not defending Mark’s actions but he wanted to give him a second chance. Past sin and failure do not determine the future potential for faithfulness although they do need to be taken into account. I would be willing to bet that Barnabas might have pointed to Jesus giving Peter and all of the apostles a second chance after their initial failures. I would also imagine that Barnabas would have mentioned the times when he believed in Paul and gave him chances when very few others were willing. The Christian principles of forgiveness and grace seem to have been at the forefront of Barnabas’ beliefs and actions.
So who is right? You may have already come down on one side or the other, but I don’t think it’s necessary here. The Bible doesn’t clearly take any sides and neither must we. This seems to be one of those cases where the issue was a disagreement in which scriptural principles to emphasize. It was an honest to goodness difference in ministerial philosophy. There seems to have been no sin involved. Despite this dispute and subsequent parting of the ways of two great heroes in the faith, God’s kingdom continued on stronger than ever and both men were used powerfully by God. It is through situations like this, however, that we can learn some very valuable lessons for our own difficult times where issues are so often much more complicated than we would like them to be.
We wish that we didn’t have disagreements among brothers but the reality is that there simply always will be in the present age. Two godly individuals can sharply disagree over the directions of their ministries or whether another brother is ready to be counted on in the ministry, or a nearly endless cavalcade of possibilities but that does not mean that either one is acting in an ungodly manner, even if one or both sides have made mistakes. The reality is that God does not give us answers to every single judgment call that we must make in this age. We will never be free of mistakes and sincere differences of opinions until we all arrive safely in the age to come. Until that time we must firmly bear with one another and “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). There can be differences of opinion and mistakes will be made. That is the reality of the Christian life that we share in together (Phil. 1:6). Many of these differences and even partings of the way will hurt and be painful. Our task, however difficult it may be, is to do what is necessary to keep the bonds of peace and unity through even mistakes.
As Christians we are always called to step forward in love even with those that have hurt us, cursed us, or acted as an enemy. If this is how we are to react to our true enemies, then how much more with our brothers, even when they hurt us or feel like an enemy, or make a rash judgment or offer a harsh word? In fact, when someone most feels like my enemy or has hurt me the most, it is then and to them that I am called by Christ to step forward and show love. Not because I feel like it, but because that is who he is transforming me to be.
There is absolutely no indication or even hint that these two men thought any less of one another although this was surely an emotional time and situation. This was a rupture in their relationship and their ministry. It certainly hurt and could have caused hard feelings but later on we find Paul urging for support for Barnabas in his ministry (1 Cor. 9:6). That verse clearly demonstrates that Paul continued to love, value, and support Barnabas. Just because they could no longer work together did not mean that they did not love one another. Surely Paul and Barnabas made “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
Although Paul certainly called for Christians to be of one mind in living out the life of Christ and urged that there be no divisions among believers (1 Cor. 1:10-12), that does not mean that there won’t be differences of opinion. It is possible to have differences that even lead to partings of the way without it rupturing the unity and brotherhood of believers. The unity of the family of God must be of higher priority than my opinion or even my brother’s mistakes. That is the Christian life that we all signed up for.
It is significant to note that neither brother is clearly commended or condemned in this parting of the ways. The Bible does not take sides in this issue and we don’t need to either in every situation. That does not mean that we overlook issues or don’t engage in them or help our brothers. It is quite possible, however, to engage in a situation and offer godly input and counsel without taking sides. We can see the right and wrong in both sides of the argument without splitting into different camps. Splitting into different camps is the worldly response to differences of opinion. Commitment to love and unity despite differences and hurt is how the followers of Jesus are to respond.
The separation of Paul and Barnabas might have seemed like a great victory for Satan but that was not the case. Even when we make mistakes, even stupid ones, we must always remember that God is far more powerful than I am stupid. God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). That means that if we are all committed to loving God and following him, God can and will work even through our failures and mistakes. We might have disagreements but if we remain righteous even through hard times, God will work powerfully.
In the case of Paul and Barnabas, God took one team of church strengtheners and turned it into two. He doubled the ground that they could cover. It also gave a ministry opportunity to Mark and Silas that might not have been there otherwise. Because of this, more work could be done, more people could engage in the work of the kingdom, and the gospel could be furthered.
It is also true that this disagreement may have been a real struggle and trial for all of those involved, but God uses such situations to teach us strength, perseverance, and to make us complete (Jm. 1:3-4). Even though mistakes may have been made, they could learn from them. Mistakes only become failures when we fail to learn. When we learn from mistakes they become opportunities. For instance, Barnabas may have learned through this disagreement to be more watchful and demanding of Mark which may have had a large hand in the growth that he experienced. Paul may have learned to be more on the look out to be patient and sensitive as he was later in his ministry when it came to the issue between Philemon and Onesimus.
We have shortcomings and we will all fail. The brutal reality is that we all probably have both planks and splinters in our own eyes all of the time. We can play the blame game or we can be active in our unity, brotherhood, forgiveness, growth, and commitment to God’s family. Paul was certainly committed to his decision at the time and it may have worked out for the good, but it is true that he would later change his opinion of Mark. Their disagreement did not cloud his judgment in the future of Mark or their commitment to one another as brothers. He would later call Mark useful and asked that he be brought to help him (1 Tim. 4:11). This must have been very comforting and encouraging for both Mark and Barnabas and a great reminder that they were still brothers in Christ despite their past differences. We will have differences and we will hurt one another; that’s a promise. When the Scriptures call for Christians to bear with one another and forgive one another it is an implicit promise that we will hurt one another. Our love for Christ and our brotherly love can and must triumph.
The mere fact that Luke recorded this sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas shows that the church was not ashamed of it. It was a reality and important lessons could be learned. In the same way, we need not be ashamed of differences of opinion or disagreements as though they are all signs of weakness, sin, or disunity. They only become such things when we fail to learn lessons from these times or we fail to put the unity of brotherhood above our own opinion, feelings, and emotions. These are not times to be glossed over and covered up but are times to be openly discussed and learned from in the proper venues for those who are mature enough in their faith to handle such matters.
Devotional Thought
Paul and Barnabas clearly came into conflict but it is also clear that they were both sincerely attempting to put the interests of Christ first. Could you say the same about your relationships and even your conflicts that you come into?
Friday, July 22, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Acts 15:22-35
22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. [34] [d] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
Dig Deeper
Teachers and schools are notorious for giving their students long lists of rules that they have to follow. Some classrooms and schools have long lists of rules that each student must remember and follow each day while at school. I suppose that rules serve a purpose at times and can be quite helpful but there is also a downside to rules. Students who learn only to follow rules rarely learn how to actually think and discern through situations themselves. They will be quite prone to looking for loopholes in the rules and when they find themselves in situations outside of the prescribed rules they are generally at quite a loss. Rules tend to serve the purpose of conforming behavior and controlling people in the immediate moment. Rules are good controllers and conformers, but they are bad trainers and transformers. People who just learn to follow rules, you see, don’t usually mature and progress past those rules. They learn to follow those rules and that’s it. But they don’t learn how to think and live rightly regardless of the situation.
That’s why when I was a teacher I always had but one rule: You must show respect at all times for everyone else in this room. When you think about it that’s not much of a rule. That’s certainly not a rule that you can follow mindlessly. It is actually a guideline more than a rule. Guidelines are far more demanding than rules because they offer some general principles and then demand the one following them to really stop and think and learn from each situation. When different scenarios come up you must care enough about following the guideline and hold it as an important conviction to do the work of thinking through what it means to follow this guideline in this situation. As one does that more and more they grow and learn and mature. Rules teach you how to follow. Guidelines teach you how to think Surely if you give someone a rule you teach them how to act for a day but if you teach them to think through guidelines you teach them how to live for a lifetime.
This is exactly the kind of people that God has always promised that he would have: a thinking people. This is precisely what the prophet Jeremiah spoke of when he declared that “’The days are coming’, declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them’, declares the LORD. ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time’, declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest’, declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’” (Jer. 31:31-34). The point was that in the new covenant God would have a people that wouldn’t be just a bunch of followers of rules who would have to go and tell one another the rules and admonish one another to follow them. He would have a people who had chosen to be his people and in whom he had placed his own transforming Spirit. These people would know the Lord through intimacy and experience and would learn to think there way through situations.
It is for this very reason that the New Testament has precious few examples of actual rules. Instead we find mostly guidelines, principles, and suggestions which forced God’s people to think, to love, and to work out what it meant to be devoted to God and live together with other believers as his family. As the early church began to take on the difficult task of being the unified family that Jesus had called them to be, we find at the most difficult moments like these, that the directions given were not rules but were all about teaching the church how to think through the ongoing task of loving one another.
As the Council in Jerusalem convened, they knew that getting word back to the other churches was vital, especially to the center of the Gentile mission, the church in Antioch. But they also knew that if they simply sent Paul and Barnabas back to carry the decision of the leaders in Jerusalem that it could put them in an awkward situation which would leave them open to questions of whether they had faithfully communicated what had really been decided. To ensure that something like that didn’t happen, the brothers chose Judas and Silas, who were already well-respected brothers, to represent the church in Jerusalem and carry out this momentous decision to the larger Christian family.
There was obviously much confusion as men had come not that along ago and created havoc in Antioch by taking it upon themselves to drive a wedge between Jewish and Gentile table fellowship amongst the brothers. They had evidently either believed that they had some measure of authority from James and the Jerusalem church to do this or attempted to give the impression that they did. But the letter makes it clear from the beginning that these conservatives had stepped beyond their rightful authority. They were not speaking on behalf of James and the church in Jerusalem (a fact of which Paul was quite probably unaware when he wrote the letter to the Galatians but a matter which was now cleared up once-for-all).
The opening of the letter gives a further clue as to where it is heading when it says that they chose some men to verify the truth of the letter and to accompany their dear friends or more literally the “beloved” Barnabas and Paul. That must have put the brothers and sisters in Antioch at ease right away and allowed them a big sigh of relief. Paul and Barnabas were beloved Christians who were not leading them astray but guiding them into the truth of God’s family in the Messiah.
What is not certain is whether Luke has given us a word-by-word rendering of the original letter or an abridged version but he does include a phrase that has always been one of my favorites. The letter says that what they decided upon “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” Christianity is a life that is the constant struggles of people of all different types learning to live together as one family. That simply cannot be defined by rules. But that also means the challenge of listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, working together to find solutions to thorny issues for which there is no rule or easy answer, and then making a decision as best you can. The council made no attempt to present themselves as infallible or even that they had the incontrovertibly correct answer. They were simply doing the best they could and making decisions based on what seemed right to them as they attempted to discern God’s will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
As we saw in the previous passage, the agreement contained three specific areas in which they were asking Gentile Christians to be especially observant as they sought to live the holy lives of God’s family and avoid anything that might needlessly offend their Jewish Christian brothers and even non-Christian Jews with whom they might be living closely. There is much in the way of freedoms in Christ but where freedom and unity clashed, unity should always win. That is why Paul declared in his letter to the Galatians that they should “not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:13-14). All three categories discussed by Paul had to do with the way that Gentiles normally lived (the prohibition on sexual immorality probably referred more to aberrant marriage practices that were abhorrent to Jews) and as 1 Corinthians 6-10 demonstrates these weren’t simple straightforward rules. To carry out even these simple suggestions would take love, wisdom, discernment, and of course, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These three guidelines are not comprehensive Leviticus-style rules. They are guidelines that would involve a great deal of thinking and love for one another.
The letter was obviously encouraging to the church in Antioch and Gentile believers around the world. God’s promise of having one family of all nations had overcome a stiff early challenge and would take a little time to enjoy the gifts that God had given to one another as Judas and Silas stayed for a bit to encourage the believers in Antioch.
There are two other important things that shouldn’t be missed with the sending out of this letter. The first was that the issue of the family of God as far as it concerned Gentiles being recognized was settled. The conservatives had lost and it had been recognized once-and-for-all that the Gentiles would need nothing more than entering into Christ to be part of God’s family. It would still take a long time to work out all of the details of how to do that on a day-to-day basis but the important part was now decided. The other thing to note is that the Jerusalem church calls the Gentiles to live lovingly towards their brothers but never binds these as rules. They would “do well” to follow them and of course if they really loved God and his family then they would have no problem with these things but it never binds these things as rules. It was about the heart and not rules. They were learning to live for a lifetime not for a day.
Devotional Thought
Do you really embrace the hard work of thinking through and living out the call for Christians to love one another and put the interests of others ahead of our own or do you tend to seek the easy way out by falling back on fulfilling the obligations of a few things that you have turned into rules? For instance, do you have time with God every morning or meet with other believers because you have truly thought through the implications of what those things mean to do or not do or do you just muddle through them as an obligation? Take some time today to truly think about what you do and why you do it.
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. [34] [d] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
Dig Deeper
Teachers and schools are notorious for giving their students long lists of rules that they have to follow. Some classrooms and schools have long lists of rules that each student must remember and follow each day while at school. I suppose that rules serve a purpose at times and can be quite helpful but there is also a downside to rules. Students who learn only to follow rules rarely learn how to actually think and discern through situations themselves. They will be quite prone to looking for loopholes in the rules and when they find themselves in situations outside of the prescribed rules they are generally at quite a loss. Rules tend to serve the purpose of conforming behavior and controlling people in the immediate moment. Rules are good controllers and conformers, but they are bad trainers and transformers. People who just learn to follow rules, you see, don’t usually mature and progress past those rules. They learn to follow those rules and that’s it. But they don’t learn how to think and live rightly regardless of the situation.
That’s why when I was a teacher I always had but one rule: You must show respect at all times for everyone else in this room. When you think about it that’s not much of a rule. That’s certainly not a rule that you can follow mindlessly. It is actually a guideline more than a rule. Guidelines are far more demanding than rules because they offer some general principles and then demand the one following them to really stop and think and learn from each situation. When different scenarios come up you must care enough about following the guideline and hold it as an important conviction to do the work of thinking through what it means to follow this guideline in this situation. As one does that more and more they grow and learn and mature. Rules teach you how to follow. Guidelines teach you how to think Surely if you give someone a rule you teach them how to act for a day but if you teach them to think through guidelines you teach them how to live for a lifetime.
This is exactly the kind of people that God has always promised that he would have: a thinking people. This is precisely what the prophet Jeremiah spoke of when he declared that “’The days are coming’, declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them’, declares the LORD. ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time’, declares the LORD. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest’, declares the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’” (Jer. 31:31-34). The point was that in the new covenant God would have a people that wouldn’t be just a bunch of followers of rules who would have to go and tell one another the rules and admonish one another to follow them. He would have a people who had chosen to be his people and in whom he had placed his own transforming Spirit. These people would know the Lord through intimacy and experience and would learn to think there way through situations.
It is for this very reason that the New Testament has precious few examples of actual rules. Instead we find mostly guidelines, principles, and suggestions which forced God’s people to think, to love, and to work out what it meant to be devoted to God and live together with other believers as his family. As the early church began to take on the difficult task of being the unified family that Jesus had called them to be, we find at the most difficult moments like these, that the directions given were not rules but were all about teaching the church how to think through the ongoing task of loving one another.
As the Council in Jerusalem convened, they knew that getting word back to the other churches was vital, especially to the center of the Gentile mission, the church in Antioch. But they also knew that if they simply sent Paul and Barnabas back to carry the decision of the leaders in Jerusalem that it could put them in an awkward situation which would leave them open to questions of whether they had faithfully communicated what had really been decided. To ensure that something like that didn’t happen, the brothers chose Judas and Silas, who were already well-respected brothers, to represent the church in Jerusalem and carry out this momentous decision to the larger Christian family.
There was obviously much confusion as men had come not that along ago and created havoc in Antioch by taking it upon themselves to drive a wedge between Jewish and Gentile table fellowship amongst the brothers. They had evidently either believed that they had some measure of authority from James and the Jerusalem church to do this or attempted to give the impression that they did. But the letter makes it clear from the beginning that these conservatives had stepped beyond their rightful authority. They were not speaking on behalf of James and the church in Jerusalem (a fact of which Paul was quite probably unaware when he wrote the letter to the Galatians but a matter which was now cleared up once-for-all).
The opening of the letter gives a further clue as to where it is heading when it says that they chose some men to verify the truth of the letter and to accompany their dear friends or more literally the “beloved” Barnabas and Paul. That must have put the brothers and sisters in Antioch at ease right away and allowed them a big sigh of relief. Paul and Barnabas were beloved Christians who were not leading them astray but guiding them into the truth of God’s family in the Messiah.
What is not certain is whether Luke has given us a word-by-word rendering of the original letter or an abridged version but he does include a phrase that has always been one of my favorites. The letter says that what they decided upon “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” Christianity is a life that is the constant struggles of people of all different types learning to live together as one family. That simply cannot be defined by rules. But that also means the challenge of listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, working together to find solutions to thorny issues for which there is no rule or easy answer, and then making a decision as best you can. The council made no attempt to present themselves as infallible or even that they had the incontrovertibly correct answer. They were simply doing the best they could and making decisions based on what seemed right to them as they attempted to discern God’s will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
As we saw in the previous passage, the agreement contained three specific areas in which they were asking Gentile Christians to be especially observant as they sought to live the holy lives of God’s family and avoid anything that might needlessly offend their Jewish Christian brothers and even non-Christian Jews with whom they might be living closely. There is much in the way of freedoms in Christ but where freedom and unity clashed, unity should always win. That is why Paul declared in his letter to the Galatians that they should “not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:13-14). All three categories discussed by Paul had to do with the way that Gentiles normally lived (the prohibition on sexual immorality probably referred more to aberrant marriage practices that were abhorrent to Jews) and as 1 Corinthians 6-10 demonstrates these weren’t simple straightforward rules. To carry out even these simple suggestions would take love, wisdom, discernment, and of course, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. These three guidelines are not comprehensive Leviticus-style rules. They are guidelines that would involve a great deal of thinking and love for one another.
The letter was obviously encouraging to the church in Antioch and Gentile believers around the world. God’s promise of having one family of all nations had overcome a stiff early challenge and would take a little time to enjoy the gifts that God had given to one another as Judas and Silas stayed for a bit to encourage the believers in Antioch.
There are two other important things that shouldn’t be missed with the sending out of this letter. The first was that the issue of the family of God as far as it concerned Gentiles being recognized was settled. The conservatives had lost and it had been recognized once-and-for-all that the Gentiles would need nothing more than entering into Christ to be part of God’s family. It would still take a long time to work out all of the details of how to do that on a day-to-day basis but the important part was now decided. The other thing to note is that the Jerusalem church calls the Gentiles to live lovingly towards their brothers but never binds these as rules. They would “do well” to follow them and of course if they really loved God and his family then they would have no problem with these things but it never binds these things as rules. It was about the heart and not rules. They were learning to live for a lifetime not for a day.
Devotional Thought
Do you really embrace the hard work of thinking through and living out the call for Christians to love one another and put the interests of others ahead of our own or do you tend to seek the easy way out by falling back on fulfilling the obligations of a few things that you have turned into rules? For instance, do you have time with God every morning or meet with other believers because you have truly thought through the implications of what those things mean to do or not do or do you just muddle through them as an obligation? Take some time today to truly think about what you do and why you do it.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Acts 15:12-21
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. 14 Simon[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’[b]—
18 things known from long ago.[c]
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
Dig Deeper
One of the great sports movies of all time is “Hoosiers,” the classic film about high school basketball in a small town in Indiana. The sleepy town of Hickory loved nothing more than basketball and the entire community became deeply concerned when the school’s principal hired an old pal who had previously been a big city college basketball coach. They were wary of this outsider from the outset but became even more concerned when his ways were proven to be very different than what they expected and what they wanted. To add to that, the town’s best player had decided to focus on his studies before the coach ever came to town and had declined to play that season. Suddenly a town that expected a certain level of play and a certain number of wins wasn’t seeing either one. Midway through the season the whole town held a meeting to air their concerns with the ultimate purpose of kicking this new coach out of his job before his strange ways changed everything that they cherished. Several people stood up and spoke on behalf of the coach and tried to answer his accusers and their thoughts carried some weight but none of those that spoke carried enough weight on that topic to sway people. The vote was taken and the coach was voted out of his job. But then a young man in the back stepped forward to speak. He was the star player that had refused to play up to that point. He suddenly and simply said that he thought it was time for him to start playing again. He interrupted the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd to add one more detail. He would only play if the coach stayed. Everyone was shocked but his was the voice that mattered in this instance. They quickly took another vote and it was determined that the coach would stay. The loudest voice in the room had spoken and it had changed everything.
Paul and Barnabas had addressed the entire assembly as witnesses of all that they had seen God doing among the Gentiles but they probably carried little sway with the group that they addressed in Jerusalem. They were more presenting their testimony than they were convincing anyone. Before that the Apostle Peter stood and verified that he believed that it was part of God’s plan all along that the Gentiles did not need to follow the law to show themselves to be part of God’s true family. They did not, in other words, need to become Jews in order to become part of the promised family. That was never the intended purpose of the law and there was no sense in demanding that that become its purpose now.
Peter’s voice was no doubt influential and important within the community of Jewish believers and the leadership of the church but it appears that by this point Peter was more of a traveling apostle and was not the official leader of the Jerusalem church. As important as his voice might have been, he did not carry the most influential opinion on this topic and in this situation.
That distinction belonged to James, the brother of Jesus. He had been a skeptic of Jesus during his lifetime (Jn. 7:4-5) but evidently an encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ had made a deep impact on James (1 Cor. 15:7). James had, at some point, become the recognized leader of the Jerusalem church and a looming figure in the early Christian community. He was well known for his piety and fairness even among his Jewish opponents in Jerusalem. He would eventually be stoned to death at the Temple, an act that was grieved over by Christians and many Jews alike. In short, he was well respected by nearly all, and certainly by most within the Jerusalem church. Beyond that, he had apparently been somewhat concerned fairly recently about the issue of just blatantly accepting Gentiles into the table fellowship of the family (see Gal. 2:12; although James seems to infer here that that group may have come from Jerusalem as Paul stated but they went beyond any actual authority given to them by James at the time).
When James rose to speak, his voice carried a great deal of weight. He was an established conservative on this issue, he was well trusted, and was well respected. He would, evidently, have the final word on this matter as he called the assembly to listen to his thoughts. Peter had appealed to logic and history to help the case. Paul and Barnabas had spoken of the great signs and wonders to which they had been witness. James would appeal to Scripture and the identity of God’s people.
As James began his important comments, he made a fascinating but easily missed point about Simon Peter’s words. In the Old Testament there were two primary groups of persons. There were the “nations” (“ethne” in the Greek) or the “Gentiles” and then there were the “people” (“laos” in the Greek) The people were God’s chosen group, that is to say, Israel. This is the thought behind a passage like Deuteronomy 26:19, which says, “He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.”
But James turned that on its head by declaring that Simon Peter has described God intervening to choose and create a people from within the Gentiles. The “people” of God were now comprised partly of the nations rather than standing in opposition to them. In making that statement, James had already tipped his hand as to where he was heading.
But that wasn’t just Peter’s opinion. The prophets said the very same thing. That was a big deal because in the Old Testament the prophets were God’s mouthpieces. So if it could be shown that they pointed to such a thing as the nations being brought into God’s family as they were without first needing to become Jewish or follow the law then that would be very important. His words in verses 16 and 17 come from Amos 9:11-12. Amos 9 is part of a harsh prophecy in which God declared that Israel would be judged for her unfaithfulness to God and his covenant, and be brought low. But, Amos promises, once the house of David has been humbled it would be rebuilt and that time of restoration would include all of the nations (ethne) or, in other words, the Gentiles. It wasn’t that James could only muster up one obscure passage to make his point but what Luke has recorded was one representative point from the larger argument that James was making. The crux of his statements were that God’s promise of a blessed family always included the people of the nations and the prophets had confirmed that. The rebuilding of the house of David was being fulfilled through the Messiah which meant that the time for the Gentiles to be included in that promise had come.
If God had promised the inclusion of the Gentiles into the one family of all nations then why would they try to bind something on the Gentiles that wasn’t necessary. Entrance into God’s family would come through Christ alone and the evidence or uniform of that entrance would be that they followed Jesus and lived by faith in his life alone. There was nothing inherently wrong with the law but it was not the entry point into God’s family, nor was it the uniform of his people any longer. God’s temporary law-shaped family had, through Jesus Christ, become his permanent Messiah-shaped family.
But if all of that was true, then why would James go on to suggest that there were four specific things that the Gentile believers should avoid? Was James contradicting himself by saying that they didn’t need to follow the law from one side of his mouth and then giving them portions of the law to observe out of the other side of his mouth? It appears that the four suggested prohibitions were those that were most obviously and overtly connected with pagan worship and Gentile immorality in the eyes of the Jews. They should avoid, James was suggesting, meat that was sacrificed to idols; sexual immorality that was common among pagans (this went beyond just obvious things like fornication but would likely have included aberrant marriage practices such as bigamy and issues brought up in 1 Corinthians 5 that were abhorrent to the Jews), including perhaps the cultic sexual practices that had become common at the shrines and temples of the gods; meat from animals that had been killed by strangling; and the blood of animals which was a common element in temple worship settings.
The reality was that as the gospel moved further away from Jerusalem, the Gentile believers would still be living next to Jewish communities and worshipping with Jewish believers. If they were going to be a light to the Jews and live in harmony and full table fellowship with their fellow Jewish Christians then they had to truly become a people that put the interests of others ahead of their own. James had removed a major stumbling block for Gentile believers in being full members of the family in the eyes of others but he was also suggesting that the Gentile believers remove the major stumbling blocks for their Jewish brothers and sisters to fully accept them. This was pure compromise.
This passage stands as an important testament to the fact that the unity of the early church was hard fought. They didn’t have to agree on everything to be unified. True unity means that the community of believers are devoted to putting the interests of the entire group ahead of their personal desires or freedoms. What was “right” and “wrong” was important if it infringed on one’s true status in Christ but beyond that, what was far more important was living at peace with one another. The Jewish believers would not try to add regulations to the Gentile believers identity in Christ, and the Gentiles would would show patience and respect in limiting themselves in areas that were clearly sin (things like the sexual practices, some of which they should have been avoiding anyway) and things that weren’t (such as avoiding blood). As Paul would make clear in passages like 1 Corinthians 6-10 and Romans 14-15, their love for one another and their commitment to being a unified family should always trump their own preferences and opinions.
There is a dual reminder in this passage for the modern church to both embrace one another in unified love with no needless offense as well as a pointed poke in the ribs to remind us of the potential danger of thinking so highly of our opinions or preferred practices that we can actually harm the unity of the fellowship of the community.
Devotional Thought
Which do you value more: Your rights and freedoms in Christ, or the unity of the body of believers and the interests of others? What can you do today to add to the unity of your family in Christ?
16 “‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’[b]—
18 things known from long ago.[c]
19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
Dig Deeper
One of the great sports movies of all time is “Hoosiers,” the classic film about high school basketball in a small town in Indiana. The sleepy town of Hickory loved nothing more than basketball and the entire community became deeply concerned when the school’s principal hired an old pal who had previously been a big city college basketball coach. They were wary of this outsider from the outset but became even more concerned when his ways were proven to be very different than what they expected and what they wanted. To add to that, the town’s best player had decided to focus on his studies before the coach ever came to town and had declined to play that season. Suddenly a town that expected a certain level of play and a certain number of wins wasn’t seeing either one. Midway through the season the whole town held a meeting to air their concerns with the ultimate purpose of kicking this new coach out of his job before his strange ways changed everything that they cherished. Several people stood up and spoke on behalf of the coach and tried to answer his accusers and their thoughts carried some weight but none of those that spoke carried enough weight on that topic to sway people. The vote was taken and the coach was voted out of his job. But then a young man in the back stepped forward to speak. He was the star player that had refused to play up to that point. He suddenly and simply said that he thought it was time for him to start playing again. He interrupted the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd to add one more detail. He would only play if the coach stayed. Everyone was shocked but his was the voice that mattered in this instance. They quickly took another vote and it was determined that the coach would stay. The loudest voice in the room had spoken and it had changed everything.
Paul and Barnabas had addressed the entire assembly as witnesses of all that they had seen God doing among the Gentiles but they probably carried little sway with the group that they addressed in Jerusalem. They were more presenting their testimony than they were convincing anyone. Before that the Apostle Peter stood and verified that he believed that it was part of God’s plan all along that the Gentiles did not need to follow the law to show themselves to be part of God’s true family. They did not, in other words, need to become Jews in order to become part of the promised family. That was never the intended purpose of the law and there was no sense in demanding that that become its purpose now.
Peter’s voice was no doubt influential and important within the community of Jewish believers and the leadership of the church but it appears that by this point Peter was more of a traveling apostle and was not the official leader of the Jerusalem church. As important as his voice might have been, he did not carry the most influential opinion on this topic and in this situation.
That distinction belonged to James, the brother of Jesus. He had been a skeptic of Jesus during his lifetime (Jn. 7:4-5) but evidently an encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ had made a deep impact on James (1 Cor. 15:7). James had, at some point, become the recognized leader of the Jerusalem church and a looming figure in the early Christian community. He was well known for his piety and fairness even among his Jewish opponents in Jerusalem. He would eventually be stoned to death at the Temple, an act that was grieved over by Christians and many Jews alike. In short, he was well respected by nearly all, and certainly by most within the Jerusalem church. Beyond that, he had apparently been somewhat concerned fairly recently about the issue of just blatantly accepting Gentiles into the table fellowship of the family (see Gal. 2:12; although James seems to infer here that that group may have come from Jerusalem as Paul stated but they went beyond any actual authority given to them by James at the time).
When James rose to speak, his voice carried a great deal of weight. He was an established conservative on this issue, he was well trusted, and was well respected. He would, evidently, have the final word on this matter as he called the assembly to listen to his thoughts. Peter had appealed to logic and history to help the case. Paul and Barnabas had spoken of the great signs and wonders to which they had been witness. James would appeal to Scripture and the identity of God’s people.
As James began his important comments, he made a fascinating but easily missed point about Simon Peter’s words. In the Old Testament there were two primary groups of persons. There were the “nations” (“ethne” in the Greek) or the “Gentiles” and then there were the “people” (“laos” in the Greek) The people were God’s chosen group, that is to say, Israel. This is the thought behind a passage like Deuteronomy 26:19, which says, “He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.”
But James turned that on its head by declaring that Simon Peter has described God intervening to choose and create a people from within the Gentiles. The “people” of God were now comprised partly of the nations rather than standing in opposition to them. In making that statement, James had already tipped his hand as to where he was heading.
But that wasn’t just Peter’s opinion. The prophets said the very same thing. That was a big deal because in the Old Testament the prophets were God’s mouthpieces. So if it could be shown that they pointed to such a thing as the nations being brought into God’s family as they were without first needing to become Jewish or follow the law then that would be very important. His words in verses 16 and 17 come from Amos 9:11-12. Amos 9 is part of a harsh prophecy in which God declared that Israel would be judged for her unfaithfulness to God and his covenant, and be brought low. But, Amos promises, once the house of David has been humbled it would be rebuilt and that time of restoration would include all of the nations (ethne) or, in other words, the Gentiles. It wasn’t that James could only muster up one obscure passage to make his point but what Luke has recorded was one representative point from the larger argument that James was making. The crux of his statements were that God’s promise of a blessed family always included the people of the nations and the prophets had confirmed that. The rebuilding of the house of David was being fulfilled through the Messiah which meant that the time for the Gentiles to be included in that promise had come.
If God had promised the inclusion of the Gentiles into the one family of all nations then why would they try to bind something on the Gentiles that wasn’t necessary. Entrance into God’s family would come through Christ alone and the evidence or uniform of that entrance would be that they followed Jesus and lived by faith in his life alone. There was nothing inherently wrong with the law but it was not the entry point into God’s family, nor was it the uniform of his people any longer. God’s temporary law-shaped family had, through Jesus Christ, become his permanent Messiah-shaped family.
But if all of that was true, then why would James go on to suggest that there were four specific things that the Gentile believers should avoid? Was James contradicting himself by saying that they didn’t need to follow the law from one side of his mouth and then giving them portions of the law to observe out of the other side of his mouth? It appears that the four suggested prohibitions were those that were most obviously and overtly connected with pagan worship and Gentile immorality in the eyes of the Jews. They should avoid, James was suggesting, meat that was sacrificed to idols; sexual immorality that was common among pagans (this went beyond just obvious things like fornication but would likely have included aberrant marriage practices such as bigamy and issues brought up in 1 Corinthians 5 that were abhorrent to the Jews), including perhaps the cultic sexual practices that had become common at the shrines and temples of the gods; meat from animals that had been killed by strangling; and the blood of animals which was a common element in temple worship settings.
The reality was that as the gospel moved further away from Jerusalem, the Gentile believers would still be living next to Jewish communities and worshipping with Jewish believers. If they were going to be a light to the Jews and live in harmony and full table fellowship with their fellow Jewish Christians then they had to truly become a people that put the interests of others ahead of their own. James had removed a major stumbling block for Gentile believers in being full members of the family in the eyes of others but he was also suggesting that the Gentile believers remove the major stumbling blocks for their Jewish brothers and sisters to fully accept them. This was pure compromise.
This passage stands as an important testament to the fact that the unity of the early church was hard fought. They didn’t have to agree on everything to be unified. True unity means that the community of believers are devoted to putting the interests of the entire group ahead of their personal desires or freedoms. What was “right” and “wrong” was important if it infringed on one’s true status in Christ but beyond that, what was far more important was living at peace with one another. The Jewish believers would not try to add regulations to the Gentile believers identity in Christ, and the Gentiles would would show patience and respect in limiting themselves in areas that were clearly sin (things like the sexual practices, some of which they should have been avoiding anyway) and things that weren’t (such as avoiding blood). As Paul would make clear in passages like 1 Corinthians 6-10 and Romans 14-15, their love for one another and their commitment to being a unified family should always trump their own preferences and opinions.
There is a dual reminder in this passage for the modern church to both embrace one another in unified love with no needless offense as well as a pointed poke in the ribs to remind us of the potential danger of thinking so highly of our opinions or preferred practices that we can actually harm the unity of the fellowship of the community.
Devotional Thought
Which do you value more: Your rights and freedoms in Christ, or the unity of the body of believers and the interests of others? What can you do today to add to the unity of your family in Christ?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Acts 14:8-20
In Lystra and Derbe
8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
Dig Deeper
I am personally convinced that one of the most powerful, and potentially dangerous, human motivators is disillusionment. Disillusionment is quite different than many other human emotions and motivators because it can swing someone’s motivations, loyalties, and actions wildly and erratically in the blink of an eye. One moment someone can be deeply in love with someone but once disillusionment sets in that love can radically switch to blind rage and vitriol in the matter of seconds. This is particularly true when it comes to the church. It is vitally important that churches and ministers do their dead-level best to ensure that new Christians and younger members have a realistic view of the church. It is quite easy for a young Christian to to come and visit a church and quickly fall in love with everything about it. If the members of that church are not extremely careful and wise, they can easily, in their zeal, give the impression that everything about the church is wonderful, that the minister is the best thing since sliced bread, and that their life will simply be better in every way imaginable if they become part of the believing community.
The problem is that no church is perfect. Every church is flawed because all humans are flawed. The New Testament promises that we will need to have great patience, forbearance, and love for one another because we will fail one another. But if people are not clear on all of that they will come to idolize the church, the minister, or certain Christians within the church. The problem is that it is only a matter of time before they realize that the church is flawed and people are not perfect, despite their genuine desire to live as God’s family. That’s when disillusionment sets in and people who were once loyal and loving members of a church can easily become bitter enemies in an instant. What they once revered they now would like to destroy.
In fact, the greater someone’s hopes are built up before being dashed, the deeper the disillusionment and the greater the bitterness. At the core of this account is that very reality of disillusionment. Great hope was put before the people but they misunderstood. It was not what they thought and what they were hoping for and so their great adoration and amazement turned almost instantaneously into hatred.
As Paul and Barnabas arrived in Lystra, they encountered a man that had been lame and unable to walk since birth. Everyone would have known him well and been quite convinced of the fact that he would never walk. In fact it is safe to presume that him being healed and walking never even crossed their mind. But as Paul came to town this man listened intently. Something about the announcement that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and showed himself to be the true king of the world and that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present world through that resurrection must have caught the attention of this man. As Paul was speaking we can assume that the Spirit drew his attention to this man, although the text doesn’t say that explicitly. Paul saw an opportunity to demonstrate the kingdom of God. It would be a manifestation in the present age of God’s future age to come, a time when God will restore the entire creation back to its intended wholeness. Nothing demonstrated that truth better than healing a man who had been lame from birth. Nothing verified the truth of his words about that coming age more than telling this man to walk.
As Paul spoke, he discerned, again presumably through the guidance of the Spirit, that this man had the faith to be healed. This man had come to faith through Paul’s words. It wasn’t that he believed that he could be healed because that wasn’t even an option yet. But he had come to believe that God had given promises to restore his creation and that those promises were being fulfilled through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and now through the preaching of the gospel. Because he had faith in that, Paul would heal him and show a sample of that coming reality. Paul told him to stand up immediately and walk, something that the man did instantly. We can only imagine the shock of the crowd around them as they observed the pure and bewildering joy that the man must have felt and the confident lack of shock on the faces of Paul and Barnabas. His getting up and walking was of no great surprise to them. To the crowd, this was the most incredible thing they had ever seen. And they immediately jumped to conclusions.
We must understand that there was a local legend preserved in a Latin poem by Ovid. According to this legend, the gods Zeus and Hermes had visited this region looking for lodging many years before. They were turned down at house after house, and were eventually sent away by one thousand homes in the area. Finally the pair of gods came upon an elderly couple named Philemon and Baucis who were unaware that they were having an encounter with the gods. They eventually welcomed the divine pair into their home. The gods later returned and turned the home of the elderly couple into a temple in honor of their hospitality but they were enraged with the rest of the region and they destroyed all of the houses that had rejected them.
As Paul and Barnabas came upon the scene and performed such an incredible and miraculous healing, the people immediately interpreted it in the only way that their worldview would allow. These must be the gods returned to earth. It is possible that Barnabas was the larger and more physically dignified of the two and so they mistook him as Zeus, while Paul was mistaken for Hermes who was the spokesmen for the gods. Whatever the case, they were clearly determined not to make the same mistake that their people before them had. The people went shouting and declaring in Lycaonian that the gods had returned to them and they quickly got busy making the proper preparations to honor them with appropriate sacrifices. The scene was no doubt chaotic and dizzying along with the fact that neither Paul nor Barnabas spoke that language or knew what was happening around them.
Upon finally understanding what the crowds were thinking and what they had in mind, Paul and Barnabas were horrified. They tore their clothes in response to this well-meaning, but blasphemous attempt to honor them. In that act, the people were demonstrating that they truly had no understanding of the one, true God. They weren’t gods that typically brought varying degrees of bad news and destruction. They were men just like them that were there to preach the good news about Jesus Christ.
Paul’s words were thoroughly in the style of the Old Testament as he warned them that the gods and idols they worshipped were lifeless and worthless. They were wasting their time worrying about the favor of the gods, because the favor of the one, true God, the one who created the world and everything in it, had been finally made available to all. In the past they were outside of God’s family with little hope to come into it (see Eph. 2:11-19). God had always been there, though, providing through nature and they should have recognized that but they had turned instead to worshipping elements of the creation (cf. Rom. 1:18-23). This sermon as Luke has recounted it looks very similar to Paul’s sermon in chapter 17 and no doubt continued on to describe the good news of the resurrection of Christ just as he did there.
But the people were so locked into their own worldview that despite Paul’s powerful sermon pointing them to the true God through his Son Jesus Christ, they still had trouble shifting their paradigm and still wanted to make sacrifices to them as gods. The reality is that false religions stem from people’s desires rather than the other way around. This is why Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:3 that it is not that people are tricked into false religions and false doctrines but rather that they gather around them people that teach what they want to hear based on their desires. These people wanted the type of religion that they had already and despite the incredible miracle they had just seen were apparently not open to the stunning truth of the gospel.
If their desire had been for the truth that lies in the gospel they would have embraced it but instead, Luke tells us, that a group of Jews came over from Antioch and Iconium, and convinced them to reject what Paul and Barnabas had been saying. These people who wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas were now quickly swung in the other direction. They were enthralled thinking that the gods that they desired to worship had come to visit them but their excitement quickly turned into disillusionment. Their moment of hope that the gods had returned and they had a chance to please them disappeared. All that was left was the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the men who were preaching that gospel. Their dashed hopes turned to blind rage and they dragged Paul outside of the city to stone him.
This was no day at the beach. Stoning was a violent act that was intended to kill someone and they thought that this time was no different. Although it didn’t kill him, the event clearly left an indelible impression on Paul who mentioned it as many as three times in other writings (2 Cor. 11:25; 2 Tim. 3:11; and possibly Gal. 6:17). What happened next is one of those incredible things that has made Paul a hero to many in the faith ever since. He had been rejected and beaten down by those who wanted nothing to do with the idea of being part of God’s family but the disciples gathered around him and gave him strength. Buoyed by their love and support, Paul rebounded and got right back up (Luke does not say that there was any specific miraculous element to Paul’s getting up and does not seem to imply any such miracle either). We might expect him to have gone somewhere safer and immediately flee Lystra but Paul was not going to let them get the best of him and the gospel. He picked himself up and walked right back into Lystra. Paul would leave for Derbe the next day, but it would be on his terms and not because of fear.
Devotional Thought
Can you identify with Paul’s situation here. It is unlikely that most of you reading this will ever be in danger of being stoned for the gospel but it can sure feel like it sometimes when we are rejected or mistreated for our faith. When that happens, what is your response? Is it to slink away and look for safety or is it to surround yourself with disciples, get re-energized, and go right back at the leading of the Holy Spirit? When you face your next “Lystra,” what will your response be?
8 In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. 9 He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10 and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13 The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them. 16 In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.” 18 Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
19 Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20 But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
Dig Deeper
I am personally convinced that one of the most powerful, and potentially dangerous, human motivators is disillusionment. Disillusionment is quite different than many other human emotions and motivators because it can swing someone’s motivations, loyalties, and actions wildly and erratically in the blink of an eye. One moment someone can be deeply in love with someone but once disillusionment sets in that love can radically switch to blind rage and vitriol in the matter of seconds. This is particularly true when it comes to the church. It is vitally important that churches and ministers do their dead-level best to ensure that new Christians and younger members have a realistic view of the church. It is quite easy for a young Christian to to come and visit a church and quickly fall in love with everything about it. If the members of that church are not extremely careful and wise, they can easily, in their zeal, give the impression that everything about the church is wonderful, that the minister is the best thing since sliced bread, and that their life will simply be better in every way imaginable if they become part of the believing community.
The problem is that no church is perfect. Every church is flawed because all humans are flawed. The New Testament promises that we will need to have great patience, forbearance, and love for one another because we will fail one another. But if people are not clear on all of that they will come to idolize the church, the minister, or certain Christians within the church. The problem is that it is only a matter of time before they realize that the church is flawed and people are not perfect, despite their genuine desire to live as God’s family. That’s when disillusionment sets in and people who were once loyal and loving members of a church can easily become bitter enemies in an instant. What they once revered they now would like to destroy.
In fact, the greater someone’s hopes are built up before being dashed, the deeper the disillusionment and the greater the bitterness. At the core of this account is that very reality of disillusionment. Great hope was put before the people but they misunderstood. It was not what they thought and what they were hoping for and so their great adoration and amazement turned almost instantaneously into hatred.
As Paul and Barnabas arrived in Lystra, they encountered a man that had been lame and unable to walk since birth. Everyone would have known him well and been quite convinced of the fact that he would never walk. In fact it is safe to presume that him being healed and walking never even crossed their mind. But as Paul came to town this man listened intently. Something about the announcement that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and showed himself to be the true king of the world and that the kingdom of God was breaking into the present world through that resurrection must have caught the attention of this man. As Paul was speaking we can assume that the Spirit drew his attention to this man, although the text doesn’t say that explicitly. Paul saw an opportunity to demonstrate the kingdom of God. It would be a manifestation in the present age of God’s future age to come, a time when God will restore the entire creation back to its intended wholeness. Nothing demonstrated that truth better than healing a man who had been lame from birth. Nothing verified the truth of his words about that coming age more than telling this man to walk.
As Paul spoke, he discerned, again presumably through the guidance of the Spirit, that this man had the faith to be healed. This man had come to faith through Paul’s words. It wasn’t that he believed that he could be healed because that wasn’t even an option yet. But he had come to believe that God had given promises to restore his creation and that those promises were being fulfilled through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and now through the preaching of the gospel. Because he had faith in that, Paul would heal him and show a sample of that coming reality. Paul told him to stand up immediately and walk, something that the man did instantly. We can only imagine the shock of the crowd around them as they observed the pure and bewildering joy that the man must have felt and the confident lack of shock on the faces of Paul and Barnabas. His getting up and walking was of no great surprise to them. To the crowd, this was the most incredible thing they had ever seen. And they immediately jumped to conclusions.
We must understand that there was a local legend preserved in a Latin poem by Ovid. According to this legend, the gods Zeus and Hermes had visited this region looking for lodging many years before. They were turned down at house after house, and were eventually sent away by one thousand homes in the area. Finally the pair of gods came upon an elderly couple named Philemon and Baucis who were unaware that they were having an encounter with the gods. They eventually welcomed the divine pair into their home. The gods later returned and turned the home of the elderly couple into a temple in honor of their hospitality but they were enraged with the rest of the region and they destroyed all of the houses that had rejected them.
As Paul and Barnabas came upon the scene and performed such an incredible and miraculous healing, the people immediately interpreted it in the only way that their worldview would allow. These must be the gods returned to earth. It is possible that Barnabas was the larger and more physically dignified of the two and so they mistook him as Zeus, while Paul was mistaken for Hermes who was the spokesmen for the gods. Whatever the case, they were clearly determined not to make the same mistake that their people before them had. The people went shouting and declaring in Lycaonian that the gods had returned to them and they quickly got busy making the proper preparations to honor them with appropriate sacrifices. The scene was no doubt chaotic and dizzying along with the fact that neither Paul nor Barnabas spoke that language or knew what was happening around them.
Upon finally understanding what the crowds were thinking and what they had in mind, Paul and Barnabas were horrified. They tore their clothes in response to this well-meaning, but blasphemous attempt to honor them. In that act, the people were demonstrating that they truly had no understanding of the one, true God. They weren’t gods that typically brought varying degrees of bad news and destruction. They were men just like them that were there to preach the good news about Jesus Christ.
Paul’s words were thoroughly in the style of the Old Testament as he warned them that the gods and idols they worshipped were lifeless and worthless. They were wasting their time worrying about the favor of the gods, because the favor of the one, true God, the one who created the world and everything in it, had been finally made available to all. In the past they were outside of God’s family with little hope to come into it (see Eph. 2:11-19). God had always been there, though, providing through nature and they should have recognized that but they had turned instead to worshipping elements of the creation (cf. Rom. 1:18-23). This sermon as Luke has recounted it looks very similar to Paul’s sermon in chapter 17 and no doubt continued on to describe the good news of the resurrection of Christ just as he did there.
But the people were so locked into their own worldview that despite Paul’s powerful sermon pointing them to the true God through his Son Jesus Christ, they still had trouble shifting their paradigm and still wanted to make sacrifices to them as gods. The reality is that false religions stem from people’s desires rather than the other way around. This is why Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:3 that it is not that people are tricked into false religions and false doctrines but rather that they gather around them people that teach what they want to hear based on their desires. These people wanted the type of religion that they had already and despite the incredible miracle they had just seen were apparently not open to the stunning truth of the gospel.
If their desire had been for the truth that lies in the gospel they would have embraced it but instead, Luke tells us, that a group of Jews came over from Antioch and Iconium, and convinced them to reject what Paul and Barnabas had been saying. These people who wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas were now quickly swung in the other direction. They were enthralled thinking that the gods that they desired to worship had come to visit them but their excitement quickly turned into disillusionment. Their moment of hope that the gods had returned and they had a chance to please them disappeared. All that was left was the simple truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the men who were preaching that gospel. Their dashed hopes turned to blind rage and they dragged Paul outside of the city to stone him.
This was no day at the beach. Stoning was a violent act that was intended to kill someone and they thought that this time was no different. Although it didn’t kill him, the event clearly left an indelible impression on Paul who mentioned it as many as three times in other writings (2 Cor. 11:25; 2 Tim. 3:11; and possibly Gal. 6:17). What happened next is one of those incredible things that has made Paul a hero to many in the faith ever since. He had been rejected and beaten down by those who wanted nothing to do with the idea of being part of God’s family but the disciples gathered around him and gave him strength. Buoyed by their love and support, Paul rebounded and got right back up (Luke does not say that there was any specific miraculous element to Paul’s getting up and does not seem to imply any such miracle either). We might expect him to have gone somewhere safer and immediately flee Lystra but Paul was not going to let them get the best of him and the gospel. He picked himself up and walked right back into Lystra. Paul would leave for Derbe the next day, but it would be on his terms and not because of fear.
Devotional Thought
Can you identify with Paul’s situation here. It is unlikely that most of you reading this will ever be in danger of being stoned for the gospel but it can sure feel like it sometimes when we are rejected or mistreated for our faith. When that happens, what is your response? Is it to slink away and look for safety or is it to surround yourself with disciples, get re-energized, and go right back at the leading of the Holy Spirit? When you face your next “Lystra,” what will your response be?
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Acts 14:1-7
In Iconium
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and to live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and to live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
Friday, April 29, 2011
Acts 14:1-7
In Iconium
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6 But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the gospel.
Dig Deeper
Many Christians these days seem to have a real problem with Christianity. Oh, they love certain aspects of it, like maybe the traditions, the encouragement that it can bring, and the camaraderie but there are also aspects of it that they do not like. People who claim to be Christians themselves are almost embarrassed at the idea of Christianity being divisive in any way. They have instead turned Christianity into a sort of universal catch-all where any beliefs are welcome and they don’t want to create waves at all. They cringe at and denounce anything Christian that actually divides the saved from the lost, the disciple from the wanderer.
As trendy and popular as that sort of Christianity has become in our world of tolerance, it stands in stark contrast to the beliefs and practices of the first century. This can be difficult because it is not acceptable in our culture to claim a singular truth. It is deemed offensive and arrogant to do so. But at the heart of the gospel message is the truth that Jesus claimed that he was “the way, the truth, and the life,” and that no one could come to the Father but through him (Jn. 14:6). Jesus also made it quite clear that his gospel would cause division: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law” (Lk. 12:51-53). The message of the gospel that brings peace to those who accept it is so demanding and challenging that most will not accept and that automatically causes division.
Nearly every religion, of course, makes truth claims at one level or another. That is important because truth claims necessarily separate those that accept those truth claims from those that don’t. What sets Christianity apart, however, is that it is the only religion, philosophy, or worldview that can actually plausibly back up its claim to be truth. The vital question to ask here is how do we determine that a religion or philosophy is true? Nearly all religions and philosophies that seek to answer that question respond by saying that an adherent will simply know within themselves that this is true. It is that inner witness and confirmation which will tell them that their beliefs are true. But that is not what the early Christians staked their claim on. In the first 19 verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul makes it quite clear that the veracity of the Christian faith lies in the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it happened as claimed then Christianity is true and Jesus really is the rightful savior and Lord of the entire world. If it never happened, then Christianity is a sham and a waste of time.
Armed with the resurrection as the core of the truth of the gospel, as Luke has made clear throughout the book of Acts, the disciples went around boldly proclaiming the gospel. But just as surely as they preached the resurrection of Christ wherever they went they also encountered sharp opposition wherever they went. It was something that they could expect. Jesus had told them as much, saying “You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22). Wherever they went the gospel divided between those who wanted the light that was revealed through the preaching of the truth of the word of God and those who hated the light and chose to stay in the dark. It’s a truth that we must firmly understand and accept or the Christian walk will always be painful and unbearable. Preaching the truth will not be popular; it will not always produce results; and it will always cause division and opposition.
As was their usual custom, Paul and Barnabas began their preaching Iconium at the synagogue. It served as a good based to reach out to the Jews and Gentile God-fearers. Those who were waiting for God to act on his promises and were open to the truth of Jesus being the Messiah and fulfillment of those promises were quick to believe so the mission in Iconium met some early success. But that did not mean that things were all pleasant. The Jews who refused to accept the truth of the gospel were not content to simply reject it and walk away. They, like Paul once was, were determined to show their zeal for God’s ways by fighting and hopefully destroying this new upstart Messianic movement. So they stirred up the Gentiles, presumably both the God-fearing Gentiles and the pagan Gentiles, by slandering the gospel and urging them to actively oppose and persecute the Christians.
Without the fully established witness of the word of God as contained in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit confirmed their message through the means of signs and wonders. Luke doesn’t specifically recount what those were in Iconium, but they no doubt included the same sorts of things like praising God in languages that were previously unknown to the speaker and miraculous healing as they had performed in other places. These signs were not meant to impress so much as to demonstrate the values and principles of the age to come. Through the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of the kingdom of God, the elements of that future age were breaking into the present age. The manifestations of that, the signs and wonders, were confirmation that access to that age of eternal life really was available through the Messiah just as they claimed.
As Christianity will do, their message divided the city. To some it was foolishness. To others it was a stumbling block and a scandal. But to others, they saw in the gospel presentation, the power of God. The life of God’s age to come really had broken into the present age through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and had been made available not just to the Jews but also the Gentiles.
It appears that there was a bit of lag time between the arrival of Paul and Barnabas in Iconium and the time that the persecution against them gained traction. Luke doesn’t tell us how much time they were able to spend there but it was enough time that they were able to establish the core of a Christian community when they left. God had established a window for them of just enough time to do what they needed to do there and then get out before the persecution got too stiff. Eventually a plot somehow came to their attention that their lives were in danger and God had more work for them to do. It is important to note that the reason they left was not because their lives were in danger or because they were afraid but precisely because it was God’s plan and will that they continue on in the mission. When the time came for them to face death, they would do that without flinching, as men who believed firmly in the resurrection of those in Christ.
Upon leaving Iconium, Paul’s group would head Southwest to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe. This was no normal escape or vacation, however. They went there to continue their mission of preaching the gospel. This illustrates the importance of understanding the true nature of the gospel. If we rightly understand that the true gospel is the victory proclamation that Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who has defeated death through his resurrection and shown himself to be the true King and Lord of all people, and that the only proper response is to obey that proclamation by laying down our own lives and will, and entering into the body of believers that is God’s family, and live according to his will by putting the interests of the family of believers ahead of our own personal interests, then the path becomes clear. Wherever we go we can’t help but to declare this truth and live out the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. We realize that we are God’s people, called to live together as his family that is imperfect in this age but dedicated to the proposition of living here and now as a people that are committed to the values, principles, and realities of that future age. If this is our true mindset then we will naturally spread the gospel wherever we go.
If, however, we are confused on all of this and think of salvation as a personal issue between God and myself that does little more than change my future from an eternity in hell to one in heaven with God, then evangelism becomes a very different animal. It becomes something that I must constantly do rather than who I am. It becomes a task of which I can tire rather easily instead of a constant expression of the recognition of who we are in Christ and an ongoing expression of gratitude for calling us to be his family. It is when we really grasp that fully that we too will continue to preach the gospel wherever we go.
Devotional Thought
What is your attitude about evangelism? Is it something that you have to do or is it a natural expression of who you are? As you share your faith with those that need to hear the gospel have you embraced the fact that it will be divisive and not necessarily make you the most popular person? Why is that an important truth to grasp?
Monday, April 25, 2011
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?
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?
Friday, April 22, 2011
Acts 13:26-41
26 “Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.
32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:
“‘You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.[b]’[c]
34 The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words:
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’[d]
35 So it is stated elsewhere:
“‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’[e]
36 “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:
41 “‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’[f]”
Dig Deeper
Many people seek out happiness in their life with ruthless passion. They place their own perceived need for happiness above everything else in their life and will go after it with tireless devotion. Of course there is a fundamental flaw with that mentality despite the fact that most humans spend their entire lives in the endless pursuit of this elusive happiness. The reality is that humans were really created to run on happiness we were created to run on the fuel of being God’s image bearers. It is when we realize that function in our lives that we find true joy and the elusive happiness that comes along with that. The problem that this fundamental misunderstanding causes, however, is that people often spend a good bulk of their lives seeking after happiness in the wrong things and putting their hope in the wrong places.
People will pursue money, fame, wealth, sex, food, and a countless number of other things looking to find that eternal and lasting happiness in their lives but it will never come through those things. In fact, people can become so desperate in their never-ending saga to find the pool of happiness from which to drink that they will allow themselves to be abused and mistreated. Will do horrible things to themselves with drugs and alcohol in order to find happiness. Or they will let another person come into and out of a relationship with them and abuse them because they suspect that this person might bring them the happiness that they so desire. The sad thing is that they are putting their hope in the wrong place. I’m not sure that there is anything sadder than that.
Although it may not seem like it at first glance, misplaced hope is at the heart of Paul’s message here. It all comes down to a matter of where they were placing their hope. The Jews and God-fearing Gentiles understood that God had a story that he was weaving throughout history to have a people for himself. They all desired, at one level or another, to be part of that story. But where were they placing hope to be part of God’s story and his people? Was their hope invested in the right place? That is the key question that lies just beneath the surface here.
In the first part of this particular narrative, Paul demonstrated for his audience the fact that the story he was telling was the only logical continuation of the story of God and his people. It simply had to go this way. But now he clearly states perhaps the most exciting aspect of all. God had given many specific promises in the Old Testament concerning the formation of his promised family, their freedom from the curse of sin, and the coming of the Messiah to bring all of that about. For hundreds of years God’s people had waited in eager anticipation for God’s promises to come true. In fact, Hebrews 11 is a primer course on the righteous men and women of the Old Testament times and how they remained faithful to hope of God’s promises despite difficult circumstances and seeming evidence to the contrary. All of those promises had finally arrived and the best part was that they were the ones that were part of the very early years. The incredible gift of God’s salvation had come in their lifetime!
But with great opportunity also comes great responsibility. The Messiah had come during their lifetimes and they had the incredible opportunity to accept his life and salvation but that also meant that those who refused to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah would be making the catastrophic mistake of refusing God’s salvation. The rulers and leaders of the religious groups in Jerusalem had made that mistake. Their condemnation of Christ was really their own condemnation for what it really accomplished was that they took the role of those that had been prophesied who would oppose the Messiah and cause him to suffer. Their opposition, in fact, should not shake the confidence of anyone who was drawn to putting their faith in the Messiah for it wasn’t a sign that he was not the Messiah but was a fulfillment of prophecy and a sign that he was indeed the Messiah.
At every point, Paul stresses that the Jewish leadership acted not out of genuine concern for God but in opposition to him. They had so set themselves up against God’s true purposes that they found themselves fulfilling the role of the villainous persecutors that were all part of God’s plan for his suffering servant. In that sense, they acted according to God’s plan but not according to his will. They had him killed despite having no lawful reason for doing so, they hung him ingloriously on a tree to identify him as one cursed by God, and they had him put in a tomb to rot.
That was the verdict of the religious leaders of Jerusalem but God had clearly vetoed that decision by resurrecting Jesus from the dead. God had overruled their will with his own mighty power and there were many eyewitnesses who could bare testimony to that fact. In point of fact, becoming witnesses to the truth of the resurrection is what all disciples then were called to do and what we are still called to be now. Not in the same way of course, but we still are given the task of calling people to look at the evidence of the power of the resurrected Christ in our own lives.
Like Peter did in Acts, Paul then launched into a series of Old Testament passages to show his audience that he and the other disciples were not claiming to be witnesses to something that was not of God. The sacred Scriptures had pointed to the type of Messiah that Jesus had proven to be all along.
They might not have been able to piece together the prophecies to fully understand the role of the Messiah before he came, but now they only need to look at the Scriptures concerning the Messiah. The second Psalm had declared that a specific day would come when the messiah would be shown to be the true Son of God. And passages like Psalm 16:10 had declared that God’s holy one, the Messiah, would die but his body would somehow not see decay as all people do when they die. Paul also quoted from Isaiah 55 to make the point that all of the blessings and promises of God’s people would find their fulfillment in David’s family. Yet that Psalm goes on to imply that people would not immediately grasp how the Messiah could be the fulfillment of all of God’s promises because man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor man’s ways, God’s way.
His point with all of that was sharp and clear. God had given these promises to the house of David but David could clearly not have been the fulfillment of those promises. David died like all men do. David was buried and then his body decayed like all bodies do. That would clearly disqualify him from being the one that the Psalms referred to. When you think that the answer is 3 but the question is shown to be 2 + 2, the answer clearly cannot be 3. There was only one who could claim to have died yet been resurrected by God without seeing decay. He alone was the one in whom their hope should and their faith should lay.
This isn’t all just a bunch of random and interesting facts though. Understanding who the Messiah is and accepting him as such isn’t just nice mental exercise or even an important philosophy. It is the most important thing that anyone must decide. Do they accept Jesus as God’s promised Messiah or not. Because, according to Paul and the gospel, in the resurrection lies the reality of forgiveness of sins that are available only to those in God’s family. That’s, in that sense, what it means to be justified. God’s promise was to create a family of those that would be blessed from the curse of sin and becoming part of that family is only available by having faith in Jesus and entering through baptism into his life. Following the Law of Moses could never accomplish that. The Law and any other religion or philosophy that still exists today can only conform one’s current behavior. They cannot and never could change one’s status from outside of the family God to a full member (see Eph. 2) and they can never restore and transform one back into the image of God that they were created to be (see 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:21-24; 1 Cor. 15:49).
Because this is such an important and pivotal issue is why Paul attaches a warning. Rejecting the Messiah means completely missing the boat of what God is doing in the world. Verse 41 quotes from Habakkuk 1:5 where God warns of the dangers of missing out on what he is doing. Habakkuk goes on to say that he will stand watch and make every effort to not miss God’s work. God then promises that soon he will justify those that live by faith. This is exactly what God has delivered through his resurrected Messiah. It is in the Messiah alone that we can be justified and brought into God’s promised family. There is great danger if we put our trust in anything else. That’s a truth that must be truly believed by God’s people and proclaimed with great confidence.
Devotional Thought
How confident are you in declaring that entering into the life of Christ is the only way to be restored in the image of God and reconciled with the Father? It is not a popular message in our day but it is the truth. Isn’t it time that you declared it boldly?
32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:
“‘You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.[b]’[c]
34 The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words:
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’[d]
35 So it is stated elsewhere:
“‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’[e]
36 “For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 “Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:
41 “‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’[f]”
Dig Deeper
Many people seek out happiness in their life with ruthless passion. They place their own perceived need for happiness above everything else in their life and will go after it with tireless devotion. Of course there is a fundamental flaw with that mentality despite the fact that most humans spend their entire lives in the endless pursuit of this elusive happiness. The reality is that humans were really created to run on happiness we were created to run on the fuel of being God’s image bearers. It is when we realize that function in our lives that we find true joy and the elusive happiness that comes along with that. The problem that this fundamental misunderstanding causes, however, is that people often spend a good bulk of their lives seeking after happiness in the wrong things and putting their hope in the wrong places.
People will pursue money, fame, wealth, sex, food, and a countless number of other things looking to find that eternal and lasting happiness in their lives but it will never come through those things. In fact, people can become so desperate in their never-ending saga to find the pool of happiness from which to drink that they will allow themselves to be abused and mistreated. Will do horrible things to themselves with drugs and alcohol in order to find happiness. Or they will let another person come into and out of a relationship with them and abuse them because they suspect that this person might bring them the happiness that they so desire. The sad thing is that they are putting their hope in the wrong place. I’m not sure that there is anything sadder than that.
Although it may not seem like it at first glance, misplaced hope is at the heart of Paul’s message here. It all comes down to a matter of where they were placing their hope. The Jews and God-fearing Gentiles understood that God had a story that he was weaving throughout history to have a people for himself. They all desired, at one level or another, to be part of that story. But where were they placing hope to be part of God’s story and his people? Was their hope invested in the right place? That is the key question that lies just beneath the surface here.
In the first part of this particular narrative, Paul demonstrated for his audience the fact that the story he was telling was the only logical continuation of the story of God and his people. It simply had to go this way. But now he clearly states perhaps the most exciting aspect of all. God had given many specific promises in the Old Testament concerning the formation of his promised family, their freedom from the curse of sin, and the coming of the Messiah to bring all of that about. For hundreds of years God’s people had waited in eager anticipation for God’s promises to come true. In fact, Hebrews 11 is a primer course on the righteous men and women of the Old Testament times and how they remained faithful to hope of God’s promises despite difficult circumstances and seeming evidence to the contrary. All of those promises had finally arrived and the best part was that they were the ones that were part of the very early years. The incredible gift of God’s salvation had come in their lifetime!
But with great opportunity also comes great responsibility. The Messiah had come during their lifetimes and they had the incredible opportunity to accept his life and salvation but that also meant that those who refused to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah would be making the catastrophic mistake of refusing God’s salvation. The rulers and leaders of the religious groups in Jerusalem had made that mistake. Their condemnation of Christ was really their own condemnation for what it really accomplished was that they took the role of those that had been prophesied who would oppose the Messiah and cause him to suffer. Their opposition, in fact, should not shake the confidence of anyone who was drawn to putting their faith in the Messiah for it wasn’t a sign that he was not the Messiah but was a fulfillment of prophecy and a sign that he was indeed the Messiah.
At every point, Paul stresses that the Jewish leadership acted not out of genuine concern for God but in opposition to him. They had so set themselves up against God’s true purposes that they found themselves fulfilling the role of the villainous persecutors that were all part of God’s plan for his suffering servant. In that sense, they acted according to God’s plan but not according to his will. They had him killed despite having no lawful reason for doing so, they hung him ingloriously on a tree to identify him as one cursed by God, and they had him put in a tomb to rot.
That was the verdict of the religious leaders of Jerusalem but God had clearly vetoed that decision by resurrecting Jesus from the dead. God had overruled their will with his own mighty power and there were many eyewitnesses who could bare testimony to that fact. In point of fact, becoming witnesses to the truth of the resurrection is what all disciples then were called to do and what we are still called to be now. Not in the same way of course, but we still are given the task of calling people to look at the evidence of the power of the resurrected Christ in our own lives.
Like Peter did in Acts, Paul then launched into a series of Old Testament passages to show his audience that he and the other disciples were not claiming to be witnesses to something that was not of God. The sacred Scriptures had pointed to the type of Messiah that Jesus had proven to be all along.
They might not have been able to piece together the prophecies to fully understand the role of the Messiah before he came, but now they only need to look at the Scriptures concerning the Messiah. The second Psalm had declared that a specific day would come when the messiah would be shown to be the true Son of God. And passages like Psalm 16:10 had declared that God’s holy one, the Messiah, would die but his body would somehow not see decay as all people do when they die. Paul also quoted from Isaiah 55 to make the point that all of the blessings and promises of God’s people would find their fulfillment in David’s family. Yet that Psalm goes on to imply that people would not immediately grasp how the Messiah could be the fulfillment of all of God’s promises because man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor man’s ways, God’s way.
His point with all of that was sharp and clear. God had given these promises to the house of David but David could clearly not have been the fulfillment of those promises. David died like all men do. David was buried and then his body decayed like all bodies do. That would clearly disqualify him from being the one that the Psalms referred to. When you think that the answer is 3 but the question is shown to be 2 + 2, the answer clearly cannot be 3. There was only one who could claim to have died yet been resurrected by God without seeing decay. He alone was the one in whom their hope should and their faith should lay.
This isn’t all just a bunch of random and interesting facts though. Understanding who the Messiah is and accepting him as such isn’t just nice mental exercise or even an important philosophy. It is the most important thing that anyone must decide. Do they accept Jesus as God’s promised Messiah or not. Because, according to Paul and the gospel, in the resurrection lies the reality of forgiveness of sins that are available only to those in God’s family. That’s, in that sense, what it means to be justified. God’s promise was to create a family of those that would be blessed from the curse of sin and becoming part of that family is only available by having faith in Jesus and entering through baptism into his life. Following the Law of Moses could never accomplish that. The Law and any other religion or philosophy that still exists today can only conform one’s current behavior. They cannot and never could change one’s status from outside of the family God to a full member (see Eph. 2) and they can never restore and transform one back into the image of God that they were created to be (see 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:21-24; 1 Cor. 15:49).
Because this is such an important and pivotal issue is why Paul attaches a warning. Rejecting the Messiah means completely missing the boat of what God is doing in the world. Verse 41 quotes from Habakkuk 1:5 where God warns of the dangers of missing out on what he is doing. Habakkuk goes on to say that he will stand watch and make every effort to not miss God’s work. God then promises that soon he will justify those that live by faith. This is exactly what God has delivered through his resurrected Messiah. It is in the Messiah alone that we can be justified and brought into God’s promised family. There is great danger if we put our trust in anything else. That’s a truth that must be truly believed by God’s people and proclaimed with great confidence.
Devotional Thought
How confident are you in declaring that entering into the life of Christ is the only way to be restored in the image of God and reconciled with the Father? It is not a popular message in our day but it is the truth. Isn’t it time that you declared it boldly?
Monday, April 11, 2011
Acts 13:13-25
13 From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem. 14 From Perga they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak.”
16 Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; 18 for about forty years he endured their conduct[a] in the wilderness; 19 and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years.
“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21 Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’
23 “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
Dig Deeper
One of the interesting things about watching certain movies on DVD is all of the extra features that they add to a disc in addition to the movie itself. Occasionally you will watch a movie that has an interesting ending only to go to the extra features on the DVD and find that they have an alternate ending or several alternate endings. I remember watching one movie that had something like five or six alternate endings. It’s always a bit interesting to watch those different scenarios but sometimes the alternate endings radically change the way the movie ends or even changes the way that you look at the whole movie. There has been a few times where I have watched the alternate ending and almost felt like it ruined the experience of watching the movie for me and seeing it come to a satisfying conclusion. I always have to wonder just how important the story actually was and how tightly was it written if it can end in multiple ways.
As we have already seen throughout the book of Acts, most notably in Acts 7 with Stephen’s account, the early Christians most generally relayed the gospel to others through the vehicle of telling story. This is especially true when they were speaking to Jews but it certainly wasn’t limited to that. Stories connect with people and invite them to join in and find their own place in the narrative and how they can carry the tale forward into the future. As human beings we seem to be programmed to connect with and be moved by a good story. I know of no one that will pay $10 to sit in a darkened room as interesting facts are scrolled on a screen but we will do so readily in a movie theater if we think that we are going to see a good story. Despite the fact that the gospel is rarely preached or told as a story in our day, that was the primary way that the early church shared about Jesus the Christ.
They usually did this by telling the story of Israel and brining out certain aspects to show that God’s story was moving in a specific direction the whole time. What really made this story unique, though, was the fact that it simply could not have an alternate ending. If told correctly, the story of the Old Testament can only end properly with Jesus Christ. Without Christ it is an incomplete story and without the true gospel about Jesus Christ, the story just does not come together rightly. This is precisely what Paul was getting at in Romans 8:29 when, in the middle of explaining just who God’s people are, he says that “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). In other words, from the beginning of time it was God’s plan to have a Christ-shaped family. The story of God’s people could only end with Jesus as the Messiah because that is precisely where the story was heading the entire time. If you change the ending the story became meaningless. That is what the early Christians wanted people to see and understand.
Luke begins this section by slipping in the detail that John Mark left the work as they arrived in Pamphylia and returned to Jerusalem. He doesn’t give us any details on why John Mark left and so any speculation on our part is nothing more than just that. Luke has slipped in this small detail here, though, because what seems insignificant right now will become important in the end of chapter 15 when a dispute will arise over this very incident.
It seems that by this time, Paul has come to the forefront in leadership which seems to be indicated by the fact that Luke refers to the group as “Paul and his companions” rather than “Barnabas and Saul” as he has fairly regularly up to this point. The usual practice for Paul on his missionary journeys was to start his base of preaching in the synagogues and work outward from there. This time was no different as he began preaching in Pisidian Antioch (a different Antioch than the one that served as the home church for Paul and Barnabas) on the Sabbath, the easiest time to find groups of Jews and Gentile God-fearers (Gentiles that respected certain aspects of the Jewish religion and even worshiped with them but had not become circumcised and were not considered to be full members of God’s family) gathered together. Paul jumped at the opportunity to speak, although whether this chance came about through common courtesy shown to visitors or if it was that those at the synagogue had heard of Paul and his gospel and were curious to hear it, we are not told.
Stephen spent a good deal of time expounding on the story of Israel, focusing on Abraham, Joseph, and Moses to make the point that Israel’s story was always pointing to a Messiah like Jesus. It was where the story had to end. Paul is going to make the same point but focus on different aspects of God’s story. He will do that by spending a great deal of time talking about Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David, and thus emphasizing Jesus’ kingly heritage.
There was no question in Paul’s mind that the one, true God had chosen Israel to be his people. He would preach that point strongly to Jews but also to a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentile God-fearers like this one. God had called Israel and brought them out of Egypt, patiently enduring their idolatrous conduct and bringing them into the land of Canaan. Paul stresses that God had worked patiently and slowly throughout all of this, taking, in fact, 450 years to bring this all about.
God continued to show patience and work slowly to bring about his ultimate plan through the time of the judges. This was a time when Israel repeatedly drifted from God only to cry out to him and experience his merciful deliverance. Again, though, God was slowly moving the story ahead that would culminate in his Messiah.
But God’s deliverance and mercy wasn’t enough for the people of Israel. They wanted a king and so God granted them one. He gave them Saul who ruled for forty years but God removed him as one who did not embrace God’s purposes and will. He then gave them David, not a perfect or sinless man, but a man who would seek God’s will in his life and during his reign.
David was the recipient of some key promises from God that tucked neatly into the original promises that God made to Abraham. Specifically, God had promised David that he would have an offspring that would come after him that would rule forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16; 22:51; Ps. 89:27-29, 35-37; 132:11-12). If this promised one was the one that would rule forever, then it only followed that this was the Messiah that would bring salvation to the people for eternity and bring about God’s long-promised family. To follow the story of God in what he did patiently to bring about David as the mighty king of Israel and then to look at the incredible promises that God gave to David, was to realize that this story could only culminate in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Messiah. The descendant that would rule forever could not have been referring to Solomon or any other of David’s descendants. It just could not have been a reference to any normal descendant or king. It had to refer to Jesus’ eternal rule over the world from the kingdom of God. He was the only possible way for this story to move forward. Take away Jesus and there were promises made by God that he would never fulfill and that simply could not be. If God failed to come through on his promises then he was no longer God.
But God would not send the promised king without him coming properly announced. That was John’s role. Repentance was a word used in the ancient world primarily in the military setting and often denoted one who was surrendering his way of life and joining the other army to avoid being annihilated. Baptism during the Old Testament times was used as someone was leaving their people and pagan gods behind and joining the people of Israel. It was a symbolic cleansing as one came to the God of Israel and joined the Jewish people. That John was using those terms was no small detail. The repentance and baptism that he declared were also symbols that would prepare people for the coming of the King. When the King came, the eternal repentance and the true baptism into the Messiah (that is why the New Testament writers were clear that water baptism into Christ by a believer was no mere symbol) would soon be available. John was pointing people to the next chapter, the coming of the Messiah as the fulfillment of God’s story. From David to John, all of the plot points of this story were pointing ahead to the only possible ending, the Messiah Jesus Christ.
The early Christians were masterful story tellers who consistently made the story of the gospel relevant to their audience. We face that same challenge today and it is our challenge to find new and relevant ways to show our audiences today where they fit into God’s story.
Devotional Thought
Have you done the work of being able to tell the story of God in the world and his Messiah in a way that includes and connects with people today? Spend some time contemplating what that might look like and how you might be the most effective that you can be in sharing the gospel with those around you that really need to hear it.
16 Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17 The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; 18 for about forty years he endured their conduct[a] in the wilderness; 19 and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years.
“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21 Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22 After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’
23 “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
Dig Deeper
One of the interesting things about watching certain movies on DVD is all of the extra features that they add to a disc in addition to the movie itself. Occasionally you will watch a movie that has an interesting ending only to go to the extra features on the DVD and find that they have an alternate ending or several alternate endings. I remember watching one movie that had something like five or six alternate endings. It’s always a bit interesting to watch those different scenarios but sometimes the alternate endings radically change the way the movie ends or even changes the way that you look at the whole movie. There has been a few times where I have watched the alternate ending and almost felt like it ruined the experience of watching the movie for me and seeing it come to a satisfying conclusion. I always have to wonder just how important the story actually was and how tightly was it written if it can end in multiple ways.
As we have already seen throughout the book of Acts, most notably in Acts 7 with Stephen’s account, the early Christians most generally relayed the gospel to others through the vehicle of telling story. This is especially true when they were speaking to Jews but it certainly wasn’t limited to that. Stories connect with people and invite them to join in and find their own place in the narrative and how they can carry the tale forward into the future. As human beings we seem to be programmed to connect with and be moved by a good story. I know of no one that will pay $10 to sit in a darkened room as interesting facts are scrolled on a screen but we will do so readily in a movie theater if we think that we are going to see a good story. Despite the fact that the gospel is rarely preached or told as a story in our day, that was the primary way that the early church shared about Jesus the Christ.
They usually did this by telling the story of Israel and brining out certain aspects to show that God’s story was moving in a specific direction the whole time. What really made this story unique, though, was the fact that it simply could not have an alternate ending. If told correctly, the story of the Old Testament can only end properly with Jesus Christ. Without Christ it is an incomplete story and without the true gospel about Jesus Christ, the story just does not come together rightly. This is precisely what Paul was getting at in Romans 8:29 when, in the middle of explaining just who God’s people are, he says that “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29). In other words, from the beginning of time it was God’s plan to have a Christ-shaped family. The story of God’s people could only end with Jesus as the Messiah because that is precisely where the story was heading the entire time. If you change the ending the story became meaningless. That is what the early Christians wanted people to see and understand.
Luke begins this section by slipping in the detail that John Mark left the work as they arrived in Pamphylia and returned to Jerusalem. He doesn’t give us any details on why John Mark left and so any speculation on our part is nothing more than just that. Luke has slipped in this small detail here, though, because what seems insignificant right now will become important in the end of chapter 15 when a dispute will arise over this very incident.
It seems that by this time, Paul has come to the forefront in leadership which seems to be indicated by the fact that Luke refers to the group as “Paul and his companions” rather than “Barnabas and Saul” as he has fairly regularly up to this point. The usual practice for Paul on his missionary journeys was to start his base of preaching in the synagogues and work outward from there. This time was no different as he began preaching in Pisidian Antioch (a different Antioch than the one that served as the home church for Paul and Barnabas) on the Sabbath, the easiest time to find groups of Jews and Gentile God-fearers (Gentiles that respected certain aspects of the Jewish religion and even worshiped with them but had not become circumcised and were not considered to be full members of God’s family) gathered together. Paul jumped at the opportunity to speak, although whether this chance came about through common courtesy shown to visitors or if it was that those at the synagogue had heard of Paul and his gospel and were curious to hear it, we are not told.
Stephen spent a good deal of time expounding on the story of Israel, focusing on Abraham, Joseph, and Moses to make the point that Israel’s story was always pointing to a Messiah like Jesus. It was where the story had to end. Paul is going to make the same point but focus on different aspects of God’s story. He will do that by spending a great deal of time talking about Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David, and thus emphasizing Jesus’ kingly heritage.
There was no question in Paul’s mind that the one, true God had chosen Israel to be his people. He would preach that point strongly to Jews but also to a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentile God-fearers like this one. God had called Israel and brought them out of Egypt, patiently enduring their idolatrous conduct and bringing them into the land of Canaan. Paul stresses that God had worked patiently and slowly throughout all of this, taking, in fact, 450 years to bring this all about.
God continued to show patience and work slowly to bring about his ultimate plan through the time of the judges. This was a time when Israel repeatedly drifted from God only to cry out to him and experience his merciful deliverance. Again, though, God was slowly moving the story ahead that would culminate in his Messiah.
But God’s deliverance and mercy wasn’t enough for the people of Israel. They wanted a king and so God granted them one. He gave them Saul who ruled for forty years but God removed him as one who did not embrace God’s purposes and will. He then gave them David, not a perfect or sinless man, but a man who would seek God’s will in his life and during his reign.
David was the recipient of some key promises from God that tucked neatly into the original promises that God made to Abraham. Specifically, God had promised David that he would have an offspring that would come after him that would rule forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16; 22:51; Ps. 89:27-29, 35-37; 132:11-12). If this promised one was the one that would rule forever, then it only followed that this was the Messiah that would bring salvation to the people for eternity and bring about God’s long-promised family. To follow the story of God in what he did patiently to bring about David as the mighty king of Israel and then to look at the incredible promises that God gave to David, was to realize that this story could only culminate in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Messiah. The descendant that would rule forever could not have been referring to Solomon or any other of David’s descendants. It just could not have been a reference to any normal descendant or king. It had to refer to Jesus’ eternal rule over the world from the kingdom of God. He was the only possible way for this story to move forward. Take away Jesus and there were promises made by God that he would never fulfill and that simply could not be. If God failed to come through on his promises then he was no longer God.
But God would not send the promised king without him coming properly announced. That was John’s role. Repentance was a word used in the ancient world primarily in the military setting and often denoted one who was surrendering his way of life and joining the other army to avoid being annihilated. Baptism during the Old Testament times was used as someone was leaving their people and pagan gods behind and joining the people of Israel. It was a symbolic cleansing as one came to the God of Israel and joined the Jewish people. That John was using those terms was no small detail. The repentance and baptism that he declared were also symbols that would prepare people for the coming of the King. When the King came, the eternal repentance and the true baptism into the Messiah (that is why the New Testament writers were clear that water baptism into Christ by a believer was no mere symbol) would soon be available. John was pointing people to the next chapter, the coming of the Messiah as the fulfillment of God’s story. From David to John, all of the plot points of this story were pointing ahead to the only possible ending, the Messiah Jesus Christ.
The early Christians were masterful story tellers who consistently made the story of the gospel relevant to their audience. We face that same challenge today and it is our challenge to find new and relevant ways to show our audiences today where they fit into God’s story.
Devotional Thought
Have you done the work of being able to tell the story of God in the world and his Messiah in a way that includes and connects with people today? Spend some time contemplating what that might look like and how you might be the most effective that you can be in sharing the gospel with those around you that really need to hear it.
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