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?

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?

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?

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.

Acts 13:1-12

1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

On Cyprus
4 The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.
6 They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, 7 who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. 9 Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, 10 “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? 11 Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”
Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord.



Dig Deeper
The other day I was reading a book about biblical teaching. In that book, the author recounted a small story about an biblical teacher that he had met many years before. This influential teacher was observing with a tinge of disappointment and complaint in his voice that everywhere the apostle Paul went they started riots but everywhere he went, they served him tea. This man was wondering what the difference was and why he was politely served tea everywhere he went. The author of the book of that I was reading wondered the same thing without coming to much more of a conclusion than the idea that perhaps the content of Paul’s teaching was a bit more biting than what most biblical teachers would stomach today.

The author was on the right track. Why did they riot wherever Saul went and most biblical teachers, preachers, and Christians are treated as respectable members of their societies? The answer to that probably lies in the word “confront.” We might like to think that once the Messiah had arrived that the world quickly turned to the freeing beauty of the truth of the gospel and that the early church peacefully grew as a force of good and transformation in the world, but anyone who has spent more than ten seconds studying the Bible or early church history knows that that was not the case. The Messiah came into enemy territory to free those who were enslaved to the god of this age and the tyranny of doing their own will and living for themselves. But like an earthly kingdom, this kingdom will not go down without a bitter fight. The true gospel is unlikely to spread without confrontation with evil and the systems of the world. That’s just a reality that Paul and the early Christians understood. Saul didn’t try to make nice with the culture around him. He confronted it. He declared the subversive message of the gospel wherever he went. And make no mistake, the true gospel is deeply subversive because it challenges those in power and positions of authority. Not because it is a political movement that seeks to overthrow kingdoms but because it calls people to live by completely different values. That in itself becomes frightening and threatening to those who find the very source of their authority in the state of people living for themselves. The gospel calls people to lay down that life and those values and live an entirely different sort of life, one that gives allegiance to King Jesus and that is deeply committed to living with the best interests of others and the kingdom of God first. That will cause confrontation, guaranteed.

Wherever Saul went, confrontation was soon to follow. Saul took on the institutions that were opposed to God’s will and declared the kingship of Jesus the Messiah to a world that was not so eager to hear about it. Whether it was preaching the gospel in synagogues in each town or directly confronting pagan powers in a Gentile town, Paul knew that confrontation would be one of the primary vehicles through which the gospel was spread.

But none of this was blind confrontation. Saul and the other Christians weren’t just walking around looking for a fight. These were people that had been commissioned and gifted by God for specific roles and purposes and sent by the Holy Spirit to specific places. Luke describes Antioch as a mature church that had prophets and teachers and an entire church that was attending to the will of the Holy Spirit. They were engaged in regular worship and fasting and were humbly seeking guidance from the Lord. While they were doing that, Luke says that the Holy Spirit called for them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for a specific role. We aren’t told exactly what Luke meant by saying that the Spirit told them this, but he doesn’t give any indication that this was any sort of audible voice. More likely is that as the group was praying and fasting, the Spirit put a strong sense of resolve in the hearts of all of those present that Saul and Barnabas had been set apart for this job. It is typically through the gentle moving of the hearts of those that are deeply committed to finding God’s will that the Spirit “speaks,” and this was probably the case here. It does speak volumes about the church in Antioch, though, that they were so immediately willing to send out two of their most important leaders at the urging of the Spirit. The mission, after all, was God’s. The mission was to spread the gospel to the world, not build up the church in Antioch to ever-increasing strength and prominence. So after feeling that the Spirit had spoken to them and requested Saul and Barnabas, they prayed and fasted some more and then sent them out.

As they arrived in Salamis, they followed Saul’s usual custom of preaching first in the synagogue, before spreading out to the rest of the island. As the pair went around Cyprus preaching, they immediately found the confrontation that characterized the early preaching of the gospel. Before we consider that, however, it is important to note two small details that Luke slips into this section. The first is that John Mark had joined them in their work. That’s a detail that seems incidental here but will become important later. The other detail is that Luke tells us Saul was also called Paul. In fact, Luke uses the name Paul from here on out and so will we. Roman citizens typically had three names. Paul would have been his third name or what is called the “cognomen,” but we are never told his first two names. Saul was his Jewish name, a moniker that he would have proudly used as the name of Israel’s first king, but a name that would not have been helpful in a primarily Gentile setting (in fact some have asserted that the Latin form of “Saul” meant something like “effeminate”). Paul was adapting himself to the situations that the Holy Spirit led him into.

In Paphos, Paul and Barnabas came upon two men in particular. One was the local Jewish sorcerer and man of influence, who was known as Bar-Jesus (Jesus was a very common first-century name). Sorcery was outlawed in the Jewish religion but that didn’t stop many such men from plying their craft and influence nonetheless. The other man was the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. He had evidently already come under the influence of Bar-Jesus but was someone that Luke described as being intelligent, no doubt in part because he was willing to listen to the gospel.

Sergius Paulus wanted to hear Paul speak the word of God as he had surely heard much already of the power of the gospel, but Bar-Jesus immediately understood the threat. If Sergius Paulus were to listen to the word of God and become part of the Christian family it would destroy the influence that he had built up with the proconsul. Surely he tried to convince the proconsul that this man Paul was preaching nonsense. Perhaps he made the argument that the believers were dangerous or that they were a cult (to put it into today’s terminology). Surely Bar-Jesus said whatever he needed to say to convince Sergius Paulus that this man, Paul, was not worth listening to.

Bar-Jesus was filled with his own selfish ambition, but Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit. He understood that the gospel was not going to be spread by being nice. The gospel demands that the truth be boldly declared. There is no mincing or softening to be found in Paul’s words because he understood that Bar-Jesus was not a lost seeker but was one who had made his decision was not only an opponent of the gospel but was actively seeking to keep others from the truth. There was no room for compromise or niceties. So Paul declared him to be full of the devil, an enemy of what is right, a deceiver and one who perverted the ways of the Lord. God’s judgment had come upon him. In fact, his fierce opposition to God’s will was not even the cause of God’s judgment but a sign of it, just as in Romans 1, when Paul declares that the sin of nations is a sign that God had judged them and turned them over to their own sinful desires. The blindness that struck Bar-Jesus was simply a physical reality of the spiritual blindness that he had already been turned over to. The blindness would serve as a physical and tangible example to the proconsul and others of BarJesus’ true spiritual condition.

The proconsul immediately understood the point as well as the power of the gospel and believed. Despite all of his sorcery and claims, Bar-Jesus had never shown any power like this and his spiritual blindness had been exposed. Once again Jesus Christ had been shown to be the true King with the true power. Sergius Paulus was convinced by the combination of hearing the word of God and seeing the power of that word in action. The gospel doesn’t always require miracles like the one that took place here, but it is something designed to be put into action. When the truth of the word is combined with people seeing the word in action, it becomes a powerful evangelistic combination.


Devotional Thought
As Christians we are never called to create confrontation for confrontation’s sake but we are also called to preach the word of God wherever we find ourselves and not shrink back. How about you? Are willing to face the confrontation that truly sharing the gospel with others will inevitably bring or do you soften it up a bit so that you won’t have to deal with confrontation?

Acts 12:20-26

20 He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. After securing the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king’s country for their food supply.
21 On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22 They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” 23 Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

24 But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.

Barnabas and Saul Sent Off
25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.


Dig Deeper
There are various points throughout the Old Testament where someone would violate the holiness of God’s presence and pay dearly for it. Someone would offer an invalid sacrifice to God and immediately be struck with a terrible disease or someone else would reach out and touch the Ark of the Covenant despite God’s warnings not to do so and they would fall dead instantly. There are many such examples throughout the Scriptures of the Old Covenant and yet, there are also many other times when people would disobey God and not be struck down immediately. In fact, as we saw in Acts 5, a very similar situation happened with Ananias and Sapphira. They attempted to deceive God by lying to his people and pretending to be fully part of God’s family when they were not. After being given an opportunity to be honest and repent and failing to do so, they both fell over dead immediately. The repercussions of their behavior were as swift as they were stiff. But, we have to wonder, why them? Why did they keel over dead and not so many others? After all, there are plenty of people who have tried deceive God and be something amongst his people that they were not in their hearts. Why do some die and others don’t?

The answer to that question is not something that we can fully answer. To know the answer to that question one would have to be able to know the mind of God. What we do know, however, is that at certain places and times God allows the judgment and consequences of people’s behavior to come upon them immediately so as to serve as a warning and a cautionary tale for the rest of the people. When we violate God’s laws and word, the spiritual effects and ramifications are just as serious as those who felt their punishment immediately. It’s as if God is telling us, “This is what will happen to you ultimately if you commit these same sorts of acts and don’t repent.” The choice is then ours to learn from those situations or to not learn and be determined to face the consequences in eternity for ourselves.

This situation with King Herod seems to be one of those situations. He was certainly not the first king to begin to think of himself as so powerful that he was divine and he will not be the last, but he did suffer his punishment immediately. He had taken the mantle as king of those who purported to be God’s people and now had the nerve to oppose God’s true people and had finally shown the fullness of his true colors. He was more than willing to be worshipped and treated like a god. He was willing to take the place of the one, true, God and for that, he would be cut down immediately as an example for all.

After leaving behind the debacle of Peter escaping and the ensuing embarrassment of that situation, Herod Agrippa I made his way to Caesarea. The leaders of Tyre and Sidon joined Herod there to have an audience with him. We are not told what quarrel he was having with the people of this region but we do know that this was an area that had relied on Judea for its food supply for hundreds of years, so it was intensely in their favor to remain on the good side of Herod. Whatever the quarrel was, it is somewhat safe to assume that it was his problem with them and not the other way around. This was evidently a region where Herod felt quite comfortable and clearly had the upper hand. After such a humiliating incident with Peter’s escape, Herod would do what many people do after such an event. He went somewhere where he was in control and could dictate events.

As he arrived in Caesarea, the people of Tyre and Sidon quickly sought an audience with the King to ensure that they would continue to curry his favor and much needed support. They ensured that they first secured the support of Blastus, one of the king’s most trusted advisors. We aren’t told the nature of this support but it may have come through bribery or similar means. They wanted the king’s advisor to push for peace and not conflict because they so deeply relied on the King’s support.

The scene described in verse 21 may seem odd but it is really not outside of the normal realm of natural human behavior. They had mistakenly come to believe that their food supply and provision came from the favor of the King rather than from God and that is dangerous. Whenever we confuse the source of our provision, whether it be our jobs or a king, we are quick to give way too much power, adoration, and even worship to our perceived provider. It quickly becomes our God.

This incident with Herod in Caesarea is particularly interesting because Luke was not the only surviving account of this encounter. The Jewish historian, Josephus, also described this account. According to Josephus, “There came together for this occasion a large number of provincial officials and others of distinguished position. On the second day of the shows Agrippa put on a robe made of silver throughout, of quite wonderful weaving, and entered the theatre at break of day. Then the silver shone and glittered wonderfully as the sun’s first rays fell on it, and its resplendence inspired a sort of fear and trembling in those who gazed at it. Immediately his flatterers called out from various directions, in language which boded him no good, for they invoked him as a god: ‘Be gracious to us!’ They cried. ‘Hitherto we have reverenced you as a human being, but henceforth we confess you to be of more than mortal nature’. He did did rebuke them, nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. . . At the same time he was seized with a severe pain in his bowels, which quickly increased in intensity. . . He was hastily carried into the palace, and. . . when he had suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his life and the seventh year of his kingship.”

Luke stresses the fact that Herod was struck immediately with this illness and that it was a direct result of his acceptance of this blasphemy, while Josephus adds that it took him five days to actually die from this immediate illness. The problem was that Herod didn’t just fail to turn away this bit of worship, he had encouraged it and played into it. He paraded around in a shiny silver robe that reflected the sun brilliantly and further fed into the adoration of those around him. They were willing to accept that a normal man couldn’t have the power and the prestige and put this altogether like this. So they were willing recognize that Herod was a god.

Both Luke and Josephus saw the error of this. Herod should have immediately rebuffed such praise as Luke will describe Paul and Barnabas doing in Acts 14 when people take their miraculous actions as something that only the gods could pull off. Paul and Barnabas were horrified by such suggestions but Herod enjoyed it.

Luke has already been drawing a comparison between King Herod and King Jesus and now it comes to a head. Jesus was the true King and Herod was just a shadow of that. Herod was stealing what rightly belonged to the true King and he would pay for it. The contrast is stark. Jesus was the true King but was rejected by men, only to conquer death and demonstrate that he really was the true King of Israel and the world. But Herod was just a parody of the true King. He tried to curry the favor of men, and when he received their praise unjustly he accepted it falsely. And yet, the very foe that Jesus had defeated would humble Herod and show him to be nothing more than a man after all. He had fallen prey to the one enemy that no human had ever defeated, except for the true King Jesus the Messiah. Jesus was now with the Father in heaven, ruling at his right hand, while Herod would be eaten by the worms. He went the way of all things and people that set themselves up against the rightful King.

With Herod firmly in the grave, proving his mortality and weakness, the true power of Jesus would continue to be felt. When Herod died, that was the end. There was no more adoration; no more worship; and no one thought of him as the king or divine anymore. Death proved him powerless. But the word of God in the gospel would continue to flourish. More and more would come to know Jesus as the Son of God and the true King of the world. Death had proved him to be powerful beyond compare.


Devotional Thought
Who do you rely on as your provider? Is it really God or do you tend to view yourself, someone else, or even your job as your provider? It is an important question to really examine because we usually tend to worship our provider with our time, energy, and resources. Look to see who you really believe to be your provider because that is probably your God as well.

Acts 12:6-19

6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. 17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

18 In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. 19 After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.


Dig Deeper
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon amongst many dictators and tyrants in the world. They tend to rule by very harsh measures when need be but most of them also seem to thrive on the approval of their people. They seem to deeply need to believe that their followers love them and they will force the situation if necessary. In fact there is one dictator in Northern Africa right now who is experiencing great unrest in his country. The country is basically in full out revolt against him and has instituted a full-scale and grass-roots civil war against him. Yet, when interviewed he blindly holds to the belief that his people love him and that the violence is simply a result of terrorist groups from outside of his country. He continues to seek the favor of his people and live in the belief that they love him even though that myth is being quickly exposed to the outside world. What it reveals is that this man, like most dictators, seem to be more like spoiled children deeply in need of the approval and support of others. When they don’t get it or they are embarrassed they can lash out in very violent and dangerous ways.

Luke has already been drawing a contrast between King Herod Agrippa I and Jesus, the Messiah, the one whom his followers were claiming to be the true King of the entire world. During the Passover week the people of Jesus were preparing to celebrate the ways in which God had freed them from the slavery of sin and truly brought blessing into their lives. He did this not through violence or coercion but through the death and suffering of the Messiah himself. But Herod was a stark contrast to this. He gained and kept power through political maneuvers, violence, intrigue, and any other necessary means. Rather than celebrating God’s deliverance during Passover, Herod observed the holiday by imprisoning Peter and seeking to crush the very movement of God’s people that was designed to be the true fulfillment of the promise of Passover.

Now in Herod’s prison cell, where he had locked Peter away, the power of these two kings would come to a showdown. Who was truly in control and sovereign? Whose way of doing things would win out? Whose power would truly last? Would the prayer of the Christian community be able to overcome the power and force behind Herod’s rule? These are all valid questions that will be addressed in one strange and miraculous incident.

As we pick up in verse 6, Luke has moved ahead to the night before Herod would bring Peter to trial and have him executed, something that usually happened on the same day. Remarkably, Peter was so at peace and so comfortable with his trust in God that he was deep asleep. There seems to have been absolutely no worry on the part of Peter. Surely he reasoned that either God would rescue him somehow or that he would die like James and go to be with Christ. This was a no lose situation for him. It was as Paul would write in his letter to the Philippians, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). If Peter were rescued he would continue to boldly serve God and preach the good news but if he died, then that would be fine too because his work was done and he could finish the race with a clear conscience. So he slept soundly.

Herod was clearly taking no chances by having Peter chained to to soldiers and guarded by sentries at the entrance. Herod was making sure that there would be no great escapes, miraculous or otherwise. He was not about to lose his great prize and miss out on the chance of further cementing his popularity with his people.

Deep in the middle of the night when people just start to reach the deepest reaches of sleep, Peter was startled back to the world of the awakened by a sharp jab in the side. The angel told Peter to grab his stuff and follow him. They would not be coming back and he surely didn’t want to catch a chill in the middle of the night. Peter was so unprepared for this and so startled that it took him a few moments to fully wake up and realize that this was for real. This was no mere vision or dream. God had chosen to hear the prayers of the faithful believers who were petitioning God for Peter’s release. God had no doubt planned for Peter to be released all along but as the believers prayed humbly for God’s will to be revealed, they were allowed to be part of God’s plan. It was not yet Peter’s time to depart and be with the Lord.

At each point, it is clear that Luke is driving home the point that this angelic release was nothing short of supernatural. The chains fell off of Peter’s wrists without so much as disturbing the soldier on either side of him. They went through several guards, doors, and the outer gate without disturbing anyone, culminating in that large iron outer gate swinging open all by itself. If he hadn’t already been convinced that this was a miraculous escape, the gate swinging open by itself must have cemented that reality in Peter’s mind.

Then in the blink of an eye, the angel was gone. I’m sure Peter’s heart was racing by this point, but he needed to think clearly. First he needed to realize that this was the Lord that was at work. It was the Lord’s angel who had rescued him from Herod’s foolish clutches. Herod and his supporters wanted to put Peter to death which might have made Peter begin to question whether he was doing the right thing. Normally you might think that going to prison would make someone question the rightness of their cause all the more but his imprisonment and subsequent release had been used by God to bring even more clarity to Peter. God had opposed the desires of the Jewish people and Herod who wanted Peter dead. Peter had more work to do. Now that he realized that this was none other than the work of God, Peter continued to shake out the cobwebs and determine what must be done next.

He quickly decided that he must go to the the house of Mary, John Mark’s mother, where many Christians, perhaps Peter’s own house church, had gathered to pray for Peter’s deliverance. In the midst of these harrowing and very real events, Luke brings a bit of sly humor that has the ring much more of a true event as opposed to manufactured myth.

When Peter arrived and knocked on the door, the fulfillment of the very thing that the believers were praying for, a servant girl named Rhoda was so filled with joy that she literally left Peter out standing in the cold. We should not miss the details here that this seemingly insignificant servant girl was not only described as being overjoyed but also that she was named by Luke. Both details add up to the strong probability that she was a believer and a sister in the community. It’s further proof that this movement was a family that was open to all, whether they were rich and powerful or lowly servants. She was just as much a member of the family as anyone else.

When she ran back to tell the others, they thought she was out of her mind. There’s a humorous irony in that she went back to tell them the very thing that they were praying for, but that they didn’t believe her. It’s somehow comforting, though, to know that the early Christians could be just as full of faith and clarity at some times while struggling with doubt, confusion, or muddled thought at other time, just as we can surely be. Someone, in their confusion, threw out the idea that perhaps it was Peter’s angel. This was probably a vestige of a sometimes held Jewish belief that people had guardian angels that sometimes looked much like the person themselves. That belief was more of a Jewish superstition than it was solid theology or Luke’s endorsement of that belief (the early Christians still had things that they needed to work through and grow in their understanding just like we do), and Luke’s recording of it is another of those small details in this passage that give it the ring of truth.

After finally being let in and telling them all that had happened Luke tells us that Peter told them to inform James and the other brothers and then “left for another place.” Peter no doubt knew that he would be a wanted man in the morning and didn’t want to bring any other danger onto the other believers, as well as likely realizing that God had further work for him to do and knowing that he should get to safety so that he could carry that work on. Luke doesn’t tell us where he went and it is likely that Peter “disappeared” so well that no one knew for sure where he had gone, including Luke.

When the morning dawned, chaos ensued. No one could understand what had become of Peter. Herod furiously searched for him, no doubt finding this a major embarrassment. What was supposed to be his great moment of further endearing himself to the people and increasing his stature was about to blow up in his face. His response looked much more like a petulant child throwing a fit than a mature king leading wisely. The guards bore no fault in this situation but someone had to pay for this in Herod’s mind so he had them killed. He would certainly not open us mind to the idea that he his true opponent was God not Peter and the Christian community and that his true need was repentance and not public popularity. It also seems, according to the text, that Herod left Judea to go to Caesarea, quite possibly to escape the scrutiny and embarrassment of this situation. People do strange things when what men think of them becomes more important than what God knows of them.


Devotional Thought
What is more important to you? Is it what other people think of you or what God knows of you? Are you truly determined to live a life of honesty, confession, and integrity despite what other people might think so that you can stand blameless before God?

Acts 12:1-5

1 It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. 2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. 3 When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. 4 After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.


Dig Deeper
I grew up watching “Rocky” movies and I always enjoyed them to be quite honest. A few years ago, a new Rocky Balboa movie was made depicting Rocky as an aging retired boxer who is lured out of retirement to fight the current champion. What entices Rocky out of retirement is a fictional computer match-up between Rocky in his prime and the current heavy weight champion. The computer simulates a fight and determines that Rocky would be the winner. The whole idea is quite popular in sporting circles actually. The question is constantly asked regarding who is the greatest team or champion of all time. If we could have a showdown between great teams of different generations who would win? Who is the greatest of all time?

The difficulty with doing such things is that it can be elusive to fairly put two champions or teams side-by-side and examine what would really happen if they ran square into one another. It’s so difficult to do that because there are so many factors that come into play that make it difficult to truly set two great times up against each other and see what would happen if they were to play.

What is so difficult with sports teams or legends, though, is quite doable when it comes to the great kings. This is exactly, in many ways, what Luke is doing throughout his gospel, and the very thing that he reminds us of here. We can look at the results of following King Jesus have in the lives of people and what it looks like when people submit their lives to his rule and reign. We can also look at what it looks like when people live under the reign of the kings of the world like Herod. And in fact, when we put them side-by-side, we see a stark contrast between these two kings.

The Herod referred to here is Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great who was King at the time of Jesus’ birth and nephew of Herod Antipas, the moody figure that ruled over parts of Israel during the time of Jesus’ ministry. After a sketchy and somewhat wild youth, Herod Agrippa settled into a kingship in Israel that was granted to him by the Roman Emperors Gaius and Claudius and one that was almost as large as the territory that his grandfather ruled over. Of course Herod’s rule was subject to the whims of Rome which meant that he must remain popular in Israel amongst the influential and powerful citizens there so that they would not complain to Rome and become a headache for the Emperor. Due to that situation, Herod spent a great deal of time and energy currying the favor of the rich and powerful, especially the Pharisees.

This meant that part of keeping his position of authority stable and strong was to keep the powerful folks around him happy and to show Rome that he would keep things stable and deal with threats to Roman rule swiftly and harshly if need be. He wanted to show the powerful in Israel that he would deal with this upcoming new Messiah movement with no sentimentality and a zeal for ridding the land of any threats to their traditional religious practices. At the same time, he wanted to show Rome that he would be a strong ruler against political threats. This is no doubt why he had James killed with a sword rather than stoning, which would have been the more typical fate.

James was the brother of John and the son of Zebedee, and was one of the three closest apostles to Jesus during his ministry along with John and Peter. He surely continued to carry a great deal of respect and influence among the early Christian community and putting him to death was a powerful statement for Herod. Putting him to death with the sword indicated a political execution. Death by stoning was more typical of a religious blasphemy committed and death on a cross was the death suffered by common rebels and criminals. Putting James to the sword then was Herod’s way of showing that he was not afraid to take out one of the leaders and major figures of this increasingly popular and powerful Christian movement. Evidently Herod found it personally helpful to send a strong message to Rome that the Christian movement was a political threat, one with which he would deal harshly while at the same time showing the Pharisees and chief priests that he would not tolerate this religious threat either. Every way you look at it, putting James to death held personal benefit for Herod Agrippa.

Luke makes it clear that Herod’s shrewd political move paid off. It brought him great favor and further cemented his power among the elite. In fact, it worked so well that Herod decided to take out an even bigger target and go after Peter who was probably the most well known and visible figure in the Christian community. Taking him out would be an even bigger coup for Herod and might permanently cripple the followers of Jesus as the Messiah, at least that was the effect that Herod thought it would have.

The fact that this took place during the Feast of Unleavened Bread was no minor detail and no small irony. This was the Feast during which the Jews celebrated the deliverance of their nation through the saving acts of their God. The Feast led into and became virtually synonymous with the Passover. And that’s where the irony comes in. During the very time when the Jews were celebrating God’s salvation from slavery, Herod was imprisoning Peter who had become one of the spokesmen of the Messiah. Herod’s plan was to keep Peter locked up until after the Passover when he could then bring him out and publicly execute him just as he had done with James the son of Zebedee.

The message of the Christians was that Jesus as the Messiah was the true king of Israel and the world and that his resurrection from the dead was clear confirmation of that. They were declaring that God had brought about through the Messiah the very thing that the Passover promised and pointed to. Israel’s true slavery was not in Egypt but in sin. They and the entire world were enslaved by sin with no hope of enacting their own freedom. But what humans could not do, the Messiah had done. He had taken the place of all humanity by going into death, the deserved fate of all mankind, but the fate that he alone did not deserve. Just when it seemed that the Messiah had suffered the fate of all humans and fallen to the undefeated foe of death, something monumental happened. In fact it was the most monumental incident in all of human history. Jesus the Messiah defeated death by resurrecting, never to die again. He had stormed into death and broke out of the other side. Death had been defeated and God had shown Jesus to be the true Messiah and the king of the world.

But this King was not trying to curry the favor of the people in order to prove himself a worthy ruler. He would not participate in the senseless death of innocent ambassadors of a gospel of peace and reconciliation. He would not exercise worldly power in order to bring about his reign. This King was exactly the opposite of worldly rulers like Herod. He was the King because he had defeated the true enemy of all people not because he got rid of those that people didn’t like. He ruled by being a servant not by lording his power over others. He called people to willing serve him which was a stark contrast to the games that Herod had to play to remain in power. The power of the Messiah brought life while the power of rulers like Herod brought death.

But Herod seemed to have all of the worldly power in this situation. James had already been killed, what could possibly stop Peter from suffering the same fate? Once again, the true King and his people work quite differently than the normal course of events. There was no violent uprising or revolt. No swords or battles. The people of the Messiah turned to the most valuable weapon they had in their arsenal. They turned to prayer.

Luke offers no explanation as to why James was allowed to die but why Peter would be spared the same fate, at least for now. Perhaps that is because there is no obvious explanation. The answer is that God is sovereign and things work in combination between human free will and God’s ultimate sovereignty. The church may not have had those answers but they did know that there was great power in prayer and it was to that that they would turn time and again. I wonder what might happen if God’s church today turned to prayer in difficult situations with the same passion, faith, and earnestness that the early Christians had.


Devotional Thought
To what do you turn when times get challenging or scary? Do you gather with other believers and turn to earnest prayer or do you leave yourself in the hands of much less powerful and effective things?

Acts 11:19-30

19 Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.
22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

27 During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) 29 The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. 30 This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.


Dig Deeper
There is an old saying that I used to hear a lot as a kid although I don’t hear it nearly as much anymore. It is the classic line, “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” On one hand I understand the point of that saying that is trying to get across to people that we shouldn’t be worried about the labels or names that other people might assign us. On the other hand, I disagree with the mindset of that saying. Names and labels do matter and they do carry meaning and they can really hurt people. But names can also bring a great deal of pride and identity to those who carry a certain name. Family names, for instance, can be very important to people. Your surname carries with it a great deal of history and identity. It tells the world who you are, what kind of people you come from, and even what is valuable to you as a human being.

Just as individuals can be given names and labels that help others identify them or pigeonhole them, so groups can receive names. Sometimes those names are meant to honor or identify them. Other times the name is meant to ridicule the group and put its in its place. When it comes to religious groups, the name that it chooses to give itself often says a great deal about what is truly important to that group. Many religious groups today have chosen to name themselves after a man who was important in their history or even a specific aspect of their belief, which I suppose says something important about what they truly value. Some of the groups, such as the Methodists, initially received their names as an insult from other groups (in the case of the Methodists, they were given the name as mockery of the methodical ways that they received from their founder John Wesley).

The early followers of Jesus seemed to have initially and informally called themselves the Way, and they referred to each other as believers, saints, disciples, or the most common term, brothers. They saw themselves as family and the frequent use of referring to one another as brothers and sisters denotes that belief. In this passage, however, we find the term “Christian” being attached to those who followed Christ. This is no small detail or simply an interesting factoid included by Luke into his account of the spread of the gospel. It probably started out as a bit of an insult or had an intent to demean. But it is important, for in that name we learn a great deal about this early community and what they believed and practiced. The Christians, as many other groups have done in history, took a name that was meant to put them down and instead they found great distinction, identity, and pride in it.

As Luke continued to chronicle the spread of God’s family to the people of all nations, he returned to those that were scattered following the execution of Stephen. Some traveled as far as Antioch, which was the third largest city in the Roman Empire behind Rome and Alexandria, and was something of a cultural center in the Roman world as well as a social and political hub in the region of Syria. Following on the heels of the door to the kingdom of God being thrown open to the Gentiles, big things began to happen in Antioch. This wasn’t just the conversion of one small household, as important as that was. The disciples in Antioch began to see Gentiles in Antioch, many of whom were probably from all types of nations, stream into the kingdom of God. They heard the good news that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, that the family of the Most High God had been thrown open to all people everywhere.

As a result, many believed and joined the family. In fact it seems that such a commotion of good news was beginning to happen in Antioch that the church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to report what was going on, surely, but even more importantly to help in the ministry work there. There were several men described in the book of Acts that are described as being full of the Holy Spirit but Barnabas was the only man that was also described as “good.” There was a special quality to Barnabas and his commitment to the other believers that went beyond the norm. Barnabas was highly thought of in the early Christian community and was a man of great godliness. What he saw in Antioch was not some worrisome outbreak of false or compromised teaching. He saw the fulfillment of the door that was opened at Cornelius’ house. He saw God’s one family of all nations finally taking shape.

But he also realized rather quickly that they were facing a problem in Antioch. They were, in fact, facing one of those rare occasions when someone finds that they are up against what we call “a good problem to have.” God was working so powerfully in this Syrian city that the work was evidently overwhelming the brothers and sisters that were there. In response Barnabas displayed the rare ability, through the guidance of the Spirit, to be able to identify the right worker at at the right time for the right ministry.

We aren’t told why Barnabas’ thoughts turned to Saul, only that they did. This was the second time in their lives that Barnabas had paved the way for Saul in the Christian community and we don’t know why he saw so much in Saul, but he certainly was earning his nickname “son of encouragement.” The truly shocking thing is that this was probably ten years after we had last seen Saul in the book of Acts. He had apparently returned to Tarsus and spent his time sharing the gospel announcement with the people in the regions around Tarsus. He also, no doubt, spent that time poring through the Scriptures and learning how the Old Testament Scriptures pointed to a Messiah like Jesus all along. Armed with that knowledge, he was ready to spread the gospel to the Gentile world. Saul was the right man for the job. He would come to Antioch and spend the next year working side-by-side with Barnabas teaching and building up the believers in Antioch.

It was during this time in Antioch that the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians. That has come to be a term that has, for the most part, become divorced from its original meaning, but it is worth taking a look at what that term would have meant in first century Antioch because it gives us great insight into what was being taught and lived out among those early Christians.

The term “Christ” now is almost seen as though it were Jesus’ last name but it is actually the English version of the Greek “Chrestos” which means “Messiah” or “Anointed One.” The term carried with it the connotation that the Christ was a king, and in the declarations of the early believers, the true king of the world. The Christ was the one promised by God through the Old Testament Scriptures. He would be the one who would sum up in himself everything that Israel was called to be in the world but had failed to be. He would represent God’s people and take on the punishment due to sinners so that those who had no justification to call themselves part of God’s promised family could do just that. Through the resurrection, Jesus had shown himself to be the Son of God, the Messiah. In declaring Jesus to be the Christ, then, the early believers were declaring that through the resurrection Jesus had shown himself to be the true King of the world. He had thrown open God’s family and called people of all nations to lay down their own identities and lives and enter into his identity by being baptized into his life.

This was the bold declaration of the early church and it was their central message. Jesus was the true King who deserved loyalty and demanded submission. All other ways of life and holders of power were mere pretenders. There was no king except the Messiah. There was no salvation outside of him and his people. And there was no other way to live eternally than to lay down one’s life and live for the Messiah and in the best interests of others. The Greek world saw all of this as mere foolishness. How could an average man who died on a Roman cross possibly be any sort of Messiah, let alone the true King of the World? Only a fool would follow this Messiah. Only a group of “Messiahists” or “Christians” would follow such folly. It may have been an insult on the lips of those who called these people Christians for the first time but they proudly wore the name Christian.

Luke ends this section by giving us two quick snapshots of important elements of the early Christian communities. One is that the miraculous gift of prophecy that came through the laying on of the apostles hands was present in Antioch. Those who were specially gifted, men like Agabus, continued to prepare and edify the body of believers.

They also continued to live like the family that they were. When someone was in need within the family of believers it was the shared responsibility of all of them to provide for their brothers and sisters. The believers in Judea were particularly hard hit by persecution and famines and the other believers, mostly their Gentile brothers and sisters around the world would continue to provide for them. They knew that God would provide for them just as Jesus had promised in passages like Matthew 6, but that he would often do so through th ebrotherhood of the church.

Devotional Thought
If someone who had no previous knowledge of Christianity in any way were to come to this country and observe your church what might they call you? Would they call you the “isolationists”? Would they call you the “holier than thouists”? Would they call you the “bash everybody elsists”? Would they call you the “serve the poorists”? Or would they also see that above all, your church family followed the Messiah as King? Would they call you the “Messiahists”? Is that truly the central message of your family of believers? What are some of the things that churches can start to stress over just following Jesus as the true king of the world?

Acts 11:1-18

1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”
4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. 14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with[a] water, but you will be baptized with[b] the Holy Spirit.’ 17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”


Dig Deeper
Last year I was out of town on a ministry trip and my wife was at work at her hospital overnight. We had a friend staying with our boys and taking care of them for the night. While I was still out of town, my son called and asked if he could have our friend take him to a football game up at his high school. I told him that he could and that either our friend would pick him up after the game or I would be back in town by then and could get him. On the way home, my phone had died as I had forgotten to charge the battery but I soon got back into town and went to pick him up. I waited for quite awhile but he didn’t come out. I returned back to our house to find out from our friend that he had called and gone from the football field back to his high school building which was a bout a mile away for a post-game bonfire and dance. I was rather upset and went up to the school to find him and bring him home. When I finally found him I demanded an explanation of why he would have done such a thing. He calmly responded by telling me the narrative of events that night, including that he had tried to call me but my phone was dead. The game had gotten out earlier than he thought and everyone was leaving. He felt that either had to walk up to his school with a large group of friends and try to reach me from there or stay at the field alone. After hearing his explanation I realized that given the situation he had made the right choice and my initial objections were answered. All that was necessary was for me to hear the story and get the details.

This incident between Peter and Cornelius was no small thing and just hearing some of the details clearly made the believers in Judea, specifically in Jerusalem rather nervous. They wanted to know what exactly what went on while Peter was in Caesarea with Cornelius and the household of Gentiles. They clearly felt that Peter had some serious explaining to do. What they had heard seemed to be a massive breach of normal practices, one that would have blown a rather large hole in the worldview of the Jewish Christians concerning what it meant to be part of God’s family.

As Peter returned to Jerusalem, no doubt excited about all that had happened and that God was doing, he was immediately confronted by a concerned group of “circumcised believers.” It is doubtful that this was a formalized faction or group yet but the people that were the most concerned about this issue probably formed the nucleus of those who would continue to battle the issue of Gentiles being allowed into the family of God. By the time Paul wrote the letter of Galatians, he had a very dim view of these people as he believed that by that time they had no excuse for their continuing desire to bind the Gentiles with the law (see Gal. 2:12; 5:12). At that time they had apparently become a somewhat specific faction but the group that confronted Peter was probably little more than the roots of that group.

It is interesting, though, that their first question had to do with Peter eating with the Gentiles. It demonstrates that their concern seemed to have been more with following the Law than with truly inquiring about what God was doing through Peter with the Gentiles, but it also shows that acceptance of the Gentiles into God’s family on the part of the existing Christian community absolutely hinged on the removal of the necessity of the food laws (which explains the reason that God’s vision to Peter removed the food laws and only later did Peter make the connection that this was paving the way for Gentiles to be accepted into God’s family). You could not have full acceptance of the Gentiles into the family of God without the removal of the necessity of the food laws.

At the heart of the concern of the Jerusalem believers was whether or not Peter had accepted these Gentile pagans in the family of the Messiah without making sure that they had become full family members by following the Law and being circumcised, the very things that in their mind were necessary for family status. There may have been a mixture of concern about zeal for God’s Law as well as fear that they would receive harsh criticism and even further persecution from the Jews if it was thought that they were indiscriminately fellowshipping with Gentiles. To do so would have rendered the new Christian community to the status of complete pagans and blasphemers in the eyes of the Jews rather than just an inerrant sect of Judaism. Peter’s response was to simply tell them the story and explain to them everything that had happened.

Luke again takes the time, for the third time now, to recount Peter’s story as he was given a vision concerning the food laws, Cornelius, and the Gentiles. Peter initially protested at the thought of doing anything that violated the Law but it was the divine voice that ordered him to do so. Up until that point, he had been blameless in his observation of the food laws. It took three times, a number that signified completeness to the Jewish people, to fully make clear to Peter that this was God’s will. Immediately on the heels of the heavenly vision, the men from Caesarea came, demonstrating in Peter’s mind that their visit was directly connected to his vision. The Spirit told Peter to have no hesitation about entering into the house of this Gentile, and peter now mentions that he brought six brothers with him as witnesses to all that happened. Peter found Cornelius eagerly waiting for him and mentions for the first time the angel had specifically told Cornelius that the message that Peter brought would bring salvation, or in other words, would finally bring them into God’s family.

Peter then recounted to the brothers how the Holy Spirit came upon them just as he had come upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It is significant that Peter did not relate the coming on of the Spirit here with the baptism salvation event later in Acts 2. The reason is simple. The pouring out of the Spirit in the upper room on Pentecost was an event that signified that the door to the kingdom was truly swinging wide open and that people could be baptized into Christ and enter into God’s kingdom. It was not a salvation event. The Spirit coming upon Cornelius and the others was a completion of that once-for-all baptism of the Spirit. The Spirit had been made available and salvation had come first to the Jew then to the Gentile (Rom. 1:16; 2:10). The baptism with the Spirit was not some separate event that continues today to be an experience for certain believers who attain a higher spiritual plane than others, but it was door that opened up and poured out on the Jews (Acts 2), then the Samaritans (Acts 8), and finally the Gentiles (Acts 10-11) that made baptism into Christ available for all time and once that door had been opened it cannot be closed.

So what was Peter to do? He asked them quite clearly, “if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way.” Who was Peter to reject what God had accepted? The Gentiles had been given the same gift that had been given to the Jews. They had every bit as much right, just as they were, to enter into God’s family based on their baptism into Christ alone. That was definitive. They were members of God’s family without having to first become Jews. The baptism of the Holy Spirit had come and opened God’s family for all time to all people of all nations.

So Peter had given the best defense for and explanation of his activities that he could possibly imagine in the form of a rather straightforward narrative of events. At every turn, this was not an expression of Peter’s will or explanations but it was the expression of God’s will. The only choice that Peter had was to accept what God was doing and that would seem to have been the only choice that the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem had. Their initial reaction was to accept Peter’s words and to praise God that he was so gracious so as to even give the repentance that leads to life to the Gentiles.

But as we well know, human nature is not always that simple either. This issue would pop its head up again and again during the first generation of the church. It is one thing to hear that God has opened his family up to all people and rejoice over that. But the hard work of putting it into practice, dealing with it, and forging unity when dearly cherished practices and beliefs run headlong into differing beliefs and practices of those that were also in God’s family is an entirely different thing. It’s easy to say that the family of believers is your true family but the hard work of actually embracing that through the difficult times and living it out is a much more difficult and ongoing task.


Devotional Thought
Do you truly embrace your church family and the family of believers as your family or do they still fulfill a rather secondary role in your life? What would it look like to truly embrace the family of believers as your primary family of identity and loyalty as the Scriptures call for?