Question

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A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES

Acts 13:1-52

Key Verse: 13:47

  

1. Read verses 1-3. What was special about the Antioch church? (11:19-21) Who were the Bible teachers? Why and how did they send out Barnabas and Saul as missionaries?

2. Read verses 4-12. Where did they go and to whom did they first preach? What happened at Paphos through them?

3. Read verses 13-20. What opportunity did they have to teach the Bible in Pisidian Antioch? What did Paul emphasize in the flow of Israel’s first 450 years of history? Read verses 21-25. What was special about King David?

4. Read verses 26-37. What are the facts of the message of salvation? What did God promise David? How did God keep that promise? Read verses 38-41. What is the good news?

5. Read verses 42-52. Why did persecution arise? How did the course of world mission history turn toward the Gentiles? How did Paul see this in the light of scripture and God’s sovereignty?

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Attachment

• A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES-questions-2020STL.docx

Message

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Acts 13:1-52

KV 13:52 “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit”

The Acts of the Holy Spirit

As our pastor Paul mentioned last week the Holy Spirit is hard to understand and mysterious. Systematic theology books devote much less to the topic. This might seem strange given that the Holy Spirit is God himself, the advocate that Jesus promised the disciples before his final ascension. More to the point, the Apostle’s Creed itself devotes 2 lines to God the father, 11 lines to Jesus, and 1 line to the Holy Spirit. This line “I believe in the Holy Spirit” doesn’t give us much information about the Holy Spirit at all in fact. Today’s passage is from the book of Acts. The full title of Acts is “The Acts of the Apostles” but it has also been referred to as “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”. Today’s passage is Acts 13, and it chronicles the missionary travels of Paul and Barnabas through the ancient near east. I believe that through this passage we can learn important lessons about the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit Unifies

The Holy Spirit is the power that God has provided to move his kingdom forward. God’s mission has always been to work through his people to show his glory to the world; first through the nation of Israel, and now through his Christian church. God has sent the Holy Spirit to be our helper and advocate (Jn 14:15-17- 17, 25-27). God creates a unique unity in believers through the Holy Spirit. This unity is unlike anything that can be found elsewhere. We see an example of this in Acts 13:1-3. Barnabas was a bicultural Hellenistic Jew. Simeon, who was also called Niger was a church leader. We don’t know his background. Lucius the Cyrene was from North Africa. Manean used to keep terrible company; he was a lifelong friend of the man who had John the Baptist beheaded. And finally, there was Paul, a Jewish Pharisee and persecutor turned evangelist. This was the group who had come together to advance the message of Jesus the messiah. This unity was possible due to the Holy Spirit. In Genesis we see that tribalism and nationalism are results of sin. When men sought to build a tower to Heaven God punished their pride by dividing their languages. When Cain killed Abel and the first men built weapons of war after being sent east of Eden tribes formed as unity was turned to discord. The Holy Spirit here is what allows us to obey the command to “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:3) After reuniting at Antioch the Holy Spirit sends Paul and Barnabas to Cyprus to preach the good news.

The Holy Spirit Resists Evil

Let’s look at verses 4-12. Cyprus was an island off the coast of modern-day Turkey. At the time it was a Roman province. In verse two it says they arrived at Salamis. This Salamis is a city on the eastern side of the island. This is not to be confused with the much larger Greek city in western Greece that was the subject of a famous naval battle. They traveled the whole island until they came to Paphos. Paphos was the western most city on the island. The implication here is that Paul and Barnabas had visited every city on the island. Here at Paphos they met the proconsul Sergius Paulus. The proconsul was a Roman governor. To become a proconsul in this time Sergius would have been an old man, having started his career was a questor or tax collector then advancing to praetor or judge and finally being selected as proconsul. These positions were appointed by the emperor themselves, and so converting such a powerful man would have been a major victory for Paul and Barnabas. But Elymus resisted and tried to turn the proconsul against them. Let’s look at verse 7-8. Elymus was also called Bar-Jesus which is Aramaic for “son of Joshua”. Medieval texts also indicate that Bar-Jesus provoked a riot against Paul and Barnabas. But Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit and called him a child of the Devil and blinded him. Let’s read verse 10-12. Through this miracle the proconsul came to believe. Further, it teaches us a powerful lesson- namely that the Holy Spirit harshly resists those who prevent the spread of the gospel. This has been common throughout history. My friend in high school’s father was a pastor who had grown up in the former Soviet states. He told me that on October 25th 1917 an experiment wholly unprecedented in world history began: the systematic, state-sponsored attempt to eliminate religion- all religion. “Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy. It is not a side effect, but the central pivot,” wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Lenin compared religion to venereal disease. What he saw was that as Russia outlawed Christianity the Christians became even more devout. He said they would meet every Sunday in underground locations. Under Khrushchev it became illegal to teach religion to your own children. From 1917 to the perestroika period of the 1980s, the more religion persisted, the more the Soviets would seek new and inventive ways to eradicate it. Today the Russian Orthodox churches are packed full. Once the grip of oppression had been released, the faithful returned to church in their millions. He said that when the wall came down and the USSR fell, these same Christians confusingly became less devout. Even though it was totally safe to now be a Christian they didn’t attend church as faithfully. Stephan said that the Jews had always “resisted” the Holy Spirit, but here in this passage and in Russia we see it the other way: The Holy Spirit resisted men who would see the faith halted and delegated to history. The proconsul was converted an faith spread to Cyprus. Today the government control Cyprus (not the Turkish controlled Cyprus) is 99.4% Christian. Their first president was an archbishop. He survived 4 assassinations attempts and a coup de tat. The holy spirit cannot be stopped and resists the forces of darkness.

The Holy Spirit is Undeterred

From here Paul and Barnabas went onto Pisidian Antioch. Here Paul and Barnabas gave a sermon to the Jews. This message was nearly identical to the one Stephan gave to the Jews which got him stoned in chapter 7. Paul even participated in killing Stephan! But even so Paul and Barnabas were undeterred in teaching the truth. The message here goes from verse 16-41. To summarize their message, Paul and Barnabas preach to the Jews that Jesus Christ is the heir to the promised of David, and that Jesus had been crucified for our sins and rose again. They preach that Jesus is the answer to the promises God made to their ancestors “We tell you good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children by raising up Jesus.” They go on to conclude that “Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.” What a powerful statement this is to us: that we can be free of all sin. Does anyone here sinned today or have sin in their heart? Nobody believes this. Really, I think that not even we can believe it. The most heinous, crazed killer can be made free of sin through Jesus. To the human mind it seems so unfathomable. The fact that Pol Pot or Nero could be made free from sin seem insulting. But the Jews here rejected Paul and Barnabas. It’s not as if they were outraged by the message of unconditional forgiveness. They were not even angry that Paul and Barnabas had claimed Jesus to be higher than David or Moses. Look at verse 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.” Here it would seem that the mission to Pisidian Antioch had come to failure. Paul was an expert in Jewish law. He had studied it his whole life. There was perhaps no one else in the world who could have preached more persuasively to the Jews. Paul describes himself as “circumcised [in accordance with Jewish Law] on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” (Phil 3:6-7) Paul was a man of the Holy Spirit, chosen by Christ himself and sent by the Holy Spirit. Yet, even so the Jews here rejected them on the basis of jealousy. But then something amazing happened, let’s look at verses 46-48:

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 a light for the Gentiles,
that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

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.

We see here that even in defeat the Holy Spirit guided Paul and Barnabas to victory. Last week Melissa taught us that the Holy Spirit was unstoppable and here we see it again. We see this story again and again in the bible. All hope seemed lost when Jesus was crucified, but then Jesus returned in glory having defeated death. When Joseph was left in a well to die and sold to slavers, God had better plans and he went on to become a royal official in pharaoh’s palace. Job suffered and lost everything; but was then given everything back and more. God is a winner. Even when he loses, he wins. Can you think of times in your walk with Christ where it seemed as if you had lost but in fact you had won? I recall last year when Paul had his heart attack, even though he survived due to his condition he was unable to perform most pastoral duties. It seemed as if God had lost, but what happened was surprising. Many of our church members took up his responsibilities, and God sent many servants from around the country to help give messages. All in all God was glorified and our faith was strengthened. God won. In the words of Jesus “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Mat 16:25) Paul goes on to write in his letter to the Philippians “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” Far from being discouraged by their seemingly failed mission to the Jews, Paul and Barnabas bring the gospel to a completely different people. They simply move on, guided by the Holy Spirit. Verse 52 encapsulates the entire mindset of a people filled with the Holy Spirit “And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit”.

I would like to submit to you all today that Paul and Barnabas were not special people. By Paul’s own admission he was the worst of sinners. It’s not as if Paul and Barnabas or any of the disciples for that matter were angels or superheroes. They couldn’t fly or anything fantastic. The apostles did have one thing though. They had the Holy Spirit. And we too have the Holy Spirit, and since we have the Holy Spirit we too can be filled with joy and power. All of us, every single one can be the next Paul and Barnabas. Do you find it amazing? Not all of us can be the next Alexander the Great or Abraham Lincoln. It’s unlikely that the next Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton are among us. But there is nothing at all stopping the next Paul of Tarsus from being in this room. People in here have travelled to the foreign places, over half the room are here with their primary mission to do exactly as Paul and Barnabas were doing in Pisidian Antioch. When I read this I was reminded of David Lee here in this church. He traveled to around this same area of the world just as Paul and Barnabas did. He was undeterred even in his sickness and he endeavored to bring Jesus to a people that broadly reject Jesus. May we all be filled with the Holy Spirit as Paul, Barnabas, and David were. Jesus promised his advocate to all believers, and because of that advocate we can be filled with the joy and the power that comes with carrying out the unstoppable plan of our God.

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Attachment

• ACTS13-revised message-ML.docx