The First Missionaries and Journey - Acts 13

We have arrived at another weekend, and if you are still hanging there in our reading thru the New Testament in a year, congratulations. Reading God’s word is - in my opinion - more than an exercise, it’s life...like a conversation with an important friend...I want to hear what God has to say through his people. I have been doing this for 50 years now and I still get rewarded by new things to learn, see, speak to me about. Thanks for reading with me, it is a joy for me to do this with you. This weekend we read from Acts 13. After you are finished come back and we’ll walk through it together. I was 18 years old and in my second year of college when Spring break came. My sister, Molly, and brother, Ed, and I flew together to Tallahassee, Florida, where my sister Joan Kratz and her husband Dick were living. On that Sunday they took us to their church. I had stopped going to church years before and had no affection for anything God at this time in my life. I still remember to this day, Joan told me their church was a “Mission Church”, begun and funded by other churches to reach this particular area. I remember my response. Embarrassingly now, I said, “why waste the money on something like missions?” About 16 months later, I gave my life to Christ, and my concept of missions has forever radically been changed. As we read in the text, true faith and life of the Christian church is that it always a missionary church. There are two elements to being a missionary church and both are revealed in Acts 13. The church’s life is one of worship, prayer, spiritual disciplines (a.k.a, fasting), and the teaching of God’s word. The church in Antioch was doing these things when God’s Spirit spoke to them: “set apart for me...” that’s how missionaries get sent out. It is the Holy Spirit who moves the church to “set apart”, or “send out” missionaries. It is the Church who are the “senders”. The church fasted, prayed - conceivably, they were making sure they got it correct. Then the church “laid hands on them” - the act, like the laying of Peter and John’s hands on the Samaritan believers is an action that says, “we believe in what God is doing in you and confirm it with our own identification of “amen” to what you are going to do. The first Missionaries of the church - Barnabas, the son of Encouragement who found Saul and brought to Antioch, to begin with, and Saul who now has been 13-14 years a Christian, are prepared by God to become God’s spokespersons to the entire Gentile world of the Roman Empire. It was a monumental moment in the history of the early church. “The two of them went on their way by the Holy Spirit”. Luke reminds us that the two heard the word from the Holy Spirit, to begin with, and the Church heard the word and confirmed it, but all along it is the Holy Spirit that is the one leading and directing this team. We find they took along John Mark, the son of Mary where the church in Jerusalem was gathered to pray the night Peter is released from prison. John Mark is a nephew of Barnabas and is young, but willing to go with them. There is no record of how he got to Antioch, but one can assume Barnabas was involved - an encourager of all things God. They sailed across the northeastern part of the Mediterranean from the mouth of the Orontes river to the island nation of Cyprus - Barnabas’ home. It was a good place to start, and the Gospel had already been proclaimed there previously (Acts 11:19-21). After landing in the northeastern part of the island at a city named Salamis, they began preaching the gospel at synagogue after synagogue - it was their early pattern, to go to the Jewish places of worship to explain how Jesus was the Messiah, and how salvation was now in and through him. They traveled the length of the island until they came to the capitol at Paphos where they had an audience with the Roman governor - one Luke describes as “intelligent man”. The man name Paulus was a “proconsul” which means he was a Roman appointed young politician working his way up the Roman government ladder. He was also a Gentile. When he discovered what Barnabas and Saul are doing, he invited them to come before him “to hear the word of God”. Almost immediately we are introduced to two new things. First, the governor had an attendant who served him, called “Bar-Jesus”, (also Elymas, vs8) who was a sorcerer - from the Greek word, “magos”, from which we get magician. Luke says that this sorcerer was listening as Saul and Barnabas shared the Gospel and began to oppose them before the magistrate. The second thing we are introduced follows this, as “Saul, who was also called Paul” confronts the sorcerer and in both a rebuke and from a word of God to him tells him he is going to become blind “for a time” because of his blind opposition of the truth. He does, and the proconsul is moved to believe the message that Barnabas and Paul are declaring. For the first time we see that Saul becomes Paul - a recognition that they are no longer in Jewish lands, but are sent to the Gentiles. Saul is his Hebrew given name and Paul is his Greek name, and from this point on in Luke’s record of the Acts of the Apostles, and the rest of the Epistles, we only read Paul. Now in quick summary Luke said they left the island of Cyprus, sailed north to the southern coast of what is modern Turkey, to a place called Perga. Notably, Luke tells us that John Mark leaves the missionary journey to go back home...no reason is given, but it will surface later in the story of Paul and Barnabas. From there they continue to travel north - almost 100 miles walking over a mountain range - to reach the city of Antioch in Pisidia. This is another Antioch located in a region in the central part of this area that the Romans called Galatia. The journey was not without its difficulties as Paul later recounts he was sick when he arrived in Antioch (Galatians 4:13). It’s quite possible, given both Paul’s descriptions, his hints at an eye problem, and the geography of where he was that he had gotten malaria. Yes, God had sent them, but in order for them to be able to do God’s work, with God’s power, the ability had to come from God and not themself. Paul would later write that he had received from God “a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7-9) - one that would stay with him throughout the rest of his life. We get a glimpse of Paul’s methodology and teaching as he stands in front of the Synagogue first to declare the message of Jesus. It’s one of Luke’s longest recounting of what Paul said. It traverses Jewish history (vss 16-22) until it arrives at the promise of Jesus (vss 23-37). The conclusion is the Gospel message: “Let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” (Vss 38-39). Paul’s message is never contradicted throughout the Acts and the Epistles. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise to die for our sins, and through his death and resurrection there is forgiveness of sins - something that can never be accomplished by an attempt to obey the law. Paul preached it to the Jews and to the “God-fearing” Gentiles who were present, and some of them believed...and the following week, when the whole city showed up to hear Paul, the Jews (probably Synagogue leaders) jealously began to oppose Paul’s message. This became the pattern for Paul in every city he went to. First the Gospel is preached in the Synagogue, but when it is opposed by Jewish leaders, he takes the Gospel outside to the Gentiles. Luke ends this first missionary account in Antioch with the words, “when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region” (vss 48-49). Mission accomplished, even though the opposition turned towards persecution, Paul and Barnabas left Antioch filled with Joy for what the Holy Spirit had done through them. Missionary life is not easy. Traveling away from family, friends, cultural comfortabilities to enter into strange places where cultural norms are unnormal to the missionary requires a call of God that has to be constantly reaffirmed in both spirit and will. Being a missionary, though, doesn’t mean we have to go to far off countries. Living and serving for Christ in my area has always been a missionary endeavor. What I mean by that is simple: The Message is the same - Jesus Christ came into the world as God’s Son, died on the cross to pay the penalty of our Sins, and putting your faith and trust in him is the means by which our Sins are forgiven and we become Christians. The Message is simple, but it is often scoffed at and rejected. Yet those “appointed to eternal life” (13:48) will always have ears to hear and receive it. The Means by which we stay focused as a missionary is that the most important thing is faithfulness to the Message, because faithfulness to the Message is faithfulness to Jesus. There will always be those who want to hear the word of God - feed them - and there will always be those who do not want to - move on. We are missionaries whether we believe it or not - either good ones doing God’s work according to God’s way, or bad ones, standing in the way of God’s message. Nevertheless, God is a Missionary God! Peace