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If
you were here two weeks ago you'll remember how, when Paul and Barnabas
got to Pisidian Antioch they first went to the synagogue to speak about
Jesus as the promised Messiah, but then when their message was rejected
by the Jews they turned to the Gentiles. And the Gentiles gladly received
this message of salvation for all people. Well, now Luke continues his history
of Paul and Barnabas' missionary journey as they move on from Antioch to
Iconium, to the south east. And we read that the same thing happened here.
So what's this same thing? |
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Clearly
it's the rejection of the gospel by the Jews and its acceptance by the Gentiles.
It's almost as if the events in Antioch were the trigger for an increase
in opposition. From this moment on Paul and Barnabas encounter a growing
opposition, including, as we discover today, physical threats to their life. |
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But
first, notice that as they speak, as usual in the Jewish synagogue to start
with, a great number of both Jews and Greeks become believers (v.1). There's
no question that their message is persuasive for those God has called. |
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I
think we need to be reminded of this. Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the message
of the gospel and a great number of their hearers believed. It'd be easy
to read the report of the opposition they encountered and think that their
proclamation had failed. But it hadn't. A great many believed. Why? Well,
first because of the way they presented the gospel. We saw last time the
way they presented the gospel by proclaiming the word of God, accompanied
by works of power. We saw how they reminded their hearers of the things
God had done and how God's actions intersected with their own experience
of the world. And here again, in v3, we see how the words they speak are
testified to by God with signs and wonders done by the apostles. And as
a result of this combined action of God's power and the persuasive speech
of his servants, Paul and Barnabas, many people come to believe in Jesus
as the Son of God. |
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But
that's only half the story. Again we see the same thing that happened in
Antioch. "The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their
minds against the brothers." The Jewish leaders, who were jealous of the
attention that Paul and Barnabas were getting and worried that their message
was being preached indiscriminately to the Gentiles, began to oppose them.
This time, though, their opposition turned to violence. The Jews and some
of the Gentiles who sided with them apparently planned to stir up a crowd
to first insult them and then to stone them. But the disciples in the town
heard about their plan and warned Paul and Barnabas to get out of there.
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Now
you might think this is a terrible thing for God to allow to happen to his
envoys. Why didn't God protect them? Well, as we've seen before God is sovereign,
but he doesn't necessarily stop people from carrying out the evil plans
they make. But neither does he allow those evil plans to stop his own plans
for the salvation of those he's chosen. |
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Think
about what happened when the great persecution arose in Jerusalem following
the stoning of Stephen. Many of the Christians were forced to flee, but
in doing so they simply moved to fresh ground where they began to plant
the seed of the gospel all over again. And so it is here. Paul and Barnabas
are driven out of Antioch so they move on to Iconium. They stay there for
a long time, whatever that means, but long enough for there to be a reasonable
number of disciples, then they're driven out again. And this time they go
on to Lystra and Derbe where they continued proclaiming the gospel. |
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Now
Lystra was a small regional town, about 40 or 50 years old. It was linked
with the cult of Zeus and Hermes, probably because of a legend that the
two gods had once visited the city. |
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In
fact the Roman poet Ovid told the story in Metamorphoses, a recounting
of local legends. He tells how Zeus and Hermes visited the region of Phrygia
disguised as mortal men. But as they sought hospitality they were rejected
by all and sundry. Eventually they were offered hospitality in a tiny cottage
by an elderly peasant couple named Philemon and Baucis, who entertained
them despite their poverty. As a result the gods returned to reward them
while sending a flood to destroy the homes of those who refused to welcome
them in. |
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So
you can imagine that when these two strangers appear and perform this miraculous
act, healing a man who'd been crippled from birth, it doesn't take long
for the locals to put 2 and 2 together and work out that something supernatural
is going on. And they're certainly not going to make the same mistake the
people in the story made of failing to honour the gods when they arrive.
And so they start calling out in their native language "The gods have come
down to us in human form!" Paul and Barnabas obviously don't speak Lycaonian
because it's not until the priests come out with oxen to sacrifice and garlands
to put around their necks that they realise what's going on. |
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Then
they too get excited, though for a different reason. They're horrified that
the people would treat them as anything more than ordinary human beings.
Here's a classic ethical dilemma for the preacher or evangelist. This is
the perfect opportunity, while they have their rapt attention, to order
them to become Christians. They've just been given enormous influence over
this whole township. All they have to do is to say the word and the whole
town could be converted. |
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In
fact it's interesting to reflect on how the adulation of an audience or
a congregation is dealt with by various church leaders these days. There
are places where leaders are held in such high esteem by their followers
that it's almost like they worship them aren't there? These sorts of leaders
have enormous influence for good or evil over their followers. But that
just means that they have an even greater responsibility to show integrity
in the way they deal with it. Some use their power to get people to give
beyond their means. Some use it to draw worshippers away from smaller congregations.
Some use it to satisfy their sexual desire. Others downplay it in favour
of the power of the gospel. |
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Well
that's what Paul and Barnabas do. They tear their clothes as a sign of their
horror at the people's blasphemy. Then they rush out into the crowd to tell
them the truth of the situation. They're just messengers sent to bring a
message of salvation, to call them to turn away from the very thing they're
about to do, from the worship of idols, of creatures, of worthless things,
to serve the living God, the God who made heaven and earth, who continues
to provide us with all we need to enjoy life. |
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Now
I want you to notice how Paul changes his approach when he preaches the
gospel to these uneducated pagans. In the previous speech that Luke records,
in Pisidian Antioch, he begins with the Biblical record of God's revelation
of himself through Moses and the prophets. But here, where their background
is the folk religion of Greek and Roman mythology he takes a different tack.
What is it he concentrates on? Here it's the natural world. He points out
the foolishness of worshipping things that have no inherent value, dumb
idols, human creations. Instead he points to the God who lives, who created
the world around them. You can almost imagine him standing at the gates
of the city pointing up to the mountain range in front of them or to the
sea in the distance, the blue sky above them and saying I want to tell you
about the God who made all of this. And not only that, but this is the God
who continues to act in his creation. It may seem like he's been silent
because he's allowed people to go their own way but that's not the case. |
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That's
what so many people today think isn't it? God has stopped being relevant
to our way of life. We're no longer a Christian country. We're now a secular
society. After all we don't see God intervening in our lives to set us straight
if he thinks we're going the wrong way. So they conclude, along with Nietzsche,
that God is dead. |
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But
God isn't dead. He continues to involve himself with his world. He continues
to provide rain and sunshine and fertility to our soil so we can enjoy the
best of life. As James 1:17 tells us, "every good and perfect gift is from
above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." (It's interesting
when we have a long dry spell like now how people decide to pray for rain)
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And
as Paul says, God may have overlooked the way the nations have gone their
own way in the past but now he calls them to turn from their idolatry to
worship him, the true and living God. So do you see how Paul modifies his
approach to fit the context of his audience? He doesn't change the basic
message. He just changes the way he presents it. |
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We
need to think about how we might do the same thing. Where will you start
when you want to tell someone today about Jesus. It may be that you've got
to start with where they are, in their secular mindset. So you might begin
with the issues of being human in this stressful age we live in. What does
it mean to be truly human? You might begin with people's desire for a spiritual
dimension to their life, in a world that's had the transcendent stripped
from it. We live in an age that claims to be secular, yet people are incredibly
interested in the spiritual. You might want to begin with the desire for
community in a world where dislocation is a common theme of human experience.
You might want to begin with the question of security in a world where nothing
seems very secure any more, where the threat of terrorism is a reality,
where inflation still threatens our financial security, where people are
mortgaged to the hilt and another interest rate rise is their worst fear.
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But
wherever you start, make sure you finish where Paul finishes, with the living
God, and with Jesus Christ who came to show us what God is really like and
to call us back to him. |
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But
back to the story. Paul and Barnabas manage to stop them from treating them
as gods, but that just provides the opening for some Jews who had followed
him from Iconium to again stir up the crowd and this time manage to get
them to stone him. Perhaps they played on the fact that Paul and Barnabas
had duped the crowd into thinking they were gods when in fact they were
mere human beings. Forget the fact that they'd done all they could to deter
them from thinking of them as gods. The media can always turn the truth
around if it wants to. And so the crowd turns on Paul and stones him, leaving
him for dead. But Paul wasn't dead. When the disciples, those who had been
converted under his ministry, gathered around him, he got up and just to
show that he wasn't going to be defeated by this sort of opposition, he
went back into the city. |
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Luke
then gives us a shorthand account of the rest of the first missionary journey.
The next day they left for Derbe. He doesn't talk about how Paul managed
a 100km walk after what had been done to him the day before. Di and I are
hoping to do a 100 km walk in Spain next year when we take long service
leave and I'm worried whether my knees and feet will manage it. But imagine
if you'd just been stoned and left for dead, trying something like that!
But that's what he did. |
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And
when they get to Derbe what do they do? They preach the gospel there as
well. You or I might have decided it was time for a rest. Perhaps a couple
of weeks on a Greek island for R & R mightn't hurt. (In fact that sounds
like a great idea for next year as well, doesn't it?) But no, they have
a job to do that can't wait for their wounds to heal. And in fact we're
told they made many disciples before deciding it was time to return to Syrian
Antioch to report back to the church there. |
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But
notice that they don't go straight home. First they return the way they've
come. They realise that they've left a whole lot of disciples behind who
need to be strengthened in their faith. Again here's an important lesson
for us. It's not enough to just preach the gospel, even when you're getting
converts left right and centre like Paul and Barnabas were. It's just as
important to follow them up, to make sure that they understand what it is
they've believed in. They'll almost certainly have a whole lot of questions
that they need answering. And they need to be encouraged to persevere in
the face of opposition from those around them. You can imagine that if Paul
and Barnabas met opposition to their preaching of the gospel that their
converts would have experienced the same sort of opposition, particularly
those who'd been converted from Judaism. So Paul and Barnabas returned the
way they came. And notice that they do two main things. They encourage the
new disciples to stand firm in the face of persecution. Paul had the bruises
to show that he understood what was involved in standing firm for Christ.
But he also knew that the end result was that he and they would enter into
the kingdom of God. And the second thing they did was to appoint elders
in each town to lead the church there. Not just one either. Each church
needed several elders. These were the ones who would ensure that the new
converts were taught well, that they persevered in the faith, that they
stood firm in the face of opposition and that they were supported when times
got tough. And just as the church in Antioch had when they sent out Paul
and Barnabas, after "prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord
in whom they had come to believe." |
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Paul
and Barnabas then return to Antioch where they call the whole church together
so they can report on what has happened, and especially on how God has opened
a door for the gospel. This is the final thing to notice from this account.
It was essential for the ongoing work of the gospel that those who had first
sent them out be informed of the results of their work. This wasn't just
Barnabas and Paul's mission. It was the mission of the whole church. The
Peters' work in Chile or the Prentice's work in Namibia isn't just their
work. It's also ours, as those who have sent them out. We're their partners
in the gospel. That's why it's important when they return on furlough that
we invite them to come and tell us about how their work is going. That way
both they and we are encouraged and are able to encourage one another. |
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Well
next time and the week after that, we'll be looking at how disagreements
arise even when the Church appears to be doing well and how the church deals
with them. |
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Questions
for discussion: Acts 14 |
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- Why was it Paul and Barnabas' practice "as usual" to go into the Jewish Synagogue (v.1)?
- What do you think Luke means by "so effectively"?
- Were Paul and Barnabas too easily frightened into moving on to Lystra and Derbe (v.6)? What you have done?
- What was the result of the persecution of Paul and Barnabas (vs8-13)?
- How does Paul's explanation of the gospel in Lystra vary from the way he presented it in Pisidian Antioch (13:16-41)?
- Why don't Paul and Barnabas go to the nearest port and sail straight back to Antioch (v.21)?
- What was important about them calling the Church in Antioch together to report on what had happened to them (v.27)?
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