You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?
Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.
Welcome to More Than Ink. Okay, so why is it that we always hate talking to people about unpopular topics? Oh, because it makes people uncomfortable and nobody wants to be uncomfortable. Right, but in today's passage, Paul and Barnabas are going to talk about an unpopular topic, so why would they do that? Because the message is so important. Exactly, the message of the Gospel, and we'll see that today on More Than Ink. Yes, yes, this is More Than Ink. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And if you're looking for some action, you've come to the right place. We are reading through the book of Acts, and it is an amazing documentation of how the Gospel moved its way out of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And that's where we are today.
Why don't you catch us up where we are, because the context is important. We left last week in the middle of one town, and something was going to happen. Okay, so Paul and Barnabas have taken off on their first missionary journey, right? If you remember that the Holy Spirit had set Paul and Barnabas apart to the work that I've called them to. And the church, without hesitation, this is a church in Antioch, gathered around them, prayed, laid hands on them, and off they went.
And this is the first time something like this happened. They're sending guys off to nowhere land. This is the first time that the Spirit had said, now, gather these guys and just send them off into nowhere. And so they went down to the coast, they got on a boat, and their first set of adventures was on the isle of Cyprus. But where we left them last week is they had gone up into the area of Pisidian Antioch. So it's called Antioch, but it's in a different region. And they had preached the message.
By the way, it's right smack dab in the middle of Turkey if you're trying to envision it. So they had preached the gospel in a synagogue, in a normal synagogue meeting, in the first part of chapter 13. And then there was such a good response, just at the last few verses we left off last week, it says that the meeting broke up, and as they were going out, the people were begging them to come back and speak more the next Sabbath. And as they were leaving, Paul and Barnabas were urging the people to continue in the grace of the Lord. So you can imagine that there was lots of talking going on during the week.
Quite a stir, I bet. Yes, about what had transpired. Well, because Paul had done this big presentation, which Luke has written down for us. We just read that last time. We read the whole sermon.
And it's really something. I'm sure it just triggered a lot of curiosity for the next Sabbath. And today, we're coming in at the next Sabbath. So after a week of anticipation for Paul to speak again in public, that's where we are. So they've been talking about it a whole week. Yeah. And now we're back at the Sabbath meeting.
Yeah. Presumably the whole crowd and more. Actually, it says the whole city gathered.
Yeah, let's see what their reaction was after they sat on his message for a week. And so if you're following, we're in chapter 13 of Acts, and we're coming in at verse 44, the second Sabbath day where the people and Paul and Barnabas talk about Jesus. Okay, and yes, we're in the Jewish synagogue, but it is a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentiles.
Right, right. So there were lots of people there who were interested in the God of Israel. So let's see the response. Here we go, verse 44. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we're turning to the Gentiles.
For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Okay, well, something just happened here. So like you mentioned, there are Jews and Gentiles in the listening here on this Sabbath, and it caused a little bit of strife with the existing Jewish leadership. Well, it says clearly they were jealous. They were jealous. They were jealous of the attention that Paul and Barnabas were getting.
And that word kind of equally in Greek means jealous and envious. I mean, they were jealous. They wondered what was going on. And by the way, too, this is the same response that happened to Jesus when he was preaching.
He had gathered so much of a crowd, so much of a gathering, that the religious leadership were not only threatened by that populism, but they were envious of it. So here we are again, and what is their tact? They begin to contradict what they were saying. Which is kind of interesting, because Paul had just in his sermon pretty much recited their own Jewish history.
It was just history. So what could they be contradicting? Well, surely what they were contradicting was Paul's conclusion that through all of that history, it was all pointing to the coming of Messiah, which has happened. And they said this was Jesus, by the way. That's right, and that's what they were contradicting.
That makes them crazy. But they weren't just contradicting him. They were reviling him, right? The word is blaspheming him. They were taking down his character and reputation, because they really couldn't compete with the scriptures that he was quoting. That happens today in our political environment.
It sure does. If you can't logically contradict the issues and the facts, you just start tearing into the person. You know, their response, though, and as we read on, we're going to hear so much more of this opposition to Paul, a very mixed response. That set me thinking about when Paul was first chosen and called by the Lord, and struck blind and was waiting to be healed by Ananias. And the Lord said, this is in Acts 9, the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine, talking about Paul, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake. So, you know, we have to believe that Paul kind of expected to encounter opposition. Yeah, it's been brewing, so it's not really that surprising.
It's not that surprising. And he understood, right? Because he had been one of them.
He had been a Jew who had persecuted those who were preaching in the name of Jesus as Messiah. So he understood them. Yeah, yeah. So it says in 46 they spoke out boldly, because what they boldly stated here wasn't necessarily who Jesus was. They stated boldly something really remarkably different. Yes.
Really different. And, you know, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. You know, that made me think of Romans 1 16, because he says, I'm not ashamed of the Gospels, the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. So he's saying this to them, which is fascinating.
These are largely Jews that he's saying, look, I was supposed to talk to you first, and I did. However, since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we're going to turn to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has commanded us. And then he tells us about this passage where this was predicted in Isaiah.
Which is, it's glorious. Isaiah 42 is full of, it's one of those servant songs in Isaiah where the Lord speaks about the one who's coming, who will be his servant. And, you know, Paul quotes just from verse 6 where it says, And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, right, to the nations, a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in the darkness from the prison. Right, that's Isaiah speaking. But Isaiah 42 opens, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him and he will bring forth justice to the nations. Yes, yes. So that whole chapter of Isaiah 42 is concerned with the message of God's servant to the outsiders.
Yeah, yeah, to the outsiders. To the non-Jews, to the Gentile world. Yeah, and I found also, several chapters later in Isaiah 49, it's reiterated. And I'm 49.6, you know, is it too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel? Well, I will make you as a light for the nations, the Gentiles, the goyim, that my salvation, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
Whoa! It's always God's intent to reach to the ends of the earth. Right, right. So now Paul is, I mean, he's serving notice on these Jews. Right.
You know, you guys are not the center of the attention here. We're going to turn our attention to the Gentiles. Now he doesn't, Paul doesn't go exclusively to the Gentiles at this point. He'll still go into the synagogues.
No, it was his pattern, actually, to always go into synagogue first. But he was really serving notice to them that if they're not willing to listen, the Gentiles will, so that's who I'm going to go to. So I'm really intrigued by this statement he makes in verse, whatever verse that is. Since you thrust aside this truth and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.
That's a pretty interesting statement. I would not have used the word unworthy. I would have said something much more harsh, I think. Okay, so I didn't look into the Greek there to see what exactly he was saying, but we're trusting that the ESV is as clear a translation as we can get our hands on these days. But it is a smack in your face saying, I just don't think that you are included in the plan of eternal life.
And so I'm going to take the plan of eternal life to somebody else. Yeah, it's very much in their face. It's very much a shaming thing that he's doing with the Jews here. Yeah, you know, that just reminds me when Jesus sent out the 12 during the time of his ministry, he said to them, now just go to the lost sheep of Israel, right? That they're the ones who need to hear this message first because it was God's intent that those people be the ones to proclaim the message. Yeah, yeah, and Jesus himself said that.
Yeah, that's what I was referring to. Yeah, don't you know I'm sent to the lost sheep. But it's true, the message of salvation, and I think this is interesting right here because the message of salvation is not different for the Jews than it is from the Gentiles. That's right. And I think from a Gentile perspective, we think it is. It's like, well, the Jews, you know, they got a special thing going. No, I mean, and Peter and Paul will both say this later in their letters. They both say, look, no, the deal is we all come to salvation through faith in Christ, even if you're a Jew.
Yeah, so that's what he's saying here is the equivalent argument. And he'll say that several times as we're talking about Jews and Gentiles right here. Yeah, so eternal life seems to be front and center. Yeah, yeah, and Paul will actually expand the idea in Romans about the fact that, hey, you know, faith is how we gain an entrance into this plan of grace from God. And he says, and guess what, that was the same plan for Abraham, the father of the nation.
It was faith. So anyway, he expands that a lot in Romans. It's the same message. The gospel message is the same. And so Paul and Barnabas say that's it.
You guys aren't willing to listen. We're going to go and talk to the Gentiles. So, you know, if we press on here in verse 48, when the Gentiles heard this, right, they heard the Jewish scriptures quoted saying the Gentiles, God is interested in the Gentiles and he's sending them salvation too. Verse 48, when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. Right, that is good news to them. Yeah, up to that point. Because historically, I think at this point, the Jews were not, they were not evangelistic.
No, no. Right, they regarded themselves as the holy people, the promised people, right, and they were a secret club kind of. And as a result in all these various places you find Jews and Gentiles living together, the Gentiles felt like second class citizens to the Jews. So here's this emissary from Jerusalem and they're still feeling like second class citizens.
No, God's sending a message to you. Okay, so it's beautiful the way this goes on. They were glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
That's a great phrase. Okay, let's talk about that. That's a great, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. I mean, it strongly implies that there was a working going on in their heart already before they heard Paul.
And we've talked about that before. Because you can say the same words to some people and then it just bounces off. But if you say the same words to other people who the Holy Spirit has already been pre-working in their hearts, it goes in and then they desire more.
In fact, they can't even pull it out of you fast enough. But, you know, later on Paul is going to write to the different churches. You know, you were chosen before the foundation of the world. That's right. Right, so there is, you know, this idea here that God was pre-working, pre-knowing, pre-appointing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
These are just not accidental encounters. So the right people who are supposed to believe, believed, you know. And I might point out right here, too, the word of God or the word of the Lord has been very prominent in what we've read up to this point today because this is one, two, three, four.
I count four times, you know. In 44, the word of the Lord. You know, in 46, the word of God.
You know, you get to 48, as many as were appointed. Oh, the word of the Lord, glorifying the word of the Lord, 49. So Luke's trying to make a point here. Right, God who's speaking.
Right, right. And his word is making this impact. It's not the eloquence of Paul and Barnabas. And Paul actually, he underscores it in some of his later letters. It's the word of the Lord. So 49, the word of the Lord was spreading. It wasn't Paul and Barnabas was moving around. It's the word of the Lord was spreading. Right, because people were talking to people. Yep, yep, throughout the whole region.
Should we push on? Yeah, okay. We're at verse 50. This part is really interesting to me. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went on to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Okay, back up here. You like that devout women thing? I think that's fascinating to me. I think so too, yeah. That the Jews, those in opposition to Paul, said what's our best strategy for stirring up trouble?
It's to go to the women of high standing. Yeah, yeah. Those, okay, I don't know how much farther I want to go with that. But it's really interesting to me. It's interesting, yeah. That a woman of influence can cause great trouble if she chooses to. Right, and this is, it is just fascinating because they've already tried the tack back in 45 about just contradicting what Paul says. Yeah.
And that doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere really well. But now, yeah, so the Jews instead of contradicting Paul decide to incite the devout women. So are these Jewish women? We don't know. Because it's devout Gentiles.
Usually we find that we're talking about Gentiles like God fearers. Right, right. But it's just very interesting to me. We all know from experience that women have a different way of influencing than men do, right? That through gossip, through innuendo, through just influence.
Yeah, yeah. They can stir up a lot of trouble. And there's speculation that maybe this region culturally, you know, was more matriarchal in that sense. Well, it says they were women of standing.
Yeah, so we don't really know. But clearly this was a new tactic of the Jews who wanted to get Paul and Barnabas to be short-circuited. And so they decided to do this instead. And actually it drove them out of the district.
Yeah. It really did work. And they shook off the dust. By the way, that shook off the dust from their feet. That's a, that was a thing the Jews did when they walked through Gentile villages.
Right, right. It was a way of saying, we despise you so much we don't even want the dirt from your land. We don't want to carry your dirt with us.
We don't want anything from you coming with us. So you'd stomp the dirt off. It was a great sign of disgust and contempt, actually. And so they decided to use that very thing the Jews would do to the Gentiles, they did it to the Jews in contempt. And they went on to the next town down the road in Iconium. But the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Isn't that interesting? That's their response to being contradicted, to being reviled, to being persecuted, and literally driven out of town. Yeah, yeah, they were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. So, you know, I think the worst reception you can get isn't being opposed or being accepted, it's just being ignored. So they weren't ignored.
No. It caused a stir and some came to Jesus and some really took an opposition. Well, yeah, it's very clear that they were leaving behind a group of believers. Yeah, yeah. A group of people who had bit down on the message. Yep, that's true.
So, you know, in that sense, that's totally worth rejoicing over. Yep, yep, there's action going on. Well, let's go to Iconium. What do you say? Okay. So we're turning the page into chapter 14, verse 1. I think I'll read.
What do you think? Okay, go ahead. So we're going to go down the road, we're leaving behind that old place and we're going to go down to Iconium. So now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue, spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews. Here we go again.
Here we go. They buried up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained a long time speaking boldly for the Lord who bore witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city, they were divided. Some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Iconia, and to the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel.
Wow. So it's interesting that they moved on from Antioch to Iconium. So that looks to me on the map about 50 miles. So it would have taken them a few days to get there.
Yeah, I think it's a little less, but that's pretty close. But they're heading into a mountainous region it looks like. They're going deeper into Turkey to the east.
Yeah, yeah. So I mean similar response, right? Here we are at Iconium, Jews and Greeks both listening. Same message to the Jews and Greeks. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and they poisoned their minds against the Jews.
The primary opposition comes from Jews. From the Jews, yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it makes sense because Paul and Barnabas are making remarkable claims about the promised Messiah being Jesus who was killed and resurrected.
Okay, so I can get that. But any time you move into the area with the Jews about, oh, the Messiah has come, you better come with some real proof. And so they got really mad. But interestingly enough, they didn't get chased out immediately. Verse 3 says they remained a long time.
They remained a long time. So they remained, like deliberately because there was this opposition. Yeah, yeah, and this poisoning of the minds. It's a different kind of opposition.
They're going to stick around. Right. You know, this poisoning of the mind. How do you do that?
By talking sneaky. Yeah. But in all of that, what Paul and Barnabas did didn't get more eloquent or more logical.
It says they spoke boldly for the Lord and was the Lord who bore witness to the word of his grace. Yeah. And how? By granting signs and wonders to be done in their hands.
So it's interesting. They didn't come into town in Iconium to do miracles. No. And then, oh, by the way, talk about Jesus. Right.
They came in to talk about who Jesus was, the word of the Lord. And, oh, by the way, the Lord decided to have some signs in order to substantiate what they're saying. Yeah. Yeah.
And that, by the way, that's a very typical mode of operation when you see the word being preached in new areas. God grants signs and wonders in order to say this is the real deal, guys. As a validation. As a validation. Yeah.
So many times I get skeptical even today when there's signs and wonders going on, and they're not validating anything. They're just a sideshow. They're just making a show. Yeah. Yeah. So this here, it actually shows what the purpose of them was. Well, okay.
Well, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say that the purpose of a sign is to point to something. Yeah. Right.
So if you're just doing signs and not giving a message or not pointing to something beyond the sign itself. Right. And that's kind of an indicator that this is a false thing.
Yeah. But what's happening here is a real thing. This is a real thing.
It's a real thing. I might point out, too, at the end of verse four, some sided with the Jews, some with the apostles. That word apostles, this is the first time that word is used of Paul and Barnabas in Acts. They're called apostles. And a lot of people say, well, how can they be apostles?
They didn't walk with Jesus. And I would suggest that instead of thinking about that definition of the apostles, that you think about just the general use of the word apostle means one who is by arrangement made to be away. Right. So in our terms, from a religious perspective, it more closely fits the idea of a missionary. So a missionary, I mean, everyone knows if you call yourself a missionary, then they say, yeah, well, where were you sent to? Right.
You're an away person. You're sent from somewhere to somewhere. Indeed, actually, Jesus is called the apostle of our faith in Hebrews.
So that tells us, oh, this is more than just the office, capital A. Exactly. So I would suggest that's what's going on here, because Paul and Barnabas clearly are people who've been sent away to talk about the gospel.
So anyway, at this point, the opposition looks like it gets worse. And five, and the temptures are made by both Gentiles and Jews. Now they're working in concert here by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to not only just mistreat them, but to stone them. Yeah. They are going to stone these guys. That's pretty serious, because stoning as a penalty is usually really reliably kills people. Well, and it's the punishment for blasphemy. Oh, totally.
From a Jewish point of view. Yeah, yeah. So as soon as they learned of these plans being brewed up in town there in Iconium, they said, okay, we're out of here. We're out of here. And so they choose to leave. So they fled in verse 6 to Lystra and to Derbe, cities of Iconia, and to the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel. Continued to preach. They did not stop, because that's what they came out for.
That's right, that's right. And you don't see them sitting on the side of the road going, you know, this is harder than we thought it was going to be. Yeah, this is harder, which kind of takes us back to John Mark, who deserted them before they ever got into Turkey. But we'll come back to him in a couple chapters.
Yeah, we'll come back to him. But it is fascinating to see the persistence of Paul and Barnabas, even in the face of what is, I mean, lethal plans being laid against them in verse 5, lethal plans. I mean, this just isn't trying to contradict what they're saying or influencing the devout women of high standing. They said, okay, we're done with this. We're just going to kill these guys. We're just going to kill them. And, you know, their reason for killing them, if you want to look for a religious kind of rationale, would be blasphemy, because all they have to say is what they said against Jesus. You know, you claim to be the Son of God, but you're not. That's blasphemy.
We'll kill you. And so that's what they decide to do, with the Gentiles' help, by the way, which happened with Jesus. They needed the Gentile help to do that. So we are deep in Turkey at this point.
I mean, they're just pushing on deep into Turkey, into the hills, high elevation, 3,000, 4,000 feet. And they're going to villages that probably have never heard any of this stuff ever before. But there were Jews there. But there were Jews there, and there were Jews, and in the opposition they find they don't find the principal opposition from the Greek pagans. Right.
They find it from the Jews, who supposedly are the followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So that's where the opposition is coming from. It's interesting.
You will almost always get your greatest opposition from people who are closest to who you are. That's the way it works. That's interesting to me. Yeah. Well, you got any other wisdom at the end of this? We've got running out of time here. I'm anxious to press on with the story, because as we read on, we know that they've kind of come to the end of the loop of their journey, and pretty soon they're going to start retracing their steps to go back home. I said, well, we went, we did it. We pressed into unknown territory, and look what happened. Should we keep going? Yeah. So they're pushing into Lister and Derby, and there's a very famous guy that comes out of Lister we'll talk about next time, and then we'll see if he shows up in the narrative, because Lister is not just some small dot on the map.
It actually has some prominence in the New Testament narrative. So that's where we're going to go next time. So if you do want to read ahead with us, we're starting into verse 8 of chapter 14, and you can go ahead of us, and you can go to Lister ahead of us, and you're going to see what's going to happen. But as we go there together next time, we'll find out, will the opposition get better, or will it get easier? And if it gets harder, if it gets harder, what's the breaking point for Paul and Barnabas, and will that break them next time, or will they, like we've seen so far, persist through all those troubles, even at the threat of death? Will they continue to push on?
And that level of opposition will indeed come back as they move further into Turkey, further into what's called Asia Minor as they go into Lystra, and we'll see what happens. So come back to us next time. I'm Jim.
And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're joining with us. This is one of the most exciting sections of Scripture, so we hope for sure that you come back with us next time here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Ha ha, we were off to a good start. Ha ha, something. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
