Acts 13:14-41
Last week we closed with John Mark leaving the missionary team. This leaving will later cause a split in the highly effective team of Paul and Barnabas. We do not know for sure why John Mark left the team, but we can make some educated guesses.
One such guess is that the young missionary saw that they were about to undertake the most dangerous and difficult road in all of Asia Minor, and decided it was not for him. Another guess is that he saw how that Paul was rising up, and replacing his cousin Barnabas leader and left in anger. One of the more popular thoughts on this matter is that John Mark disagreed with going to the Gentiles with the Gospel, and left the team to join Peter in reaching the Jews.
All of these are guesses as we do have the answer recorded for us anywhere. There is however something for us to learn in this. If we look back to Acts 13:1-3, we can see the calling of the missionary team. We also see the church putting it is blessing and support behind the missionaries. In all this, something is missing. We do not see a calling for John Mark by the Holy Spirit, or a laying of hands on him. So from that it is possible to assume, but impossible to know for sure, that John Mark did not have a calling form God to be on this missionary trip. Without a sure calling from God, when times get rough its easy to turn back.
If we contrast this to Paul we can see what difference a calling makes. At this point in the missionary journey Paul is apparently sick. According to various commentaries and historians Malaria was running rampant in this area at that time, so it is likely that is what is sick from. If true that could be why he headed to Pisidia where the climate would be gentler on his symptoms. Paul in his letter to the Galatians (which was written to this region) said that it was “because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.” (Gal 4:13) This fits with the thought that Paul was forced inland by Malaria. Either way we know for sure that he was sick, and the road was very hard, and that unlike John Mark he did not turn back but pressed on. That is the difference a real calling from God makes.
After John Mark leaves them, Paul and Barnabas press on to Perga, but there is no record that they did any preaching while there on this pass. As mention earlier Paul gets sick around this time, and it is possible he was just too sick to preach. Barnabas may have been more concerned with getting Paul medical help them preaching at this time. We do not know for sure, but it is hard to imagine the great preacher Paul, who in later years will even preach while chained up in prison, not preaching unless something made it impossible.
They travel from Perga to Pisidian, which according to what I have read in numerous sources was one of most dangerous roads in all of Asia Minor at the time of this account. Not only was the road itself treacherous, but it was also home to many thieves and bandits. Paul will later write to the church of Corinth about the trials he faced and it in he mentions the many hardships he faced while out on his journeys (2 Cor 11:23-28), and it is likely that at least some of that is concerning this trip. The question any skeptic may ask here would be why suffer all of this? Why not just go back home where you are well loved and build your life there?
Well we will see that answer in Paul’s’ sermon in Acts 13:16-42. This is the first full sermon we have of Paul’s in Acts, but it is far from his first sermon. He has been preaching as a Christian for at least ten, or fifteen years and before that he was a Pharisee. So he is a very experienced preacher at this stage, and the sermon we have recorded here shows that well.
Paul expertly starts off his sermon by standing on the solid ground that all Jews would be able to support and stand with him on. He starts with the God of Israel and the early fathers of the faith. This would have given him an immediate connection with his listeners. He was a Jew talking about the great Jewish history.
Paul then walks though an overview of the history of the Jewish people. We do not know if what we have here is a summary or his full sermon, but in either case we can see that he leaves out the long period of backsliding of the Jewish people that occurred after David. This again shows his experience, he does not want to turn away his audience by hammering on all their past mistakes before he gets to the main point of his sermon.
This sermon here is obviously intended to convert his listener’s to Christianity, and Paul is doing that by proving to them that Jesus was the Messiah promised by God. He does this through connecting the dots through out history, and prophecy that point to Jesus as the Messiah. Since his Jewish audience knew the Scriptures to be true, this is a very convincing argument to them.
There is something else he is showing in this sermon, which is very applicable to us today. If you carefully read how Paul words things he is very deliberate in whom he attributes what to. In the history he gives we do not ever read that Moses lead his people out of Egypt, or that Joshua conquered the Promised land, instead Paul recasts everything as God directly acting and doing each piece. He does this until he gets to John the Baptist. After that he speaks of human actions and he also switches from the third person, “they” to the second person, “you”, and finally to the first person “we.”
What Paul is masterfully doing here is twofold. First he is slowly drawing his audience in to the sermon so that it applies directly to their present condition. He does this through the person shifting. At first he is talking about remote historical events, then closer events until he gets to his we passages which brings it right into their here and now.
Second he is answering the question “what is the purpose of history.” Many great thinkers have struggled with this question and have come up with such heart-warming thoughts, as “there is no reason,” and “eat and drink for tomorrow you die.” In contrast what Paul is showing here is a single thread of purpose. All of history was deliberately and carefully orchestrated with the purpose of bringing Jesus Christ in to the world to save man from his sinful state.
This truth is the heart of what Paul is getting at. All humanity has been lost in sin ever since the fall with no real way out. God so loved his creation that he created a way out where there was none. All anyone has to do to accept the way out, and they will be freed from the crushing curse of sin that all humanity lives under. Next week we will read that some of his audience accepted this free gift of escape, but that leaves us with one question. Have you accepted God’s free gift of freedom from the curse of sin? If not, I urge you to contact your local church for help in doing just that. If you do not know who to contact, drop me an email and I will see what I can find for you.
Print This Post