Tag Archives: Antioch

THE BOOK OF ACTS – ANCHORED IN TRUTH

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ANCHORED IN TRUTH

“After proclaiming the Message in Derbe and establishing a strong core of disciples, they retraced their steps to Lystra, then Iconium, then Antioch, putting muscle and sinew into the disciples, urging them to stick with what they had begun to believe and not to quit, making it clear to them that it wouldn’t be easy. ‘Anyone signing up for the kingdom of God has to go through plenty of hard times.'” Acts 14:21-22 (The Message).

How would you tackle the mammoth task of penetrating a completely pagan society with a message that made no sense and was being actively opposed by unruly mobs of fanatically religious Jews who were out to kill you? Call it a day and go home, probably!

What guarantee did Paul and Barnabas have that the converts would not quit the moment their backs were turned? Why should these people stick with believing a story about a Jew who said and did some extraordinary things, was executed as a criminal and then came back to life again? What proof did they have that this was all true?

Unlike religions, which are man-made belief systems, Paul and Barnabas were in partnership with God Himself. When people received the Message, something supernatural happened: their unresponsive spirits were made alive to God; their minds were enlightened by the truth and they were joined to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. God Himself took up residence in their spirits and they were in direct communication with Him.

They may not have had the written Word of God in their hands as we have today, but they had the Living Word in their hearts. Paul and Barnabas had a limitless confidence in the power of God to sustain every believer and keep them following the Master. It was their task to teach, exhort and encourage them to persevere, and those who were truly made new by God’s Spirit stuck with their new faith and passed it on to those around them.

Jesus gave His disciples the assurance that He would build His church. Their commission was to make disciples, not converts, by passing on everything they had learned from Jesus. For Paul and Barnabas to evangelise was only half the task. It was imperative that they thoroughly ground their converts in God’s Word — the Law and the Prophets — to ensure that their faith had a firm foundation in truth, not fantasy.

Paul and Barnabas did their best to imprint that Word into the new disciples and, to their delight, as they retraced their steps from town to town, they found people who were committed to the Faith they had received, regardless of the price they had to pay. They learned that the grace of God is free but it is not cheap. They had received the free gift of eternal life but with it came the refining process of hardship and trouble which would prepare them for lives that bore witness to the power of Jesus at work in them.

Those of us who have a shepherding role to play in the church have an example to follow in these two stalwart missionaries. They never gave up, no matter how tough the way. They faithfully taught the Word of God to the converts until they became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, committed to Him as their Rabbi to stick with Him, learn from Him and imitate Him so that others, in turn, would also follow.

Our role is not to propagate a religion but to invite people to become followers of Jesus, to be united to Him and to navigate this life with Him as He takes us to the Father.

Round Two

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ROUND TWO

“Paul stayed a while in Corinth, but then it was time to take leave of his friends. Saying his goodbyes, he sailed for Syria, Priscilla and Aquila with him. Before boarding the ship in the harbour town of Cenchrea, he had his head shaved as part of a vow he had taken.

“They landed at Ephesus, where Priscilla and Aquila got off and stayed. Paul left the ship briefly to go to the meeting place and preach to the Jews. They wanted him to stay longer but he said he couldn’t. But after saying good bye, he promised, ‘I’ll be back, God willing.’

“From Ephesus he sailed to Caesarea. He greeted the assembly of Christians there, and then went on to Antioch, completing the journey.” Acts 18:18-22 (The Message).

Round two completed, and what an eventful journey it had been! As usual, Paul returned to home base at Antioch to report back to his home church the results of his second journey.

During round one he had been dogged by Jewish persecution and round two had been no different. In fact, the opposition had intensified so much that there were times that he had to flee for his life…but he never gave up. He simply went on. He was beaten almost to death by Gentiles at Lystra on his first journey and miraculously raised up to continue his commission.

The second time around, he had pushed on into Europe and encountered bitter opposition at Philippi. This time it was Roman government officials who were influenced by a street gang, roused by angry Jews, who failed to give Paul and Silas a fair hearing, who had them beaten and thrown into jail. Another miracle rescued them and they continued on through Thessalonica, Berea and Athens to Corinth, the most notoriously wicked city in Europe.

It was time to go home, take a break and regain strength to push on again. Paul’s goal was Rome, the heart and pulse of the empire. What a joy it must have been for him, on his return journey to Antioch, to renew ties with groups of believers all along the route he had travelled years before where the gospel had not yet been heard. The whole of Asia Minor and Greece were peppered with churches he had started and left to influence the surrounding areas with the light of God’s kingdom.

It might have been a temptation to Paul to retire in Antioch where he was known and relatively safe, and settle down to a few years of pastoring the home church before he went to be with the Lord. Not Paul! He had been commissioned to go to the nations, and to the nations he would go until his Master instructed him otherwise.

By this time Paul was both seasoned believer and veteran missionary. Retirement was not on his agenda because he was at his most useful and fruitful. There lay ahead for him more suffering, more imprisonment, more experience of God’s love and grace to share with those who were far behind him on their journey. Without those years of experience, we would not have the rich treasures of wisdom he shared through his letters.

In today’s world too many times the elderly are brushed aside and pushed into the backwaters of society because they have outlived their usefulness. With the wealth of life lessons locked up inside them, they are often treated as ignorant and irrelevant. They may not have the technological skills of the younger generation, but many of them have the benefits of a long journey with Jesus.

Fortunately, God has another opinion and agenda for those in the category of “elderly”. Their retirement home is not an earthly one. As long as they have breath, they remain part of the army of souls who live to bear witness to Him.

“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, ‘The Lord is upright;
He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him.'”
Psalm 92:12-15 (NIV)

Battle Over

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BATTLE OVER

“And so off they went to Antioch. On arrival, they gathered the church and read the letter. The people were greatly relieved and pleased. Judas and Silas, good preachers both of them, strengthened their new friends with many words of courage and hope. Then it was time to go home. They were sent off by their new friends with laughter and embraces all around to report back to those who had sent them there.

“Paul and Barnabas stayed on in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Word of God. But they weren’t alone. There were a number of teachers and preachers at that time in Antioch.” Acts15:30-35 (The Message).

A happy conclusion to a critical time! Satisfaction for the leaders and relief for the non-Jewish believers who could so easily have been burdened with the load the Jews themselves were unable to carry had the decision gone the other way! Mission accomplished, Judas and Silas returned to home base while Paul and Barnabas stayed on in their familiar territory to continue their work of grounding the church in the faith.

Everything settled back into a normal routine, but there was another storm brewing, not a matter of doctrine this time but a personal issue which was to split the team and create a rift which would take many years to heal.

As we have journeyed through Acts, one factor has appeared and reappeared – the apostles and church leaders’ efforts to preserve the unity of the Body. They had been called on many times to make critical decisions which would affect the whole church, probably the most crucial and difficult being the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers.

Theoretically, the age-old rift between them had been healed through the cross but it was up to them to thrash out the practical issues that arose as they implemented the effects of the cross in their everyday lives. Their prejudice ran very deep, centuries of conditioning passed down from generation to generation, and needed a paradigm shift to bring the two groups together in a strong bond of loyalty and brotherhood which would wipe out the old feelings of antagonism and replace them with acceptance and love.

For the church of the Lord Jesus today, the issue may not be Jew and Gentile but we are still faced with prejudices that criss-cross the entire world. Without the official ruling of the early church leaders, those who were advocating that circumcision be imposed on Gentile believers would have been free to propagate their teaching and unnecessarily enslave naive Christians wherever they went.

The decision of the first church council in Jerusalem laid the foundation for the experience of unity in the body of Christ from then on. In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul enlarged on this aspect of Jesus’ death, reuniting all people by destroying the reason for their alienation.

“For He Himself is our peace, who made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.” Ephesians 2:14-16 (NIV).

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.” Colossians3:11 (NIV).

We are a new creation, a new race and a new culture and all the old ones fall away.

Explosion in a Paint Tin

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EXPLOSION IN A PAINT TIN

“Those who had been scattered by the persecution triggered by Stephen’s death travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, but they were still only speaking and dealing with their fellow Jews. Then some of the men from Cyprus and Cyrene who had come to Antioch started talking to Greeks, giving them the Message of the Master Jesus. God was pleased with what they were doing and put His stamp of approval on it — quite a number of the Greeks believed and turned to the Master.” Acts 11:19-21 (The Message).

Persecution spread the church like an explosion in a tin of paint. Wherever the believers went, they coloured their environment with the good news of Jesus. In less than one generation, the church had spread north, south, east and west. Blowing like a fresh breeze through communities which were stale and stagnant with old religions, the Holy Spirit brought new life to people of every colour and culture.

Although some had not yet broken out of their old inhibitions, others boldly proclaimed new life in Jesus across racial barriers and found, to their surprise and joy that God was approving their initiative by giving life to non-Jews in Jesus’ name. Believers from as far afield as Cyrene in Africa and Crete in the Mediterranean Sea, congregated in Syrian Antioch and shared the good news with Greeks living there.

“When the church in Jerusalem got wind of this, they sent Barnabas to Antioch to check on things. As soon as he arrived, he saw that God was behind and in it all. He threw himself in with them, got behind them, urging them to stay with it the rest of their lives. He was a good man that way, enthusiastic and confident in the Holy Spirit’s ways. The community grew large and strong in the Master.” Acts 11:22-24 (The Message).

Syrian Antioch was coming alive in Christ and becoming a centre of Christian faith and worship. Once again the church in Jerusalem took the initiative to check on the authenticity of this new outbreak. Barnabas, a trusted man though not an apostle, was sent to find out what was happening. He was an outgoing man and an optimist. He had stood by Saul when the church in Jerusalem was suspicious of his “conversion” and kept him at arm’s length until Barnabas vouched for him.

Barnabas was excited and enthusiastic about what he saw and heard. The Holy Spirit had done a work in the hearts of Greeks and he was quick to recognise and acknowledge them as fellow-believers. In his customary positive way, he urged them to stay with their new-found faith in Jesus. Once again the power of this new life resonated in many hearts and the church continued to flourish in non-Jewish soil.

Jesus had once assured His disciples, in full view of the most disgusting public display of pagan religious orgies at Caesarea Philippi, Israel’s “red light district”, that His church would be planted and grow right in the heart of environments like the one they were witnessing. “On this rock,” He had said, “I will build my church and not even the Gate of Hell, (the supposed entrance into the demonic underworld); will be able to hold it back.” True to His word, the church was growing and flourishing right in the environment of hostile Jewish religious legalism and wicked and promiscuous pagan religions.

What was the key to this phenomenal growth? Through the power and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the church was a family held together by love and unity. Wherever the Holy Spirit ruled, the church remained pure and people were attracted to something they had never seen or experienced before. It had to be God; these groups of people doing life together was a supernatural thing.

Every life rescued from sin and self and reconnected to Jesus, became connected to every other life in Jesus. The result was families of people of different languages and cultures sharing and caring for each other like they were blood brothers and sisters. When God’s love holds sway, the world does not have an answer for the power that attracts broken people and draws them into the love and unity of this Body.

Free from the guilt and shame of their past lives, they experienced the forgiveness of sins and a new peace and joy that lifted them above petty differences and brought them into fellowship with Jesus and with one another. This was nothing short of the power of God!