God’s Story Moves to Pisidian Antioch
Acts 13:13-52
How often does it hit you, that you’ve been drawn into God’s story? Colossian 3:3 tells us that as Christians our life is hidden with Christ in God. Clearly according to that verse, we are part of God’s story; the story of our lives in Christ is God’s story.
Driving some of the kids back home from Awana this past Wednesday night, one of the kids chimed in from the back of the van, “Pastor I learned a little Greek” (I think the child had been goaded on by Miss Wendy who was sitting nearby and I had actually heard them working on Revelation 22:13, I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.)
And knowing the Awana book and the questions in it, I said, “Do you know the first letter of the Greek alphabet?” With a little help, she said, “Alpha”. And I said, ‘how about the last letter of the Greek alphabet…It starts with an O and rhymes with Bomega… And she got it…Omega”
I said the verse out loud…I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end…. and I guess I had one of those moments, the Holy Spirit teaching me, where my eyes were opened to how phenomenal, how incredible that truth is. Jesus is speaking, and by the way, that phrase “I am the alpha and omega” appears three times in the book of Revelation. Jesus is the alpha…Jesus is the omega…Jesus is the beginning of all history (the creator) and also the goal for whom all thing are made (all history is moving toward glorifying him[1])
And so I said out loud somewhat excitedly to the three kids who were left on the van… we were turning onto Crim street at the time… “Jesus is the beginning of the story…And Jesus is the end of the story… He’s the beginning of the race…And He’s the end of the race….it only makes sense that we would give our lives to Him!”
I don’t know how much they caught but the Spirit of God convinced me. You see it only makes sense that we would give our lives to Jesus. It only makes sense that we would surrender to the story line He is writing rather than trying to write our own story where we are the lead character. It only makes sense that we would present our bodies as living sacrifices to God, Romans 12:1…it only makes sense that that would be our rational service[2] to Him.
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Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting on the book of Acts and why it’s good that we study it. Of all the New Testament books, the book of Acts, at least in my mind, is the clearest book illustrating the movement, the progression of God’s Story. God is writing a story and He summons people from every tribe and nation to be part of His story. His story continues today. In fact in our worship service every Sunday, as we pray for every nation on earth, as we meet to learn God’s word, as we grow in Christlikeness we are recognizing that we ourselves are part of God’s story.
And given that we have put our faith in Christ, given that we have been made part of Christ’s body, we have been written into His story. So we study the book of Acts to strengthen our relationship with this God whose story we’ve been made part of. We study the book of Acts to see what’s on His heart…what does He really want his people to be about, to be involved in and we study the book of Acts to see how He involves believers in His work. Clearly one of our assumptions is that just as Paul and Barnabas made disciples wherever they went, so should we.
Early on in our series in Acts we looked at Ephesians 2:10…
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Ephesians 2:10
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.[3]
Paraphrased we could say it like this, we are God’s poetry, His artpiece, his workmanship twice created—created once in Adam, and created the second time in Christ… Why? Why have we been twice created? For good works …………..which God prepared beforehand…..I take that to mean that God made the architectural drawings for the good works that He wants us to do… that we should walk in them…
…that we should be about doing them…
Now I bring Ephesians 2:10 up again because there is a key word in Ephesians 2:10 ‘ ….the word ‘works’ that shows up in Acts 13 as the first of three grand missionary journeys begins. Look at Acts 13:2 where the Holy Spirit says, ‘Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work, (same word) to which I have called them.”
Now if we apply Ephesians 2:10 to Acts 13:2, it would say that God has designed some good works for Paul and Barnabas to walk in.
You see the Holy Spirit could have equally said at the beginning of the first missionary journey here in Acts 13… “Paul and Barnabas are my workmanship, my poetry, my art pieces, and they’ve been doubly created, once in Adam and now in Christ. And God has some good works for them to walk in. Set them apart for those good works. Send them out on a mission to partner with Me to reach the world.”
And so it is with us, there are good works that God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in… I wonder, before we leave Ephesians 2:10 on the screen, if we could say the verse aloud personalizing it… instead of ‘we’ let’s use ‘I’.
For I am his workmanship…created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that I should walk in them.
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Last week, Keon did a great job kicking off the first missionary journey. In fact as we were singing this morning, I couldn’t help but think, “He’s strumming on the island of Cyprus!” (You had to be here last week to understand that one.)
We pick up this morning in Acts 13, verse 13…Acts 13, verse 13
13 Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
Our passage begins with a travel narrative. Lots of “P”s…Paul.. Paphos.. Perga… Pamphylia.
Let’s get our bearings… on a Powerpoint slide.
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You can see Paphos on the western coast of the “guitar-shaped” island of Cypress and Perga northwest by sea some 150 miles.[4]
In the conference that Daniel Devillier, Jerry Nicks and I attended last week John Piper, in a biographical message about Hudson Taylor, suggested that Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission and greatly used by God, spent between 4 and 5 years in transit at sea in his ten round trips by ship taken to China.[5] Almost 5 years of his life commuting! I was surprised as was the rest of the audience.
But it caused me to wonder what it was like for the apostle Paul and his loyal missionary band to travel in the first century as he went on his mission trips. So I just want to pull over briefly and explore that. .
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Traveling by sea, there were no passenger ships in the 1st century AD, only square-rigged cargo ships that accommodated passengers.
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Square-rigged boat
Paul, Barnabas and John may have traveled on a ship like that…and that was before Dramamine.
And then this slide, illustrating the distances Paul and his team traveled.
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3 Missionary Journeys on US Map
Our country is about 3000 miles wide.Paul traveled some 1600 land and sea miles on his first missionary journey and some 3000 and 3300 land and sea miles on his second and third missionary journey respectively.[6]
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Now back to the text, verse 13 records two interesting changes in the missionary team.
First, Paul seems to have taken the prominent role. Prior to this point, Barnabas was always mentioned first.[7] Now Barnabas fades into the phrase ‘Paul’s companions’. If you trace this out in the rest of Acts you’ll see that this observation plays out.[8] It seems that on Cyprus Paul emerged as the leader.
Well there’s a second change in the missionary team---we get a very brief note that John, John called Mark had left them and gone back home. Now Luke doesn’t comment on John’s leaving the trip, but we know from a passage in Acts 15 that Paul wasn’t happy about it. In Paul’s mind it was a desertion. [9] And we’ll talk about that when we get to Acts 15.
But why did John leave and return home? Why did John desert Paul and his uncle Barnabas? We can only speculate…Was he homesick? Had he not planned to be away so long? Did he get wind of how dangerous travel in the mountains of Pamphylia was? It was a region infested with bands of robbers….In fact in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul writes about his sufferings….and he writes this in 2 Corinthians 11:26 …on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers….and many think he’s talking about this 100 mile hike from sea level at Perga up to 3600 feet elevation to Antioch.[10] Other possible reasons have been suggested. Did John Mark resent Paul becoming the leader of the expedition over his uncle Barnabas? [11] Did he fear persecution?
Again we can only speculate what happened to John Mark. And I pause here to speculate a bit because this ‘failure’ in John Mark’s life—at least it was failure from Paul’s perspective—wasn’t final. The story does have a happy ending. We’ll talk about that when we get to Acts 15. Anybody failed here? Peter denied his Lord 3 times. Moses in impetuous moment killed an Egyptian. In the sovereignty of God, failure is never final. God uses our failures and weaves them into the tapestry of our lives. Perhaps you’ve seen the popular Proctor and Gamble commercial that’s been playing during the Olympics. It’s a tribute to mothers and it shows children of all ages falling down repeatedly. And in each case there’s a mother there ready to pick each child up. The commercial ends with a tribute to moms… For teaching us that falling only makes us stronger. For giving us the encouragement to try again. Thank you…
Moving on in the text, verse 14.
14 but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.
Now the road from Perga to Antioch in Pisidia probably was the Via Sebaste. Here is a picture of that road….
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Via Sebaste
Not quite the freeways we are used to….
Paul and Barnabas evidently bypassed by several towns and cities[12] on the Via Sebaste on their way to Antioch.
And you probably remember that the first missionary journey started in a city named Antioch, Antioch of Syria and here the missionaries find themselves in another Antioch, Antioch of Pisidia.[13] It turns out there at least 16 cities called Antioch in that part of the world.[14] One of the heirs of Alexander the Great’s empire had a father named Antiochus and he just couldn’t honor his father enough.[15]
The city of Antioch was an important city. (And we should highlight the importance of cities in the development and progress of God’s story[16] —we’ll see that over and over in the book of Acts. And because more people live in cities today than any other time in history, cities should still be important in the progress of God’s story.)
Antioch of Pisidia was in the Roman province of Galatia.[17] In fact all the towns that Paul and Barnabas will visit on the first missionary trip are in the Roman province of Galatia. So associate the book of Galatians with this area and with the first missionary journey. [18]
Antioch of Pisidia was regarded as the most important Roman colony in Asia minor. One expert on the city said, “Antioch would have appeared to Paul as a model of (Rome) itself.”[19] It had a large temple given over to the worship of the emperor, which ‘provided the main focus for the public and religious life of the colony.’[20] It had a large bathhouse, an aqueduct, and an organized street system. The moon God “Men” was the principle god of the city. But Jupiter, Dionysus, and Asklepios were worshipped too.[21]
You and I can get discouraged that our culture is going down hill so fast. Imagine walking through the cities of Antioch and seening temples to so-called Gods everywhere.
There’s another intriguing tidbit of a fact about the city. There was a Sergii Paulii who owned estates in southern Galatia.[22] Do you recognize that name at all? Well some think he was related to the Sergus Paulus who was the Roman proconsul who was converted on the island of Cyprus. And all of a sudden we can weave a story as to possibly why Paul and Barnabas after leaving Cyprus may have gone to Antioch of Pisidia directly—the family of the first convert they had led to the Lord, may have lived there![23]
Our journey group is studying “God’s will.” And it’s become clear to me on this topic that we find God’s will while we’re doing God’s will. Why did Paul and Barnabas start their missionary journey by going to the island of Cyprus? Well it turns out that Barnabas was from Cyprus. Seems wise when you don’t have any clear direction to go to a place you have some familiarity with. And in the process of ministering on Cyprus, they lead a proconsul to the Lord. In the course of their discussion—and I’m making this up-- he asks, “Where do you go next?” Paul replies, “I think we’re headed north.” And Sergus Paulus says, “I have relatives in Antioch….I would be glad to send letters of introduction with you” Again that’s a reconstuction but isn’t that often how we experience God’s will?
Continuing in verse 14…And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue (note the plural…rulers…this may have meant that the synagogue in Antioch was large…sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.”