As David Aune (Prophecy in Early Christianity, 265) notes: “At the beginning of Acts 13 a list of prophets and teachers at Antioch is given that includes five names: Barnabas, Simeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, and Saul (i.e. Paul). While it has been argued on the basis of syntax that the first three are prophets and the last two teachers, the terms "prophet" and "teacher" are probably interchangeable here, so that all five may be considered prophets in Luke' s view.”
1 It is often supposed that Simeon’s nickname “Niger” (Latin “black”) indicates he was a Negro. But color words in names can refer not just to skin color, but to hair color as well (cf. Rufus the redhead). Still, since blonds were less common in ancient Syria and Palestine than brunets, a nickname “black-haired” might be less probable than dark-skinned. In any event, it is unlikely that Luke was trying to denote Negro descent in this oblique way, since he could have done it much more directly. The group is not only geographically, but socially diverse. Manaen is the Greek form of Hebrew Menahem (מְנַחֵם), showing he was Jewish, but he was also a “member of the court of Herod the ruler” (NRSV). None of this diversity of social station or of ethnic origin hindered these men from worshiping and fellowshiping together, and serving the Antiochean community of believers.
2 Their activity including fasting might suggest that they were in the process of seeking God’s guidance for some new outreach effort, since prayer and fasting often indicate an earnest seeking after the will of God. If so, then the answer came to them, as recorded here in v. 2. The rather general expression “the work to which I have called them” indicates that these two men may have already had some indication of that work, but needed the rest of the church’s leadership to receive confirming guidance from God. Rainer Riesner, Paul's Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology (1998) pp. 264f, advanced a plausible theory that Paul (and probably Barnabas) devised their missionary itinerary on the basis of passages from Isaiah 66:19 that indicated where the Messianic gospel would penetrate, carried by the “saved” ( פליטים= LXX σεσῳσμένους, translated "survivors" ESV) remnant of Israel. The earliest believers in the Messiah Jesus would, according to Paul and Barnabas’ interpretation, be those “saved” Israelites who were to carry the good news to the nations: “Tarshish, Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory”. If this theory is correct, it shows how alert and attentive Bible study combined with prayer and fasting can lead to a powerful and effective witnessing strategy, a lesson that today’s church can afford to learn.
No mention is made of an angelic visitor, which may mean that the words of the Holy Spirit recorded here came through one the prophets mentioned in v. 1.
4 Being “sent out” (Hebrew שׁליח) on a mission usually means that the sender authorizes the trip and guarantees the means to accomplish it. Here the sender is not the church in Antioch, but the Holy Spirit himself. Ultimately, the missionaries know that the sender is also Jesus (Matt 28:18-20). Recall the mission to procure a bride for Isaac recorded in Genesis 24. The servant there feels the weight of his responsibility to his master, Abraham, who sent him, but knows that the resources of his master stand behind and support him, and his master’s God can be counted on for guidance.
5 Salamis was on the extreme eastern end of the island of Cyprus. There were many Jewish communities on Cyprus in those days, and the starting point of local evangelization for Paul and Barnabas was always the local synagogue. There they could count on not only Jews predisposed to the message of a Jewish Messiah and Savior, but also Gentiles who were attracted to Judaism and its teachings and practice.
Up to this point Luke has not told us that John Mark was with them. He is there as an “assistant” (Greek ὑπηρέτης), which probably meant both attending to their physical needs (procuring food, etc) and doing some counseling of whatever converts were made. It may have been this involvement with “follow-up” work with converts that (humanly speaking) lead Mark eventually to return home and write up his gospel.
6 The phrase “had gone through the whole island” may indicate that they visited all the intervening towns between Salamis and Paphos, teaching and preaching in all the synagogues, or it may only indicate a travel route.
Paphos was the seat of the Roman governor (proconsul, Greek ἀνθύπατος, head of the government in a senatorial province) of the island. This man, Sergius Paulus, was a famous Roman. Luke calls him “an intelligent man” (συνετός), which in biblical parlance usually means more than having a high I.Q. It involves being reasonable and open to learning something new, as well as having the good judgment to pursue life on the basis of established facts and firm convictions. The same Greek adjective is used in the LXX to describe Joseph (Gen 41:33,39), Oholiab who constructed the Tabernacle (Ex 31:6), the youth David (1Sam. 16:18), and David’s uncle Jonathan who was his counselor (1Chr 27:32).
The expression “the word of God”, both here and in other parts of Acts, refers not to the Scripture, but to the gospel message. The proconsul heard of the missionaries’ activities in the province and wanted to know what it was that they were preaching. It might have been something treasonous. But we are also given the impression that he was interested also for personal reasons.
Apparently, the Jewish “false prophet”, who bore both the name Bar Jesus (“son of Yeshua/Joshua”) and Elymas, was present while the two missionaries had their interview with the proconsul, and interjected his own remarks, trying to “turn the proconsul away fromt he faith”. In so doing he was standing in the way of the Holy Spirit’s work, and Paul recognized that the Holy Spirit was leading him to invoke god’s own judgmental power. Therefore in v. 9 Luke explicitly says “Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said”. It was the Spirit who prompted as well as empowered him. Paul will be called upon to repeat this behavior again in Philippi (Acts 16) with different consequences.
The miracle is not described exactly like an exorcism, but it shares many features with such. Paul looked intently at the man, he then calls him by the name of the evil influence (similar to demon): “you son of the Devil”, etc. The “hand of the Lord” refers to the direct and immediate power of God. The expression is used in Exodus of the miraculous judgments upon the pharaoh of Egypt. The blindness was temporary (“for a while”), but immediate. And there was no other way to interpret it but as the fulfillment of Paul’s words.
12 The reaction of the proconsul was belief and astonishment. But the cause of the astonishment was not apparently the miracle, but “the teaching of the Lord”, perhaps referring to the gospel Paul and Barnabas told to him about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
From the westernmost tip of Cyprus the missionaries sailed to Perge on the southern coast of Asia Minor, in the Roman province of Pamphylia. At this point John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. Later we learn that Paul considered this desertion, while Barnabas took a less judgmental attitude toward it. Various theories have been proposed for why Mark left, from cowardice and disillusionment that the mission didn’t stay in Cyprus as he thought it would, to a desire to minister in his homeland and perhaps begin work on a gospel to be used for converts.
From coastal Perge the two proceeded inland into the mountains to Antioch of Pisidia. Some scholars think Paul had received an attack of persistent malaria or some similar illness that needed the higher altitudes of Pisidia. Later when Paul wrote to these Galatian believers, he says that it was because of some infirmity that he first preached the gospel to them (Gal 4:13-14).
Here (vv. 15-43) we have the first virtually complete record of one of Paul’s “evangelistic” homilies in a Jewish synagogue of the Diaspora. Even though it is written by Luke and not Paul himself, and Luke is using a source (since he was not yet with Paul), it may be considered a fairly accurate representation of the type of sermon Paul used to Jewish audiences on his travels.
The liturgy as Luke describes it is simple: first the readings from the law and the prophets (according to a lectionary or schedule for weekly readings), then a brief homily, perhaps prepared in advance by a local member or extemporaneously by a visiting rabbi. If the schedule of readings were known to the visitor, he might have prepared notes of his own on the passage before coming. The Holy Spirit guides us, even if we have prepared in advance -- perhaps even better if we have prepared! I suspect that Paul knew he would be invited and that he had composed his thoughts in advance.
The term used in v. 15 for the homily, λόγος παρακλήσεως “word of exhortation”, is probably the technical term. Today “exhortation” is not a very common word in evangelical churches: it was much more so in our parents’ time. It basically refers to words urging specific actions of Christian behavior: prayer, hospitality, generous giving to those in need, honesty, etc. These “applications” would have been drawn from the passage itself that had been read. Unfortunately, Luke does not tell us what the readings were for that Sabbath. It is possible that one might reason back from the early part of Paul’s recorded sermon to what passages from the law and the prophets might have been his text. Since in the Jewish canon what we call the “historical books” are part of the “Former Prophets”, and since Paul’s brief historical summary stops with David, I would guess that the lesson from the “prophets” for that Sabbath had to do with God’s covenant with David in 2 Sam 7. And it is this historical event that Paul uses as his “springboard” to present Jesus (v. 23-25).
His actual “exhortation” proper begins in v. 26, where he highlights the plea by addressing his audience directly “my brothers, descendants of Abraham’s family, and others (Gentiles) who fear God”. The “message of salvation” (v. 26) that has been sent specifically to this audience concerns a “Savior” (v. 23) for Israel. How he is a Savior is only now explained (v. 27-39): the death and resurrection of Jesus which leads to forgiveness and liberation from sins, which the law of Moses could never do. And this salvation is clearly tied in to David (“the sure mercies of David”, vv. 34-37) in a way that suggests again that the reading from the “Former Prophets” for that Sabbath was 2 Samuel 7.
40-41 Whether or not the typical Jewish synagogue homily was structured this way or not, Paul concludes with a warning against failing to heed the exhortation drawn from the weekly reading of scripture.
42-43 The homily was so well received, that the hearers gathered around Paul and Barnabas and urged them to speak again the following week.
44 Where God begins a work inevitably Satan stirs up opposition. Luke does not specifically attribute it to Satan: that is not his style. But it is clear that opposition to God’s work always comes one way or another from him. And we saw how Paul himself called Bar Jesus a “son of the Devil” at Paphos.
The motive Luke gives us for the Jewish opposition was not misinterpretation of the scripture but jealousy at the attraction of large crowds from the city (vv. 44-45). Their strategy was to interrupt Paul’s homily in the synagogue, so that he could not continue. Paul’s parting words to them of turning to the Gentiles does not mean that from this point on he would not enter synagogues to teach and preach, but that in this particular town and on this visit he was leaving them. This provoked great joy among the Gentile hearers, who were flattered by this attention.
Not content with driving the missionaries out of the synagogue, the opponents used political influence through certain prominent Gentile women who had become hangers-on at the synagogue to expel Paul and Barnabas from the region.
4 Being “sent out” (Hebrew שׁליח) on a mission usually means that the sender authorizes the trip and guarantees the means to accomplish it. Here the sender is not the church in Antioch, but the Holy Spirit himself. Ultimately, the missionaries know that the sender is also Jesus (Matt 28:18-20). Recall the mission to procure a bride for Isaac recorded in Genesis 24. The servant there feels the weight of his responsibility to his master, Abraham, who sent him, but knows that the resources of his master stand behind and support him, and his master’s God can be counted on for guidance.
5 Salamis was on the extreme eastern end of the island of Cyprus. There were many Jewish communities on Cyprus in those days, and the starting point of local evangelization for Paul and Barnabas was always the local synagogue. There they could count on not only Jews predisposed to the message of a Jewish Messiah and Savior, but also Gentiles who were attracted to Judaism and its teachings and practice.
Up to this point Luke has not told us that John Mark was with them. He is there as an “assistant” (Greek ὑπηρέτης), which probably meant both attending to their physical needs (procuring food, etc) and doing some counseling of whatever converts were made. It may have been this involvement with “follow-up” work with converts that (humanly speaking) lead Mark eventually to return home and write up his gospel.
6 The phrase “had gone through the whole island” may indicate that they visited all the intervening towns between Salamis and Paphos, teaching and preaching in all the synagogues, or it may only indicate a travel route.
Paphos was the seat of the Roman governor (proconsul, Greek ἀνθύπατος, head of the government in a senatorial province) of the island. This man, Sergius Paulus, was a famous Roman. Luke calls him “an intelligent man” (συνετός), which in biblical parlance usually means more than having a high I.Q. It involves being reasonable and open to learning something new, as well as having the good judgment to pursue life on the basis of established facts and firm convictions. The same Greek adjective is used in the LXX to describe Joseph (Gen 41:33,39), Oholiab who constructed the Tabernacle (Ex 31:6), the youth David (1Sam. 16:18), and David’s uncle Jonathan who was his counselor (1Chr 27:32).
The expression “the word of God”, both here and in other parts of Acts, refers not to the Scripture, but to the gospel message. The proconsul heard of the missionaries’ activities in the province and wanted to know what it was that they were preaching. It might have been something treasonous. But we are also given the impression that he was interested also for personal reasons.
Apparently, the Jewish “false prophet”, who bore both the name Bar Jesus (“son of Yeshua/Joshua”) and Elymas, was present while the two missionaries had their interview with the proconsul, and interjected his own remarks, trying to “turn the proconsul away fromt he faith”. In so doing he was standing in the way of the Holy Spirit’s work, and Paul recognized that the Holy Spirit was leading him to invoke god’s own judgmental power. Therefore in v. 9 Luke explicitly says “Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said”. It was the Spirit who prompted as well as empowered him. Paul will be called upon to repeat this behavior again in Philippi (Acts 16) with different consequences.
The miracle is not described exactly like an exorcism, but it shares many features with such. Paul looked intently at the man, he then calls him by the name of the evil influence (similar to demon): “you son of the Devil”, etc. The “hand of the Lord” refers to the direct and immediate power of God. The expression is used in Exodus of the miraculous judgments upon the pharaoh of Egypt. The blindness was temporary (“for a while”), but immediate. And there was no other way to interpret it but as the fulfillment of Paul’s words.
12 The reaction of the proconsul was belief and astonishment. But the cause of the astonishment was not apparently the miracle, but “the teaching of the Lord”, perhaps referring to the gospel Paul and Barnabas told to him about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
13-52 On to Asia Minor.
From the westernmost tip of Cyprus the missionaries sailed to Perge on the southern coast of Asia Minor, in the Roman province of Pamphylia. At this point John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. Later we learn that Paul considered this desertion, while Barnabas took a less judgmental attitude toward it. Various theories have been proposed for why Mark left, from cowardice and disillusionment that the mission didn’t stay in Cyprus as he thought it would, to a desire to minister in his homeland and perhaps begin work on a gospel to be used for converts.
From coastal Perge the two proceeded inland into the mountains to Antioch of Pisidia. Some scholars think Paul had received an attack of persistent malaria or some similar illness that needed the higher altitudes of Pisidia. Later when Paul wrote to these Galatian believers, he says that it was because of some infirmity that he first preached the gospel to them (Gal 4:13-14).
Here (vv. 15-43) we have the first virtually complete record of one of Paul’s “evangelistic” homilies in a Jewish synagogue of the Diaspora. Even though it is written by Luke and not Paul himself, and Luke is using a source (since he was not yet with Paul), it may be considered a fairly accurate representation of the type of sermon Paul used to Jewish audiences on his travels.
The liturgy as Luke describes it is simple: first the readings from the law and the prophets (according to a lectionary or schedule for weekly readings), then a brief homily, perhaps prepared in advance by a local member or extemporaneously by a visiting rabbi. If the schedule of readings were known to the visitor, he might have prepared notes of his own on the passage before coming. The Holy Spirit guides us, even if we have prepared in advance -- perhaps even better if we have prepared! I suspect that Paul knew he would be invited and that he had composed his thoughts in advance.
The term used in v. 15 for the homily, λόγος παρακλήσεως “word of exhortation”, is probably the technical term. Today “exhortation” is not a very common word in evangelical churches: it was much more so in our parents’ time. It basically refers to words urging specific actions of Christian behavior: prayer, hospitality, generous giving to those in need, honesty, etc. These “applications” would have been drawn from the passage itself that had been read. Unfortunately, Luke does not tell us what the readings were for that Sabbath. It is possible that one might reason back from the early part of Paul’s recorded sermon to what passages from the law and the prophets might have been his text. Since in the Jewish canon what we call the “historical books” are part of the “Former Prophets”, and since Paul’s brief historical summary stops with David, I would guess that the lesson from the “prophets” for that Sabbath had to do with God’s covenant with David in 2 Sam 7. And it is this historical event that Paul uses as his “springboard” to present Jesus (v. 23-25).
His actual “exhortation” proper begins in v. 26, where he highlights the plea by addressing his audience directly “my brothers, descendants of Abraham’s family, and others (Gentiles) who fear God”. The “message of salvation” (v. 26) that has been sent specifically to this audience concerns a “Savior” (v. 23) for Israel. How he is a Savior is only now explained (v. 27-39): the death and resurrection of Jesus which leads to forgiveness and liberation from sins, which the law of Moses could never do. And this salvation is clearly tied in to David (“the sure mercies of David”, vv. 34-37) in a way that suggests again that the reading from the “Former Prophets” for that Sabbath was 2 Samuel 7.
40-41 Whether or not the typical Jewish synagogue homily was structured this way or not, Paul concludes with a warning against failing to heed the exhortation drawn from the weekly reading of scripture.
42-43 The homily was so well received, that the hearers gathered around Paul and Barnabas and urged them to speak again the following week.
44 Where God begins a work inevitably Satan stirs up opposition. Luke does not specifically attribute it to Satan: that is not his style. But it is clear that opposition to God’s work always comes one way or another from him. And we saw how Paul himself called Bar Jesus a “son of the Devil” at Paphos.
The motive Luke gives us for the Jewish opposition was not misinterpretation of the scripture but jealousy at the attraction of large crowds from the city (vv. 44-45). Their strategy was to interrupt Paul’s homily in the synagogue, so that he could not continue. Paul’s parting words to them of turning to the Gentiles does not mean that from this point on he would not enter synagogues to teach and preach, but that in this particular town and on this visit he was leaving them. This provoked great joy among the Gentile hearers, who were flattered by this attention.
Not content with driving the missionaries out of the synagogue, the opponents used political influence through certain prominent Gentile women who had become hangers-on at the synagogue to expel Paul and Barnabas from the region.
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