Acts 13:1-12

¹ Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. ⁴ So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. ⁵ When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. ⁶ When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. ⁷ He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. ⁸ But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. ⁹ But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him ¹⁰ and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? ¹¹ And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. ¹² Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

This text is significant because it reveals the early Church’s intentional efforts to reach the world with the gospel.  Its significance is compounded by the fact that these missionaries are sent forth from a church that was comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, the church at Antioch.  It is noteworthy that the church that was able to embrace the radical if difficult implications of the gospel (i.e., that Jews and Gentiles alike were welcomed into the Kingdom of God through Christ) was the church that commissioned and sent some out to take the gospel to all.  Those who are most grateful for their salvation are usually those who are most eager to share it.

The Spirit calls God-focused believers out of the Church for particular, commissioned tasks and the Church, ideally, agrees and supports those who are called.

We say that the church at Antioch commissioned these missionaries.  This is true, but only after God had done so.

¹ Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. ² While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Craig Keener provides some helpful background information on these specific names.

Simeon and Manaen (Menahem) are Jewish names, suggesting strong Jewish representation still in the leadership of the church…But Simeon’s surname “Niger” was a very respectable and common Roman name; he may be a Roman citizen, although this is not clear…the meaning of Simeon’s Latin nickname suggests a dark complexion and may indicate that he was descended from proselytes form the Romanized coast of North Africa (perhaps also Lucius).  Cyrene, on the North African coast, had a large Jewish population.

            That Manaen was “brought up” with Herod may mean they had the same wet nurse.  Slaves who grew up in the master’s household with the son who would inherit them were often later freed by the son, who had been their companion at play…Thus, until the fall of Herod Antipas (“the tetrarch”) perhaps a decade before, Manaen had held a socially prominent position (and is probably Luke’s main source for the Antipas material unique to his Gospel).[1]

What a fascinating and eclectic group this church at Antioch was!  Jews and Gentiles, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and possible a dark-skinned African were leaders and teachers in the church.  Eclectic, and beautiful!  The leadership of the Church was reflective of the population of Heaven itself:  people from all tribes and languages and ethnicities and backgrounds.

There is also an important Trinitarian note in these verses.  Note that in verse 2 the Holy Spirit says, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.”

“For me.”

Clearly, the Holy Spirit speaks with the voice of God.  John Chrysostom saw in the words of the Holy Spirit yet further evidence of the Spirit’s divinity.  “What being,” he asked, “unless of the same authority, would have dared to say this?”[2]  What being indeed!  The three-in-oneness of God is a doctrine we dare not abandon.  God is Father, Son, Spirit, three-in-one, and here we see once again the deity of the third Person of the Trinity.

It is also convicting to see the spiritual and communal posture of the Church both before and after the Spirit’s call.  Before the Spirit speaks, we are told that “they were worshiping the Lord and fasting.”  After the Spirit speaks we are told that they fasted and prayed before laying hands on Barnabas and Paul.  Fasting is mentioned twice and then worship and prayer.

It is not coincidental that the Spirit speaks to a church that is fasting and worshiping and praying.  These were a focused, deliberate, committed people.  Their gaze was Godward and then, with the eyes of Christ, worldward.  They had devoted themselves to the discipline of the faith and God spoke and moved.

At times we are tempted to question God and to complain.  “Why do I never hear from God?” we ask.  “Why has God not called me to some great task?” we ask.  “Why do others hear and I do not?”

Our text would beg us to ask another question:  “Have I put myself in a position to hear from God?  Have I emptied myself of all distraction and pretense so that I might hear from Him?  Does my degree of devotion and commit communicate that I even want to be called?”

When is the last time you prayed and worshiped and fasted, intensely seeking a movement of God or a call from God?  When is the last time you even carved out space to hear from God?

There are even more uncomfortable questions for me as a pastor.  Am I leading us to be a fasting, praying, worshiping Church?  Are my priorities as a pastor and are our priorities as a staff and are our priorities as a Church reflective of the priorities of the early Church in and through which God did such amazing things?  Are we too busy to hear?  Are we even too busy with ministry to hear?  When is the last time we were simply still before God?  When is the last time as a Church we cried out with focus and determination to God, refusing to stop?  This was the posture of the early Church, and God did amazing things in and through them!

The Church’s commission of Paul and Barnabas is beautiful.  The Lord calls men and women out of the Church to certain tasks, then, if the Church is attentive, the Church confirms the calling with prayer and acts of commission.

I felt called to the pastorate at the age of fifteen.  I went to my parents about it and then to my pastor.  My pastor told me that there was one way to see if this was actually a calling and that was to preach.  He told me that right after I preached I would likely think either that I would do this for the rest of my life or that I would never do it again.

So I preached, if you can call it that.  It was unpolished, rough, and weak.  But I felt a confirmation of my calling in it.  One of the great helps in this was my home church.  I will never forget how they gathered around me after that and encouraged me:  shaking my hand, hugging my neck, offering words of confirmation, encouragement, and enthusiasm.  I especially treasured the words of Grandfather, who was too ill to attend that night.  Even so, after he watched a videotape of the sermon, he called to encourage me and tell me that he had watched it twice!  He was indeed a patient man if he subjected himself to that sermon two times!

The point is that the church joined its confirmation with the Lord’s calling in giving me a sense of purpose and responsibility.  I felt then and now that the Lord was leading and the Church was supporting.  I am no Barnabas and I am no Paul, but I gladly offer my own imperfect but sincere testimony to the example of the early Church and say that this is a wonderful and awesome display of the body of Christ at work, and one that the recipients of such do not soon forget.

Encourage young people and people of any age who feel called!  Encourage them in their gifts and encourage them in their service.  Tell them you are with them.  Pray for them.  Stand beside them.  Get behind them and let them know you have their backs!  Paul and Barnabas must have felt especially blessed to have been sent out by such a church as the church of Antioch.  So have all who have been called by God and confirmed by their churches!

The first missionaries called out from the Church had ministries of proclamation and confrontation.

So these heroes of the faith begin their ministry.  Immediately they face challenges.  It is clear that the work of these first missionaries was a work of proclamation and confrontation.

⁴ So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. ⁵ When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them.

Let us not miss the fact that Paul goes first to “the synagogues of the Jews.”  We call him the great missionary to the Gentiles, and this is so.  But the fact remains that Paul always went first to his kinsmen, the Jews.  He would later explain his reason for this in the beginning of Romans 9.

¹ I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— ² that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. ⁴ They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. ⁵ To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

No, Paul had not abandoned the Jews.  Far from it!  He now preached with boldness and clarity and passion to his kinsmen.  Here we see his ministry of proclamation.  This early band of missionaries went about telling people the good news of Jesus Christ, calling all men to come to Jesus.  It is clear that they saw themselves as more than social reformers or philanthropists.  In point of fact, they saw themselves as heralds of the one true King!

So they proclaimed, but this proclamation brought with it opposition.  As a result, theirs was a ministry of proclamation and confrontation.

⁶ When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. ⁷ He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. ⁸ But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. ⁹ But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him ¹⁰ and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? ¹¹ And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

Paul’s confrontation with Bar-Jesus was an astonishing showdown between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.  Bar-Jesus stood at Sergius Paulus’ side and poisoned his mind in much the same way that Wormtongue poisoned the mind of Theoden King in The Lord of the Rings.  In doing so, he was keeping Sergius Paulus from the truth and from salvation while increasing his own condemnation through his wicked acts all the while.

Paul final has enough, turns on Bar-Jesus and proclaims him a “son of the devil.”  “No one familiar with Aramaic,” John Polhill writes, “could have missed the pun.  His name, Bar-Jesus…meant etymologically son of the Savior.  He was no son of the Savior; quite the opposite, he was the son of the devil.”[3]  Paul’s stinging rebuke of Bar-Jesus is reminiscent of Peter’s rebuke of Simon Magus in Acts 8.

Paul foretells that the Lord will strike Bar-Jesus blind “for a time,” which He immediately does.  There is actually a note of mercy in the temporary nature of this punishment, but it was hopefully sufficient to get Bar-Jesus’ attention.  One thing is certain:  It got Sergius Paulus’ attention!

¹² Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

This was power evangelism to accompany verbal evangelism.  In the face of such an amazing and unnerving display of the power of God, this ruler trusted in Christ.  In this, we find a stark contrast to Herod, who, in his arrogance, was struck down by an angel and consumed by worms at the end of Acts 12.  Herod embraced arrogance and was destroyed.  Sergius Paulus embraced humility and faith and was given life eternal.

These early missionaries had ministries of proclamation and confrontation.  The two often go hand-in-hand.  Where the gospel is preached, the devil will actively oppose.

Calvin Miller once told me of a missionary friend of his who was ministering in an African village.  While there he attracted the attention and opposition of the village witch doctor.  The witch doctor sought to drive the missionary from the village and oppose and undo what progress he had made.  The missionary told Calvin Miller of a time when he had enough and, to his own astonishment, informed the witch doctor in the hearing of the village that at noon the next day the true God would strike their sacred totem pole and split it down the middle.  All that night he prayed, realizing that his presence in the village depended upon God moving in this way.

The next day was a clear and beautiful day without a cloud in the sky.  He looked uneasily at the clear sky around 11 a.m.  His heart was beginning to sink when, just before noon, the sky darkened and ominous clouds came over the village.  At noon an amazing lightning bolt shot from the clouds and split the sacred pole in two.  The witch doctor was driven from the village and many people came to know the Lord.

Now, you will either believe that or you want.  Calvin Miller shared with me that he always knew his friend to be truthful and honest.  Regardless, it cannot be denied that the Word has often come with power in the history of the Church and that the Lord often uses startling means to demonstrate His presence.

Perhaps we do not see these things because we do not have the faith to see or receive them.  Perhaps the Lord will do no such miracles in our presence because of our suffocating disbelief.  But this much remains true:  the Church must regain its place as the going, advancing, proclaiming Church.  The Church must expect opposition and it must stand with power and with courage and with love when it is opposed.

Older believers used to speak of “the church militant.”  By that they meant that the Church advanced under the banner of Christ the Kingdom of God in the world.  The word “militant” has a negative connotation today, but, in this older sense, it is a good term.  I believe in our text today we see the Church militant.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his dissertation, Sanctorum Community, helpfully noted, however, that “in history the church-community is, was, and remains ecclesia militans [church militant], not triumphans [triumphant].”[4]  That is, we advance and grow and fly the banner of Christ with love and boldness and conviction, but we are ever a pilgrim Church on this side of heaven, ever growing ourselves towards Christlikeness and sometimes struggling and falling as we do so.  We have not arrived.  We dare not grow arrogant or triumphalist.  We are called to grow together in grace, taking the gospel to the nations, preaching Christ with clarity and conviction, but with an awareness of our own need of grace as we go.

This is the picture of the early Church that we see in our text.

Behold the worshiping, praying, fasting, sending, commissioned, proclaiming, confronting, loving, courageous Church of the living God!

May we do the same!