10. The first missionary journey

Luke has reached a decisive turning point in his narrative. In keeping with the risen Lord’s prophecy (1:8), witness has been borne to him ‘in Jerusalem’ and ‘in all Judea and Samaria’: now the horizon broadens to ‘the ends of the earth’. The two deacon-evangelists have prepared the way – Stephen by his teaching and his martyrdom, Philip by his bold evangelization of the Samaritans and the Ethiopian. So have the two major conversions which Luke has documented – that of Saul, who was also commissioned as the apostle to the Gentiles, and that of Cornelius through the activity of the apostle Peter. Unnamed evangelists have also preached the gospel to ‘Hellenists’ in Antioch. But all the time the action has been limited to the Palestinian and Syrian mainland. Nobody has yet caught the vision of taking the good news to the nations overseas, although indeed Cyprus has been mentioned in 11:19. Now at last, however, that momentous step is to be taken.

1. Barnabas and Saul are sent out from Antioch (12:25 – 13:4a)

These two men have been south in Jerusalem, in order to hand over the famine relief money contributed by the church of Antioch (11:30). Now that they had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem (12:25). It is true that the better reading is ‘to Jerusalem’, in which case the verse would have to read that ‘they returned after they had fulfilled at Jerusalem their mission’. But this is clumsy, and the textual evidence needs to be overridden by the demands of the context, namely that Barnabas and Saul, who had travelled to Jerusalem from Antioch with their gift (11:30), now returned from Jerusalem to Antioch after they had delivered it (12:25). Moreover, they took with them John, also called Mark, who will accompany them when they set out on the first missionary expedition.

The cosmopolitan population of Antioch was reflected in the membership of its church, and indeed in its leadership, which consisted of five resident prophets and teachers. Luke explains neither how he understood the distinction between these ministries, nor whether all five men exercised both or (as some have suggested) the first three were prophets and the last two teachers. What he does tell us is their names. The first was Barnabas, whom he has earlier described as ‘a Levite from Cyprus’ (4:36). Second, there was Simeon [a Hebrew name] called Niger (‘black’) who was presumably a black African, and just possibly none other than Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross for Jesus and who must have become a believer, since his sons Alexander and Rufus were known to the Christian community. The third leader, Lucius of Cyrene, definitely came from North Africa, but the speculation of some early Church Fathers that Luke was referring to himself is extremely improbable, since he carefully preserves his anonymity throughout the book. Fourth, there was Manaen, who is called in the Greek the syntrophos of Herod the tetrarch, that is, of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. The word may mean that Manaen was brought up with him in a general way, or more particularly that he was his ‘foster brother’ or ‘intimate friend’. In either case, since Luke knew a lot about Herod’s court and family, Manaen may well have been his informant. The fifth church leader was Saul, who of course came from Tarsus in Cilicia. These five men, therefore, symbolized the ethnic and cultural diversity of Antioch.

It was while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting that the Holy Spirit said to them, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’ (2). So important was this occasion that it may be helpful to ask some questions about it.

First, to whom did the Holy Spirit reveal his will? Who is the ‘they’ who were worshipping and fasting, and to whom he spoke? It seems unlikely that we are meant to restrict them to the small group of five leaders, for that would entail three of them being instructed about the other two. It is more probable that the church members as a whole are in mind, since both they and the leaders are mentioned together in verse 1, and on the not dissimilar occasion when the Seven were to be chosen, it was the local church as a whole who acted (6:2–6). Not only that, but when Paul and Barnabas returned, ‘they gathered the church together’. They reported to the church because they had been commissioned by the church (14:26–27). Further, if the Holy Spirit disclosed his purpose to the church, there is no need to exclude Barnabas and Saul themselves. Rather the reverse. Does not the Holy Spirit’s instruction to set them apart ‘for the work to which I have called them’ imply that he had already called them before he made it known to the church?

Second, what was it that the Holy Spirit revealed to the church? It was very vague. The nature of the work to which he had called Barnabas and Saul was not specified. It was not unlike the call of Abram. God had said to him, ‘Go . . . to the land I will show you.’ And God said to the church in Antioch, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ In both cases the call to go was clear, while the land and the work were not. So in both cases the response to God’s call required an adventurous step of faith.

Third, how was God’s call disclosed? We are not told. The most likely guess is that God spoke to the church through one of the prophets. But his call could have been inward rather than outward, that is, through the Spirit’s witness in their hearts and minds. However it came to them, their first reaction was to fast and pray, partly (it seems) to test God’s call and partly to intercede for the two who were to be sent out. We notice that in neither reference to fasting does it occur alone. It is linked with worship in verse 2 and with prayer in verse 3. For seldom if ever is fasting an end in itself. It is a negative action (abstention from food and other distractions) for the sake of a positive one (worshipping or praying). Then, after they had fasted and prayed, and so assured themselves of God’s call and prepared themselves to obey it, they placed their hands on them and sent them off (3). This was not an ordination to an office, still less an appointment to apostleship (since Paul insists that this was ‘not from men nor by a man’), but rather a farewell commissioning to missionary service.

Who, then, commissioned the missionaries? That is our fourth question. According to verse 4, Barnabas and Saul were sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, who had previously instructed the church to set them apart for him (2). But according to verse 3 it was the church which, after the laying-on of hands, sent them off. It is true that the latter verb could be translated ‘let them go’ (neb), discharging them from their teaching responsibilities in the church at Antioch in order to make them available for a wider ministry. For Luke sometimes uses the verb apolyō in the sense of ‘release’. But he also uses it for ‘dismiss’. So, in our concern to do justice to the Holy Spirit’s initiative, we should not think of the church’s role as having been entirely passive. Would it not be true to say both that the Spirit sent them out, by instructing the church to do so, and that the church sent them out, having been directed by the Spirit to do so? This balance will be a healthy corrective to opposite extremes. The first is the tendency to individualism, by which a Christian claims direct personal guidance by the Spirit without any reference to the church. The second is the tendency to institutionalism, by which all decision-making is done by the church without any reference to the Spirit. Although we should not deny the validity of personal choice, it is safe and healthy only in relation to the Spirit and the church. There is no evidence that Barnabas and Saul ‘volunteered’ for missionary service; they were ‘sent’ by the Spirit through the church. Still today it is the responsibility of every local church (especially of its leaders) to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, in order to discover whom he may be gifting and calling.

2. Barnabas and Saul in Cyprus (13:4b–12)

‘The two of them’, missionaries from the church of Antioch, ‘sent on their way by the Holy Spirit’, went down to Seleucia, the port near the mouth of the River Orontes, about 15 miles away, and sailed from there to Cyprus (4). We are not told why Cyprus was chosen as their first destination, although we know that Barnabas was a Cypriot (4:36). In what follows Luke is inevitably selective. To begin with, he concentrates on Paul’s exploits to the west and north, with his eyes on Rome, and says nothing about the church’s expansion east and south, or about the missionary adventures of other apostles – for example, of Thomas who, according to the Syrian Orthodox and Mar Thoma churches of Kerala, travelled from Syria to India. Even in Paul’s travels Luke is selective, according both to his available sources and to his editorial purpose. Thus in the first missionary journey, although he sketches the whole itinerary, he focuses on three main incidents. He portrays Paul evangelizing the proconsul and confronting the sorcerer in Paphos, the provincial capital of Cyprus, preaching the gospel in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch in south Galatia, and addressing a pagan crowd in the open air in Lystra. They illustrate the extraordinary versatility of the apostle in adapting himself to different situations; he appeared to be equally at ease with individuals and crowds, Jews and Gentiles, the religious and the irreligious, the educated and the uneducated, the friendly and the hostile.

When they arrived at Salamis, a commercial city on the east coast of Cyprus, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues there. But Luke tells us no more than this, except that John [i.e. Mark; 12:25] was with them as their helper (5). We would like to know what kind of help he gave them, and whether we are correct in supposing that, whereas Barnabas and Saul had been specially chosen and sent by the Holy Spirit, John Mark had been chosen by them, without a similar direct divine call. All we can say is that the word hypēretēs was used of a servant or assistant of doctors, army officers, priests and politicians, and does not tell us whether Mark’s service was pastoral (e.g. instructing enquirers and nurturing converts) or practical (e.g. cooking and cleaning).

On leaving Salamis, they travelled through the whole island until they came to Paphos (6a). This took them from the east coast to the west coast, a journey of about 90 miles, which Ramsay argued from Luke’s use of the verb dierchomai was ‘a preaching tour through the whole island’. There, in Paphos, they met a man whom Luke immediately describes as a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, ‘son of salvation’ (6). By profession he was an attendant of [literally just ‘with’] the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, that is, a kind of court wizard. The proconsul, whom Luke describes as an intelligent man, in spite of his evident fascination for superstitious and occult practices, sent for Barnabas and Saul because in his intellectual and spiritual hunger he wanted to hear the word of God (7). Without doubt the missionaries responded to his summons, and we are free to imagine Paul the Christian apostle sharing with Paul the Roman proconsul the good news of Jesus Christ.

But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them. Luke now refers to him by a different name, and the words in parenthesis have perplexed the commentators. jb may be right to translate them simply ‘Elymas Magos – as he was called in Greek’. Alternatively, if Luke is explaining the meaning of the word ‘Elymas’, it may have been originally an Arabic word for somebody ‘skilful’ or ‘expert’, in other words a magos or wise man. At all events, Elymas saw in the Christian missionaries a threat to his prestige and livelihood. So he tried to turn the proconsul from the faith (8). This attempt the apostle saw as an extremely serious attack by the evil one, so that he now confronted Elymas Magus as Peter had confronted Simon Magus in Samaria (8:20ff.). Luke chooses this moment to inform us that Saul . . . was also called Paul. It was common for Jews to take a Greek or Roman second name, like Joseph Barsabbas (1:23) and John Mark (12:12, 25), and it was appropriate for Luke to mention Saul’s now as he moves into increasingly non-Jewish contexts. He does not call Paul ‘Saul’ again. Next, he tells us that Paul was freshly filled with the Holy Spirit, to show that his boldness, outspokenness and power in condemning Elymas were all from God. Thus equipped, he looked straight at Elymas, fixing him with his eye, and said (9):

You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.

(10–11a)

Paul’s condemnation of Elymas was that he didn’t live up to his name ‘Bar-Jesus’, but was rather a child of the devil than of salvation, and that he was the enemy of both goodness and truth, being an ‘utter impostor and charlatan’ (neb, 1961 edition). In keeping with his character, he made crooked the straight paths of the Lord, and was guilty of causing ‘perversion’ (diastrephō, 8, 10), instead of ‘conversion’ (epistrephō; e.g. 9:35; 11:21; 14:15).

God’s judgment of him was fitting. For those ‘who put darkness for light and light for darkness’ forfeit the light they originally had. Immediately, therefore, mist and darkness [Dr Luke uses two contemporary medical terms] came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand (11b). Paul must have remembered the day not many years previously when he himself had been blinded, albeit by the glory of the Lord, and been led by the hand into Damascus.

When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed [‘deeply impressed’, neb; ‘shaken to the core’, jbp] at the teaching about the Lord (12). What astonished him was the combination of word and sign, of the apostle’s teaching and the sorcerer’s defeat. There is no need to argue, as some have done, that because no baptism is mentioned the proconsul was not truly converted, or that the missionaries ‘may have mistaken courtesy for conversion’. The statement that he believed is plain enough and is in keeping with Luke’s general usage elsewhere (e.g. 14:1; 17:34; 19:18). He gives no indication, as he did in relation to Simon Magus (8:13, 18ff.), that the proconsul’s faith was profession without reality. No, he brings before his readers a dramatic power encounter, in which the Holy Spirit overthrew the evil one, the apostle confounded the sorcerer, and the gospel triumphed over the occult. More than that, Luke surely intends us to view Sergius Paulus as the first totally Gentile convert, who had no religious background in Judaism. Paul’s direct approach to Gentiles was ‘the great innovative development of this first missionary journey’.

3. Paul and Barnabas in Pisidian Antioch (13:13–52)

From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed north to Perga in Pamphylia (13a). In so doing, they crossed from ‘Barnabas’s native island’ to the south coast of ‘Paul’s native land, Asia Minor’. They probably landed at Attalia and then walked approximately 12 miles inland to Perga.

Here in Perga they suffered a setback: John left them to return to Jerusalem (13b). Luke announces the fact in a matter-of-fact manner and appears to apportion no blame. But it becomes clear in 15:38 that he sees Mark as having ‘deserted them’. Later, however, he recovered and again became ‘helpful’ to Paul in his ministry. Why then did he desert? A variety of suggestions has been made. Was he homesick, missing his mother, her spacious Jerusalem home and the servants? Did he resent the fact that the partnership of ‘Barnabas and Saul’ (2, 7) had become ‘Paul and Barnabas’ (13, 46, etc.), since Paul was now taking the lead and eclipsing his cousin? Did he, as a loyal member of Jerusalem’s conservative Jewish church, disagree with Paul’s bold policy of Gentile evangelism? Was it even he who, on his return to Jerusalem, provoked the Judaizers into opposing Paul (15:1ff.)? Or did Mark simply not relish the stiff climb over the Taurus Mountains which were known to be infested with brigands (cf. Paul’s ‘in danger from bandits’)? We do not know.

Or was it that Paul was sick and that Mark thought it foolhardy that he was determined to go north over the mountains? We do know that, when Paul reached the cities of the south Galatian plateau, he was suffering from a debilitating illness (‘it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you’). It seems to have disfigured him in some way, so that the Galatians might have treated him with contempt, and to have affected his eyesight, so that if possible they would have given him their own eyes. Sir William Ramsay suggested that Paul suffered from ‘a species of chronic malaria fever’ (which the ancient Greeks and Romans both knew and feared); that it involved ‘very distressing and prostrating paroxysms’, together with stabbing headaches ‘like a red-hot bar thrust through the forehead’ (perhaps his ‘thorn in the flesh’); and that it was his fever which necessitated leaving the exhausting climate of the low-lying coastal plain, in spite of the rigorous climb involved, in order to seek the bracing cool of the Taurus plateau some 3,500 ft above sea level. Perhaps it was this hurry which explains why the missionaries did not stay to evangelize Perga, which they did on their return journey.

At all events, for whatever reason, Mark left them, and Paul and Barnabas continued without him. From Perga they went on to Pisidian Antioch, more than 100 miles north beyond the mountains. It was a Roman colony, a few arches of whose first-century aqueduct are still standing. It was also ‘the governing and military centre of the southern half of the vast province of Galatia’. Although politically it belonged to Galatia, in language and geography it belonged to Phrygia. On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down (14). The synagogue service will have begun with a recitation of the Shema (‘The Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God . . .’) and some prayers, continued with two readings, one from the Pentateuch and the other from the Prophets, followed by an expository sermon, and concluded with a blessing. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets [which, it has been suggested because of Paul’s quotations, may that day have been Deuteronomy 1 and Isaiah 1], the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, perhaps recognizing from his dress that Paul was a rabbi, saying, ‘Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak’ (15).

Luke now provides his first full summary of one of Paul’s sermons. Although some Gentile God-fearers are present, it is essentially an address to a Jewish audience. Luke will later give two samples of Paul’s sermons to Gentiles, that is, to the pagans of Lystra and the philosophers of Athens. But now the whole atmosphere is Jewish. The day is the Sabbath, the venue is the synagogue, the lessons are from the Law and the Prophets, the listeners are fellow Israelites (16), and the theme is how the God of the people of Israel (17) has brought to Israel the Saviour Jesus, as he promised (23). Luke is evidently concerned to demonstrate that Paul’s message to the Jews was substantially the same as Peter’s; that Paul did not turn to the Gentiles until after he had offered the gospel to the Jews and been rebuffed; and that, far from being an innovator, Paul was declaring only what God had promised in Scripture and had now fulfilled in Jesus.

a. The sermon’s introduction: the Old Testament preparation (13:16–25)

In his brief recapitulation of the history of Israel from the patriarchs to the monarchy, Paul’s emphasis is on God’s initiative of grace. For he is the subject of nearly all the verbs. God chose our ancestors, he made the people prosper . . . in Egypt, and then with mighty power he led them out (17). In the desert he endured their conduct (18, that is, ‘bore with them’, rsv, an echo of Deut. 1:31), and in Canaan he overthrew seven nations and gave their land to his people (19). All this took about 450 years, Paul adds, pausing for breath. It is a round number, of course, and is probably intended to include 400 years in exile, forty in the desert and ten in conquering the land. After the settlement God gave them judges (20), God gave them Saul as their first king (21), and then God made David their king, calling him a man after my own heart (22). Now, having reached David, Paul jumps straight to the promised Saviour Jesus, who was descended from David (23), and mentions John the Baptist as his immediate forerunner, who pointed away from himself to Jesus (24–25). Paul is now able to follow the Baptist’s example and direct his hearers’ attention to the same Jesus.

b. The sermon’s focus: the death and resurrection of Jesus (13:26–37)

Paul tells the story of Jesus as he has told the story of Israel. In doing so, he concentrates on the two great saving events, his death and his resurrection, and demonstrates that both were fulfilments of what God had foretold in Scripture. He concedes that the people and rulers of Jerusalem did not recognise Jesus. Nevertheless, he adds, in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets which they knew well, since they are read every Sabbath in the synagogue (27). Although they could find no adequate ground for condemning him, they asked Pilate to have him executed (28). And again in so doing, though without realizing it, they were carrying out all that was written about him, including the transfer of his body from the cross (the place of a divine curse) to the tomb (29). But God raised him from the dead (30), and made it possible for him to be seen by those who had accompanied him from Galilee to Jerusalem (1:21–22), namely the apostles. They are now his witnesses (31). Paul says ‘they’ not ‘we’, because he was not one of the Twelve who could bear witness to him from what they had seen and heard during his public ministry. Yet now he moves from ‘they’ to ‘we’, including himself: We tell you the good news, that in the resurrection (as in the cross) God has fulfilled for us what he promised to our ancestors (32–33). In order to validate this claim, Paul goes on to quote three Old Testament scriptures: Psalm 2:7 about God’s Son, probably linked in his mind with God’s promise to David that his descendant whose throne would be established would be his son; Isaiah 55:3 about the holy and sure blessings promised to David (34), which could be ‘sure’, that is, permanent, only because of the resurrection of David’s son; and Psalm 16:10 about God’s holy one not being allowed to decay (35). David died, was buried and decayed (36), but the son of David whom God resurrected did not see decay (37). All three texts may have been regarded as messianic in pre-Christian Judaism (the evidence is not clear in each case); all three related to David from whom ‘God [had] brought to Israel the Saviour Jesus’ (23).

c. The sermon’s conclusion: the choice between life and death (13:38–41)

Having brought Scripture and history together, and shown how what God foretold in Scripture he has fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul comes to his appeal.

The choice is stark. On the one hand, there is the promise through Jesus crucified and raised of the forgiveness of sins (38). For through him [repeated, because he is the only mediator] everyone who believes is set free from every sin, that is, justified, declared righteous before God. Through the law of Moses there is no justification for anybody, since we all break the law and the law condemns law-breakers; through Jesus, however, there is justification for everybody who believes, that is, trusts in him (39). We need to remember that Paul is addressing Galatians. Only a few months or so later he will be writing his letter to the Galatians. It is very striking, therefore, that he brings together here at the conclusion of his sermon five of the great words which will be foundation stones of his gospel as he expounds it in his letter. Having referred to Jesus’ death on the ‘pole’ (29), he goes on to speak of sin (38), faith, justification, law (39) and grace (43). W. C. van Unnik felt able to assert that ‘Luke has no understanding of the doctrine of justification by faith as the centre of Pauline thought.’ But I think Luther was nearer the truth when he wrote in his Preface to the Acts of the Apostles (1533):

It should be noted that by this book St Luke teaches the whole of Christendom . . . that the true and chief article of Christian doctrine is this: We must all be justified alone by faith in Jesus Christ, without any contribution from the law or help from our works. This doctrine is the chief intention of the book and the author’s principal reason for writing it.

On the other hand, over against the offer of forgiveness, Paul issues a solemn warning to those who reject it. He reminds his hearers of the prophets’ denunciations. In particular, he quotes Habakkuk (Hab. 1:5), who predicted the rise of the Babylonians as instruments of divine judgment upon Israel (40–41).

As we look back over the three parts of Paul’s sermon, we cannot fail to note its similarity to the outline of the apostolic message or kērygma which appears in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4. Here, as there, we find the same four events: he died, was buried, was raised and was seen – together with the same insistence that both the major ones, his death and resurrection, were ‘according to the Scriptures’. The structure is also practically identical with that of Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, in which we detected the gospel events (the cross and the resurrection), the gospel witnesses (Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles), the gospel promises (the new life of salvation in Christ, through the Spirit) and the gospel conditions (repentance and faith).

d. The sermon’s consequences: a mixed reaction (13:42–52)

The immediate reaction was extraordinarily favourable. The concern of the people had been aroused. They ‘begged’ (rsv) to hear more. Both Jews and proselytes surrounded the missionaries, anxious even before the next Sabbath to obtain further instruction. At least some of them had actually believed and received God’s grace, for Paul and Barnabas urged them to continue in the grace of God (43b).

When the next Sabbath came, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord (44). Luke’s enthusiasm has perhaps led him into a little harmless exaggeration. He does not exaggerate the opposition, however. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, or ‘with jealous resentment’ (neb), that the visitors could draw a huge congregation which they could never muster, and they heaped abuse on Paul and began to contradict what [he] was saying (45).

Only a few comments on Paul and Barnabas’s reply seem to be needed. They were clear that ‘it was necessary’ (rsv, neb) that the word of God should be declared to you [i.e. you Jews] first (46). For that was God’s will (3:26, ‘first to you’). And this order was to remain, as Paul later wrote: ‘first to the Jew, then to the Gentile’. The same priority continued in Paul’s missionary expeditions described in Acts, even after he had begun to evangelize Gentiles also. Yet it was Jewish opposition to the gospel which led him to turn to the Gentiles and to find scriptural warrant for this momentous decision in Isaiah 49:6 (‘a light for the Gentiles’), which he quoted freely from the lxx, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Luke has already recorded how this verse was applied to Jesus by Simeon, and will soon record Jesus applying it to Paul (Acts 26:17–18). This is not a contradiction, however, for the Lord’s suffering servant is the Messiah, who gathers round him a messianic community to share in his ministry to the nations.

Those who responded to the word and believed are described as having been appointed for eternal life (48). Some commentators, offended by what they regard as an extreme predestinarianism in this phrase, have tried in various ways to soften it. But the Greek verb tassō means to ‘ordain’ (av, rsv), sometimes in the sense of to ‘assign someone to a (certain) classification’ (BAGD). F. F. Bruce refers to the papyrus evidence that it can mean ‘inscribe’ or ‘enrol’, in which case it is a reference to the ‘book of life’. Certainly those who have believed in Jesus and received eternal life from him all ascribe the credit to God’s grace, not to their own merit. The opposite is not so, however. It is significant that in this very passage those who rejected the gospel are regarded as having done so deliberately, because they did not consider [themselves] worthy of eternal life (46).

Later developments in Pisidian Antioch followed the same pattern of acceptance and rejection.

Nothing could stop the spread of the Lord’s word; the whole region heard it (49). Yet, at the same time, persecution increased. Paul himself suffered from it. This is hinted at in verse 50, for the expulsion of the missionaries was probably violent. It is confirmed by Paul’s own later statement that Timothy knew all about his persecutions and sufferings ‘in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra’. The missionaries for their part shook the dust off their feet, a public protest against those who rejected the gospel, in accordance with the teaching of Jesus (51). Despite the opposition, the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit (52), for, as Paul was soon to write to the Galatians, ‘the fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy’.

4. Paul and Barnabas in Iconium (14:1–7)

Nearly 100 miles south-east of Pisidian Antioch, commanding the broad plateau which lies between the Taurus and the Sultan mountain ranges and which is well watered by their rivers, is situated the very old city of Iconium, which today is Turkey’s seventh-largest city of Konya. It was still a Greek city when Paul and Barnabas visited it, and was a centre of agriculture and commerce.

Although as usual the missionaries Paul and Barnabas went first into the Jewish synagogue, their mission in Iconium was plainly not directed to Jews alone. On the contrary, they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed (1). But if some were united in faith, others were united in opposition. For the Jews who refused to believe [literally ‘disobeyed’, since faith and obedience go together, as do unbelief and disobedience] stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers (2) by an unscrupulous slander campaign.

So, undeterred by this propaganda, and even (it is implied) because of it, Paul and Barnabas stayed on and spent considerable time there, correcting the false witness and bearing a true one, speaking boldly for the Lord, or, more accurately, ‘in reliance on the Lord’ (epi, neb), who confirmed the message of his grace, ‘a noble definition of the gospel’, by enabling them to perform signs and wonders (3). Once again we notice the close association between words and signs, the latter confirming the former. As Calvin commented, ‘God hardly ever allows them [miracles] to be detached from his Word.’ Their ‘true use’ is ‘the establishing of the Gospel in its full and genuine authority’.

The people of the city were deeply divided, for the gospel both unites and divides; some sided with the Jews, believing their evil slander, while others sided with the apostles (4), persuaded by the truth of their words and wonders. The use of the title ‘apostle’ for Barnabas as well as Paul, both here and in verse 14, is perplexing, until we remember that the word is used in the New Testament in two senses. On the one hand, there were the ‘apostles of Christ’, personally appointed by him to be witnesses of the resurrection, who consisted of the Twelve, Paul and probably James (1:21; 10:41). There is no evidence that Barnabas belonged to this group. On the other hand, there were the ‘apostles of the churches’, sent out by a church or churches on particular missions, as Epaphroditus was an apostle or messenger of the Philippian church. So too Paul and Barnabas were both apostles of the church of Syrian Antioch, sent out by them, whereas only Paul was also an apostle of Christ.

Slander against the missionaries deteriorated into planned violence. There was a plot afoot among both Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, that is, ‘with the connivance of the city authorities’ (neb, jb), not only to ill-treat them (hybrizō implies insult and humiliation) but actually to stone them (5). But they found out about it, with the result that they fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country (6). Luke is correct in locating these two small towns in Lycaonia, which was one of the regions (Phrygia and Pisidia were others) into which the Roman province of Galatia was divided. But why did the missionaries select them for evangelization? Neither town had a large population or lay on an important trade route, and the local Lycaonians were largely uneducated, even illiterate. Ramsay could even describe Lystra as a ‘quiet backwater’. Perhaps they were temporary refuges to which they fled (6 and 19–20). At all events, here they continued to preach the gospel (7), for nothing could silence them.

5. Paul and Barnabas in Lystra and Derbe (14:8–20)

Luke concentrates on what happened in Lystra, and gives us no details of the mission in Derbe.

a. The healing of the lame man (14:8–10)

Luke evidently sees the dramatic healing of the lame man in Lystra as a counterpart to the healing of the lame man in Jerusalem (3:1ff.), since several expressions in the two stories are identical (e.g. lame . . . from birth and looked directly at him). But in Jerusalem Peter was the agent of the divine healing; here it is Paul. The reaction of the crowd is different too.

b. The attempt to worship Paul and Barnabas (14:11–15a)

The crowd’s superstitious and even fanatical behaviour is hard to comprehend, but some local background throws light on it. About fifty years previously the Latin poet Ovid had narrated an ancient local legend in his Metamorphoses. The supreme god Jupiter (Zeus to the Greeks) and his son Mercury (Hermes) once visited the hill country of Phrygia, disguised as mortal men. With their true identities concealed they sought hospitality, but were rebuffed a thousand times. At last, however, they were offered lodging in a tiny cottage, thatched with straw and reeds from the marsh. Here lived an elderly peasant couple called Philemon and Baucis, who entertained them out of their poverty. Later the gods rewarded them, but destroyed by flood the homes which would not take them in. It is reasonable to suppose both that the Lystran people knew this story about their neighbourhood and that, if the gods were to revisit their district, they were anxious not to suffer the same fate as the inhospitable Phrygians. Apart from the literary evidence in Ovid, two inscriptions and a stone altar have been discovered near Lystra, which indicate that Zeus and Hermes were worshipped together as local patron deities.

Since it was in the Lycaonian language that the people shouted out their belief that the gods had visited them again, and named Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, it is understandable that the missionaries did not at first understand what was happening (11–12). It dawned on them only when the priest of Zeus . . . brought bulls and wreaths, intending to offer sacrifices to them (13). At this the missionaries tore their clothes, to express their horror at the people’s blasphemy, and rushed out into the crowd, protesting against their intention, and insisting that they were human like them (14–15a).

c. The sermon Paul preached (14:15b–18)

Although what Luke includes is only a very brief abstract of Paul’s sermon, it is of great importance as his only recorded address to illiterate pagans. It invites comparison with his sermon to religious and educated Jews in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch, which is the only other one that Luke chronicles during the first missionary journey. We can only admire the flexibility of Paul’s evangelistic approach. I do not doubt that wherever he went his message included the good news of Jesus Christ, which does not change. This must be what Luke means when he says that the missionaries preached ‘the word of God’, the ‘message of salvation’ (13:26), ‘the message of his grace’ (14:3) or ‘the gospel’. Nevertheless, although the substance of his message was invariable, he varied his approach and emphasis. The context within which he preached to the Jews in Antioch was Old Testament Scripture, its history, prophecies and law. But with the pagans in Lystra he focused not on a Scripture they did not know, but on the natural world around them, which they did know and could see. He begged them to turn from the vanity of idolatrous worship to the living and true God. He spoke of the living God as the Creator of heaven, earth and sea, and of everything in them (15). Did he gesture to the sky, to the Taurus Mountains to the south, and to the Great Sea beyond them? Moreover, he who made all things has not been inactive since. Although in the past he let all nations go their own way (16), yet he has never at any time or in any place left himself without testimony. On the contrary, he has borne a consistent witness to himself by his kindness to all humankind, including Paul’s listeners. He has given them rain from heaven and crops on earth in their seasons, thus providing them with plenty of food for their bodies and filling their hearts with joy (17). Overawed by the majesty of this perspective, the crowd were restrained only with difficulty from sacrificing to them (18).

We need to learn from Paul’s flexibility. We are not free to edit the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. Nor is there ever any need to do so. But we have to begin where people are, to find a point of contact with them. With secularized people today this might be what constitutes authentic humanness, the universal quest for transcendence, the hunger for love and community, the search for freedom or the longing for personal significance. Wherever we begin, however, we shall end with Jesus Christ, who is himself the good news, and who alone can fulfil all human aspirations.

d. The stoning of Paul (14:19–20)

The stoning which had been plotted in Iconium (5) took place now in Lystra. It was not a judicial execution, but a lynching. As the stones were hurled at him, did Paul remember Stephen, and even pray Stephen’s prayer? This must have been the occasion to which he was later to refer: ‘once I was pelted with stones’. The enemies of the gospel had not killed him, however; they only thought that he was dead (19). Luke is not claiming that what happened next was a resuscitation. The disciples, having followed those who dragged his body outside the city, now gathered round him, hoping to be able to minister to him, certainly praying for him, when suddenly he got up. It was a vivid illustration of another verse Paul was later to write in 2 Corinthians: ‘struck down, but not destroyed’, or ‘we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out!’ (jbp). He was not only resilient; he was courageous. He went back into the city which had rejected him, to stay the night there (20a).

Next morning, Luke writes in his matter-of-fact way, Paul and Barnabas left for Derbe (20b). It was at least a 60-mile trudge. How could Paul’s battered body manage it? ‘I bear on my body the marks of Jesus,’ he was soon to write to the Galatians; was he thinking of the wounds he had received in Lystra? Of course the companionship of Barnabas will have encouraged him. But as I once traced his route from Lystra to Derbe, I could not help wondering if his spirit had also been cheered by the spectacular snow-capped mountain peaks around him, by the white storks nesting on the village rooftops and by the pretty song of the calandra larks.

We are amazed at the fickleness of the crowd. One day they tried to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as if they were gods, while soon after they joined in stoning Paul as if he were a criminal. Yet Luke has recorded something similar of the Jerusalem crowd who with loud voices first acclaimed Jesus and then demanded his execution. Like Jesus, Paul remained unmoved. His steadfastness of character was upset neither by flattery nor by opposition.

6. Paul and Barnabas return to Syrian Antioch (14:21–28)

All Luke tells us about the mission in Derbe is that the missionaries preached the gospel there and won a large number of disciples. Perhaps the converts included ‘Gaius from Derbe’ (20:4). Then they retraced their steps, revisiting (in spite of the danger) the same three Galatian cities which they had evangelized on their outward journey – Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch (21). It was a ministry of strengthening (epistērizontes) and encouraging (parakalountes). Both verbs were almost technical terms for establishing and fortifying new converts and churches. But encouragement did not exclude warning, for we have to pass through many hardships, the missionaries said, if we are to enter the kingdom of God (22). It was Paul’s own suffering ‘in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra’ which led him later to assert that ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’.

In addition to encouraging the converts to remain true to the faith (22), Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them (23a), who would continue to teach them the faith. Then, just as the missionaries had been sent out from Antioch with prayer and fasting, so with prayer and fasting the elders of the Galatian churches were committed . . . to the Lord (23b).

After their return visit to the Galatian cities in which they had planted churches, the missionaries now headed home. They crossed the pass over the Taurus Mountains and climbed down to the coastal swamps of Pamphylia (24). This time they did not bypass Perga, but preached the word there, and then went on to Attalia (25), the port from which they sailed back to Antioch, having completed the work for which they had been committed to God’s grace (26).

On arrival they gathered the church and reported what God had done through them, literally ‘with them’, ‘in conjunction with them, as his instruments, his agents, his co-workers’. In particular, they reported the great innovation, how God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles (27). If by any chance the Western text of 11:28 is correct, reading ‘when we were gathered together’ and indicating Luke’s presence on that occasion, then Luke will probably have been present on this occasion too and heard the missionaries’ exciting report. They will have been away for the best part of two years. So they stayed there in Syrian Antioch a long time with the disciples (28).

7. Paul’s missionary policy

‘The first and most striking difference between his [Paul’s] action and ours is that he founded “Churches” whilst we found “Missions”.’ ‘Nothing can alter or disguise the fact that St Paul did leave behind him at his first visit complete Churches.’ Indeed,

in little more than ten years St Paul established the Church in four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before ad 47 there were no Churches in these provinces; in ad 57 St Paul could speak as if his work there was done.

These three quotations are from the eloquent pen of Roland Allen, the High Church Anglican missionary in North China from 1895 to 1903, whose two main books Missionary Methods: St Paul’s or Ours? (1912) and The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes Which Hinder It (1927) continue to be read and debated today, and whose principles have been remarkably vindicated in recent years in the very China he loved and served.

Roland Allen’s main assertion is indisputable, namely that on his missionary journeys Paul left churches behind him. This was so from the beginning. After he and Barnabas had retraced their steps through Derbe, Lystra, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, ‘strengthening’ and ‘encouraging’ the converts, they did not set up a mission organization; they left them and went home. On what foundations, then, did Paul’s indigenization policy rest? There were three.

a. Apostolic instruction

Paul exhorted the church members to remain true to the faith (22) which they had received from him. A number of similar expressions are used in different parts of the New Testament to indicate that there was a recognizable body of doctrine, a cluster of central beliefs, which the apostles taught. Here it is called ‘the faith’, elsewhere ‘the tradition’, ‘the deposit’, ‘the teaching’ or ‘the truth’. Doubtless the two missionaries on their return journey will have reminded the Galatians of it. To some extent we can reconstruct it from the apostles’ letters. It will have included the doctrines of the living God, the Creator of all things; of Jesus Christ his Son, who died for our sins and was raised according to the Scriptures, now reigns and will return; of the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer and gives life to the church; of the salvation of God; of the new community of Jesus and the high standards of holiness and love he expects from his people; of the sufferings which are the path to glory; and of the strong hope laid up for us in heaven. These truths, perhaps already in some simple structure which later became the Apostles’ Creed, Paul left behind him, and then explained in his letters. Each church would begin to collect apostolic letters, alongside the Old Testament Scriptures they already had, and in their public worship on the Lord’s Day extracts from both would be read aloud.

b. Pastoral oversight

Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders for them in each church (23). This arrangement was made from the first missionary journey onwards, and became universal. Although no fixed ministerial order is laid down in the New Testament, some form of pastoral oversight (episkopē), doubtless adapted to local needs, is regarded as indispensable to the welfare of the church. We notice that it was both local and plural – local in that the elders were chosen from within the congregation, not imposed from without, and plural in that the pattern of ‘one pastor, one church’ was simply unknown. Instead, there was a pastoral team, which is likely to have included (depending on the size of the church) full-time and part-time ministers, paid and voluntary workers, presbyters, and deacons, both male and female. Paul laid down their qualifications in writing later. These were mostly matters of moral integrity, but loyalty to the apostles’ teaching and a gift for teaching it were also essential. Thus the shepherds would tend Christ’s sheep by feeding them – in other words, care for them by teaching them.

This was Paul’s double – and only – human provision for these young churches: on the one hand, a standard of doctrinal and ethical instruction, safeguarded by the Old Testament and the apostles’ letters, and on the other, pastors to teach the people out of these written resources and to care for them in the name of the Lord. Just the Scriptures and the pastorate; that was all. Yet there was a third – and divine – provision.

c. Divine faithfulness

Indigenous principles rest ultimately on the conviction that the church belongs to God and that he can be trusted to look after his own people. So before leaving the Galatian churches, Paul and Barnabas committed them [members as well as elders] to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust (23b), just as previously they had urged the converts in Antioch ‘to continue in the grace of God’ (13:43).

These are the reasons why Paul believed that the churches could confidently be left to manage their own affairs. They had the apostles to teach them (through ‘the faith’ and their letters), pastors to shepherd them, and the Holy Spirit to guide, protect and bless them. With this threefold provision (apostolic instruction, pastoral oversight and divine faithfulness) they would be safe.

Although Roland Allen did not specifically expound this passage in Acts, or appeal to it, it is surely significant that he developed the same three arguments. First, ‘St Paul seems to have left his newly-founded churches with a simple system of Gospel teaching, two sacraments, a tradition of the main facts of the death and resurrection, and the Old Testament.’ Second, he ordained elders by a combination of election and appointment. And third, he trusted the Holy Spirit and so ‘did not shrink from risks’.

He believed in the Holy Ghost . . . as a Person indwelling his converts. He believed therefore in his converts. He could trust them. He did not trust them because he believed in their natural virtue or intellectual sufficiency. But he believed in the Holy Ghost in them. He believed that Christ was able and willing to keep that which he had committed to him.

He must therefore ‘retire from his converts to give place for Christ’.

Roland Allen lived and worked in the heyday of colonialism, when missionaries tended to be paternalistic. ‘Everywhere’, Allen wrote in 1912, ‘Everywhere our missions are dependent . . . Everywhere we see the same types . . . We desire to see Christianity established in foreign climes putting on a foreign dress and developing new forms of glory and of beauty.’ Bishop Lesslie Newbigin agreed with him. Missionaries have to distinguish, he wrote, between the traditum (what we have in fact received) and the tradendum (the essentials which must be passed on). Roland Allen

waged war against everything that had been confused with these essentials, everything that makes missions look like a piece of western imperialism – the whole apparatus of a professional ministry, institutions, church buildings, church organisations, diocesan offices – everything from harmoniums to archdeacons.

Of course Roland Allen was not the first to raise these questions. In the middle of the nineteenth century those transatlantic friends Henry Venn of London and Rufus Anderson of Boston both cherished the vision of indigenous churches. In an 1851 memorandum Venn wrote of ‘the settlement of a Native Church under Native Pastors upon a self-supporting, self-governing and self-extending system’. Anderson used the same three ‘self’ adjectives but in the opposite order, and saw the establishment of churches as the beginning, not the goal.

The Venn–Anderson–Allen theme is not immune to criticism, however. First, it is not radical enough in relation to the church’s identity. Their three principles were ‘self-supporting, self-governing, self-extending’, but the authentic selfhood of a church goes beyond finance, administration and evangelism to the totality of its cultural self-expression, including its theology, worship and lifestyle. Indigenization (local autonomy) should lead to contextualization (cultural identity). Second, it is not imaginative enough in relation to missionaries. Henry Venn thought that, once the national church was established, missionaries should leave. But no. The call for this, issued in 1974 by John Gatu, the Presbyterian leader in Kenya, was not intended to mean that missionaries are redundant, but rather that some missionaries hinder the national church’s growth into self-reliance. Once the church has established its own selfhood, however, then foreign missionaries will be welcome as guests, to work under national leadership, to offer specialist skills and to demonstrate the international nature of the church. Third, Roland Allen’s vision is not flexible enough in relation to its expectations. The selfhood of churches is attainable at different rates in different circumstances. Probably Allen did not sufficiently recognize the unique position of Paul’s Jewish and God-fearing converts, who already had a strong Old Testament background in doctrine and ethics. Joachim Jeremias wrote of Judaism as ‘the first great missionary religion to make its appearance in the Mediterranean world’ and of the ‘unparalleled period of missionary activity’ which followed. As a result, the Christian missionaries found proselytes and God-fearers everywhere.

The overwhelming success of the mission of the apostle Paul, who in the space of ten years had established centres of the Christian faith throughout almost the whole of the contemporary world, depended partly on the fact that everywhere he was able to build on ground prepared by the Jewish mission.

It is doubtful if after only a few months Paul could have appointed elders in a congregation composed entirely of ex-pagans and ex-idolaters. In such cases there would almost certainly have been a period of transition from mission to church, while elders were being taught and trained.

In conclusion, and going back to the first missionary journey, its most notable feature was the missionaries’ sense of divine direction. It was the Holy Spirit of God himself who told the church of Antioch to set Barnabas and Saul apart, who sent them out, who led them from place to place, and who gave power to their preaching, so that converts were made and churches planted. The sending church had committed them to the grace of God for their work (14:26), and on their return they reported ‘all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles’ (14:27). It is true that he had done the work ‘with them’ (literally), in cooperation or partnership with them, but he had done it, and they gave him the credit. The grace had come from him; the glory must go to him.

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