Good News To Be Shared
GOOD NEWS TO BE SHARED
ACTS 13:42-52
We must come to Christ on his terms—not our own.
Verse 32: “good news” is meant to be shared. Many Jews and proselytes were won over and were encouraged to persevere (13:43). To judge from the next paragraph, they came back the next week with a great crowd of interested Gentiles (13:44-45). Did Paul see in this sequence a divine confirmation that this was Israel’s destiny and mission—to be a light for the Gentiles (13:47)? National Israel—the Jewish people of old, represented in their synagogue officers of 13:45—had failed to seize this opportunity; the task therefore fell to the Christian apostles to accept the vocation of the servant and as “elect for the sake of mankind” to reach out to the distant peoples. So “we turn to the Gentiles” (13:46). This solemn announcement sounded the death-knell of Jewish exclusiveness and selfish particularism which said, “What we have as a special privilege we want to keep to ourselves.” It equally proved to be a manifesto and charter of Christian liberty and a promise of a worldwide church. No longer could the Christian movement be thought of as a sect within Judaism—whatever misunderstanding their enemies might have, Acts 24:5 shows that this is what the Jews would like to have believed about the church—but, having burst the cocoon, the missionary church showed itself to be no inert chrysalis, but a living creature, ready to fly to earth’s extremities with a message and a ministry to all (13:47). Small wonder that the Gentiles, regarded by official Judaism as beyond the pale and hopeless (Ephesians 2:1-3 picks up this sorry plight, but doesn’t stop there), were overjoyed to receive the news of their salvation through Israel’s Savior.
Note that in 13:43 a follow-up ministry is intended, as at 11:23. 13:46: “necessary” because of a priority stated in 3:26; Romans 1:16; 11:11ff., which Paul adhered to. But he refused to stay with obdurate Israel; he moved on to attend, in his own apostolic labors, to Israel’s mission to the nations in the light of (a) his own call as apostle to the Gentiles (22:21), and (b) the Servant prophecy of Isaiah 49:6, with its primary application to Jesus but carried on by his people.
Notes 13:43: these converts are the God-fearers of 13:26 (see comment on 10:2). 13:51: a symbolic action for a decisive break with human indifference (Mark 6:11).