The First Mission Trip (Part 1)
a commentary on Acts 13 (Context)
Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning everyone and welcome back to Biblit!
First of all, if you are new, welcome! Make sure you are subscribed so you can get these Biblits straight in your inbox!
At the end of our last Biblit, we briefly mentioned Saul/Paul and Barnabas. They were heading back up to Antioch and they brought John Mark with them.
Now, before we move on, I need to go back and correct myself on some important context from the last Biblit.
Last time, I mentioned (without research) that this was the very first Easter and exactly 1 year from Christ’s resurrection.
That is not true apparently.
The Bible does not give specific dates all the time, but we have extra-Biblical resources that do give us specific dates that correlate with the events in the Bible.
First, we know that there was a big famine around 44AD and we know that Herod Agrippa I died in 44 AD. This means that the relief mission and Peter’s miraculous rescue actually happened around the 13th anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection.
That is an aside, but it does mean we did a big time jump to get to where we are now. In fact, when doing research it seems that we don’t know for sure how many time jumps we have. Some say there was 2 years between Peter’s rescue and Herod Agrippa I being put to death. Others say there was another 2 or 3 years before this missionary journey we are talking about today happened.
Whatever the actual timeline is, we all know that it was in God’s perfect timing. And that’s all that really matters.
But I apologize for not picking that up sooner, I’m learning a lot as we go too!
Anyways, for today, we pick back up with Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark’s crazy adventures!
Let’s jump in!
A Diverse Church
The first section of this passage is super easy to skip over. Everyone gets excited to jump into the first missionary journey, but we too easily skip over who led them on that journey.
First, we are introduced to the prophets and teachers at the church of Antioch:
Barnabas: we’ve met him before; he is from Cyprus
Simeon: we don’t know where he is from, but his nickname is Niger which literally translates to “black” or “dark” most likely because of his skin color; thus most likely from somewhere in Africa
Lucius: from Cyrene, which is a city in modern day Libya
Manaen: we don’t know where he is from, but he is a friend of Herod the Tetrarch, so he has some pretty interesting political affiliations to say the least. My research tells me that this Herod he was friends with would have been Herod Antipas, who was responsible for decapitating John the Baptist. He was also dead at this point when it mentions Manaen’s relationship with him. He was the son of Herod the Great, which in a normal family would make him either the father or uncle to Herod Agrippa I (who we read about last week). This is not a normal family as many of them took multiple wives and so it’s really hard to tell if those two are related other than through Herod the Great.
Saul: we all know Saul; super educated, super religious, and from Tarsus
We see all these diverse men, from literal different corners of the world, different backgrounds, and perhaps even infuriatingly different backgrounds, but what are they doing?
Fasting and praying.
And in the midst, the Holy Spirit speaks to them to send Saul and Barnabas out for the work He’s called them to.
And so that is what they do.
The First Mission Begins
Before we jump into the journey, I’ll paste a map of their journey here. So as I explain the different spots they go to you can see where they are visually and how far apart some of these places are:
First Stop
The first location they went to was actually Barnabas’s home island of Cyprus. They also brought John Mark, who we also believe (according to Colossians 4:10) is Barnabas’s cousin.
It is said he is their assistant, and again (from tradition) we believe he was the young rich ruler. And though it’s been like 15 years since his encounter with Jesus, he is probably still young.
After landing on the island, they preach the gospel in the synagogues. We’ll see this is always the trend Paul/Saul uses: he preaches to the Jews first and then the Gentiles.
However, they quickly move to the opposite end of the island. We skip most of the walking they have to do, but it’s a lot. About 90 miles.
On this end of the island they meet a Roman Proconsul named Sergius Paulus, who desperately wants to know about God, but he is being led astray by a magician named Bar-Jesus. Or Elymas depending on who you ask.
Saul, led by the Spirit, has some pretty harsh words to say to the false preacher and ends up cursing him with blindness (kind of like Jesus did to him way back in the day), to which the proconsul is amazed and begins to follow the Lord.
It is also at this point that Luke, the author of Acts, decides to start calling Saul by his other name, Paul.
I will be honest, I always thought Paul was the name God changed it to. Like when He changes Jacob’s name to Israel. While the Bible is God’s word and He does technically change it here, it was also always Paul’s name.
It turns out that Saul was his Jewish name and Paul was his Roman name. Saul, obviously, also had some pretty bad connotations with it. And while we don’t change it to Paul until 13 years into this journey (or so), we really don’t have any evidence of when Paul himself switched over.
But we do know that from here on out, we will call him Paul.
Second Stop
They quickly move on and sail away from the island of Cyprus and up towards the mainland. They landed in Perga in Pamphylia where John Mark does a quick 180, jumps back in the boat, and sails back to Jerusalem.
We don’t know why he leaves, but according to Acts 15, I don’t think it was a fully agreed on thing:
“After some time had passed, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit the brothers and sisters in every town where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they’re doing.” Barnabas wanted to take along John who was called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take along this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone on with them to the work. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed off to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, after being commended by the brothers and sisters to the grace of the Lord. He traveled through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” (Acts 15:36-41 CSB).
After John’s most likely dramatic exit, Paul and Barnabas continued on from Perga to reach Pisidian Antioch. This is different from Antioch where they started this journey. It’s like how almost every state has a city named Rome.
I should also note that even though it takes one verse to read they made it here, their journey was most likely a lot longer. To reach Pisidian Antioch from Perga they had to cross the entire Tarsus Mountains, a rugged terrain with no marked hiking trails like you’d expect today.
So it was a rough trek to say the least.
Perhaps another reason John Mark turned around to sail back to Jerusalem?
But anyways, they do make it; I just wanted to share it was not easy.
As per their usual pattern, they begin with sharing the gospel with the Jews.
However, this time something pretty cool happens. Before they share anything they ask Paul and Barnabas to speak at synagogue.
See, the normal flow of a synagogue service was they would read from the law of Moses, then read from one of the prophets, and then typically a rabbi would give some kind of sermon about the passage.
It could have been because as a Jew, Paul was extremely knowledgeable and trained under Gamaliel, a very respected rabbi.
However it happened, Paul was asked to preach. And boy did he!
The sermon Paul gave was pretty extraordinary. I won’t paste it here because it’s like half of this chapter, but I encourage you to read it yourself!
The main point is that he begins with a level playing field, and talks about Israel’s history from Egypt through King David.
Things they all agree on.
And then he shifts and begins to talk about the prophecies, and then shares that the prophecies have been fulfilled by Jesus Christ.
And from there he then shares the gospel of Christ, that He conquered death. He continues to quote the Old Testament to really prove his point. Comparing Jesus to David, that David died and decayed, but Jesus never decayed. Things like that.
Then, towards the end, we see one of Paul’s first preachings of justification through faith:
“Everyone who believes is justified through him from everything that you could not be justified from through the law of Moses.” (Acts 13:39 CSB).
He ends with a big mic drop, and basically warns them saying that just because they are Jews, they are not saved; they need Jesus too.
And you know what happened next?
They all loved it!
Shocking!
The crowds loved it and asked them to preach again the following sabbath.
So they did and the crowd was even bigger! However…
This time the Jewish leaders got jealous and started to contradict what Paul and Barnabas were preaching.
So Paul really laid into the Jewish leaders some harsh words, telling them they are unworthy of eternal life and that Paul and Barnabas have been called to be a light to the Gentiles, whom they would rather go preach the good news to.
And with that, the Jews worked together to build a riot up and persecute Paul and Barnabas.
So Paul and Barnabas did the sensible thing and decided to move on to the next town, filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.
And with that, we’ll call it a day! Tune in tomorrow and we’ll dive a little deeper!