Engage in Kingdom Building
Week of November 18, 2012
Bible Verses:
Acts 13:1-4; 14:21-28.
Lesson Focus:
The focused activities of transformational churches build the kingdom of
God by making disciples.
Go
Where God Sends: Acts 13:1-4.
[1] Now there were in the church at Antioch
prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene,
Manaen a member of the court 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. [ESV]
[1-4]
The focus in Acts now turns to the city of Antioch, a city that will
offer far more influence on the course of the expansion of the church than the
church in Jerusalem. Antioch was the third or fourth largest city of the Roman
Empire, with a population estimated to be around half a million. It was the
headquarters to Rome’s Syrian legion. The city lay inland, but within a few
miles was the port city of Seleucia and gateway to the Mediterranean. The focus
of attention has turned away from two significant features that have dominated
the book of Acts thus far: the city of Jerusalem and the apostle Peter. In verse
2 we find a church worshiping the Lord
and fasting when the Holy Spirit spoke to them. The believers were told to
set Barnabas and Saul apart for the work
to which I have called them. Following more prayer and fasting, the church
laid their hands on them and sent them
off. Praying and fasting was an integral part of their worshiping at this
time in their existence. It is not that the church had established a particular
tradition of fasting, one that was kept on a regular basis as part of a
recurring cycle of fast days in the church’s calendar. There is no evidence of
that at this stage in the church’s existence. Rather, they sensed a particular
need that required special focus and attention, one that must be addressed with
deliberation and urgency. They were deeply burdened about where they should go
next in obedience to the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they
turned to God in prayer. The need of the lost drove this church to prayer, and
prayer drove this church to missions. Prayerless churches will always have a
poor vision of the needs of the lost and perishing. We will never see great
advances in the cause of the gospel without first seeing the church on her knees
in prayer before the Lord. Likewise, before the Lord begins to do a great work,
He sets His people praying. Twice Luke tells us that the church in Antioch was
fasting [2,3]. The sense seems to be that it was the whole church that fasted
rather than just the five men who are mentioned in verse 1. They were facing an
important point in their existence. They were in need of divine guidance. It is
perfectly understandable that in such a situation they would gather together to
pray, collectively, as the church of Jesus Christ. They dare not make this
decision just because it seemed wise to them. They needed divine counsel. And
they got it. The Holy Spirit spoke to them: Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the
work to which I have called them [2]. We are to understand that He did this
through one of the prophets who was present. Fasting is a spiritual discipline
much in neglect in our time. What should we think of fasting today? And what, in
particular, should we make of what seems to be on this occasion a communal
experience of fasting rather than something that individual Christians did
privately? The fast recorded here in Acts 13 is a congregational fast, since it
looks as though the entire church was involved, although it is possible that they in verse 2 refers to the five
individuals mentioned in verse 1. The fast in Antioch was observed for the
purpose of discerning the Lord’s guidance. Fasts may also be engaged in to
strengthen prayer, express grief, seek divine protection, express repentance,
and express heartfelt worship and praise. This fasting at Antioch changed the
course of history. From this point onward, Christianity invaded the heart of the
Roman Empire. It transformed the very capital city of Rome itself. The sending
of the disciples to Cyprus was a decisive moment. It is hardly surprising that
the church found in Barnabas gifts that made him acceptable in any community. He
evidently was a man of encouragement and winsome personality. He was well known
to the church in Antioch. He had been sent there by the church in Jerusalem to
investigate the extent to which Gentiles were entering the church without being
circumcised or having the purposeful intent to obey the traditions of the Jews
regarding food and the celebration of feast days. He had been glad at the sight
of the grace of God at work in the city and had encouraged the believers to
continue as they had begun. Saul had evidently received their approval, too,
when they had sent him along with Barnabas to Jerusalem with financial help to
face the onset of famine. Now they were ready to send him farther afield, to
Cyprus and beyond, as a trusted ambassador of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Grow People Through Bible
Teaching: Acts 14:21-22.
[21] When they had preached the gospel to
that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium
and to Antioch, [22] strengthening
the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and
saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. [ESV]
[21-22]
There is evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit in this missionary
journey. As the apostles spend time in the city of Derbe, it appears that many disciples were made as a result of
preaching the gospel [21]. It surely proved a confirmation to the apostle Paul
of his calling that conversions now attended his ministry, especially given his
experience in Lystra when the people had almost killed him. God grants us these
encouragements from time to time. But it was now time to return to the cities
where the apostles had been with the gospel, including Lystra. So God-centered
and kingdom-focused was the apostle Paul that he seems to have taken no heed of
threats made against his life. He did not choose the easier path when the more
difficult one included a blessing for the people of God. Here is a lesson for
us: to place the needs of the people of God above our own comforts and
conveniences. What exactly did Luke mean by strengthening the souls of the
disciples? As the apostles passed through these churches, what exactly did
they do? Luke tells us three things that they did for these churches. First,
they encouraged them to continue in the
faith, 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’. To
some extent we can reconstruct from the apostles’ letters the content of the faith. 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 animates the
church, of God’s salvation, 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
Paul left behind him, and then elaborated 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. There was a second thing that the apostles had to do in
order to be realistic and honest about what these disciples could now expect: through many tribulations we must enter the
kingdom of God. This was a no-nonsense appraisal of the nature of the
Christian life. The Christian life is cross-shaped [Matt. 16:24]. Trials are
designed to overwhelm us with a sense of our own inadequacy and to drive us to
cling to Him more closely. God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities to
ensure that we shall learn to hold Him fast.
Join God Where He Is Working:
Acts 14:23-28.
[23] And when they had appointed elders for
them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in
whom they had believed. [24] Then
they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. [25] And when they had spoken the word in
Perga, they went down to Attalia, [26]
and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to
the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. [27] And when they arrived and gathered the
church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had
opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. [28] And they remained no little time with
the disciples.
[ESV]
[23]
Third, Paul and Barnabas appointed elders … in every church
[23]. The church was in need of structure and organization, and as they returned
to the cities in which there were now groups of disciples, the apostles
appointed elders. Elders first made their way into the church’s rank of officers
in Acts 11:30, which refers to elders in the church in Jerusalem to whom the
church in Antioch sent relief in preparation for the famine prophesied by
Agabus. Elders were leaders, elsewhere called shepherds and overseers. This
pattern of leadership grew directly out of the Old Testament, where God is the
shepherd of Israel, and kings, prophets, priests, and elders were called to act
as His agents in an undershepherd role. In the New Testament, Jesus the Good
Shepherd is also the Chief Shepherd, and therefore, elders are meant to depict
Christlike qualities. Later, Paul gave a list of qualifications that must
characterize an elder if he is to carry out his function well in the local
congregation, as an example to the flock and as one who demonstrates true
Christlike care for the people of God – qualifications that include the ability
to teach, as well as a mature, godly character [1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9]. The
churches that the apostles were now leaving behind for a season were young and
immature. It is difficult to imagine how they were to manage without good
leadership. They would quickly become the targets of Jewish and superstitious
hostility, and some of those who had made a profession of faith would quickly
find themselves terrified and in need of much help and support. Others would
need to be encouraged to take leadership roles. Still others would lapse into
moral failures and need to experience the more disciplinary elements of
oversight. The church of Jesus Christ needs representatives of Jesus to
demonstrate Christ’s teaching and pastoral care for its members. Training elders
and appointing them to oversight in the church so that the church can care for
its own needs is part of the apostolic strategy. It is a fundamental aspect of
mission work to see the establishment of godly elders in the local churches that
the missionaries have been enabled to plant. The apostles had appointed a
plurality of elders in each church, thereby ensuring that no one individual
could rise up and exercise dominical powers over the flock of God.
[24-28]
It was over six months since Paul and Barnabas had set out from Syrian
Antioch. Now they are back in the church that had sent them, and they give a
mission report before the church. Two things immediately strike us about the
report given in Antioch. First, these apostles had been sent by the church in
Antioch and were now reporting back to the church in Antioch. They reported that
they had established churches in the various cities they had visited. They had
been engaged in church-based and church-focused missions. They did not see
themselves as spiritual opportunists, engaged in personal ministry outside the
structure of the visible church. There was a sense of collective responsibility
between Antioch, Jerusalem, and the churches in Asia Minor. True enough, there
were serious issues of tension, but these issues would be addressed because they
saw each other as belonging to the one church of Jesus Christ. The second thing
that strikes us is the way Luke described the meeting in Antioch: they gathered the church together. Missions
was a priority for the entire church. Luke records their report in verse 27.
First, they declared all that God had
done with them. They began with God and not themselves. It would have been
easy to highlight their own involvement. But this report was an account of a
divine work, a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit upon the labors of men. Of
course, there had been human involvement in the entire venture from beginning to
end. These men had been commissioned and sent by the church in Antioch. The
church had gathered to pray and fast, seeking the Lord’s guidance in what they
should do and where they should do it. They had chosen their best men and sent
them away, not having any certainty as to exactly what these men would face
along the way. The apostles themselves had preached the gospel and performed
miracles. They had faced difficulties and opposition. There were tales of what
they had done; but far more significantly, it was what God had done through them
that they emphasized in their report. God uses means to accomplish His work. He
uses people to testify to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The apostles were merely
obeying God’s command to go and make the gospel known. Their endeavors would
have been in vain had the Lord not been governing and empowering the apostles’
effort. Second, they reported that God had opened a door of faith to the
Gentiles. It is difficult, perhaps, for us fully to enter into the problem
that Gentile inclusion in the kingdom of God without some ritual of conversion
to Judaism caused the early church. In largely Gentile territory, there was no
problem. Becoming a Christian meant believing in Jesus Christ. Of course, there
was a need to turn from pagan superstitions, but Gentiles who had never become
interested in Judaism would not have ever imagined that they needed to be
circumcised or change the food they ate in order to become Christians. But in
Jewish cities, where the apostles had first gone to the local synagogues, the
situation was very different. News of Gentile conversions might have been
received with joy in Antioch, but in Jerusalem there were mixed feelings. People
there had not envisaged that preaching Jesus as Messiah would appeal to Gentiles
to the extent that Paul and Barnabas were now reporting. It was their concern
for some control over the spread of Christianity beyond Jerusalem that had
forced them to send Barnabas up to Antioch in the first place [Acts 11:22].
True, for some, perhaps, it was a matter of control. But it was more than that.
There were important issues at stake, matters of ceremony and ritual that, in
the eyes of many, defined the essence of what being a Jew, even a Christian Jew,
meant. If all of a sudden Gentile believers far outnumbered Jewish believers,
there would be social and cultural ramifications that would radically alter what
the new faith looked like. Christianity has social consequences. The New
Testament church was struggling with the problems that accompany growth. If
Gentiles were going to be allowed into the kingdom of God, did they need to
become Jewish first? And if this was not possible, did it not imply that there
would emerge Gentile-Christian churches and Jewish-Christian churches? The
church has struggled with the issue of ethnicity ever since, asking the very
same questions over black churches, Hispanic churches, and a myriad of other
divisions based on race, language, and ethnic distinctions. The answers are not
always easy to discern. On this issue, in Antioch the answer was very plain: to
refuse to fellowship on the basis of noncircumcision was unacceptable and
gospel-denying. It was sectarian and racist. The advance of the gospel changed
everything, forcing the church to think outside of their social comfort zones.
It did then, and it does now. The issues being faced here in Syrian Antioch at
the close of the first missionary journey are in essence those that continue to
trouble us. How do we manifest the unity of the body of Christ in a local
church?
In summary, we find
in 14:21-28 three foundations upon which Paul based his missionary activity. The
first foundation centered upon apostolic instruction whereby Paul sought to
strengthen and encourage the new disciples to continue in the faith [22]. The
second foundation consisted of appointing elders to provide leadership for the
churches [23]. Although no fixed ministerial order is laid down in the New
Testament, some form of pastoral oversight, 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 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. Their
qualifications Paul laid down in writing later [see 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1]. 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.
Such was Paul’s double 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. The third foundation was the recognition and 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 with prayer and fasting … committed them to
the Lord in whom they had believed. 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, pastors to shepherd them, and the Holy Spirit to
guide, protect and bless them.
Questions for
Discussion:
1.
Why was the church at Antioch engaged in worshiping, praying, and
fasting? What was the result? Why do you think this church added fasting to
worship and prayer? Why is the spiritual discipline of fasting not practiced
more in today’s church?
2.
What three things did Paul and Barnabas do for the churches in Acts
14:21-28? What is the faith that the churches (and us) need to continue
in? Why must we enter into God’s kingdom through many tribulations? Why
did Paul and Barnabas appoint elders in every church? What responsibility did
elders have in these churches?
3.
Look at the report that Paul and Barnabas gave the church at Antioch in
14:27. What two things did they emphasize? What things can we learn from this
first missionary journey concerning how to maintain the unity of the body of
Christ in a local church?
References:
The Message of
Acts, John Stott, Inter
Varsity.
Acts, Darrell Bock, ECNT,
Baker.
Acts, Derek Thomas, REC, P & R
Publishing.