Ryan Hale

Paul had been taken before Felix, the governor of the area, to stand trial and avoid the lynching that the Jews had planned for him. After some time, Ananias, the high priest, and some of the elders came to level their accusations at him and accused him of starting riots and desecrating the temple, neither of which had Paul actually done.

As Paul took his turn at his defense, he took the opportunity to speak of what he believed, explaining even that he was actually not opposed to what the Jews spiritually believed, but instead whole-heartedly agreed with them. So much so that he looked all of the way back into the beginning and foundations of both their faith and his, that which we call the Old Testament today, but which Paul simply referred to as the Law and the Prophets:

However, I admit that I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets, and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

Matthew 24:14-15

Paul is explaining that he, as a Pharisee, but also a follower of the Way – a way of saying that he is a Christian – believed what they believed as well. He believed in the resurrection. He believed that the Law the Prophets were not opposed to what he believed. Instead, he believed that they specifically pointed toward Jesus!

The Sadducees and the Pharisees were the ruling parties within the Sanhedrin. They had many differences, but for context and to highlight what Paul is saying, some of the most notable were these:

The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife. The Pharisees believed in a punishment or reward by God for the life that you lived on earth.

The Sadducees, therefore, neither believed in the possibility of the resurrection, but the Pharisees did.

The Sadducees did not believe in a spiritual world with angels and demons, whereas the Pharisees did.

Paul had a background as a Pharisee. He grew up a Pharisee and most certainly believed in the afterlife, but based on his encounter with Jesus and understanding of the reason that Jesus had come, Paul had broken with the Pharisaical view that a person’s reward or punishment in the afterlife was simply based on whether they were good or bad people, or whether they had committed too many sins that God wouldn’t forgive and allow the person to enter heaven.

Instead, Paul followed the Way, a name presumably taken from Jesus’s statement in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life. This group went well beyond the Pharisees, believing that Jesus fulfilled the Law of Moses, to which the Pharisees and Sadducees supposedly adhered. Jesus, unlike any other person ever to walk the earth, never sinned. He followed the Law completely and was therefore perfect. No man could do this, yet Jesus was not only a man. He was born of the Holy Spirit, not from a man, and so he was both a man and God himself.

Paul said that he also believed the Prophets. The Prophets made many claims about what the Messiah would do, and those claims, those prophecies, were fulfilled, both in the purpose and in the specific actions of Jesus. The Prophets claimed that the Messiah would be, for example, born from a virgin, would be killed, and would rise again from the dead, among many other actions. Of course, each of these things came true in Jesus Christ.

So Paul claims that he is in direct agreement with the Law and the Prophets. In fact, he might have even thought that he believed them even more than the other Pharisees because he believed that they were both true, and that the prophecies had actually come true! The books of the Law and the Prophets had become true in the person of Jesus, and this is what Paul based both his faith and all of the rest of his life.

Paul wasn’t above using political or religious systems to work that particular system to his advantage. Paul routinely found himself in trouble, whether it was before the local soldiers, governors, and magistrates or, as we see here in Acts 23, before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.

Having been hit on the orders of the high priest as a result of having said that he had fulfilled his duty to God, Paul was off to a pretty bad start as he stood before this council. However, he had an idea, a plan about how he could bring the council itself to a deadlock and get out of this situation:

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)

Acts 23:6-8

Paul spoke both well and truthfully. He was right. He was on trial because of his hope of the resurrection of the dead. As a Pharisee, he had believed in the idea that there would one day be a resurrection. However, he had also lived this truth because he had encountered Jesus first-hand. He knew that Jesus had been killed on the cross and yet Jesus had also subsequently confronted Paul as he was on the road to Damascus.

Paul knew that God resurrected men because he had experienced it. He had seen it. He saw Jesus, and he placed his faith in him such that God would one day resurrect him, through Christ, as well.

So this was Paul’s true conviction, that he was there as a result of his hope. His hope was based on Christ’s resurrection and that one day he would be resurrected as well.

But it wasn’t just his spiritual conviction that caused Paul to say that he was on trial for his hope in the resurrection. Paul had grown up studying to be a Pharisee, so he was well-versed in the differences between being a Pharisee and a Sadducee. He knew very well that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, while both Jewish leaders, were in heavy disagreement on the question of the resurrection.

Paul also knew that, by saying that he was on trial for his hope in the resurrection, he would immediately bring this disagreement to the surface between his accusers. The members of the Sanhedrin were generally united in their opposition against Paul as a result of his preaching and teaching of Jesus as the Messiah, but as soon as Paul introduced the idea of the resurrection of the dead, they were suddenly divided, a situation that was definitely to Paul’s advantage because now they were no longer focused on him, but instead focused upon one another. Their argumentative fire was aimed within and not at Paul.

Given this situation and Paul’s cleverness, I can’t help but remember in this situation what Jesus had told his disciples as he sent them out to testify about him:

But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 10:19-20

Jesus was specifically speaking, at that time, about the disciples being brought before governors and kings, but it seems to me that this is a pretty similar situation. Paul was on trial for his life. And how does he handle the situation? He seems to have incredible insight, supernatural insight and quick-wittedness, especially given the situation. His ability to think clearly allowed him to speak an important spiritual truth while also using the spiritual arguments that were also political lines that were drawn between the Pharisees and Sadducees, enough to quickly be taken away by the Roman guard who was overseeing his fate before these Jewish leaders.

To me, this all points back to an important truth: Our role is to speak of the reality of Christ, but as we do so, we must continually remember that he is with us as we do. Jesus is there with us as we go, in power as well as wisdom, and he calls upon us to use what he has given to us. He has given us hope. He has given us the story that we are to take to others. But most importantly, he has given us himself, going with us in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit living within us to take the message that we can be reconciled back to God in Jesus through our hope of the resurrection of the dead.

It was important for Paul to take some time to work, making tents with Priscilla and Aquila. After having traveled through Macedonia, then down to Athens, and now over to Achaia to the city of Corinth, he was by himself, and I surmise that he had run out of money. He needed a way to eat. He needed a way to find shelter, but his resources had run low.

In that case, it made sense for him to stop evangelizing, stop preaching and teaching as his full-time work. He needed to resupply himself, so he started working alongside of Priscilla and Aquila.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.

Acts 18:1-5

Yet God used this time as well. Paul stayed with them and worked with them and this time became very fruitful. We see Priscilla and Aquila go on to be instrumental in the start of the church in Ephesus, and then they are mentioned later in Paul’s letter to the Romans, so they had later returned to Rome, where they were from originally, to be part of starting and the church there as well. Beyond this, they also taught and discipled Apollos, who would himself end up back in Corinth to continue to teach the same people where Paul had met Priscilla and Aquila.

Even while Paul was making tents, he would still go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. He was still teaching and preaching. He was still doing the work of the Lord.

But the point that I want to make here is that there came a time when Silas and Timothy arrived to find Paul there in Corinth. They had followed his footsteps from Macedonia down to Athens and then over to Corinth, finally reaching him there. But when they arrived, what did Paul do? He returned back to preaching and teaching full time.

Why was he able to do that? While it doesn’t say it here specifically in Acts 18, Silas and Timothy had brought an offering from the Macedonian churches, probably specifically from Philippi. Paul makes reference to this offering in both his letter to the Philippians as well as his later letter back to the Corinthians:

Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need.

Philippians 4:15-16

And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.

2 Corinthians 11:9

So there came a time at which Paul stopped making tents. He was able to do that because of the financial support that he received from the church in Philippi. And when he did receive that support, he stopped making tents and returned back to doing that which God had called him to do full-time.

Paul did what he needed to do for the time that he needed to do it, but he also knew the calling that he had received from the Lord, that the Holy Spirit had called him into service for a specific work to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. He would take the word of God across present-day Lebanon, Turkey, North Macedonia, and Greece, and his work would result in many others coming to know the Lord because his teaching would be repeated and spread into several other locations. He needed to do the work full-time, not holding to a notion that he must continue to make tents to support himself, but instead using the resources provided by the Lord, from the harvest field, for the work of continuing to see the kingdom of God continue to spread amongst those who had not yet heard.

In 2015, Gina and I came to Catania on a first trip to explore Sicily and the immigration situation from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and many other locations, into Europe. Shane Bennett, who had become a friend of ours through a shared history – Gina’s mom and Shane’s mom had been part of the same Bible study back in Indiana decades prior – and a shared work through the Perspectives course – we were hosting and coordinating the course at our church in Colorado and Shane was now living in Colorado and teaching the course – had asked us to come with him to consider the possibility of moving to Catania to be part of an outreach to immigrants and refugees here in Sicily.

That day that he asked if we would go with him, I thought the trip sounded like a nice little getaway for Gina and myself, a spring break trip, if you will. We could ask one of our parents to come to our home in Colorado to watch the kids and we could go see a part of the world where we hadn’t been previously.

Being a little more discerning than I was in the moment, Gina asked me why Shane had specifically asked us to go with him to Sicily.

“I don’t know…” I replied. “I guess he wants some company?”

“You’d better ask him,” she said.

So I called Shane back and told him we would go, but we were curious why he wanted us to go with him.

“Well, I want you to think about moving there,” he said.

Well, why not, I thought… I’m definitely not doing anything else right now!

You know, we just had our marriage with 4 little kids…

We had just bought a new house and had a new mortgage loan…

We were putting in a whole new yard, irrigation system, landscaping, walls, etc…

I had a a job with a LOT of responsibility…

Gina was now also starting to work, teaching at a local school…

We were helping to lead a church…

And truly about a hundred other things in the middle of our lives.

No, there was nothing really going on…. So, why not? Let’s go to Sicily and think about the possibility of moving there. We’re in a pretty good place to do that right now. It made a lot of sense for us at that moment! 😉

I was thinking those things fecitiously, and yet there was also something that was expectant within me as we prepared and subsequently traveled to Catania. Gina and I wondered together if God might be doing something, might be asking us, really and truly, to make a move like this. And if so, was Sicily really the right place?

Coming to Sicily on that first trip, Shane had invited a missions organization to join us, to have several people fly in to meet us from other parts of Europe. I remember that one of the leaders of that organization, as we drove across the island to explore and learn, shared a few verses from Acts 17. They were some of the same verses that I read this morning. They made a big impact on me at that time and became part of our story in moving to Catania. Here is what he read:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Acts 17:24-28

The context of these verses is that Paul is preaching at the Areopagus in Athens. He had been called into Macedonia, but was chased out of Thessalonica, and subsequently Berea, and had been taken down to Athens by the believers from Berea. He was waiting on Silas and Timothy to join him, but of course Paul, being Paul, couldn’t help himself from continuing to teach and preach, and as a result, he was invited to come speak at a meeting of the Areopagus. They regularly spoke about philosophies and new ideas, so as Paul began speaking, he offered to them an explanation and an understanding of the one true God, the one that they did not even know.

But Paul pointed out something incredibly interesting in the middle of this passage. He said that God appointed specific times and and boundries for all of the nations of the earth.

Specific times and boundries for the nations of the earth.

I can remember how that struck me as we were riding along in the car that day. I hadn’t ever thought about it that way. As I looked at a map, I just thought that the lines and boundry lines were just an indication of where the people landed, having then they set up their nations and laws, and…nothing more. Finished.

Honestly, I hadn’t really ever thought about it very much.

But here, Paul is saying that God himself appointed both the boundries and the times for each group of people, for each nation.

And there was a purpose for these appointments. The purpose was that the peoples of the nations would reach out to God, and that they might find him. God put the people in their specific lands, with the specific boundries, at specific times, so that they would find him.

Repeating that, it seems at a minimum a little strange, and at the most, maybe a little crazy… yet that is exactly what Paul is saying.

And what is more, that is exactly what we see as we examine the story that God is telling us through the scriptures, isn’t it? God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham and the Israelites eventually take that land. Why? Is it not so that God would be known, not only amongst the Israelites, but also all of the other nations? That is what is written throughout both the Old Testament, and then subsequently reiterated in the New Testament. Here is just one example amongst many that show us God’s plan, having been quoted even at the Jerusalem council, recorded at this point in Acts 15:

The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:

“‘After this I will return
and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’ —
things known from long ago.

Acts 15:15-18

James is quoting the prophet Amos when he says these words to the rest of the people in the meeting. He is talking about the fact that Israel has been destroyed, and yet will be rebuilt and restored. The purpose of these people, of God’s people, is that the rest of mankind would seek God, would know him. All of the Gentiles. In fact, all peoples.

And again, this is one simple example of alignment with what Paul tells the Areopagus there in Athens. The rest of the Old Testament aligns with this same story. Over and over this same idea is repeated.

I remember sitting in the car that day, thinking about the idea that God appointed the times and the boundries of the lands of the people of the earth.

Then I thought about why I was riding along in that car in Sicily. We were there because there were people who were either willingly migrating from their home countries for a better life, or fleeing their home countries as a result of war or persecution. Either way, whether we call them migrants or refugees, we could still come back to what Paul proclaimed to the people of Athens:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Acts 17:26-27

And so, in that time, I had to ask myself: What does that mean for me? What does that mean for my family? We were there in that car, bumping along the roads of Sicily seemingly just as a result of an invitation from a friend of ours, but now I was beginning to think that this wasn’t a mistake nor a coincidence. The boundries of the lands of the people that were entering into Europe were moving, either seemingly by their own volition or that of the evil being perpetrated upon them within their own countries. And yet God wanted to use the movement of these peoples for them to know him. This is what Paul had explained at the Areopagus in Athens, and it was the reality of what we were seeing even today.

I believe that this is the same question that I continue to ask myself today and the same question that we should, as followers of Christ, be asking ourselves: What is the purpose of the movement of the peoples that we are seeing today? Immigration and the movement of peoples are happening everywhere. Is there a purpose for which God intends to use this movement of people? Is it not so that they should know him?

To be clear, I understand that this is a sticky political issue. And also to be clear, I believe that all immigration should be done legally, respecting the laws of the countries involved. But this is not the part that I want to necessarily focus upon. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that God has appointed the times and the boundries of the lands, and that reality has a very real implication, as followers of Christ, on each of us. God is intending to use the movement of the people, in those places and in those times, so that they will know him and I, like each of us, have a part to play in God’s plan.

About a year or so ago, we had received some visitors for the day. We knew that they wouldn’t be there very long, so we wanted to take them out to see a part of our city, especially some of the parts we have frequented on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it is probably the worst area of the city where there is prostitution, drug dealing, and just generally a lot of bad some happening. In addition, though, it is also one of the areas where you find concentrations of the west and north African immigrants in town, so we have gone there to pray for people or spend some time with them.

We went out to pray, and as we passed through this area, I saw a couple of men that I knew, so I turned and left the group for a moment to say Hello and ask them if there was anything for which we could pray since we were there to pray alongside of our friends and visitors.

We were just talking for a few minutes when, from my behind me, and then beside me, I heard this a couple of times…

These men are Christian missionaries who are here tell you about Jesus.

It was a woman’s voice, which is strange in that area to say the least. You rarely hear a woman’s voice except amongst the prostitute ladies, and they don’t speak English, only Spanish and Italian.

It didn’t really register with me the first time that she said it, at least not enough to make me turn around and look for her. The second time I heard it, I turned and looked. My friends were with me as well and we began to look around to understand what was happening. The visitors that we had with us started looking at us quizzingly as well.

She went on to say it 2 or 3 times, so as we walked away from the conversation with the people we knew, I looked for the lady. I hadn’t seen her before, nor have I seen her since. I asked her her name and she told me and asked her how she knew what she knew. She said she could just tell because she knows Jesus.

I asked her what she knows about him and she said that she knew that people called him the Son of God. I asked her if I could share a story with her and began to share the Gospel with her. Several times she interrupted me and lead the conversation in another direction, so it was clear that she didn’t want to hear what I was trying to say to her. We then simply asked if we could pray for her, so she was willing to quiet herself for a few moments while we did that.

I wish I could say that we drove a demon out of her that day. Aside from spiritual revelation, I have no way of knowing how she would have known who we were or what we were doing. It isn’t as if there aren’t many different types of people from around the world here where we live. You can’t necessarily just look at us and know who we are.

I was reminded of this story this morning as I read Acts 16, the story of Paul and his companions as they traveled to and from Philippi:

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

Acts 16:16-18

Paul spoke directly to this spirit, driving it out from this young lady. Unfortunately, that action actually led Paul to be thrown into prison as the woman was a slave and her owners no longer had a way to make money from the spirit that possessed her. But the woman was free from her possession and Paul’s word about Christ was confirmed by the work of his hands.

I explored the situation that day, having recognized what was happening. Looking back, I wish now that I would have stayed longer with the young lady that called us out in front of the rest of the group that stood around listening to the conversation we had with our friends. Honestly, I was thinking about other things. I was thinking about the visitors that we had with us. I was thinking about the schedule that we were keeping for the day, and it is a lesson that I need to remember so that as we see these types of situations in the future, they can be addressed for what they are, a spiritual confrontation and likely a cry for help.

These “Judaizers” from the Pharisees were pretty sure that they were right. In fact, they were so sure that they went so far as to say that you cannot be saved unless you follow the law of Moses.

Practically speaking, what did that mean? All of these Gentiles that had come to faith, all of these Gentiles that had already received the Holy Spirit, must also be circumcised.

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Acts 15:1

Ouch.

I say “ouch” in a couple of different ways. There is the physical “ouch” in that the Judaizers were saying that the Gentiles had to complete the physical act of circumcision. I cannot imagine that it would be an act that they would be looking forward to completing!

Then I also say “ouch” because the Judaizers have had the temerity to speak for God. The Gentiles had already received the Holy Spirit. Should these zealous religious men try to add something to the gift of God saying that the Gentiles aren’t really saved until we have also done X, or Y, or Z?

Of course, it was a tricky situation. If someone had converted to Judaism in the past, the first thing that needed to be done was for the person to follow all of the laws of Judaism, and that of course included the act of circumcision. Circumcising a man would show his allegiance to the covenant given by God, first through Abraham and then through subsequent leaders.

But Jesus offered his people, including all of us, a new covenant. The new covenant was given in his blood. Jesus fulfilled the law, meaning that he kept all of the laws. He was the only man ever to have done so, so he did not deserve to be punished. He was the only man to ever not deserve punishment for breaking God’s law, yet he was sent by God specifically to take the punishment for the sins of the people upon himself. It is an incredible gift of God through an amazing display of love and mercy for his people.

This is the offer of the new covenant, that by Jesus’s blood, God will be our God and we will be his people.

Nothing more. Nothing added. Nothing additional needed.

In fact, Peter is very clear about this as he addressed the council that considered this question:

We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

Acts 15:11

Yet even today, we see the “yoke” of additional rules and regulations of the church put upon people as leaders try to decide themselves who can be saved and who cannot. In fact, I have this same conversation with my Catholic friends on a regular basis. They insist to me that it must be Jesus + X or Jesus + Y. And why? Because they believe that the Catholic church has the right to impose rules from the top-down, from the Pope to all of us.

For some reason, they – and sometimes each of us as well – seem to think that we, as humans, have the right to overrule what God has said.

Of course we do not. Yet we often persist in this line of thinking. We insist that we know better than what Jesus has said. We frequently believe, like the Pharisees who became the Judaizers in the midst of the believing church, that we must add something to Jesus for others to be able to know God.

Let us, instead, simply tell others of the blood of Christ. It is through this blood that God has made his new covenant with us. It is through this blood that we can be made clean before the Lord. It is through this blood that we can be saved.

And as we are saved, we will receive the Holy Spirit, and by walking by the Spirit we will do the things that the law requires. Not because we have become a Jew and followed all of the Jewish laws, but because we have followed Christ, making him king over the entirety of our lives and we now live completely for him.

The situation that unfolded in Lystra was pretty amazing. Paul and Barnabas found a man who had never walked since he was born. He saw the man while he was preaching and teaching and so Paul told him to stand, and he did. It was truly a miracle!

The people that were listening to Paul speak suddenly decided that he and Barnabas were Greek gods. That was their context. That was what they knew, it was their culture, the religious context in which they lived every day, and so they set about bringing bulls and wreaths out to the city gates to offer sacrifices to them. They were sure that the “gods” had come down to them in human form, which is ironic because that is exactly what Paul and Barnabas were attempting to turn them away from as they spoke to them about the one true God, the creator of all things, and how the people of Lystra can know him.

Yet now, the Jews from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium, those whom Paul and Barnabas had been in trouble with previously, show up in Lystra looking to continue to make trouble for the men as they preached and taught the people about Christ. The crowd, who were just about to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas as a result of the miracle that they had seen, now get angry as a result of what the Jews say about them, and stone Paul, dragging him outside of the city to leave him for dead.

They stoned him and left him for dead!

They were just about to offer bulls as sacrifices and wreaths and throw a big party because they thought that the gods had come to them, and now they go on to stone him. They try to kill him.

Was the miracle that they had seen not real? Was the guy who hadn’t been able to walk since birth now walking? Or was he not?

It was an amazing reversal, and it is certainly an important lesson for us with regard to the crowds of people that may form around us. No one should think that just because they have a crowd of people around them that they have agreement with their message and what they are doing. Numbers of people, crowds themselves, really mean nothing. What counts is what they are doing. How they are living. That which is changing within the community. If you have a crowd that is changing their way of living, in our case, changing to follow Christ, then you have a situation that is going well! Otherwise, you just have a crowd of people, and that crowd of people can turn on you at any moment.

Now, the point that struck me today in this story is what Paul does after he was stoned and dragged outside of the city. Check this out…

Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.

Acts 14:19-20

First of all, I’m not sure why Paul wasn’t dead. The crowd was throwing stones at him. They were intent upon killing him. Did he lay down and pretend that he had died? Maybe he was knocked unconscious and then woke back up later after he had been dragged outside of the city? It is hard to say what precisely happened here.

But now, what does Paul do?

He gets back up and goes into the city!

What is the matter with this guy? Why would he go back into the city where they had just nearly killed him?

There is really only one reason that I can think of to explain Paul’s actions. He has been persecuted and chased out of both Pisidian Antioch and Iconium. Now he is nearly killed in Lystra. The only explanation for not having given up a long time ago is that he knows that the message that he is bringing to these people – for which they are now trying to kill him – is worth all of the punishment and abuse that he is receiving. He is willing to take it. He is willing to receive that punishment because there is nothing that is worth more than the message of eternal life that God offers to us through Jesus Christ.

Not the pain that he is feeling. Not riches. Not his fame. Not even his very life. Nothing is worth more than this message. It is crucial – truly a matter of life and death – for them to receive, to understand, and to live out this message of Christ.

Paul’s hope is that there will be some who will accept his message, and in fact, we see that there are some who believed his message. There were some that came and gathered around Paul after he had been left for dead, to care for him after the crowd had attempted to kill him. Paul had found a few people through his preaching and teaching that would believe and would go on to teach others. Maybe there were even be some one day in the future, amongst those who tried to kill him, believe themselves.

What great glory would be given to God for his love and mercy toward those that had tried to kill Paul, that they might one day know Christ! Paul himself had experienced this grace and mercy as he himself persecuted and killed Christians prior to knowing Christ. Now, Paul’s hope is that this same love and grace would come to the people of Lystra, and for this reason, he stands back up and walks back into the city, single-mindedly persevering for the hope of Christ for the people that he is teaching, and ultimately for the glory of God.

That is a phrase that I have heard frequently, especially as we have had discussions about taking the Gospel to people who have routinely shown a disdain for the message of Christ.

God will protect his people.

…Or other similar types of sayings.

Except I think that this is more of a hope from a human perspective who lack understanding of the story of God instead of anything that was actually ever promised by Jesus to any of his disciples.

Today, reading in Acts 12, I saw that in the midst of the first followers of Jesus being persecuted, Herod decides to compound the persecution, going on to begin arresting the believers themselves and putting them to death.

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

Acts 12:1-2

Then the situation just continued to get worse:

When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

Acts 12:3-4

Reading about the plights of James, who was arrested and quickly killed, and subsequently Peter, who was put in chains and thrown into prison, it makes me wonder how they would think about us saying that God protects his people. God didn’t stop these terrible things from happening. Instead, those things were allowed to happen.

Yes, Peter was ultimately led out of prison by an angel, but did that make the arrest, any beatings that he may have received, or any chains that he was shackled with, any less painful? No, of course not.

Jesus never promised his disciples that God would protect them. In fact, instead, Jesus warned them of the persecution that would come as a result of the work that they would do to tell others about him. They would be betrayed. They would be beaten. And they would be killed. These are the things that Jesus warned the disciples would happen…even at the moment that he sent them out to do exactly that for which they would be harmed.

Yet Jesus did tell them that he would be with them. He would go with them. Not that they wouldn’t be harmed, but that he would be with them.

So a natural question would come up… Why would God allow his people to be beaten? To be killed? What possible good could come from this persecution, from this misery and death?

At first glance, it doesn’t seem that any good could come from the suffering that the disciples experienced. But as we look further, we see that it is through their suffering that God received more and more glory.

First, we see that Jesus suffered, bled, and died on the cross. That suffering and death is what opened the door for us to come back into relationship with God because, despite not deserving the punishment that he received, he took the punishment upon himself as a result of his love for his people. In that way, his suffering became one of the greatest ways in which God would be glorifed as a result of his love and mercy, and as a result of all peoples now having a way to be reconciled back to God.

Second, it is through suffering that the church has always grown. We see this throughout the writing of the book of Acts as well as through the Apostles subsequent writings in the epistles. There is no special protection that they experienced. No, instead, it was through their suffering that the Gospel was carried to people everywhere!

And that is the same that we see today. The advance of the Gospel comes at a cost. The advance of the Good News of Christ happens through suffering. The Church has grown the most quickly over the last few decades in places like China and Iran, countries where the Gospel and the name of Christ are not welcome and those who bring the Gospel in those places will likely suffer, and possibly die for what they believe.

Instead, I find that it is really only in the hearts and minds of Christians who have been led to believe that to follow Jesus means that they should have a better life now are the ones that discuss their belief that God will protect his people. The “prosperity” Gospel which offers health, wealth, and other types of properity. In short, the Good News is diluted into that which we can gain today.

Yet that is far from what we see in the scriptures. That is not the story of the Bible. No, the headline is not God will protect his people. The true story is that we are to live to give him glory.

We know the names of those who traveled with Jesus and went on to be used by God to start the first church in Jerusalem. These are the disciples who became the apostles. Peter, James, John, and nine others. We know their names.

We know the names of the men who started churches all over modern-day Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, and beyond. Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, and several others were used by God to begin an incredible movement of church planting.

But there was a critical moment in which Evil, through the Jewish leaders and their persecution of the church, attempted to snuff out the church, attempted to close it for good. In Acts 8, it says that persecution broke out amongst those in the church in Jerusalem, causing many to flee from the city to go elsewhere to seek refuge. It was in that moment that the church was in real peril. Would it continue to grow? Or would it die? Would this large church go on to live? Or would it simply be a footnote in history?

A few chapters later, following the start of the persecution in Jerusalem, we receive an answer. The believers from Jerusalem continue what they had learned in this first church as they move out of the city, and then they are joined by others as well.

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Acts 11:19-21

As these believers head out into new locations, what do they do? They continue to do what they learned to do in Jerusalem. And the result is that now, in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch – which are in modern-day Lebanon and the island of Cyprus – these relatively new believers go to tell others and to share the Gospel.

In fact, they do a great work and see great results there in Antioch, and that new location, that new church where they would first be called Christians, becomes a church that may be considered amongst one of the greatest mission-sending churches of all time.

But what were their names? What were the names of these people who went to Antioch and began to share to Gospel, making disciples, and ultimately starting this church?

We don’t know.

The Bible doesn’t tell us their names.

We see that Barnabas comes later and he goes to get Saul to come teach the church for a year. We see the names of three other leaders in the church as we read the first few verses of Acts 13. But these first believers that escaped persecution and made a decision to continue to tell others in this crucial time? No, we don’t know their names, and that is a wonderful fact in the midst of this incredible work.

That is wonderful because, as I mentioned before, this was a critical time, and this was a critical decision. It would be much easier to retreat. It would be much easier to pull back and have a “personal faith”. It would be much easier to huddle together, to simply stay together without telling anyone else. After all, they were no longer in Jerusalem. The people around them didn’t necessarily speak the same language as them. The culture was different. And they didn’t have their leaders any longer. The apostles had stayed in Jerusalem. They were on their own. They were strangers in a strange land.

Yet they made the decision to be bold. With those that they could speak and proclaim the Gospel, they spoke and told others of the best news that they could possibly tell them: Jesus Christ is the Messiah for whom the world has waited and he offers them forgiveness of sins so that they can be reconciled to the one true, and only God, the creator of the world.

We should not care if the world knows our name. There is only one name that the world needs to know, the name of Jesus. He is the one to be lifted up. He is the one to be glorified. Our names can pass away, but his name will live forever. In him, we also will live forever, under his one and only name.

So like those that went before us, like those who left Jerusalem and went to Antioch, let us go and risk great things for him. Let us go to tell others of his name and how the world can know God, only through his name. Let us go to our neighbors, or let us go to another part of the world. God has different callings for each person, but this is the calling that Jesus has already given to each of us: To go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them also to obey what he taught us to do, lifting up one name and only one name – the name of Jesus.

The step that Peter took across Cornelius’s threshold to enter his house was a big one. Peter had make some significant strides forward in his maturity in Christ, but this one was one of the biggest. Physically speaking, Peter simply walked into a Gentile’s house, but it was a place that the Jews would consider to be “unclean”. Spiritually speaking, Peter just walked into a place that showed his understanding and acceptance of Christ as bigger than all of the Jewish traditions and prejudices against the Gentiles.

The passage reads as the conversion of Cornelius and his household, and it is. This entire house full of people is about the receive the Holy Spirit, the first time that Peter will have seen this amongst the Gentiles. But possibly in an even greater way, this passage shows Peter’s conversion, fully leaving behind the old, human ways of thinking that had bound him and taking on the way of God by entering into Cornelius’s house.

While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.

Acts 10:27-28

How many people do we think of an “unclean”? I suspect that there might be quite a few. Those that are literally not clean, maybe they are dirty and smell bad. Or maybe those that come from cultures that are very different from ours. To us, what they eat or how they keep their home, or the way that they manage their society, is repulsive. It could even seem to be the very definition of “unclean” to us.

There could be many of these types of people, and even if we would affirm the idea in the company of others that we should be ready to go to these people, we frequently simply remain ready without actually going. There ends up being a difference in our public words and our true practice.

In Peter’s case, he needed to be taught, and thankfully, Jesus did teach him.

And we also have been taught. Through the example of Peter and many others, we can clearly see that which is God’s desire. He wants everyone to know him. Without prejudice. Without predetermination from a human perspective. He wants that all will go to the other person to tell them about him. That they also can be reconciled back to him through Jesus.

But like Peter, we can either be part of the problem, or we can be part of the solution. Peter could have chosen to ignore the vision that Jesus gave to him. Peter could have chosen to ignore the men who came to take him to Cornelius’s house. Peter could have stopped short of entering through the threshold of the home. He could have been what blocked the Gospel from going forward, but instead he became the conduit through which the Gospel came to Cornelius and his entire household. They received the Holy Spirit and were baptized.

Peter both learned a great lesson that day and went on to teach that same lesson to others, that God had given the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. But Peter only learned that lesson because he was willing to risk stepping over the threshold into Cornelius’s house.

Now, what about each of us? Will we learn the same lesson, pushing beyond that which, from our perspective, seems to be unclean? Will we be a block for the Gospel, or will we allow God to use us to bring forward the greatest story ever told and the greatest news ever heard? If we want God to use us, we will likely need to step over the threshold, take a risk, and allow him to work in the midst of that which seems to us to be unclean.