Listen to Glisten: God is Stronger

Leaving for Vacation as a kid

Could hardly sleep

Couldn’t wait to get into our Chevy Capris Classis Station wagon. It was a boat! I typically sat in the back because I was the only one who didn’t get car sick back there...

Prince Edward Island

Natural beauty of New Hamphire

Branson Missouri

The Florida Keys

Sault St. Marie

Paul and Barnabas are about to see the world as they begin the first of three missionary journeys that will forever change the world!

Anticipation! Before Paul and Barnabas, I wonder if there was a party going on in heaven in anticipation for what they’re just about to do.

Pivot in Acts: Peter goes off to Ceasaria to be a missionary, and not the attention turns to Saul.

Name change pivot: As if to mark the transition in the book, from now on Luke refers to Saul as Paul.

So Off they Go!

Paul and Barnabas are sent off by the early church from Antioch. Sent by the Holy Spirit to Seleucia, to sail off to Cyprus.

We begin this evening with ‘Gospel Goes Global!’

Gospel Goes Global!

Beginning of First Missionary Journey

SHOW PICTRE: Cyprus

60 mile boat ride

Network of roads throughout connecting the island together.

90 mile trek across Cyprus

Flanked by mountains on the northern edge and the south west where Paphos is.

Luke leaves out the details of their trip across Cyprus:

Spend time with Barnabas Family?

John Mark prepared the campfire and meals along the way?

Walked past copper mines.

Stayed with the Mission:

Head off to Synagogues: Jews first, see what allies will listen.

As they make their way around Cyprus, word gets around and they happen to make some noise!

Sergius Paulus, “A man of Intelligence” summon Barnabas and Saul

Gospel and the Proconsul

Proconsul: Ruler of a Roman Province. So this is no small fish here! No wonder Luke includes this story among the many he leaves out in this journey.

Curious, wants to hear more. “Sought to here the Word of God.”

We can assume that Word of God is the Word about Jesus Christ!

I Cor. 9:16: Paul said, “I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

Acts 13: He whom God raised up did not see corruption. 38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything

This was before a Jewish audience, and we know that Paul tailored the Gospel message to fit the audience…

So the Proconsul listens to Paul and Barnabas...

Pause and Reflect:

How amazing is it that this top dog wants to hear more from Paul!

Really a supernatural event that someone as influential as a proconsul would come and summon Paul and Barnabas.

Recently, I read a book about the first century Greco-Roman Culture by Andrew Clark. Fusion of religion was everywhere:

Religion was embedded everywhere. Saturated the culture. Embedded in all of life! Clark argues, “The religious was inseparable from the secular, and social status was the ubiquitous (all-encompassing) measure of all personal relationships and interactions” (ch. 1.2).

There was no such thing called the secular!

The political, social, religious, it was just one big hodgepodge of meaning.

Like, at the local bricklayers Union meeting, they’d started their meetings by sacrificing a pigeon.

For ANYONE in the first century to inquire about the Gospel really is a testament not to Paul and Barnabas, but to the POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!

Complete Worldview shift happening here.

I remember in Sunday School as a kid learning about how Ripe the Roman Empire was for the Gospel:

Common Language

International Travel

Global trade routes

But we have to be careful here…

Where does the Bible say the harvest was ripe? It doesn’t!

Luke 10:2 says the harvest is plentiful, not ripe! Hearts were hard, and it was the Holy Spirit who changed that heart of stone into a fleshy one.

This is a testimony of the power of the Holy Spirit above anything else!

And so this high ranking, intelligent man wants to here the Gospel!

He sees the culture, the gods infused in his politics and social sphere, he’s looking for something different!

Folks, the Harvest Remains Plentiful, but it is not any more ripe today than it was in the 1st Century!

We have a common language, international travel, and we’re becoming a hugely important center. Apple’s coming to tow drawing 3,000 new people with an average salary just south of $200,000. Housing prices are emerging very quickly. This area is changing faster than you can purchase the next iPhone!

Change will increase challenges and opportunities for the church to figure out how to contextualize the Gospel like Paul!

To pray that the Holy Spirit will use YOU to be that face of Jesus when people arrive.

Are we making waves? Like, is the Gospel causing a motion? Is it making a rippling effect? Are you part of that wave or observing the wave. Are you waiting on your surf board to hang out with your buds or are you eagerly waiting for that next wave?

Because if we don’t make a splash in people’s lives, other voices will overpower! Voices that match the culture’s priorities and values, such as the case with Bar-Jesus

But beside the Proconsul is this spiritual snake named Bar-Jesus or Elymas

Paul’s Pounce on the Proconsul’s Prognosticator

Just makes sense that Sergius Paulus would have someone like Bar-Jesus.

A Jewish “PseudoProphet” and Sorcerer (Magician).

In this religiously saturated climate, it just makes sense that Sergius Paulus would seek out the advice of a Jewish Pseudoprophet and Sorcerer.

Elymas or Bar-Jesus:

This was not an abnormal thing! Without Christ, can you imagine the craziness? People seek answers from all over.

And the public office of a spiritual coach like Elymas was lucritive in both money but also with honor!

Clark: “The office of priest in public religion, therefore, should be regarded not so much as a vocation, but rather as a reward for high status” (ch. 3.3.2).

The Roman Culture was obsessed with honor, and the religious system fell in line with an honor-based culture.

And so Paul and Barnabas, they’re up against so much:

A culture that values hierarchy.

A culture saturated with the occult and religious pluralism!

A culture obsessed with honor, privilage, and status!

And as they are preaching a new ethic of humility, sin, Sacrifice, and the Kingdom of Jesus, they face opposition wherever they go.

Elymas comes froward and does what? It says in verse 8 that Elymas opposed them!

Opposed them: Classi Greek, military word "to strongly resist an opponent."

There’s a spiritual battle going on here between the Word of God and the Word of Elymas!

And so it’s not surprise that Paul pounces on Bar-Jesus!

Bar-Jesus: Son of Salvation

“Son of the Devil”

“Enemy of all Righteousness”

“Full of all deceit and villainy”

Safe to say Paul doesn’t like this guy!

Lord’s Path is Straight, he flipping the path from Heaven to Hell!

We know evil!

Gargamile from the Smurfs

Saruman vs. Gandolf

White Witch over Aslan

Old Robin Hood with young Kevin Costner:

Sheriff of Notthingham seeks out the advice from a diviner.

Evil queen twisting the plot of Snow White.

Or Melificent in Sleeping Beauty

That’s this kind of evil!

“Will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?”

Making crooked= Twist from one point to another

Luke 3:5-6: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’”

God has made straight the path to salvation! Don’t go and turn that path around, bro!

That’s the kind of evil we are talking about here.

Paul doesn’t flippantly call him Son of the Devil!

Elymas is then hit with blindness!

Ironic, Paul blind at Conversion, Bar-Jesus goes blind to shut him up!

God shows that he’s stronger! Elymas has nothing!

This story is showing us the POWER OF GOD OVER the PREVAILING VALUES AND PERMEATING RELIGIONS at the onset of this missionary journey!

And as a result one proconsul choses to believe: NOT Because Elymas is blinded, but by what? The Teaching of the LORD!

It was the teaching, the ongoing, persistent, countercultural, Kingdom focused, teaching of the Savior, our sin, death, resurrection, Kingdom and King.

Teaching of:

Humility over honor

Sacrifice over self-achievement

The Cross over Control

Suffering over preservation

Giving over Getting

The Church=Sign Post of the kingdom

Paul was a church planter, and it’s fascinating when we take a solid look at that word Church:

The Church didn’t come up with this word for church:

Church comes from ecclesia—called out ones: The Church borrowed that word from Roman Culture. That word was used throughout the Greco-Roman world to define a civic gathering...

Andrew Clark, “Thus, for the inhabitants of first-century, Graeco-Roman cities, the term a conjured powerful, political associations. This was first and foremost a civic assembly in the proud tradition of Classical Greek democracy, at which the citizen populace had a theoretical right of expression, but where in practice the wealthy held dominant sway.”

But the church borrowed this word because the church did become a new political association of sorts. But not a democracy, a monarchy! Not built on the proud tradition of the Greeks, but built on the humble ethic of the King.

Not where the wealthy held dominant sway, but provided a radical new way.

The churches Paul and Barnabbas were going to set up on this first missionary journey was completely countercultural, and the only way it would take root in people like Sergius Paulus is the power of the Holy Spirit!

It’s the only thing that makes sense!