“Closing the Loop”
Acts 14:19-28
December 30, 2007
If you really, really believe that you are right, what does that belief produce in you? Atheist Christopher Hitchens, as I’ve mentioned before, has written a book entitled God is Not Great, wherein he details all the myriad problems he has with the whole concept of “religion” (and he lumps all faiths together under that word). One of his chief issues with “religion” is what it can cause its followers to do in response to their faith. In fact, Hitchens says that “Arguments for atheism can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the ill effects of religion.” One of his two major arguments is the actions of religious people. I have to tell you: it’s hard to deny that he’s onto something! Of course, he is selective in his use of the evidence, and misses the point quite nicely, but he’s right: sometimes the faithful have done revolting, hideous, and cruel things in the name of their faith—and that’s true of Christian faith, particularly in centuries past, much like we think first of Islam in today’s world, the monstrous inhuman effects of radical Islam. But I ask again, if you really, really believe that you are right, what does that belief produce in you?
The answer, it seems to me, is that belief ought to produce a clear, unmistakable determination to live by the dictates of your belief. That doesn’t make one’s beliefs right or wrong, mind you; it just argues for the consistent living-out of those beliefs. Had Christians been doing this through the centuries, Mr. Hitchens would have, could have, found no fault in our faith, for such atrocities as the Crusades are not warranted in the Bible, either explicitly or implicitly. If you really, really believe that what you believe is right, then you should live by your beliefs.
Such is the case when we come to the Jews from Antioch and Iconium referred to in verse 19. We can fault both their unbelief in Christ, and their ultimate decision to resort to violence, but we cannot fault the kind of zeal that brought them to Lystra. Notice a
I. Reversal of Fortune - :19-20
The Jews who traveled from Antioch were making a journey of over 100 miles, which is less than two hours by interstate—but they weren’t exactly traveling I-85 to get there! This was a long journey spanning several days—which indicates the venom which they had toward Paul and Barnabas and the message of the gospel. But a fair question is, why did they find such a receptive audience in Lystra, among people who were ready to worship Paul and Barnabas? Why would these people be so quickly ready to stone them, having just called them “gods”? The answer isn’t difficult: these were unlearned people whose religion was superstitious to the max. There were gods and spirits everywhere. These men had worked a miracle, but if they were not gods, then they must have been impostors, usurpers of the glory of the Greek gods. This presented a different situation altogether, and thus the reaction of stoning the apostles. And make no mistake about it: this was no judicial execution, but rather a lynching.
Ajith Fernando brings a human question to this episode: what must it have been like, mentally and psychologically, to endure stoning such as Paul did? It was undoubtedly humiliating, frightening, painful beyond belief; we might picture brave Paul standing up to this treatment with a resolute trust in God, and there’s some truth in that, but underneath it all, he was a guy just like the rest of us, who hurt physically and emotionally, and this was, beyond the pain of the stoning, a quite traumatic event. He bled real blood and felt real psychological hurt—which perhaps makes the following words all the more important: the “disciples gathered around him”.
“When the disciples gathered about him, he rose up” – Was this coincidence? The power of prayer? Healing and ministering and helping? One wonders if their reason for coming was to take the body to bury it, assuming Paul to have been killed by the stoning. Luke doesn’t tell us if Paul actually died or not; in a somewhat vague reference elsewhere in Scripture, Paul refers to a man who was caught up to heaven—and then came back from the dead (II Corinthians 12:2). Many speculate that Paul is referring to himself, and that this is the episode to which he refers. F.F. Bruce says that Paul’s being raised up “has a flavor of miracle about it”, though this is not something we can prove from the text. Miraculous healing or no, to survive a stoning, a dragging from the city to be left for dead to boot, is no mean feat. Something extraordinary happened to take Paul from lying a crumpled heap on the ground to making a journey with Barnabas the next day.
We do know that in writing to the churches of Galatia some time later, he refers in 6:17 to bearing in his “body the marks of Jesus”. This reference undoubtedly referred back to this event, in Lystra in the region of Galatia, where he was nearly stoned to death by the enraged barbarians. In another place, Paul speaks of a “thorn in the flesh” that God had allowed him to carry, how he asked God several times for its removal, but that God had said, “no, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul”, allowing Paul to keep the “thorn” but assuring Paul of sufficient grace to deal with it. Some speculate that this mysterious “thorn” was related to the stoning here, some lingering condition that would not go away. It’s possible, though we won’t be certain this side of Heaven.
Notice a couple of things: first, that the treatment of Paul mirrored the treatment of Jesus. Crowds hailed Him on Sunday, and the same crowds screamed for His blood on Friday. Crowds rushed to worship Paul and Barnabas as gods, and then turned around and formed a lynch mob. But notice another parallel: Jesus was as a sheep before his shearers dumb; Paul took both the flattery and the opposition without a change in character. Here in Acts 14, Paul models for us what living like Jesus looks like. In another place, Paul refers to it as “dying daily” to self, just as Jesus refers to it as “taking up a cross and following” Him. When that happens, when it is Jesus we are following, living for, taking our directions from, orienting our lives around, our character is altered neither by flattery nor by opposition. While we ought to learn from criticism where we can, and where on the other hand we can accept the appreciation of others, we do not wilt when we are criticized nor do we believe all our press clippings. Instead, our eyes are on Jesus. Wonder where Paul’s mind was when the stones were being hurled? I’m pretty sure it was on Jesus. We will never go wrong when we keep our eyes on Jesus. But Paul got up from the ground, and then we see him
II. Closing the Loop with the new converts - :21-23
Not much is said of the apostles’ time spent in Derbe, a small town where the Bible says many came to faith in Christ. It’s interesting, though; Luke spends more time speaking of the larger churches in Antioch and Iconium, but it was from churches in these smaller towns that some tremendous servants of the Lord came, Gaius from Derbe and Timothy from Lystra (Acts 20:4).
Now, it took some guts for Paul and Barnabas to go back into towns that had each treated them with hostility. How were they able to pull this off without arousing animosity all over again? Perhaps it is in the description of their mission upon their return: they went back to “strengthen the souls of the disciples”, not specifically to evangelize. Their mission was what we today call “discipleship”. Some translations use the word “confirm”, and that suffix “firm” is key: they wanted to make sure that the new Christians were standing on a firm foundation.
Four things the apostles are recorded as doing, all of which constituted “strengthening the souls of the disciples”:
• Encouraged perseverance in the faith
The grace of God had worked in their hearts, bringing salvation, and now they were continued to stay with the stuff, to stick by it in the face of come-what-may. Staying true to the faith connotes the fact that there exists a body of truth to be true to! There are central beliefs and central emphases upon which faith stands. The Apostles Creed, written sometime later, states many of these (repeat with me!):
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting. Amen.
Our Statement of Faith attempts to do the same, to articulate the basics of the faith that Paul proclaimed to these Gentile converts so many centuries ago. The point is that we cannot rightly call ourselves followers of Christ absent commitment to the very core truths of Christian faith, and Paul urged these new believers to remain committed to the core.
• Taught about the role of tribulation and persecution
Longenecker – “the same pattern of suffering and glory exemplified in Jesus’ life must be theirs as well if they are to know the full measure of the reign of God in their lives”.
It is almost taken for granted in the New Testament that tribulation will be the lot of those who follow Christ, and certainly this was Paul’s experience. This raises the question of “why don’t we experience much of anything that could be classified as ‘persecution’?” It’s a good question. What are some possible answers?
o We are not living a clear enough testimony to warrant opposition
o When we face opposition, we wither
o The foundation of American society (though we have strayed from the foundation) was built upon pillars that have their root in a Christian worldview:
o Religious tolerance, in the sense of freedom of conscience/religion
o The rule of law
A.W. Tozer, nearly 50 years ago, wrote some words on the subject that bear being said today, in his book Born After Midnight:
“Christ calls me to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in his name. He calls them to forsake the world; we assure them that if they but accept Jesus the world is their oyster. He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords...He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers…we can afford to suffer now; we’ll have a long eternity to enjoy ourselves. And our enjoyment will be valid and pure, for it will come in the right way in the right time.”
And yet, Tozer’s words go largely unheeded, as the evangelical church has significantly prostituted the message of the glory of Christ, and the carrying of His cross, settling instead for a pseudo-gospel of self-esteem, personal fulfillment, and material comfort. Paul said, “get ready for the likelihood of persecution.”
• Appointed elders in every church
Fernando comments, “Because so much of the growth and life of the Christian takes place in community, it was necessary for Paul and Barnabas to ensure that the communities were well-organized.” The office of New Testament elder flows from the office of elder among the Jewish people as we see in the Old Testament; it connoted the “twofold task of judging and discipline generally, and of ruling and guiding the people in an orderly way” (Cornelius Van Dam).
o Elders served as spiritual guides for the people.
o Elders served as official leaders in the church.
Elders are called “rulers” in I Thessalonians 5:12, and in Romans 12:8, although this must be understood in scriptural context, not to mean some kind of dominating authoritarian thing.
Ordaining elders took faith on the parts of Paul and Barnabas, faith in God that the right men were being raised up to lead. “Everything rises and falls on leadership”, one has said, and the right leaders in place make all the difference. Paul had had some time, but certainly not a lot, to get to know some of the individuals in each locality; he had to rely upon prayerful wisdom from God in order to make the right choices. But these churches now had the apostolic instruction, pastoral oversight, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit going for them.
• Committed them to the Lord with prayer and fasting
III. Closing the Loop with the sending church at Antioch - :24-28
There is a cursory mention of Paul preaching in the town of Perga, where he’d not been able to preach on his way through; we know nothing more of his preaching or its results, and so we press on. What we do know is that he felt the need, and likely the obligation, to report back to the church at Antioch, which had sent them off, as to the success of the mission. They gave God the credit, in saying, “all that God had done with them”, and they disclose the change in strategy that had arisen, how the door had been opened wide to Gentiles during their trip. Their entire missionary journey had taken the better part of a year, and then they stayed with the Antioch church perhaps another entire year.
We are as yet some time away from making world missions a major push here at Red Oak, but when we do, one of the key components that we will stress will be the importance of having a close relationship with the church. Obviously, Paul and Barnabas had little contact with the church at Antioch during the time they were gone; it’s not like they could pick up a cell phone or send text messages or emails to alert the church of the progress of the gospel. We live in a different world now, and the responsibility of the church to the missionaries, and the missionaries to the church, is such that we can and should keep in contact. World missions, as you’ll hear me say increasingly, is not the work of missionaries, but the work of the church; i.e., you and me! And the pattern of accountability that Paul and Barnabas set here is instructive: this church at Antioch had invested their time, energy, prayer, and undoubtedly some money with Paul and Barnabas, and now they rightly deserved to share in the success of the gospel, if only vicariously through the reports of the mission.
God had done the work; now, God must receive the glory for it. And the church must know about it, to share in praise!
Points to Ponder
1. Paul’s mission work involved the planting of churches.
• Not relief work (though Paul demonstrates in Scripture a concern for the poor)
• Not medical work (though some were healed, of course)
• Not the planting of “missions”
• Not mere evangelistic crusades (though he preached the gospel everywhere)
For Paul, the work wasn’t done unless and until there was a viable church in a city. We don’t “do Jesus” without doing church!
2. Paul’s concern was for the effectiveness and propagation, not only of individual believers, but of the church. This explains his concern that elders be placed in leadership in each church.
3. Paul recognized his responsibility to the church, evidenced in his closing the loop with the church in Antioch.
We started out by saying that we believe, if we sincerely believe it, will make a difference in how we live. I see it as part of my mission as a pastor to help Red Oak live by the truth that the local church, the visible representation of Christ’s body, is utterly indispensable to faithfulness to God. Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, and whatever you gain from today’s message, remember this: when we introduce people to Jesus Christ—part one of our mission—we must at the same time incorporate those into the body of a local church, and until we do, we’ve still got work to do, in order to close the loop.
