biblestudy: Acts (Part Fourteen)

Acts 14: Paul and Barnabas at Lystra; the Council of Jerusalem
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 20-Dec-88; Sermon #BS-AC14; 85 minutes

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We are going to begin in Deuteronomy 23, verse 2. I chose to answer this, I guess you might call it, a difficult scripture. And then it was not until later, as I was going through Acts 15, that I began to realize that I had chosen a scripture to expound there that has in a way very much to do with what we might get involved in a little bit later in the book of Acts (when we get back there).

Deuteronomy 23:2 "One of illegitimate birth shall not enter the congregation of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the congregation of the Lord."

Now some have wondered about that and felt that, wow, that was awfully unfair of God to pick on those people who by an accident of their birth anyway, were excluded from something that seems like anybody who was born would have the right to be a part of. But I think that the law has a great deal of wisdom to it. And I think that when you begin to see it, you will see that there is wisdom involved there.

It says here that this person of illegitimate birth shall not enter the congregation of the Lord. Now it does not mean that these people were not accepted into the community. Certainly their birth could not be denied; there they were and they were certainly very likely a part of some family somewhere. The phrase "not enter the congregation" has to do with not being free to hold a public office. In other words, they would never be able to be a priest. They would never be able to be an elder that sat at the gate. They could never be a judge. Maybe they could be a dog catcher or something like that. I am not sure if they had things like that in those days. But specifically it refers to not being able to hold public office.

We have to remember the context of the time. As we are going to see just a little bit later in this explanation, he involves in a similar kind of circumstance those who are Ammonites and Moabites, and there are those commentators who feel that included within verse 2 are those who are racially mixed. I do not know whether I am prepared to go that far, but at least commentators feel that that might be involved there.

We have to remember that God was dealing with a carnal, unconverted nation whose interests only had to do with what we would say today, the flesh, meaning that which was physical. There was no particular spiritual ramification to this as far as we are able to see. But the basic reason for the law was to encourage the nation to keep themselves physically pure.

Now when you think about that, you think about what is going on today. Who is it that, at least up until this time, has been responsible for the spread of most of the sexually transmitted diseases? Well, I think it has to be those people who are most sexually promiscuous. We might begin with prostitutes. We might step from there to those who are homosexual and have involved themselves in homosexual perversions. Where is the syphilis and the gonorrhea and the chlamydia and the AIDS getting its start, its genesis? You see, it spreads out into the, let us call it, the straight world. But if it had never gotten started in the world of perversion, maybe it never would have gotten into the straight world at all. The law was given primarily to try and attempt to inhibit the spread of sexually transmissible diseases by putting an impediment in front of people, that if this occurs and there is a child, in a sense that child is never going to get into a position of honor within the nation.

In addition (this is the second application), is that someone who comes from that sort of a background, getting into a position of honor or leadership is not generally good for the rest of the nation. These people generally—I am speaking in generalities—are people with psychological problems. I mean, children of adultery, children of fornication.

Now why is that so? Well, it is because of the kind of life that they are introduced into after they are born. It is not the fact that they were just conceived out of wedlock. It is what happens after they are born. These kinds of people then have a tendency not to be as stable as those who would come from a normal family life. They are the kind of people who tend to bear grudges, are rebellious. I am speaking here in generalities, not getting down to specifics at all, who feel that the world is against them because all their life they have been battling uphill against a society that has been basically looking down upon them.

Now when a person like that gets into public office, he bears those same psychological scars with him, and they in turn then become a means of the wrong kind of leadership. Let us go back to Jeremiah the 31st chapter where God through Jeremiah prophesied of a change.

Jeremiah 31:29-30 In those days [that is, looking down to our day, looking down to the time or the era of the church] they shall no more say: 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.'

He is explaining or showing here a cause-and-effect. Only instead of the cause-and-effect taking place within the person who actually commits a sin, he is showing by this proverb that what the father's cause, the children pay the penalty for. Now you take that principle right back to Deuteronomy 23 and you begin to see some of the wisdom in what God says there. The fathers commit a sin but the children bear the pain. And that literally does happen, and that pain brings upon those children psychological scars which, if put into a position of leadership are not good. Then the whole country tends to take on some of the characteristics of the person who is in the position of leadership. Was it not Henry David Thoreau who said that "every institution is but the lengthened shadow of one man," meaning that an institution's behavior or characteristics or personalities can be traced back to its founder or the person who is in a position of leadership.

What God is showing there in Deuteronomy 23:2, when you are dealing with the carnal people, people who are not converted, people whose minds and hearts have not undergone a change, then you better have some kind of a regulation that at least in some way ensures that those who do get in a position of leadership are going to be as sound-minded and stable as possible.

Here in Jeremiah 31:29 he is showing that the time is coming when that law in Deuteronomy 23:2 is not going to be in force. See, in those days, they shall say no more, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But everyone shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge."

Today, God is building a spiritual house rather than a physical nation and for one to become a part of that spiritual house requires a change of heart, requires repentance. You see, a change of direction in the person's life, so that a person who has, let us say, been born of these unfortunate circumstances, now they have an opportunity to actually have a position of leadership within God's house because of God's Spirit. Because a change, a transformation has taken place in their heart that might enable them, if they work with God's Spirit, to get rid of the things that would normally encumber the carnal heart.

In Ezekiel 18, probably just a few years later, when God announced this change in Jeremiah, if we had gone a little bit further we would have the announcement (beginning in verse 31 of Jeremiah 31), of the New Covenant. And what we read there was sort of a prelude to the announcement of the New Covenant. Now here we have Ezekiel, who was in a different location at basically the same time as Jeremiah, maybe he made his statement here a little bit after Jeremiah.

Ezekiel 18:19 "Yet you say, 'Why should the son not bear the guilt of the father?' Because the son has done what is lawful and right, and has kept all My statutes and observed them, he shall surely live."

God says, the soul who sins shall die. Now that agrees exactly with Jeremiah 31, "But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge." The soul who sins shall die.

Ezekiel 18:20-21 "The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die."

They kind of have to read into this some of the things that Jesus said about a person—why did He come? He came that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. When you read the word live, God is not talking here about existence. He is talking about a quality of life, a person whose life has changed radically, drastically from the way he was headed because he repented.

Ezekiel 18:22-23 "None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord God, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live?"

The long and the short of this, at least at this point, is that neither parent nor child is prevented from receiving eternal life and taking a position in God's house, in God's Family, in God's government. Because of the addition of God's Spirit, the repentance, the change of heart, the change of life, the change of conduct, God wipes away the restriction and gives that person an opportunity to take his place in the congregation, in the Body. So neither father nor son or mother or daughter is prevented from receiving eternal life and a place in God's Family because of the sins of the other.

What God is pointing to here is that our relationship with God depends on our own actions. We just saw there in Deuteronomy 23 that the place in the congregation there could depend upon the actions of the father or the mother.

John 4:23-24 "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth [True worshipers worship God in spirit. Therefore, physical ancestry does not prevent one from being a part of God's house.]; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Let us go back to Deuteronomy 23, only this time in verse 3. If we had followed through just one more verse, we would see the extension to have that same principle to the Ammonite and the Moabite, someone who was of a different ancestry.

Deuteronomy 23:3 "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the congregation of the Lord forever."

There He points to a particular act of misconduct in verse 4, which we will not go on to. But now through God's purpose that He is working out through the church that is set aside.

Now, just to show you some more confirmation, turn back to the book of Acts in chapter 17, verse 30. Paul was talking to those people in Athens.

Acts 17:30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

All men, everywhere. Not just the Israelites.

A little bit further back in Galatians 3, verses 28 and 29.

Galatians 3:26-29 For you [these Galatians who were Gentiles] are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Now one more place in II Peter 3, verse 9.

II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

You see, that person who was born of that unfortunate situation back in Deuteronomy 23 could not change what he was, there was no possibility. God understood that what the fathers or the mothers had done were indeed going to be passed on to the children, and there was no escaping it, there was going to be psychological damage to a child who was born under that circumstance. There was going to be lacks in their character and their personality development as a result of not being raised in the right kind of a stable home-like situation, and because God was not calling these people to a spiritual repentance and conversion, it was a way (just one law), of ensuring that Israel would have an opportunity to have the very best carnal leadership possible.

We are not saying here that this worked out perfectly. The Israelites were not perfect, but it was a way to protect the possibility of those getting into leadership who were born of unfortunate circumstances and would carry the scars of that all their lives and then give them to the rest of the people as a result of how they began and lived life. What we are looking at here is one of the better promises of the New Covenant. It gives people who in a sense were not even responsible the opportunity to have their minds cleaned and changed as a result of God's mercy in granting them repentance.

Let us go back to the book of Acts. As I mentioned to you before, when I started to answer that question, I did not even think of it until after I began studying for Acts again. The principle that is involved there has very much to do with this collision course that we are on in the book of Acts with the Jews butting heads against one another over the conversion of the Gentiles. That is not going to really reach a head until we get to Acts the 15th chapter. But we are in Acts 14, and I see no reason why we will not get to Acts 15 tonight and pretty far into it.

One thing that Rome did, and when I say Rome, I am talking about the Roman Empire, I am talking about the the emperors, is that they promoted a great deal of building. Much of the building was instigated by the kings and governors that they set up, I think, vying with one another for honors and saying that, well, they built this great city for Caesar. But it did have the good spinoff of providing perhaps a somewhat better environment in which people could live.

Now, because Rome's empire was so far flung, the Roman government itself instigated the building of roads. And it was these roads that later became the means by which the apostles did a great deal of their traveling. It certainly made their traveling a great deal easier than it would have been before, and it certainly made it not only a good deal easier, but because of the influence of Rome, it probably made it a great deal safer than it ever would have been before as well. Much in the same way as, I think, the work of God has benefited very greatly from the interstate highways. The ministry is traveling back and forth over these things constantly every day and it certainly has made the travel from one place to another a great deal quicker and safer than it otherwise would have been.

In addition to that, we have benefited a great deal from the zip codes. It has made the administrating of this work, the mailing of things, a great deal simpler than it otherwise would have been as well. Governments can do those things.

Well, the Romans were great builders, and they built roads to tie the empire together. And the cities that we are reading about now were along what was called the the Via Sebaste. Now the Via Sebaste was nothing more than Caesar's Road, Sebaste being nothing more than the Greek word for Caesar. So it was Caesar's Road, and this particular road went from Ephesus all across the southern part of what is today Turkey, and it went to Antioch and beyond, Antioch in Syria. I have to make that clear because I think I mentioned to you the last time there were 14 Antiochs in the Middle East and this particular one was in Syria. So, it went beyond Antioch, by the way, and went all the way over to the Euphrates River. So it was the major east-west road between the western end of Turkey and all the way into the area of Mesopotamia.

This area that we are talking about had two capital cities. Each one was the capital of a province or a division. One was Antioch in Pisidia, and the other was Lystra. Now Iconium, which we are going to be talking about briefly, was a little bit different from the other cities in that it was off the beaten track. And because it was off the beaten track, it was not on the main road between Ephesus and Babylon, it remained largely Greek in character and personality. And its name has a very interesting background, by the way. It comes from a Greek myth that involved Prometheus and Athena. It seems as though, according to the Greeks, Prometheus and Athena recreated mankind after a devastating flood. Does that sound familiar to you? And they did it by forming people or images of people out of the mud. They dobbed them all around until they looked something like Noah and his children, I guess. But at any rate, after they formed these mud images, they breathed life into them.

Now the Greek word for image is icon. Now where do you think this was supposed to have taken place? This recreation was supposed to have taken place in the area of Iconium. So the city got its name for the icons or images that Prometheus and Athena were supposed to have made. Now the area, when you read about it in some of these books, sounds like a paradise. Anybody would want to live there, you know. It was blessed with abundant water, a very genial climate, lush vegetation, great prosperity. It sounds like Miami Beach, something like that. Even today, there is still a thriving city there whose major business is tourism because of the just very genial area.

We find that the apostle Paul and Barnabas go into the synagogue first, and many believe.

Acts 14:1-2 Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of Jews and the Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren.

Again, Paul and Barnabas follow their set pattern. First to the synagogue, they talked to the Jews and also any God-fearing Gentiles, proselytes, who happened to be in the congregation. But again, we see that the Jews follow their same pattern as well, a similar pattern of persecution. And then we find that the Jews who were offended by the things that the apostle Paul and Barnabas said went to the Gentiles and tried to get them stirred up against Paul and Barnabas.

Acts 14:3 Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace [the word of His grace means the gospel and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ], and granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

Somehow or another, at least at first, the disbelieving Jews were unable to stir up the Gentiles, and so the apostle Paul and Barnabas were able to stay there long enough to solidly ground a fledgling congregation.

Now, there was a tract that was written, I cannot remember the man's name now, about 185, 195 AD, which would have put it about 140 years after this occurrence. But it is interesting in that it is one of the very, very few accounts that we have that describes the apostle Paul and what he looked like. We do not know how accurate it is. But I will give you what it says at face value. The reason I am mentioning it here is because the author of this tract said that he got this description from people in Iconium. And so, the tract describes the apostle Paul's preaching in that area.

Paul is described in this tract as being small of stature. That is, that he was a short person. And rather frail and slight of build. He had crooked legs. Did he wear a short Roman toga so that they could see them? I do not know. He must not have worn a long robe; maybe because of that genial climate there Paul had on a short Roman toga. I do not know. At any rate, he had crooked legs. However, he is described as not being unhealthy, as being in a good state of health, of being a very vigorous and vital person. He is described as being redheaded and of having very thick bushy eyebrows that go straight across, they meet in the middle. I mean, there is no clear division where his nose is. That his nose was somewhat hooked. And he is also described as being an extremely friendly person.

That is all. It does not say whether he had a high pitched reed-like voice, whether it was deep and booming. That did not survive. Maybe they were not interested in that, but they were interested in what he looked work like.

Acts 14:4 But the multitude of the city was divided:

The disbelieving Jews of the synagogue were out there trying to stir the people up. The apostles were continuing to preach. God gave them signs and wonders

Acts 14:4-5 part sided with the Jews and part with the apostles. But when a violent attempt was made by both the Jews and the Gentiles [that is, the Jews who were beginning to stir up the Gentiles], with their rulers, to abuse and stone them, . . .

Now, who their rulers were is unknown. Whether it is referring to Jewish rulers, whether it is referring to Gentile rulers, nobody knows. But you can see here that a plot is brewing. Incidentally, the word apostle just caught my eye here in verse 4. There is only two times in the book of Acts that Luke calls Paul an apostle. This is one of them, and the other is just a few verses later in verse 14, which is kind of interesting.

Acts 14:6 . . . they became aware of it [they is probably Paul and Barnabas] and fled to Lystra and Derbe, . . .

Lystra is about 16-18 miles away from Iconium and then Derbe was another 55 miles beyond Lystra. So the opposition must have reached at least a sizable enough proportion that Paul and Barnabas became very concerned and so they left. Now, they moved into Lystra which was only about 18 miles away. However, in so doing, even though they were fairly close, they moved into another administrative district. So it was like the police could not touch them where they went because they were beyond their line of jurisdiction kind of thing. They went over into another area of jurisdiction and because communication was reasonably slow in those days, because they were in another area of jurisdiction that enabled them to stop there for a while and do some preaching there. So it says,

Acts 14:6-10 . . . cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding region. And they were preaching the gospel there. And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking, and Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, "Stand up straight on your feet!" And he leaped and walked.

There is no mention of a synagogue which probably means that there was no synagogue there. That is a probable, an assumption, because again, when we get back on the journey, we find that the apostle Paul almost invariably went to a synagogue first. So if there is no mention of a synagogue, then it is likely that there was no synagogue there.

Now, this miracle was probably put in here by Luke in order to affirm or confirm that Paul and Barnabas were given the same powers as Peter and of course also of Jesus. It is important to understand that the same Spirit was working through them as it was through Peter and Jesus. That becomes important when we get to Acts 15.

The response of these people was different from what it had been in the other areas, a very superstitious attitude toward the things that occurred. When I say a superstition, their attitude was different. It was different from what Jesus experienced in Jerusalem, where there was disbelief and anger because He had done it on the Sabbath, and then with Peter as well, persecution arose from the Jews, because of the association with Jesus. Now here we find a different reaction altogether.

Acts 14:11 Now when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices, saying in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!"

Here they are real excitable. They are amazed. And so they begin to make associations with their gods.

Acts 14:12-13 And Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gate, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes.

Why they chose Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes probably had something to do with their physical appearance, as well as what they were doing. I think that we can deduce from this, plus what we just got of what Paul looked like, that Barnabas was probably more regal and godly looking. Therefore, he looked like the boss.

My wife and I were tricked into this whenever we were first visited by two men from what that time was the Radio Church of God. These two men showed up at our home, both of them ministers, and the one had a stately, quiet, dignified bearing. He was tall, muscular looking, and the other one was short, a little bit roly-poly, kind of cherubic looking, and our immediate assumption was the tall, good looking, dignified one was the leader. No, he was not. The short cherubic one was the leader of the two.

Appearances are deceiving, and I think that that kind of happened here, that Barnabas was better looking than Paul. Maybe he was graying at the temples so he looked like he had a great deal of wisdom, everything that a God should look like. Now here is Paul, crooked legs, short of stature, eyebrows going straight across, hooked nose, red hair, you know, all those kind of things, and he does not look so good and so he is Hermes.

That probably was not really enough to set them off. There is a very interesting story about something that happened. It was a local legend and it happened a number of years before. Now we get this story from the Roman poet Ovid. You have probably heard of Ovid some time or another in your school life. Anyway, he records in his book of poems called Metamorphoses, in poetry of a legend of that area of Iconium. I have already given you one and now here is this one of Lystra.

It seems as though, according to this legend, that Zeus and Hermes did visit the area, only they visited the area in disguise so that nobody would recognize who they were. They asked for lodging. Well, they spent all their time asking for lodging. They went around, according to the legend, to 1,000 different households and nobody would take them in. They looked like bums. Who was going to take in a bum, you see. But really, these were the gods in disguise. Well, finally, I guess at 1,001 they came across an elderly couple of poor means and they took them in. Not only did they take them in and offer them a bed, but they also fixed up a meal from whatever scraps or whatever they had lying around the house there and put them into their thatched hut roof. Well, in the morning, when the couple got up they found out that they had entertained Zeus, the father of gods, and Hermes, the messenger of the gods. Well, as a reward for their kindness, the gods turned their thatched hut into a temple with a golden roof. And then went out and destroyed the homes and the lives of the 1,000 people who had refused to take them in.

Do you suppose that these people might just have been thinking of that legend? Here was Zeus and Hermes visiting them again. They did not want their houses to be destroyed. They were going to bow down and worship them lest the same kind of destruction fall upon them. Boy, they were motivated.

Now that is a possibility. And they indeed might have been thinking of that and they did not want to incur any more wrath from the gods. They had learned their lesson. So they were going to make sacrifices for Barnabas and Paul. And of course, Paul and Barnabas were not going to put up with that. Now if you read this, it seems as though this thing developed for quite a while. I do not know how long before Paul and Barnabas recognized what was going on. It was entirely possible that though Paul and Barnabas communicated to them in Greek, these people began their excited babble about worshipping, sacrificing, and doing honor to Zeus and Hermes in their own local language, and Paul and Barnabas did not understand it until they got the oxen and they were all decorated, and they began to recognize, hey, these people are going to make a sacrifice to us.

Acts 14:14-17 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran among the multitude, crying out and saying, "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."

Blasphemy! That is why they tore their clothing. It was to create attention and help these people to see that they were not at all pleased with what was going on. Maybe there was a lot of noise, at least at first, and they had to do something to gain these people's attention, and when they saw them beginning to tear their clothing, that would get begin to get their attention and get them to quiet down. So that Paul in this case, I am sure it was him because he was the main speaker. That is what Hermes was. He was the speaker, he was the messenger of the gods. Paul began to then preach to them about the futility of idolatry and the goodness the Creator. He was contrasting the two.

What you are seeing here in form is virtually exactly the same thing that he said to the people in Athens when he talked to them about the unknown God. Only I am sure that what he did in Athens was a refinement for a more cultured audience than he gave here, but basically you will find that he said the same things here in Acts 14 as he did in Acts 17 when he was confronted with that situation here. Now what he said basically is this.

Acts 14:17 "Nevertheless He [God] did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."

Paul is saying there that these people should have recognized that there is indeed a Creator God. When I read things like this, it makes me wonder about how much God expects that we should know just from observation of what is around us. If He expected these people who had been reared being educated in dumb idolatry to understand that there is indeed a living God who rules His creation and provides for men, what does He expect from us who were reared in an atmosphere in which at least the Bible was given lip service. What does He expect of us? It would seem to me that He certainly expects more of us than He did of those dumb idolators. I should say ignorant idolators.

Acts 14:18-19 And with these sayings they could scarcely restrain the multitudes from sacrificing to them. Then Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there; . . .

Here come the bad guys. At least those poor people there in Lystra recognized that there was something unusual and to them unusually good in what the apostle Paul and Barnabas were doing. Finally, Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there.

Acts 14:19 . . . and having persuaded the multitudes, . . .

You can imagine playing on the disappointment of these people in their failure to be able to sacrifice to Barnabas and Paul and disappointed at having this great party denied them. Their minds were easily persuaded. They began to see them for less than what they really were. Before they were seeing them as more than they were and now they are seeing them as less than they were! They go from one extreme to the other and say, "Boo! If we can't have our party our way, we're going to stone you to death!" So, the Lystran's conclusion was that if they were not gods, they must be impostors. So they stoned Paul. I do not know what happened to Barnabas. Maybe he could run faster than Paul's crooked legs. I do not know, but somehow or another he escaped it, and maybe he escaped it simply because Paul was doing most of the talking.

Acts 14:19-20 and they dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and went into the city. And the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

It is very easy for us to read into verse 19 that the apostle Paul was dead and that he was resurrected, but it does not say that. The Bible does not place anything miraculous to his rising. Oh, I maybe should have looked a little bit more closely. But my New King James said that the Jews supposed him to be dead, which seems to indicate that God is saying no, he was not dead. He was severely damaged, to be sure, but he was not dead. So at any rate, he revived and then went on to Derbe, which was another 55 miles to the southeast.

Now it is very interesting in light of the description that we just had there, that I gave you, that came from Paul's ministry in Ionia. And yet Paul says in II Corinthians 12 that he had a thorn in the flesh. Now is it possible that this stoning left him damaged in body and left him from that time on infirm, probably to a considerable degree? There may very well have been lingering effects from that, and it continued to bother him for the rest of his life.

In all probability, something good came out of this and that is, Timothy was from Lystra. Now it does not say when we first begin to meet Timothy that he was converted as a result of the apostle Paul's work in Lystra at that time. But it is probably likely that if not Timothy, at the very least, his mother and grandmother. And that Timothy was a young man, a young boy, maybe a teenager at the time, and very strongly influenced by his mother and grandmother and God opened the way for Timothy's conversion.

So two things probably came out of that. I think that one is an assumption and that is, the assumption being that Paul's thorn in the flesh came from there. That is a possibility, I think a distinct possibility, the lingering effects of the stoning came from there. And the other thing of course is that Timothy came out of Lystra.

Acts 14:21 And when they had preached the gospel to that city [that is, in Derbe] and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch.

Now how about that? Right back into the trouble. Boy, that guy had guts, he had faith. And it is also possible that this was the way he reasoned: That his penalty was paid, if I can put it that way, for disturbing the peace in Lystra and he had never done anything in Iconium for which they had stoned him or anything. He stirred up the Jews, but he figured that the penalty would have been paid. If he went back through Lystra, it is highly unlikely that the people would have done anything as long as he did not do the same thing that he did before.

And so what he very likely did is when he came back through those areas, he stopped and met with the people that had been converted as a result of his original efforts in those areas, and he confirmed them more thoroughly in the faith, although he did not do much in the way of any public preaching. Thus it gave him the opportunity to confirm the people in the faith and then go on to the next city. So he went then right back through Lystra, Iconium, and then back on to Antioch.

We have to ask another question. I mentioned to you before that the general direction that he was going was southeast. Now, do you know anything at all about what is today Turkey or, let us say, Asia Minor in those days, and where the location of the city was in which Paul spent most of his life? He spent most of his life in Cilicia and in Cilicia in the city of Tarsus. Cilicia was further east of these cities that we just mentioned. Antioch and Iconium and Lystra were further east. Now why did he not continue east? He could have gone into Cilicia and that would have put him to the major city there, which was Tarsus, which was then just directly north of Antioch. He could have gone over into Tarsus, went around the northeastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, and then south into Antioch.

Well, the probable reason is that Paul had already evangelized those areas. Remember those nine years that he spent away from Antioch? It is very likely that what he was doing when he was up in his home area of Tarsus was that he was preaching around in those general areas and that he had already evangelized those areas. There are other verses that we are eventually going to get to that kind of confirm that that is what was going on. So when he got as far as Derbe that is as far as he wanted to go because he had already evangelized those areas and so he then backtracked and went through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch because it gave him an opportunity to ground the churches a little bit further there.

Acts 14:22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God."

What he is basically saying here is that the same pattern of suffering as one sees in Jesus' life will be seen in His disciples' lives. That is interesting, is it not? It is interesting because nobody did things better than Christ did. And we like to think that if we do things well, if we are law abiding, if we are in a good attitude, if we are studying, if we are praying, we are doing everything that God says to do, we ought to have smooth sailing. Everybody ought to like us and be kind to us in return. Say, "Boy, aren't you wonderful. Have this promotion." Instead, just the opposite happens. If you are going to live a godly life, you are going to have trouble.

So just expect the people will not accept your good works as evidence that God is working in you, and there is a good reason why. That Satan is alive and well, and he stirs people up. He puts it in people's minds to be against you. So just be aware that that is taking place. God is aware of your good works. He is keeping track of them and He loves you for it. But just be aware that you have an enemy, you have an adversary, and he is going to stir people against you regardless. Even if you were as good, as righteous as Christ, you would still have trouble. In fact, maybe more than you would care to have. Maybe we just better be thankful with the trouble that we do have. Let it go at that.

Now, just a little summary here. He is telling you and me to understand that the church must live in a hostile environment. That is so easily shown. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. If the church of God is God's church and it has God's Spirit and it is living according to God's law, the world cannot help it. They are going to be against it, and you. So the church must live in a hostile environment.

Acts 14:23-25 So when they had appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia. [Now they are heading south. After getting to Antioch, they are heading south through Pisidia and on to Pamphylia.] Now when they had preached the word in Perga [Perga is the chief city of the area of Pamphylia, another province in Asia Minor, today Turkey.], they went down to Attalia [Attalia is the port city of Perga].

Did I tell you why they had port cities? I think I did the last time. They put the main city inland 8, 10, 15 miles in order to protect it from invasion. They would put a little port city out there right on the ocean, and that distance of 15 or 20 miles usually enabled the main city to put up its defenses, to be warned and put up its defenses in case there was an invasion. So Attalia was 8 miles south of Perga and it was the port city for Perga.

Acts 14:26-28 From there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed. Now when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, so they stayed there a long time with the disciples.

Undoubtedly what they did was report to them the pattern that they had developed, that they felt that God had showed them of going to the Jew first, of using the synagogue for that means, and then turning to the Gentiles whenever the Jews rejected the message of God. And it brought them excellent results, although we are finding that some in Jerusalem did not cotton to it, and we will get to that in just a little bit. So their procedure needed to be tested by the council in Jerusalem, and we are going to see that in chapter 15.

Now it says that they stayed there a long time. How long was their journey and how long was their time in Antioch? Well, the commentators feel that roughly the journey probably took somewhere about a year. And the time in Antioch was also about one year. These are just ballpark figures, not intended in any way to be exact. They are approximate, probably reasonably close.

Acts 15, now the stage is all set now for this council in Jerusalem. A decision had to be made to determine the theological rightness or correctness of what Paul and Barnabas were at the forefront of doing, because that was being called into question by some people there in Jerusalem.

The basic issue was this. Could a Gentile be saved without the keeping of the whole law? Now it is on this issue (I will not say that this is the only issue but this is a major issue), in which this world's Christianity jumps the track. They see the law as being of a single monolithic structure and that if one takes one brick out, the whole thing has a tendency to crumble. They make this very basic mistake because of an assumption. And that assumption is that God offered Israel salvation and that the keeping of the law was the means through which an Israelite gained salvation.

Now this is one of the major things that God revealed through Mr. Armstrong. God never did offer Israel salvation. He never did. The covenant that God made with Israel was strictly physical in nature. It had no spiritual component to it that would lead to eternal life. There were spiritual overtones to it but those spiritual overtones were merely for the guidance of their daily life and for national blessing and national stability. Those things had nothing to do with the offering of eternal life and salvation. You can find no offer of God's Holy Spirit connected with the Old Covenant. Those things all come later as God prophesies of something that He is going to do in the future, not something that He is working out in the present. By present I mean in the Old Testament present.

Through the covenant that God gave to Israel, God never even offered them the forgiveness of sin. That is a spiritual factor. Now we do not find that out until the New Testament. We do not find it out until Hebrews the tenth chapter (at least as far as I know). Hebrews 10:4 is the first, to me, solid indication by actual Scripture that said that it was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to forgive sin. It is an assumption that those people had their sins forgiven. If they did have their sins forgiven, it was because of the same reasons that we have our sins forgiven today. Only instead of us looking back on the blood of Jesus Christ, they would have to understand to look forward to the blood of Jesus Christ and because of a change of heart, a change of attitude such as David experienced and is recorded there in Psalm 51.

Man's body of laws is not a single monolithic structure either. If one law is repealed, or even a whole body of laws pertaining to a particular area, all the law is not done away with. Well, neither is God's.

Now God has laws in this Book concerning religion. We might subdivide that into things concerning morals and ethics and ceremony. He has laws regarding health and we might subdivide that into diet, Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, sanitation and quarantine. All things having to do with health. He has laws that regulate the executive and judicial branches of government. He has laws that regulate economics and finance and education and agriculture. Now the laws fall into three major categories: spiritual, civil, and ceremonial.

Now for the argument, the dispute, or the judgment that is going to be made here in Acts 15, it is more important that we recognize these three basic categories of, let us call it, religion or spiritual, civil and ceremonial ceremonial, than whether a law is called a commandment, a statute, a judgment, or a law, or a precept. Now that has some value. But what a law is called when that kind of a term is used is less important.

Let us go to Romans the 3rd chapter. We will eventually get back to Acts 15, but in Romans the 3rd chapter, verse 20, Paul makes it very clear that the law was never intended to save anybody. It cannot save anybody. It cannot save anybody today. It never saved anybody under the Old Covenant either.

Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for [here it comes] by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law has two aspects to it, one negative and one positive. The negative aspect is to tell us what sin is. Now the flip side, see, conversely, its positive aspect is to show us the way to go. It gives us direction. It guides. So positively it guides, negatively it tells you, "Oh buddy, you have sinned." That is its purpose, its intent.

Romans 3:27-28 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

The keeping of laws cannot justify, they cannot clear a man. They cannot exonerate him. They cannot make him right before God. The law does not have the power to do that. That is not its intention. It is to guide in a way of life. It is to point out to us what sin is. It cannot justify. It cannot clear us of guilt. God has provided a way for that to be done. Justification comes by faith. It comes by believing in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in believing in His death, in believing in His atoning death, in believing who He was and what He did. He was God—and God in the flesh died.

It took a God to die for us, for us to be justified. Because only the life of the Creator is great enough to clear the scales of the penalty that is against us. The only other thing that will suffice is if we die. If we die for our sins, then the penalty is paid. But then what hope is there? If we pay the penalty ourselves, there is no future. So God had to find a way in which we could be cleared of guilt and still have us live and have us have hope and have the hope of eternal life. Because God's purpose is to build character, it takes a living being to have character. It takes a living being who is free to make the right kind of choices after he has been cleared of guilt, and has God's Spirit.

So people under the Old Covenant had to receive grace too. That is the only way. God was not trying to save the Israelites. Their time will come. Paul shows that very clearly in Romans 9, 10, and 11. All three chapters are devoted to that.

Now what Paul is saying here is that the keeping of law in the present does not alter the sins of the past. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." The keeping of the law in the present does not change what happened in the past.

Romans 3:29-31 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? [Remember Deuteronomy 23.] Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! [We do not do away with law because of faith. I will show you that in a bit.] On the contrary [he says], we establish law.

That is interesting in the light of what this world's Christianity believes.

Let us go back to Galatians 3. This question had that first era of the church in a tizzy. And especially it had those Jews who were reared under Pharisaism in a tizzy.

Galatians 3:1 O, foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?

Where was Paul preaching when he began to understand this doctrine? Well, I feel certain that he was preaching in the area of Tarsus, in Cilicia, in Galatia, which was in that area.

Galatians 3:2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

What Paul was saying is that their previous law-keeping did not earn them God's Spirit. It never earned the Jews God's Spirit. It did not earn the Galatians God's Spirit either. Because God's Spirit is not earned by law-keeping. So Paul's conclusion was it was not until Christ was portrayed before them through the preaching of the gospel and His forgiveness through His crucifixion, His shed blood and faith in His blood, that the past, the present, and the future could be altered.

Now what was hanging over the heads of these people? What we find in verse 13. That Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. The curse of the law is the death penalty. And if a person has the curse carried out on himself, he dies. But if through faith, the person has the blood of Jesus Christ applied to them, then the past can be altered—and so can the present, so can the future—because it opens up the way to forgiveness and the receiving of God's Spirit. So the past is altered in that the debt of death for sins committed could be erased through faith in Christ's blood. So then the person is cleared. He is exonerated. The record of sins, as Paul says in Colossians 2, is wiped out. It is erased. It is gone. There is no past debt that a person owes God. The curse is lifted. It no longer exists. He not only forgives, He forgets it. It no longer is even there, so the past is altered, it is changed. It is not that the events did not occur, but the record is no longer there.

Then the present is altered in that through God's Spirit, which one receives because of his faith in Christ, now one understands God's purpose, and so one now lives with that purpose in mind and so the present is altered as well. And so is the future because instead of facing death, now we face eternal life in God's Kingdom. So the past, the present, and the future are altered by faith, not by law-keeping.

Now what I have just said is not intended in any way to denigrate even one jot or tittle of any of God's laws. Because God's laws are perfect, and we should never, ever allow ourselves to look at any of God's laws as being done away, though it may not have any longer any direct application to us. Are we not to live by every word of God? Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4. And that law that is set aside or done away is still written back there and we are supposed to live by it. So we cannot really say that it is done away. If we are to live by it, it is still there for our instruction.

But what God is showing here very conclusively beginning with Acts 15—He has been leading up to this point—is that now God is changing His focus. And this is what those Pharisaical Jews in Jerusalem could not see, they could not get. Somehow or another, it was escaping them. That God was shifting the attention of His focus somewhere else.

What made it necessary for some laws to be set aside? Well, there were two related causes. 1) that God was beginning His spiritual work in earnest through the church (rather than Israel). So in the same book of Galatians Paul calls the church the Israel of God. Now there are two Israels. There is the Israel of the Old Covenant. There is the Israel that sprang from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and were a physical nation that had been under the Old Covenant. But now we have got the Israel of God as well, and God began that work through His Son Jesus Christ, and now it has shifted to the apostles. Christ has gone back to heaven. But the work of the church, the Israel of God, is continuing.

And 2) is that God was taking His work to the Gentiles. It was no longer restricted to Israel but now it was going out to all the nations. That is all the word Gentile means. It means nations, it means somebody other than an Israelite. And so we have, then, the Israel of God being formed, and the Israel of God is going to be formed from those who are both Jews and Gentiles. In other words, His people, God's people, were no longer going to be located in one specific area ruling over a portion of land but would be made up of scattered individuals whose only commonality might be our relationship to God through Christ. God was putting together a spiritual body. Now that is covered in the book of Ephesians. That is what Ephesians is about, the unity of the Body, the spiritual Body of Christ. I will just read you two or three verses here.

Ephesians 2:14-16 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one [Jew and Gentile], and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body [that is, the church or Christ's body] through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

So, the goals and purposes of life are radically altered. No longer are they national and physical, but now they are spiritual and eternal. Now this changes, then, the priorities in regard to law since the church is not a nation that is set in one place ruling over a land. And since now we have a spiritual ministry it means that the civil and the ceremonial laws slide right into the background as far as their actual physical application is concerned. So we read in Hebrews 10:4 that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to forgive sin. We read here in Galatians 3:24, "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."

The ceremonial law are not needed in their physical application, that is, the actual doing of sacrifices because they were nothing more than types of Christ and the Holy Spirit. And the same principle also applies to the civil laws. They are wonderful laws, the best laws that any nation ever had, but they no longer apply physically because the church is not a group of people under a central government ruling over a land. This was the issue that they were facing there in Acts 15.

There is one thing that I wanted to interject here. The setting aside of these laws, this the church did not do. God did, as we are going to see from the testimony of both Peter and Paul in Acts 15. The church merely recognized what God was doing. Now you add to that the evidence of the prophecy which James gives in his testimony in Acts 15, and events. The church did not set them aside. They just recognized what God had already done and they have been trying to get the church to understand for a number of years. See, this council brought it to a head.

Now the setting aside of these laws or these groups of laws, the civil and ceremonial, does not do away with our responsibility to the spiritual law, the Ten Commandments, or the spiritual intent of the civil and ceremonial law. We are supposed to live by every word of God. Rather, through faith we now see the real reason for keeping them. Therefore, faith establishes the law, just like Paul said. Faith puts law in its right perspective. We understand it cannot save us, but it is absolutely necessary if we are going to be guided in the right way of life and if we are going to build the kind of character that God wants in His Family. Without the law, that would be impossible.

But see, faith establishes it into its right perspective. Indeed, I think we would have to say that the keeping of law in the Spirit becomes intensely more important to us than it ever was before.