Swallow No Camels

I may strain a few gnats every now and then…..

recent posts

about

  • August 9, 2026 – Controversy, Part 1— Acts #50

    August 9, 2026 – Controversy, Part 1— Acts #50

    Acts. 15:1-5

    It seems we are living in a time of much controversy among the organized churches.   The United Methodist Church has had a long-lasting controversy over the issue of sexual sins.  The same issues currently face the Presbyterian Church USA.  The Southern Baptist Convention and the Assembly of God denomination have faced controversy recently on their handling of sexual abuse cases.  The SBC is now also facing controversy over the issue of women in leadership roles. Our study in Acts brings us to a controversy in the early church.  So it is very timely for us to take a look at this controversy over the next several weeks to understand how it arose and how it was handled at the time.

    Acts 15:1-5   But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

    In this passage, there arises a difference of opinion in the church.  And Luke describes it as “no small dissension and debate.”  So how big of a controversy was this?  Luke uses this phrase, “no small…” or “no little…”, several times in this book.   Let’s look at another time Luke uses this phrase and see if we can better understand what he means.

     It is back in Acts 12.  Remember Herod had imprisoned Peter and had him chained to two guards.  But the people prayed, and an angel brought Peter out of prison.  And when the soldiers discovered Peter had escaped from prison under their watch, Luke says:

    Acts 12:18   Now when day came, there was no little disturbance among the soldiers over what had become of Peter.

    “No little disturbance.” If a guard in those days let a prisoner escape, they were punished by receiving the sentence the prisoner would have received.   And Peter was to be killed the next day.  Some soldier is going to die for letting Peter escape, so “no little disturbance”  is Luke’s way of saying this is a huge deal, a life-or-death matter.  

    So in our passage this morning, “no small dissension and debate” means there was a major disagreement in the church.  This is a very serious problem.  So let’s understand the problem.

    For the past year or more, Paul and Barnabas have been in Antioch and then on a missionary journey to Crete and Galatia, taking the message of the gospel of Jesus to Jews and Gentiles.  And these Jews and Gentiles have been worshipping together in synagogues and elsewhere.  And then some “men from Judea” come to Antioch and are teaching the Gentiles that if they really want to be true followers of the Jewish Messiah Jesus, they must become Jewish.

     Can you imagine what happened?  Some very religious people from the center of Christianity come and say,  “Well, it is so good that you decided to follow Jesus.  Of course, if you really want eternal life, if you really want to be saved, then you guys need to undergo a surgical procedure (without anesthesia), oh, and all of you need to stop eating bacon and shrimp. You also need to follow all the Old Testament laws and rituals.  Then you will be saved.   Again, as Luke says, this is a really big deal.

    But remember, Peter had encountered the gentile Centurion who accepted Jesus, and Peter did not require him to be circumcised.   Paul and Barnabas did not require any of the Gentiles they led to Christ to be circumcised.  Are Paul and Barnabas going to have to go back to all the places they went on their last journey and say, “Well, I know you accepted Jesus as your lord and king, but there is one more little thing you must do if you really want to be saved.”

    What is required for Jesus to save you?

    This dissension is all about what is required for salvation.  So what I want to do this morning is to go back through the Bible and see the pattern of how God works with people.   Today we are stepping back to get the big-picture look at the Bible. And as we look through the Bible, we will see that God has a consistent pattern for dealing with people.  We see this pattern over and over when it comes to requirements for salvation and requirements for deliverance.

    In the beginning, God created a world where he and his creation, humanity, could live together on God’s land, in God’s kingdom.  God put them in His special garden.  Let me ask you a question: What did Adam and Eve do to earn the right to live in the garden with God?  They didn’t do anything to earn the right to live there with God.  He chose them and allowed them to live with HIm in the garden out of his grace.    So it all begins with grace.

    But all kingdoms have rules, and the rule for the garden in Eden was to let God decide what is good and what is evil.  Don’t take and eat from the tree that represents who gets to decide what is good and what is evil.  That is not for us; that is God’s prerogative.  But they decided to take it anyway, because they wanted to make their own decisions about right and wrong.  And when they decided not to follow the rules of the kingdom, they were not allowed to live in the kingdom.

    God chose Abraham.  What did Abraham do to earn the right to be chosen by God? Nothing; it is God’s grace.  And God’s rule for Abraham was to follow Him.  Go to a land that I will show you.  Follow me, and I will make you the father of many nations. Of course, Abraham didn’t always follow, but God kept giving grace and kept his promise to Abraham.   Same pattern.  Grace, then instructions again.  And from Abraham comes the nation of Israel. 

    Israel was to be God’s special people.  But they ended up as slaves in Egypt for 400 years.  And in a display of 10 great miracles in Egypt, God rescued them from slavery.  What did the slaves in Egypt do to earn the right for God to save them from slavery in Egypt? God chose to save or deliver Israel from slavery out of his grace.  It was nothing they did.

    And He gave them instruction at the foot of Mt Sinai to teach them how to live His way.   All kings have laws and ordinances.  If you want to live in the Kingdom, you have to follow the laws.  There were certain expectations for how they were supposed to act.  Like “don’t kill other people,”  “don’t steal,” “honor your mother and father.”  But the most important one was to know that there was only one God and no others, and to worship the true God rather than idols of their own making.   These rules were the rules of the kingdom.  This is what God expected of them if they were going to live in his kingdom.

    But notice the order of events is always the same:  God gives grace and delivers them from Egypt first, then he tells them how they are to live.  God didn’t say, “Hey, if you follow my rules, then I will deliver you from Egypt.”  They didn’t earn the right to be delivered from Egypt.  Why did God deliver them?  It was grace, God’s unmerited favor towards them, that led to their deliverance.  They were delivered even before they had the list of rules to follow.

    And He teaches them about sin and about the requirement for atonement.  Whoever sins is responsible for paying the price for atonement.  There was no remission of sin without the shedding of blood.   But did they live by God’s rules?  No.  Along the way, Israel wandered off of the path.  

    And God sent a king to them to show them how to live and to lead them to follow God.  But this king also failed to follow God.   And God told them one day he would send a Messiah to teach them how to live. They turned aside from God and worshipped idols, so God sent prophets to admonish them and to put them back on track.  But they wouldn’t listen, so God had to choose another nation to serve as a means of discipline for them.

     And so Assyria came and conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, scattering its people.  And the Babylonians later conquered the Southern Kingdom, and then the Greeks, and then the Romans.  But still they did not follow His ways.   And all these times, after breaking God’s rules for how to live, how does God react?   Does He wipe them off the face of the earth?  No, a remnant survives.  That is grace. The pattern persists.

    And then God shows his greatest outpouring of grace as he sends his only Son to bestow the greatest grace and to give the ultimate deliverance from sin. When Jesus was born, the angels came and announced the birth to the shepherds.  Now you know this passage from Luke 2 well, but there is something we need to see there.

    Luke 2:8-14   And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
    Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

    Peace on earth.  That is the Hebrew word Shalom, which refers foremost to Peace with God.  You don’t have to have a broken relationship with God anymore.  God is making a way for all sins to be forgiven and the relationship to be unbroken. But who gets this peace with God?

    “To those on whom his favor rests.”  To those on whom his grace rests.  And who are the people on whom God’s grace rests?   Who gets this peace? The angels have already told us this. They had “good news that will cause great joy for all the people.”   God’s grace is given freely to all people.  All they have to do is accept the gift.

    Again, God is bringing deliverance. And the prerequisite to receive God’s deliverance through Jesus is only … Grace.  Humanity did nothing to deserve Jesus.  In fact, mankind did everything that should have disqualified us from receiving Jesus.  But God said, there are no qualifications.  It is all Grace.  I give this gift freely to all who will accept it. 

    And Jesus came in the spirit of the grace of God, demonstrating God’s grace and deliverance wherever he went.  Look at what Jesus did.  Did the blind man do anything to deserve Jesus’ mercy and the deliverance from blindness?  Did Mary Magdalene do anything to deserve the deliverance from demons?  Did the lame man earn his healing?  Jesus came and healed all who wished to be healed, and he shocked the religious scholars of the day by also declaring that their sins were forgiven.  Wait!   How could he do that? 

    Shouldn’t they have to sacrifice something on the altar?  Isn’t there a process to go through?  Aren’t there some requirements for forgiveness or deliverance from sins? Shouldn’t they have to say certain prayers or perform certain tasks?  Jesus demonstrated that it was all grace.  He forgives with reckless abandon.  But the same pattern persists.  After grace and deliverance come instructions.  So after deliverance, Jesus sees the man he healed at the pool of Bethesda again and tells him:

    John 5:14   “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”

    Do you see the pattern?  First, the man is delivered from his blindness – through grace alone; then he is given instructions. Or the woman caught in the act of adultery that people wanted to stone.  Remember, Jesus tells them, “Whoever is without sin, cast the first stone.”  Then he tells the woman this:

    John 8:11   “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

    Jesus could have condemned her.  She deserved it.  She was caught in the act.  And Jesus was the only one without sin who could have carried out the listed punishment: stoning.  But he did not.   He gave her grace.   Then he gave her instructions for living. There is the same order. Deliverance based solely on grace, and then instruction on how to live.  This is how God consistently operates.

    In Acts 15, the question is,  “What is required to be saved?”   Two people in the gospel of Luke ask Jesus the same question, “What must I do to be saved?  One story is in Luke 18

    Luke 18:18-27  A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
    “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
    “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
    When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
    When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
    Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
    Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

    The ruler comes to Jesus believing that eternal life can be earned by doing the right things. “What must I do?  I will take care of it, Jesus, just tell me what I need to do. Jesus’ first response is very telling. “No one is good – except God alone.”  You can’t be good enough; only God can be good enough.  

    But Jesus can see that the rich ruler doesn’t get it, so Jesus says, “Well, how about the commandments?” And the rich ruler says, “Oh, those, yeah, I keep all of those.”  So this guy sees himself as perfect.  He has kept them all.  But Jesus knows better.   So he challenges him with the commandment that the ruler has to admit he has not kept.  It is the one Jesus listed in with the greatest commandment.  Love your neighbor as yourself.

    Okay then, if you have kept all the commandments, then keep this one — treat the poor around you as your neighbor.  Sell all you have to feed them.  And he goes away sad.  

    The rich ruler comes to Jesus and asks how to be saved, and Jesus begins by talking about the commandments.  Jesus is not teaching the concept of works-salvation; through this rich ruler, he is showing the impossibility of saving oneself by good works.  No one is good but God.  Even this man, who claimed to follow all the commandments, has to face it.

    He is asking the wrong question.  Salvation is not about what I must do.  The right question is:  What must I let God do to save me?

    Jesus tells them it is easier to shove a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.  Jesus is telling them that even if you have all the money in the world, salvation is not something you can accomplish on your own. “Who then can be saved?” Jesus’ answer:  being saved is impossible for people to do themselves; only God can do that. Works will never suffice.  Only God’s grace will be sufficient.

    Let’s look at another one:

    Luke 10:25-29   On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
    “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
    He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
    “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
    But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

    A similar question and a similar answer.  Again, “What must I do?”  And Jesus asks about the commandments.  Jesus points him to the commandments just as with the rich ruler, and says, all you have to do is keep them all.  But the lawyer senses a problem.  He knows he hasn’t treated everyone with love.  There are people he has not treated well.   So he seeks to exclude them from the list to say he kept the commandment. 

    It is here that Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan.  And the answer is that everyone is your neighbor, so Jesus tells the lawyer to treat your enemy as you would your neighbor, again pointing out that the lawyer has fallen short.

    Paul said it this way:

    Romans 3:20   Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
    Ephesians 2:8-9   For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

    And that is exactly what Jesus was showing the two men in these examples.  

    Now what may surprise you is that Paul believed these two verses even before he met Jesus.   Paul, the Jewish rabbi, would have no trouble saying this in the synagogue before he met Jesus.  Paul never thought he could be saved by following the law perfectly.  Because he knew he was not perfect. 

    He was well aware of all the sacrifices in the Scriptures that accounted for sins he had committed.  But he was also well aware that some sins had no sacrifice.  Any sins committed with forethought, knowing they were a sin but doing it anyway, had no associated sacrifice.  The only hope of forgiveness for these sins was that God would show grace and somehow atone for them.  They didn’t know how God would provide, but they counted on him to do it.

    It has always been all about grace.  If someone tries to tell you the Old Testament is all about law and the New Testament about grace, they haven’t read the Old Testament.

    And then Paul met Jesus.  And he discovered that Jesus is the way God could atone for all sins, even those for which there was no Old Testament sacrifice.  Jesus was the method of grace.  This grace was just a promise to Abraham and Moses, but it was realized in the time of Jesus.   

    But in Jesus’ day, and in the time of Acts, some people believed that God’s grace was not enough to save.  That men had to do certain things, specifically be circumcized, and follow all the Levitical laws.  And that is the controversy.

    There is only one God, and there is only one Bible.  God is consistent in how he deals with people.  From the very beginning, he has come to us with grace.  Freely bestowing his gifts on us.  That is the way he has treated everyone from Adam and Eve to Abraham to Moses to today.

    In other religions, we see people always trying to do things to appease their God.  The Canaanites would present offerings or perform acts of service to bribe their god into bringing rain for their crops or giving them children.  The Greek gods were always asking for more gifts or sacrifices, or they would withhold rain or punish the people. But the God we worship is different.  He comes to us with love.  We enter into his kingdom out of grace, not a list of requirements.   The blessings of rain fall on the just and the unjust.  The only requirement for deliverance is that we allow Him to deliver us.

    The pattern persists. From Adam and Eve to Abraham and throughout the entire Bible,  this pattern persists.  Grace is how we enter the kingdom.  Then, once we are in the kingdom, we are given instructions on how to act as members of the kingdom.   We call this discipleship.    Then, if we break those rules, if we sin, God gives grace again as forgiveness and then gives us further instructions, like he told the adulterous woman in Luke.  Go and sin no more.

    The people in Acts 15 thought that the Gentiles had to be circumcised.   Circumcision was a sign of the covenant with God.  Today, our sign of the covenant with God is baptism.  And just as in Paul’s day, some people today say that if you are not baptized, you are not saved.   This is the same attitude of Acts 15.  But the only requirement for salvation is God’s grace through Jesus.  And neither baptism nor church membership nor anything else.  Whenever we add a human requirement as necessary for salvation, we alter the gospel.

    Salvation is through grace, through the work of Jesus, not anything we do.  Anytime someone tries to add any requirements to salvation, they have missed the point of the Bible.   But after Grace comes instructions.  How shall we live? Max Lucado said it well:

    “God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.”1

    We are saved by grace, and then we grow in discipleship.

    So the council in Acts 15 will eventually determine that circumcision and following Jewish laws are not required for these Gentiles to be saved.  Those who insisted on circumcision to be saved were wrong.  But this is not the end. After they are saved, should they follow God in obedience as part of their discipleship, be circumcized, and follow all the Levitical rules?   That is the question we will look at next.

    1. Lucado, Max. Just Like Jesus, A Heart Like His. Nelson. 2012.

  • August 2, 2026 – Commitment, Courage and Community— Acts #49

    August 2, 2026 – Commitment, Courage and Community— Acts #49
    Acts. 14:1-7

    There are moments in life when we discover what we are really made of.  Do you remember the name Arland D. Williams Jr.?

    Arland D. Williams Jr. was a passenger on Air Florida Flight 90 that crashed into a bridge on the Potomac River in 1982, carrying 74 people.   When the helicopter came to try to pull people from the wreckage in the icy river, he grabbed the lifeline five times and passed it to someone else.   Those 5 were the only ones who survived.  Arland Williams drowned because he let everyone else go before him.

    Perhaps you remember: Rick Rescorla.  He was the head of security for Morgan Stanley, whose offices were in the South Tower of the World Trade Center.  When the North Tower was struck, Rescorla ignored the advice to stay in place and ensured that the workers under him escaped before the South Tower was hit.  He got his people out, but Rescorla stayed behind and swept the floors for anyone left, and thanks to his efforts, over 2700 people were saved.  He was last seen on the 10th floor of the South Tower, headed upstairs shortly before the tower collapsed.

    You could probably tell many other stories of people who reached a moment in their lives when their commitment was tested.  You see, it is easy to be committed when everything is going well.  It is easy to have courage when there is nothing to fear.  It is easy to enjoy community when everybody agrees with us.  But what happens when things go terribly wrong?

    What happens when the people who once applauded us suddenly turn against us?  What happens when doing the right thing becomes painful?  What happens when the road God has called us to travel becomes much harder than we expected?  Acts 14 gives us one of those moments in the life of the apostle Paul.

    Paul and Barnabas have been traveling through Asia Minor preaching the gospel. And they came to the town of Lystra, where Paul healed a man who had never been able to walk. The crowd was so amazed that they decided Paul and Barnabas must be gods who had come down in human form.  They wanted to worship them.  Paul could hardly get them to stop.  But then everything changed.

    Acts 14:19   But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

    People came from Antioch and Iconium.   These were the two cities in Galatia that Paul had just left.  Remember, he was run out of town in Antioch, and Paul and Barnabas left Iconium after discovering that the people in Iconium wanted to stone them.  And it is these people who find Paul in Lystra.  The people from Iconium traveled 21 miles on foot to find Paul, and the people from Antioch traveled 95 miles to find these missionaries.  They went a long way because they wanted to see Paul dead.  And they convinced the people of Lystra to stone him.  

    Why would these people travel for days to attack Paul?  How were they able to convince the people of Lystra to move from worshipping Paul and Barnabas to wanting to stone them?  As we mentioned last week, stoning was a usual punishment for blasphemy in many cultures of the day.  These people, who worshipped the Greek gods, considered Paul a blasphemer.  Remember what he said to the people of Lystra when they wanted to worship him:

    Acts 14:15  You should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

    These people didn’t appreciate Paul calling their deities “vain” or “worthless.”  So they became convinced by the people from their neighboring cities that Paul was a blasphemer and should be stoned.  Since there was no high hill to throw Paul off of, he was pelted with rocks by the community until he was unconscious.  They felt he was dead, so they dragged him outside their city to rot.   But then we come to verse 20:

    Acts 14:20  But when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and entered the city.

    We need to stop right there.  Paul had just been stoned, dragged outside the city, and left for dead. And when the disciples gathered around him, he got up.  And then what did he do? He went back into the city to the people who stoned him.  That one verse gives us a remarkable picture of Christian discipleship.  It demonstrates three characteristics that every Christian and every church needs:  commitment, courage, and community.

    The first thing we see is Paul’s commitment.  Paul had every reason to quit.   He had been run out of Antioch.  He fled Iconium because he discovered a plot on his life, and then in Lystra, he was rejected, beaten, pummeled by rocks, and dragged out of the city and left for dead.  And yet he got up and went back into the city.   Why? Because Paul’s commitment wasn’t based upon circumstances; it was based upon a calling.

    Paul had been called by Jesus Christ to take the gospel to the Gentiles.  And Paul had already learned something important:  God’s calling does not mean the absence of difficulty.  In fact, Paul later tells these very disciples in verse 22:

    Acts 14:22  “…through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

    Notice what Paul does not say.  He doesn’t say: “Through a few tribulations.”  He doesn’t say: “Through occasional difficulties.”  He says: “Through many tribulations…”  Paul doesn’t hide the difficulty of following Jesus.  He doesn’t sell them a version of Christianity that promises that everything will work out easily.  He tells them the truth.  Following Jesus is worth it.  But following Jesus will be hard.  Jesus said this himself:

    John 16:33   I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

    We like to focus on the “I have overcome the world” part and skip over the “You will have trouble” part.   Jesus guarantees that you will have trouble, as do the apostles:

    1 Peter 4:12   Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
    1 John 3:13:       Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.” [1]

    You can not read the Bible honestly and conclude that living a Christian life will be easy.   No, you are guaranteed trouble and promised that people in the world will hate you.  Commitment is easy when everything is easy.   Anyone can be committed when the church is growing.  It’s easy to support a team when they are winning.  Anyone can be committed to the church when you live in a part of the country where it is popular to belong to a church.  But what happens when things become difficult?   What happens when it is no longer popular to be a church member?  What happens when church members are ridiculed or persecuted? That’s where commitment is tested.

    It’s like a marriage.   On a wedding day, the bride and groom promise: “For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.”  The words aren’t particularly difficult to say, but then the commitment is tested years later.  Life becomes complicated.  Personalities clash.  Sickness comes.  Financial problems arise.  Circumstances suddenly aren’t what you expected.  The wedding ceremony establishes the commitment, but life tests the commitment.   Why do so many marriages fail?  Because there was never really a true commitment.

    The same thing is true of our faith.  On Sunday morning, faith can be easy.  The real test comes Monday morning.  It’s easy in church to sing songs or say, “I love Jesus.”  The test comes when loving Jesus requires something from us.  It’s easy to say, “I trust God.”  The test comes when God doesn’t answer our prayer the way we wanted or as quickly as we wanted.  Or when financial trouble arrives, or sickness arrives.   It’s easy to say, “I’ll follow wherever you lead.”  The test comes when God leads us somewhere uncomfortable.

    Paul’s commitment was tested to the point of death.  And he got back up.  Commitment means getting back up—continuing on your mission even after problems arise, disasters strike, disappointment sets in, or discouragement sets in.

    The message of Acts 14 is not:  “Real Christians never get knocked down.”  The message is:  “Getting knocked down doesn’t have to mean you stay down.”   Faithfulness means getting back up, taking another step, praying another prayer, or serving another day and trusting God through it all. Paul got up.  And he went back into the city.   That’s commitment. But commitment alone isn’t enough; sometimes commitment requires courage.

    Paul didn’t simply get up.  He went back into the very city where people had just tried to kill him.  Would you have been afraid to go back into that city?   Would you have done that? We sometimes imagine courageous people as people who aren’t afraid.  But that’s not really courage.   If there is nothing to fear, there is no courage required.   It was Nelson Mandela who said:

    “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”  
                      Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom,” 1994

    Nelson Mandela walked out of 27 years in a brutal prison and chose national forgiveness and reconciliation instead of bitterness or revenge against his oppressors.  Courage is doing what is right even when you do have something to fear.  Courage happens when fear is present, and you choose faithfulness anyway.

    Paul had every reason to be afraid.  But he had something greater than his fear:  He had a mission.   Courage comes from knowing what matters most.   Paul understood that the gospel was more important than his personal comfort or safety.  That doesn’t mean Paul didn’t value his life.  He wasn’t looking for trouble. He wasn’t trying to be a martyr.  He wasn’t reckless.  But he understood that there was something more important than avoiding difficulty.  Jesus had given him a mission.  And Paul was determined to fulfill it.

    This is an important lesson for the church today.  We live in a world with plenty of reasons to be afraid.  We’re afraid of rejection.  We’re afraid of criticism.  We’re afraid of what people will think.  We’re afraid that someone will disagree with us.   We’re afraid of being labeled.  We’re afraid of failure.  And sometimes our fear becomes stronger than our faith.

    We may become so concerned about what people might say that we stop saying what needs to be said. Or we become so concerned about offending someone that we don’t mention our faith.  We may become so concerned about failure that we never attempt anything significant.

    But the church was never called to be a people who are controlled by fear.  What is the most common command in the Bible?  Do not fear!  We are called to be courageous people of faith.   Paul demonstrated that courage.  He went back into the city and preached again.  And then he left.  But notice what he did next.

    Acts 14:20-21 “But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples,…”

    Paul didn’t allow what happened in Lystra to stop the mission.  He kept preaching.  He kept making disciples.  He kept moving forward.   Courage doesn’t mean pretending the danger isn’t real.  It means believing that God’s purpose is greater than the danger.  There are times when courage means speaking and times when courage means remaining silent.  There are times when courage means confronting something and other times when it means forgiving. There are times when courage means starting something new, and times when it means staying where you are.   

    But Christian courage always begins with the same question: “What is God calling me to do?” Once we know that, we can ask:  “What would keep me from doing it?”   And then we need the courage to overcome that obstacle.   So, there is commitment, and then courage.

    But there is a third element in this story that we cannot overlook.

    Acts 14:20   But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, 

    It is important to Luke to point out to us that they were there.  Before Paul got up, the disciples gathered around him.  They surrounded their wounded brother.  We don’t know exactly what they said.  Perhaps they prayed.  Perhaps they encouraged him.  Perhaps they simply stood beside him.  And sometimes that’s what community does.  It doesn’t necessarily fix the problem.  It doesn’t always have the right words.  Sometimes community says: “You’re not going through this alone.”  

    That’s what the church is supposed to be.  The church isn’t simply a place where we gather for an hour on Sunday morning. The church is a community of people who gather around one another.  When somebody is hurting or discouraged, we gather around them. When somebody falls or fails, we gather around them.  When somebody succeeds, we gather around them.  When somebody wanders off, we go looking for them.  When somebody is weak, we help carry them.   We need one another.

    Paul was one of the greatest missionaries in the history of Christianity.  He was courageous, determined, gifted, intelligent, and passionate.  But even Paul needed people to gather around him.  If Paul needed community, we do too.  There is a dangerous idea that sometimes creeps into Christianity:  “I don’t need anybody else. It’s just Jesus and me.”  

    But that’s not the Christianity of the New Testament.  The New Testament knows nothing about isolated discipleship.  Jesus created a community.  Paul established communities.  The early church lived in community.  They prayed together, ate together, worshiped together.  They served together, and they suffered together. They encouraged one another. They carried one another’s burdens.

    Christianity was never intended to be a solo sport.  We aren’t spectators sitting in separate seats watching the same game.  We’re participants, and we are all on the same team.

    Look at what happens next.  Paul and Barnabas go back through the cities they have already visited.  Verse 22 says they were: “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith…”. They aren’t simply evangelizing new people.  They’re strengthening the people who already believe.  They are building community.  That’s an important part of ministry.  Sometimes we think the only important work of the church is reaching new people.  But the real work is discipleship.

    Introducing someone to Jesus, having them baptized, and joining the church is a very important first step, but it is not the only step in the journey.  New followers will get discouraged and need someone to encourage them.  They will need to learn more about this Jesus they have met.  Someone will have to teach them.   They will struggle, and they will need someone to pray for them and gather around them.  They will fail and need someone to surround them and pick them up.   Somebody needs to say:  “Keep going.”  That’s community.  And notice the result.

    Acts 14:23  “And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.”

    They established leadership. They invested in people.  They created communities that could continue the mission after they were gone.  That’s what a healthy community does.  It doesn’t simply gather people.  It develops people.  It doesn’t simply attract followers.  It makes disciples.  It doesn’t simply create spectators.   It creates servants.

    Acts 14 begins with a man being celebrated and even worshiped, and then ends with that same man being beaten and left for dead.  And in the middle of that story is that one extraordinary sentence:

    Acts 14:20   But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, 

    He got back up.  That’s commitment.  He went back into the place where people had tried to kill him.  That’s courage.  And before he got up, the disciples gathered around him.  That’s community.  And perhaps those are three things the church desperately needs today.

    The Christian life isn’t always easy. There will be times when we get knocked down. This sinful world can deliver crushing blows to us.  There will be times when we are afraid.   There will be times when we wonder whether we can continue.  But Acts 14 reminds us:  Get back up.  Keep going. And don’t go alone.  The church is at its best when committed people have the courage to follow Christ and when the community supports one another.

    Paul eventually came to the end of his life.  And when he looked back over the journey, he could say:

    2 Timothy 4:7  “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

    I pray that when our journey is finished, we can look back and say, “I stayed committed.  I found courage.   And I never walked alone.”

  • July 28, 2026 – How to Respond to a Miracle— Acts #48

    July 28, 2026 – How to Respond to a Miracle— Acts #48
    Acts. 14:1-7

    Last week, we looked at Acts 14 and how God healed the man in Lystra who had never been able to walk. This week we will talk about how people reacted to this miracle.

    Acts 14:8-18. Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” Barnabas, they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” Even with these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.”

    These people see an undeniable miracle, which leads them to call Paul “Zeus” and Barnabas “Hermes,” and to want to worship them.  They are bringing in animals to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.  To understand this, we need some context.

    Currently, a movie titled “The Odyssey” is playing in theaters.  It is an adaptation of one of two major epics of Greek literature attributed to Homer.  The first, “Iliad,” tells the story of the Trojan War (which itself has inspired several movies, most recently “Troy” in 2004).  The Odyssey is the story of the heroic king Odysseus (you may know him by his Latin name, Ulysses), whose 10-year journey home from the Trojan War takes him through many trials, including the Cyclops, multi-headed monsters, giant whirlpools, and the Sirens.  Homer is credited with authoring these two epics around the eighth century BC, originally passed along orally.

     Here is the earliest known manuscript fragment of the Odyssey, from the third century BC, discovered in Egypt.   These stories were over 800 years old in the time of Jesus.  

    But the people in Lystra were familiar with a much newer piece of literature.  Metamorphoses, a 15-book narrative by the Roman poet Ovid, was written when Jesus was about 10 years old.  One of the myths there tells of a visit by two gods, Zeus and Hermes, to the city of Lystra.  They come disguised as mortal travelers looking for a place to rest but are turned away by everyone.   They finally find rest in the humble, small home of a poor elderly couple.  The story tells how Zeus and Hermes seek vengeance on the people who refused them a place to rest as they flood the whole city of Lystra, and only the elderly couple survive. 

    So when these people see this miracle, they assume Paul and Barnabas were gods.  Now the local images of Zeus and Hermes in Galatia show Zeus as an aged man with a beard and Hermes as his young assistant.  Ben Witherington III, in his book on Acts, notes that the people of Lystra may have thought Paul and Barnabas even resembled their images of these gods, and their identification suggests Barnabas was the elder of the two men, with Paul at this time in his forties at most.1

    So they see the miracle and interpret it according to their understanding of the world. Only the gods can do miracles, and here are Zeus and Hermes back again to our town.  We know what happened last time they came.  This time we sure won’t make them angry, so let’s worship them and offer sacrifices.  We need to understand that we all view the world through our own lenses, and so we can all see the same thing and come away with totally different understandings.

     For example, when there is a rainbow in the sky after a storm, everyone sees the same colors, but what they believe about the rainbow determines what they think it means.

    The physics professor says:  “A rainbow is the result of sunlight entering water droplets. The light slows, refracts, reflects inside the droplet, then refracts again as it exits. Each wavelength bends at a slightly different angle, producing the colors arranged in our visible spectrum.”Everything he says is true.  But when he’s finished, you only know how a rainbow forms.  You still haven’t answered why.  Physics explains the mechanism. It does not explain the meaning.

    The meteorologist smiles and says, “This formation in the atmosphere tells me the rain is moving away. The sun is now behind us, less than 42 degrees above the horizon, while moisture remains in front of us.”  Again, this is all perfectly true, and the rainbow becomes a weather report.  It tells what the atmosphere is doing.

    The artist sees something entirely different.  “The colors are incredible. Look how the light blends from red into violet.”  The rainbow becomes a thing of beauty.  The artist is captivated by color, contrast, and composition.

    Meanwhile, the photographer immediately reaches for the camera.  “The light won’t last long!”  She sees the rainbow as an opportunity, thinking about lenses, exposure, composition, and timing.

    Irish folklore would tell you that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But the physics professor would add that you can never find the end of the rainbow because the visual phenomenon will always move as you move.  

    And there is the small child.  He looks up at the rainbow and says simply, “Wow!”  No analysis, no explanation, wonder.  Sometimes children experience creation more deeply than adults because they have not yet learned to reduce everything to categories.

    Someone with a Biblical worldview sees a rainbow as a reminder of God’s response to Noah after the flood.

    Genesis 9:12-15   And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ‘ When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

    The rainbow is not merely light, not merely weather, not merely beauty, not merely folklore.  It is a reminder of God’s covenant mercy.  Every rainbow silently proclaims: “I keep My promises.” The Christian doesn’t deny physics.  The Christian believes physics explains how God makes the rainbow, not why He gave it significance.

    Like the rainbow, all of God’s miracles are a sign.  And signs are only valuable if they point beyond themselves to the true destination. 

    Take this cartoon of a family on vacation in the American West.  They stopped their vehicle to take a family selfie in front of the sign that says “Grand Canyon just ahead.”  Having snapped their picture, they jump in the car and head on their way.  And the small boy is saying, “But we didn’t even see the Grand Canyon.”  

    Shirley and I once traveled to France with a couple, and the man was like the dad in the cartoon.  We went to the small town of Amboise and stood across the street from Leonardo Da Vinci’s home, which is now a museum.  And this guy says, “Okay, let’s go to the next town.” And Shirley and his wife say, but we want to see Da Vinci’s house.”  To which he replies, “Well, there it is.  We’ve seen it now; let’s go.”  We didn’t want just to see the sign and the outer wall on the street; we wanted to see the house, to see where he painted, to see the workshop where he designed his inventions.  So we made another trip back (without him).

    A view through a fence across the street is not the same as seeing the house.  Having your picture taken in front of a sign is not the same as seeing the Grand Canyon.   Some people think the miracle is the thing. But it is only a sign pointing to the real importance.  

    We can all see the same miracle and explain it in different ways.  We had supper with some friends this week and were telling them about another friend’s miraculous recovery from an incurable cancer.   One of them said, how do you explain that?  Was it just luck?  I said I believe God did it.  Now they regularly attend a church, but he had not even considered the possibility of God intervening in her situation.  

    When I was a resident physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, on the oncology (Cancer) wards, in a few months we saw three children healed of diseases that our science could not explain.  One had stage 4 cancer with large tumors that suddenly disappeared without treatment.  Two diagnosed with Leukemia had unexpected sudden remissions. Sitting around the conference table at rounds the next day, someone asked the head physician how these things could happen.

    Their cases seemed to have nothing in common; they were different types of Leukemia with different presentations.  He just said that odd things happen sometimes and it was just a coincidence that these happened together.  He said, “It’s random; they had nothing in common.”  I pointed out that these two cases had one thing in common, and that got the team’s attention.  “What was that?” he asked.  Before the infusion, these two families met together and prayed for each other, and they are convinced that is the reason for their healing.

    The attending said, “Well, you will run into people who see every little thing as an intervention by God.  Even though we all know better, you should not challenge their opinion about this.  We don’t interfere with their religious beliefs.” We immediately went on to discuss the other patients, and perhaps I was the only one in the room who didn’t consider their healing “a little thing.”  But it got me thinking not just about healing, but about all the “little things.”

    These people in Lystra saw the healing and immediately attributed it to the stories of the gods they knew.  

    Acts 14:11   And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!”

    At first, Paul and Barnabas didn’t know what was going on because they were speaking in their native language, Lycaonian, which our missionaries didn’t understand.  But they soon figured it out when the priest of Zeus brought out the sacrifice.  And the scripture tells us they “tore their clothes.” This is a Jewish expression of horror and grief, always done in the presence of blasphemy.  And what do they tell the people?

    Acts 14:15   We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

    We are just like you.  Don’t worship us.  Contrast that with Herod Agrippa from Acts 12. You remember he had James killed and was going to kill Peter, but an angel helped Peter escape.  And remember how this Herod died.  He came out in the theater in Caesarea Maritima dressed in his robes of silver, and the people proclaimed him a god.  Herod did not refute this but accepted their praise, and for that act of blasphemy he died.  

    This is a sin that God does not tolerate.  But many today are tempted towards that same sin.  Anytime you elevate a person to a status greater than others, you have made them an idol.  Paul said, “We also are men, of like nature with you.”  We are no different than you.  We are no better than you.  Do not elevate us to any position above you.  We are the same.  

    But our society elevates many people to a status better than others.  Sports stars are honored and worshiped.  Politicians are honored and worshiped.  Entertainers are honored and worshiped.  Social media influencers are honored and worshiped.  For 24 years, there has been a television show called American Idol.  We see the same thing even in organized religion, where some pastors or worship leaders are placed in some elevated status.  Paul said, “We are of the same nature as you.”  No one deserves praise and honor except our God.  

    Jesus warned of this temptation in the church:

    Matthew 6:1-6   Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

    “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

    And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

    Whenever you are placed in a position of honor, be quick like Paul and Barnabas to remind people that you are just like them.  If I have done any good in my life, then it is only because of God in my life.  All honor and glory go to Him who created me, sustained me, and directed me. 

    Genesis tells me that without God, I am literally nothing but dust.  We are all creatures of dirt, filled with life through the breath of God, filled with hope and love in the image of God, filled with the righteousness of His Son Jesus, and filled with the glory of His Holy Spirit.

    Don’t honor the dust; honor the God who made us more than dust.  

    Then Paul talks to the people of Lystra about rains and harvests (which may seem like an odd thing to say).

    Acts 14:17   He [God] did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

    Paul is telling them that this miracle is not the first time they have seen God work.  He created the whole world, and He had been blessing them all through their lives with rain to grow their crops and food to eat, and He has blessed them with joy and gladness. Through all these things, God has been working all along.  And I think again about what my attending said in Boston:  “Well, you will run into people who see every little thing as an intervention by God.  Even though we all know better, you should not challenge their opinion about this.  We don’t interfere with their religious beliefs.  I later told this attending that I didn’t know better, that I too believed God did intervene in our world.  He smiled and said, “That’s nice,” and walked off.    Paul didn’t know better.  He saw every “little thing” as an intervention by God. 

    We tend to divide the world into the natural and the supernatural.  There are things that are ordinary, like rain and sunshine, and things that are out of the ordinary, like miracles.  But the Bible does not have this division at all.  The Bible sees that God is behind everything that exists.  Modern philosophy views the cosmos as governed by a fixed set of laws, such as gravity. Gravity is a natural rule of the universe.  It is natural for things to fall down.  But if, say, someone walks on water, then that is supernatural.

    But again, this false dichotomy is not how the Bible describes the world.  This division is man forcing his construct on the Bible.  And the danger of viewing the world this way is that you incorrectly imply that anything natural, like rain and storms and illness and death, occurs outside of the influence of God.  And this is not the way the Bible describes the world.  

    Paul attributes all of these things to God.  Natural processes like rain, harvests, and the birth of a baby are only natural because God made and sustains the world that way.  I have seen thousands of births.  And I saw God in every single one.  Yes, I know the science of reproduction.  I spent months studying all the intricacies of Embryology.   But I am convinced that none of those births I witnessed was outside the hand of God.   God gives life and no other.  It is God who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.  It is God who supplies our daily bread, and it is God who gives joy and gladness.

    Shirley and I were driving home from Atlanta a few nights ago, and watched the sunset’s changing colors ahead of us.  God brought us joy through the sunset he made.  Yes, my esteemed Harvard-trained attending physician in Boston, I am one of those who see every little thing as an intervention by God.  Because I am very sure of this: 

    John 1:3   All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

    God made it all, and he is sustaining it all.  He is at work in this world all the time.  This is what we have been talking about for some time.  God is constantly working all things for good for those who love him.  This day of my life is a gift from God.  My next breath, my next heartbeat, is a gift. So when you witness a miracle like healing, or the miracle of birth, or the miracle of the ocean, or a sunset, or the gladness of a feast, remember that the miracle and the birth and the ocean and the gladness are only a sign pointing to God and revealing His character to us.   There are no little things and big things.  All things were made by Him.  And He is sustaining and at work in all things.  Paul said it this way:

    Ephesians 4:6   One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

    Nothing is outside of God’s creation and influence.  The people of Lystra were amazed by the miracle, but they misunderstood its meaning. They stopped at the sign instead of following it to the One who performed it. Paul would not allow that. He tore his clothes because the greatest tragedy was not failing to see the miracle—it was seeing the miracle and missing God.

    That remains the danger today.  Just as some people fail to see the hand of God in the sunset and the rain, we can admire the healing, celebrate the provision, applaud the gifted servant, or treasure the answered prayer, yet never be drawn into deeper worship of Christ. Every act of God’s power and every expression of His daily kindness is a signpost saying, “Look beyond this gift. Look to the Giver.”

    So how should we respond to a miracle?  It’s okay to be like the child with the rainbow or like Shirley and me at the sunset this week.  Stand in awe at the beauty of the picture God paints every day.  But we must go further.  Again, the miracle, the sunset, and the rainbow are just signs that point to God. And our response to any of God’s actions is not amazement alone.

    It is repentance, worship, and faith in the living God. Remember, after Jesus fed the five thousand, great crowds followed him.  The problem was that they followed him because they wanted more free bread.  They wanted only the miracle, the sign, but that sign was pointing to Jesus as the Bread of Life.  They missed God because they were satisfied with only the sign.  Every miracle in Scripture and every miracle today ultimately points beyond itself to the person and work of Jesus Christ, who is God’s greatest revelation to the world.

    God is constantly at work in this world, so walk through this world with your eyes wide open.  Look for the work of God in nature and in others. Appreciate the little miracles of life and the big ones.  Be grateful for the sunshine and the rain.  Be grateful for the fruit of His labor.  Thank Him for a good meal.  Thank Him for the joy he brings in our lives.  But do not worship the gifts; worship the giver of all gifts.  

    1.  Witherington, Ben.  The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. 1998. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Location 11207.  

  • July 21, 2026 – Faith that can be Seen— Acts #48



    July 21, 2026 – Faith that can be Seen— Acts #48
    Acts. 14:1-7

    In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas begin their first missionary journey.  They leave the home church in Antioch, Syria, and sail to the island of Cyprus, then from there to what is now Turkey. On this journey, they are in central Asia Minor, then called Galatia. So the book of Galatians is written to the churches he established on this journey.  Understanding the Jesus followers in these cities makes the book of Galatians much easier to understand.

    In the first town in Galatia, Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas preach in the synagogue, and some of the Jews and God-fearers there believe.  Paul delivers one sermon, and the next week the whole town comes to hear what he has to say.  The whole town shows up, but it quickly turns for the worse. 

    We tend to look back on these missionary journeys of Paul and friends as highly successful. And they were.  This is how the gospel spread and took a foothold in much of the known world.  But as you read through Acts, you see that these journeys were just one major problem after another.  But you don’t read much about Paul getting discouraged when things go wrong.  I mean, if your church decided to do an evangelistic program in your town, say they bring in some famous preacher and rent out the city auditorium or the stadium.  And you get some positive response to the revival, but the next week you find out that most of the town was so angry that the church leaders’ lives were being threatened and the city council voted to annex your church property and turn it into a garbage dump.  The uproar is so bad that the church staff and lay leaders have to move out of the county.   Now, would they call that evangelistic meeting a success?

    But that is what happens in the first city they enter in Galatia.  The people of Antioch stir up the city leaders, and Paul and Barnabas are run out of town.  So they go to the next city, Iconium, where they share about Jesus, and again some believe, but they discover that a group of people has plotted to stone them to death.  So they leave Iconium, and they go to the next city, Lystra.

    Acts 14:8-10   Now at Lystra a man was sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking.

    There is a lot in these 3 verses.

    There is a man who has paralysis, crippled from birth.  He had never walked in his life. And he is there with everyone else listening to Paul.  But he catches Paul’s attention.  The scripture says that Paul was looking intently at him.   The phrase “looking intently” (Greek: atenizō) is one Luke uses several times in Acts. It describes more than a casual glance. It is a focused, discerning gaze. Paul isn’t merely noticing the man’s physical condition; he is discerning something happening within him.  

    How many other people had seen the man lying there, unable to move?  Some may have looked at him in disgust, seeing him as just another beggar.  Others may have seen him begging in the streets so often that they looked over him, not giving him another thought.  Some may have felt that he was taking away from this preaching event and just taking up space. But not Paul.  Paul, through the power of the Holy Spirit within him, saw something different in this man.  He saw not the inconvenience of a beggar, but a soul that desperately needed grace and desperately wanted grace. 

    Let me tell you about one of my biggest failures.  We were living in Boston, and I was doing my Pediatric residency there.  And we had been struggling to find a church home there.  We tried several.  There was a church near where we lived that had a nice building, but the congregation had shrunk so much that they couldn’t afford to keep it up, so they shared it with 3 other churches.  So one week it was Presbyterian, the next Episcopal, and so on.  It was not for us.  I couldn’t get used to the hymnals that took out all the male references to God, so God was not our heavenly father but our heavenly parent.  Then we went to the nearby church, and everyone brought their pets.  There were lots of animals, but not much Jesus.  Then we found a church with a Baptist preacher from Mississippi. He had played football in the SEC!  A Southerner!  We thought we had found a place.  But it was at this church I experienced a major personal failure.  

    It was mid-winter in Boston, and there was a foot of snow on the ground, and it was bitterly cold.  And in the middle of the service, a homeless man came into the church, of course carrying everything he owned.  He sat down on a pew behind everyone else, and he made a bit of noise as he settled in.   Right away, several deacons approached the man and made him leave the church.  They sent him back out in the snow.   And I was so shocked I just sat there.  I regret to this day that I didn’t stand up immediately, follow the homeless man out, and make sure he found a warm place and got something to eat.  I failed to be a neighbor.  I realize he likely just came in to warm up, but that didn’t matter.  This was a man created in God’s image who was run out of God’s house of worship because he didn’t look like them.  I had to repent of my inaction on that day.  I pray those deacons also find their way to repentance.   You see, it matters how we look at people.

    How do you look at people?  Do you ever look intently?  Or do you just look over some people?  My precious wife has developed a built-in radar for seeing people in need.  She can spot a homeless person or a hurting person miles away.   That is a gift of God’s Holy Spirit.  And people in need are drawn to her.  We were in a crowded church lobby once, with 40-50 people there, and a stranger walked in the door, made her way past everyone else in the room right through the middle of the crowd, and headed straight to Shirley.  She needed help, and she was drawn to her.  It happens regularly.  She has eyes to see.  Do you see the needs of people around you?  Do you really see the people on the street and take the time to see their needs, or do you pass by?  

    The Bible has a lot to say about helping people in need.  Jesus tells the story of the man who was robbed and left for dead on the road to Jericho, and how several just passed by him and did not offer to stop.  Specifically, he mentions a priest and a Levite who should have been compassionate and stopped to help this man.  And then a Samaritan, who at the time was a hated group of people, stopped and went out of his way to help him. 

    We all know the story of the Good Samaritan, but how often do we reenact this story in our lives?  How many people have you passed by?  You may think that man with a sign that says he is hungry is just out to cheat people.  And he may be.  But like the man on the Jericho road, you really don’t know who he is, and you sure don’t know his intentions.  You might think you don’t have time to stop or that you don’t want to get involved.  Congratulations, you could be the priest or Levite in Jesus’ story.  Clearly, the point of Jesus’ parable there is to tell us that our default should be to help.  Everyone is our neighbor, and Jesus said the greatest command in the Bible included the one about loving your neighbor.  

    So in our family, if we see someone in need, our default is to stop and help unless we have a clear message from God not to.  I am sure that some of the people we stop to help are not as needy as they say they are.   We met a lady downtown one day, and she needed clothes and some food.  So we went off to gather some clothes from home and Goodwill, and to meet her at a restaurant downtown.  She didn’t show, and the restaurant owner insinuated that she was taking advantage of people.  But we were obedient to what God called us to do, and that is all we can do.  She is responsible for being obedient to God for herself.  Of course, we try to avoid just giving cash to people unless God directs us to.  I don’t want to be responsible for supporting anyone’s drug or alcohol habit.  But unless we hear God telling us to pass by, we feel we have a responsibility to help.

    Do you look intently at people, as Paul did, or do you look away?  Our God has created every person we meet in his very image.  That image may have been twisted by sin, but God loves them just the same.  Jesus died for that man that we pass by.   

    Paul looks intently at this man, and we are told that he saw “that he had faith to be made well”.  Paul looks at this man and sees his faith.  This is an important point.  Faith is something you can see.   

    We often talk about “faith” as if the word is simply a belief you have.  We say, “What faith are you?”  “Do you have faith?”  “Is your faith strong?”  But that is not the way the Bible talks about faith.  The Bible talks about faith as not a belief or idea in your mind, but an action you can see.  Faith is something you do, not something you think.

    We see this same phrase in a story recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  And, interestingly, like our story today, it is a story about a man who is paralyzed and cannot walk, who one day drops in on Jesus.  And he literally drops in.  You know the story.  Jesus is preaching, and such a crowd has gathered that it was hard to get near to him.

    And there are these friends of the paralyzed man who heard Jesus was there.  So they grabbed the four corners of the paralyzed man’s blanket and brought him to Jesus.  But they couldn’t get anywhere near him.  So one of them had the bright idea of tearing a hole in the roof and lowering their friend into the room where Jesus was.

    Mark 2:1-12   And when Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home.  And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them.  And they came, bringing to him a person with paralysis carried by four men.   And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the person with paralysis lay.  

    And what does Jesus say?  I have to say my first impulse would be to say, “Hey, you’re going to have to pay for fixing that roof you tore up.”  But Jesus ignores the hole in the roof and instead focuses on the people.  It is not that Jesus doesn’t care about property or someone’s home, but Jesus cares a whole lot more about people than buildings.  

    God rescued his people from Egypt, a land with a religion that was all about buildings more than people.  Unless you were pharaoh or one of his nobles, people were disposable.  Egypt was famous for sacrificing workers and slaves to build great temples, working them literally to death so they could build these magnificent temples and statues.  They worked thousands of enslaved people to death to mine copper, disposing of their bodies in a great heap like the slag that is the leftover worthless rock you get when you remove the copper from the ore.  Now I have seen some amazing, beautiful houses of worship all over the world.  But let me tell you, our God is more interested in building people than buildings.

    So in this Bible story of the paralytic lowered through the roof, the Bible says this:  “And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” Jesus doesn’t see a hole in the roof; he sees faith.

    These four friends went to great trouble to get their paralytic friend to Jesus.  They tore a hole in the roof and dropped him in, knowing they would be responsible for repairing it.  They would not have gone through this trouble if there had been any doubt in their minds that Jesus could heal their friend.  They were certain that Jesus could heal, and this certainty was expressed in their actions.  Faith is what they did for their friend.

    Let’s look at this differently.  Say these friends only had a ‘little bit of faith’ in Jesus.  Suppose they thought there was a possibility that Jesus could heal the man, but they weren’t quite sure.  I would imagine they went back home when they approached the house and saw it was impossible to reach the door.  So, this ‘little bit of faith’ would lead to inaction.  Is that really any faith at all?  No action, no faith — no faith, no healing.

    In Matthew 17, there is a story about a boy possessed by a demon. The disciples are unable to help him. Jesus rebukes the demon, and the boy is healed. This leaves the disciples wondering and gives Jesus a chance to teach a lesson about what faith is.

    Matthew 17:19-20   Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

    Here, “little faith” (Greek oligopistia) means having faith less than a mustard seed.  The black mustard plant in Israel grows wild all over.  I have seen it on the banks of the Jordan and along highways outside of Jerusalem.  This mustard seed is even smaller than your local grocery store’s 1 mm mustard seeds. It is like a grain of ground pepper.  Jesus is saying that any faith less than that tiny size is, in effect, no faith at all. Little faith in the Bible means zero faith.  Jesus tells them they failed because they had no faith.

    R.T. France, in The New International Commentary on the New Testament, says it this way:

    “Faith is not a measurable commodity, but a relationship, and what achieves results through prayer is not a superior “quantity” of faith but the unlimited power of God on which faith, any faith, can draw. The disciples, Jesus implies, had failed to bring any faith at all to bear on this situation.”1

    Results are not based on the measure of your faith, but the power of God.  You either have confidence that God can do what He says or you do not.  There is no in-between.  There is faith and no faith.  You have faith, or you do not. 

    “Faith is a relationship,” France said.  You can think of it as trustworthiness. You may have heard people talk about “blind faith.”   But our faith in God is never blind.  It is the result of built-up trust over the years.  This is one reason it is so important to study your Bible.  Throughout the Bible, we see God’s faithfulness in keeping his promises and being a reliable covenant partner. Trust builds in the relationship as one repeatedly proves himself true to his word. Our faith is not blind but is based on a long history of God always keeping His promises in the Bible and our relationship with Him, in which we likewise experience the reliability of His word and covenant with us.  Your trust in God, your faith, grows with every day you experience God’s reliability in keeping promises to you.  

    And every time you step out to do something for God, and you watch Him show up and do God things, then your faith grows.   Conversely, if you don’t step out and do bold things for God, if you don’t attempt things that are impossible for you, then you never give God room to do any work, and you don’t get to see God show up, and so your trust in God never grows.  Let me say that again.  If you only do things you are capable of doing, if you only do things you are comfortable doing, if you only do things you can accomplish without God’s intervention, then you never get to see God work.  You never see His miracles.  And you have no faith.

    Do you want your faith to grow?  Then, today, ask God to lead you to do something too hard for you —something that makes you uncomfortable—something that is impossible for you to do unless God steps in to help.  Then when you are struggling through that task, watch God do God things.  And as you build a lifetime of experiences, seeing God show up over and over, your trust in God grows, and your faith grows.

    And just as we see God’s faithfulness in His actions in the past, He sees our faith in our past actions. Back to verse 9: “He listened to Paul speaking.  And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well.” What Did Paul See?

    Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what Paul observed, but we can make several reasonable observations. First, he saw a Man Who Was Completely Engaged.  Verse 9 begins: “He listened to Paul speaking.” The Greek tense implies continuous listening. A crowd has gathered.  Imagine the scene. It is not hard for me to imagine.  I speak in a church.  I look out at people, and sometimes some are distracted, some are skeptical. Some in the back are whispering.  Some are on their cell phones.  Some are just too tired to pay attention. 

    But this disabled man is locked onto every word Paul says.  Why?  Because he has a need, and Paul is offering him what no one else can — hope.  He has been disabled all of his life.  He has never walked.  No doctors can help him.  He has lost hope that he would ever be able to walk.  He is deeply aware of his need.  Every day, he relies on someone to help him with everything, and he is forced to beg for food to live.  He knows his need. 

    If you are about to purchase a vehicle, then you pay attention to the commercials about the deals currently being offered.   If you don’t need to buy a car, then you probably ignore them.  If you are thinking of taking a family vacation and someone is telling you about the great place they went to and what a good deal it was, then you are listening.  You are writing down the website; you are asking questions because you need this information.

    In the same way, some people who come to church are more tuned in to what is being said because they know they have a need. It is like the beatitudes. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount,

    Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

    Blessed are the people who realize they are spiritually destitute.  The people who know they need the forgiveness that Jesus offers.  People who realize that they are sinners and there is no way outside of God’s grace and mercy that they can ever gain forgiveness.  People who know that their righteousness is as filthy rags.  People who realize that they have nothing to bring to the table.  Jesus says these people are the fortunate ones.  They are the blessed ones.  Why?  Because it is only when you realize your need that you can accept God’s answer for sin in Jesus.

    People who think they are perfect do not need Jesus’ forgiveness.  Jesus can’t help them.  Another Beatitude says:

    Matthew 5:6  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

    This man, who could not move his legs, could not work and earn a living.  He was a beggar.  Every day, his only hope of being able to eat was that people would have mercy on him and give him some coins. He knew his status.  He was desperate for hope, for healing.

    So let me ask you, how do you encounter God this morning?  Do you come to church feeling good about yourself?  Do you come knowing that you are doing pretty good? Hey, you are doing better than most of the people where you work or where you live?  Do you see yourself as good? Or do you come before God like this man in Acts 14? He hears about Jesus, and he desperately needs what Jesus has for him, so he is all in.   Or like Isaiah in the temple in Isaiah 6.  Isaiah sees God and realizes the amazing glory of God and his sinlessness, and then he looks at himself and says, “Woe is me. I am unclean.”

    What is your attitude as you come to worship?  How do you enter God’s presence? It is like the example Jesus gave of the two men praying in the temple.  

    Luke 18:10-14  Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

    You have to know your own spiritual poverty before you can know the riches of His grace.  But when you accept Jesus as your lord and king, then he imparts to us His righteousness.  He wipes away our sin-debt.  And we stand before God righteous.  

    I understand Paul.  I can look out across a congregation and see faith.  Faith listens; sometimes it takes notes; faith leans in. This man in Lystra in Acts 14 had never walked.  Not once. There was no medical treatment for him, no physical therapy, no hope. Then Paul begins preaching Jesus.  Perhaps Paul’s message included Jesus healing the lame. Perhaps he quoted Isaiah 35:  “Then shall the lame man leap like a deer.” Maybe the man’s face changed.  Maybe his eyes widened.  Maybe tears formed. Maybe Paul saw someone thinking, “Could this be for me?” And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and began walking.

    His faith became evident to everyone when he sprang up.  Again, this is a man who had never stood on his own before.  If he didn’t have faith, he would have just told Paul, “I can’t stand up. I have never been able to stand up.”  Just believing what Paul said about Jesus would not have been enough.  He had more than just an acceptance that Jesus was who Paul said he was.  He had confidence and trust that God would do what He said He would.  He was so sure that he didn’t hesitate to do something that seconds ago would have been impossible for him.    This is the difference between faith and belief.   

    You may have heard someone say before that all you have to do is believe in Jesus.  Sorry, but that is not enough.  The Bible tells us the demons believe.  That gets you nowhere.  You need more than belief.  You need to have enough trust, confidence, and faith in God that you are willing to go wherever God says to go and do whatever God says to do.  If you have no obedience, you have no faith.

    Look at the characters in the Bible to learn about faith. How about Noah? Before a drop of rain fell, Noah spent decades building an ark.  Noah could have said, “Hey God, I believe you about the rain, I guess, but building a boat?  I don’t think so.” People saw and heard his faith because they heard him hammering, day after day, building a boat where there was no water.  Faith makes noise

    Take Abraham.  His faith became visible when he packed his belongings and left Ur without knowing where he was going.    Faith always leaves footprints.

    And Moses.  By faith he kept leading the children of Israel through the wilderness despite all the difficulties.  They faced armies, they walked through a sea, they overcame hunger and thirst in the desert.  Faith keeps going when the way seems impossible.

    How about Blind Bartimaeus in the New Testament?  Remember, he heard Jesus was passing by, and he kept calling out for mercy over and over.   Even though the crowd rebuked him, they told him to stop bothering Jesus.  But he refused to stop crying out.  When everyone else wanted silence, faith kept shouting.  Faith doesn’t shut up.

    Belief is never enough.  You must have faith, and faith has actions. James would later write:

    James 2:17-18  So also faith by itself, if it does not have actions, is dead. Show me your faith apart from your actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions.”

    Faith is invisible like the wind. You cannot see the wind itself, but you can certainly see the trees moving. Do people see your faith? Imagine if someone watched us during worship, Bible study, or prayer. Would they see faith? Would they see people expecting God to speak?

    How about the way you live your life? People are watching you.  Do they see your faith?  Do they see your confidence in God’s promises in the way you live? Do they see your hope in times of suffering? Do they see obedience that doesn’t make sense apart from trust in Christ? Do they see your faith?  Because the things you do reveal your faith, or your lack of faith

    Hebrews 11 is called the roll call of faith; it talks about the people of the Old Testament, what they believed, and what they did as a result.  It tells us how we see their faith.  And then it says this:

    Hebrews 11:6  And without faith it is impossible to please God.

    I told you at the beginning how Paul, the guy we see as the most successful missionary of all time, was asked to leave Antioch, and then he quickly left Iconium because they were about to stone him to death.  Well, spoiler alert: next week we will see that in this town with the person with paralysis, Lystra, Paul is stoned by a mob and dragged outside the city and left for dead.  But Paul is a man of faith. So what does Paul do after he almost dies?  We’ll see next week.

    If Paul were preaching today and looked intently at us, what evidence of faith would he see? Would he see a person merely hearing God’s Word, or someone expecting God to act? Would he see comfortable religion, or courageous trust?  Would he see passive belief, or active obedience?

    The world cannot see Jesus with its physical eyes, but it can see the faith of those who belong to Him. Genuine faith is not merely something we profess with our lips; it is something that shapes our faces, our choices, our prayers, our generosity, our perseverance, and our hope. When faith takes hold of the heart, it always becomes visible in your life.

    1. France, R.T. New International Commentary of the New Testament – Matthew.

  • July 14, 2026 – United or Divided?— Acts #47

    July 14, 2026 – United or Divided?— Acts #47
    Acts. 14:1-7

    Acts 14:1-7  Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding country, and there they continued to preach the gospel.

    Last week, we saw that Paul and Barnabas had some success in leading some in the city of Pisidian Antioch to Jesus.  But opposition rose against them, and they were run out of town.   So they traveled east to the next city in Galatia, Iconium.  And what happens there?  The same thing that happens everywhere.   Some believe.  Others do not. 

    And the city becomes divided, and that soon leads to violence.   But wait, isn’t Christianity supposed to bring peace?  Isn’t Jesus the prince of peace?  If He is, then why is there such great division wherever Paul and Barnabas bring the gospel of Jesus?  For as we follow our missionaries on their journeys in Acts, we will see that two things happen everywhere they go:  Some people’s lives are transformed.  Others rise in opposition.  As a result, communities are divided. 

    Remember they were run out of town in Antioch.  They were almost stoned in Iconium, and we will read next that, in Lystra, Paul was stoned and dragged outside the city and left for dead.  

    So what are Paul and Barnabas doing wrong?  Why are they causing such an uproar and division in all these towns? It is not that Paul and Barnabas are doing anything wrong.  They are just presenting the word of God plainly.   And the word of God will do what it does:

    Hebrews 4:12   For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

    The Gospel is good news, and the Word of God can bring us great comfort at times.  But to anyone living their life according to their own rules and decisions, God’s word is not a cozy blanket to keep them comfortable.  It is a sharp and stabbing weapon of attack.  The word of God cuts through all the pretense.  It does not cause divisions; it reveals the divisions that are already there.  To borrow a quote from Finley Peter Dunne, 

    God’s word comforts the afflicted but afflicts the comfortable.

    It forces people to come face to face with the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring.   When God’s word is presented, our sin is exposed, and we can no longer hide it.   We are forced to make a decision.  What are you going to do about this sin problem?  What are you going to do with Jesus?  You must either accept Him and follow Him, or you must choose to oppose Him.  There is no middle ground.

    God’s word challenges us to stop just cruising through life as if life is all about having fun, eating good food, and accumulating more stuff.  We are forced to see the world as God sees it — broken by sin.  It forces people to come face to face with the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring.   When God’s word is presented, our sin is exposed, and we can no longer hide it.   We are forced to make a decision.  What are you going to do about this sin problem?  What are you going to do with Jesus?  You must either accept Him and follow Him, or you must choose to oppose Him.  There is no middle ground.

    But people don’t like to talk about sin, that is, unless it is someone else’s sin.  And people sure do like to talk about others’ sins.    Some Christians like to talk about how much they hate sin.  They say “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”  I think that saying needs a little work.  Yes, we are to follow the example of Jesus and love the sinner, and we are to hate all sin, but our focus should be to hate the sin within us so that we may repent of it and become who God intended us to be.   And this is how God’s word is a piercing sword.

    It exposes sin and forces us to make a decision.  That makes people uncomfortable.  So we just don’t mention it.  After all, we don’t want to offend anyone.  If we can only present the gospel in such a way that no one is offended.  “You see, Paul and Barnabas, some of the things the Bible speaks out about are offensive to some people.  So maybe you should leave those parts out.  Then you could present a gospel that will not cause divisions, one that offends no one.”  And instead of divisions, we will have unity.  And unity is a good thing, right? 

    This year we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, the United States.  And we are 50 states united in one federal government, with a single currency and open borders between the states.   We are the United States.  And our pledge to our flag states “one nation, under God…”, a statement that we are all united under God.  (Of course, the pledge to the flag wasn’t written until the late 1800s, and the phrase “under God” was not added until 1954.)  

    And let me pose a question: is it really accurate to say that we are one nation ‘under God’?   You don’t have to watch many news reports or see many election advertisements to see that we are a nation that is deeply divided.  Never, since the Civil War, have the divisions in our country been more apparent.  Yet, for now, we are still one nation.

    And further, is it accurate to say that we are one nation ‘under God’?  Well, God is certainly over us, as he is sovereign over all of creation, but can you really say that we are a nation that follows God or submits to his reign?  America can not in any way call itself a nation that follows a certain God.  In fact, this country was established on the ideal of religious freedom, under which the government cannot establish a particular religion.  The government has no say in who or what you choose to worship.

    Some like to call us a Christian nation, yet we have passed laws that have legalized many things that break the heart of God.  The United States of America says that it is perfectly fine to murder over a million unborn babies every year.   And abortion, marriage, divorce, how we treat the poor, the elderly, the sojourner- these are not political issues; these are ethical issues that God has spoken about.  But our country has often voted God out of these issues.  

    Our nation says, God, you are wrong.  We are going to rewrite the definitions of marriage and divorce to align with our ideas.   We will pass some laws to fix those errors in your Bible.   It’s perfectly fine that we kill 3000 babies every day.  It does not matter that we have killed 50 million babies since 1974.  It is all legal and good.  When Jesus saw his friends mourning over the loss of their friend Lazarus, Jesus wept.  How much more do I think Jesus weeps over the death of these 50 million innocents?

    If only we were a nation under God, unified in Him.  Because the Bible tells us this

     ……unity in anything other than the truth of God leads to disaster.

    Look at Genesis 11.   The whole earth had the same language.  They were completely united.  Everyone worked together on a project in Babel to build a great tower.  God told them to fill the earth, but they wanted to all stay in one place and make a name for themselves, to be equal to God.   And you know what happened.  They were so unified in their sin that God had to separate the people.  At Babel, God destroyed the unity and divided the people.

    And then, over 2000 years later, God reversed His actions at Babel.   At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended, God brought together people from many lands and enabled them to understand one another. 

    At Babel, God destroyed the unity people had in themselves and divided them.
    At Pentecost, God created a unity of people in HIm.
    Unity is only good if the unifying factor is God.

    Just a few years ago, many churches decided that division was better than unity.  The decision was made that being united with the United Methodist Church was no longer a good idea, because they felt their unity with the UMC was not honoring the truth of God’s Word.  Division was deemed to be better than unity.

    But did you realize that in 2023, when almost half of the members of the United Methodist Church, representing 1/4 of the United Methodist Churches, decided to leave the denomination,  it was not the first time that Methodists in America had faced such a problem?  

    The UMC initially began as the Methodist Episcopal Church.  When it was founded in 1784, it passed rules requiring all members to free their slaves.  But those rules were never followed in the South, and for the sake of unity, the conference made a compromise.  It kept the rules forbidding slavery on the books while doing almost nothing to enforce them.  Does that sound familiar?   That is exactly what happened in the years leading up to the recent split of the UMC.  The Book of Discipline stated clearly that practicing homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching”.  But the rules were never enforced, and openly practicing homosexual pastors and bishops were allowed to remain in office.   

    The first crisis on slavery came to a head at the 1844 General Conference when many of the southern delegates walked out.  The following year, the Methodist Episcopal Church South was formed.   The issue of slavery was solved for the nation through a bitter Civil War.  Even though that reason for the denominational split was resolved, the Methodist Churches did not reunite until 1939 and eventually, in 1968, became the United Methodist Church.  

    And the recent crisis in the United Methodist Church continues.  Before the window to disaffiliate closed at the end of 2023, leaders of the UMC had told the more conservative members that remained that there would be room for both conservative evangelicals as well as the “progressive” Christians who affirmed same-sex marriage and ordained practicing homosexuals.  They were told they had the freedom to think differently and still be part of the UMC.  They were told they would be sent pastors who were in line with their more conservative beliefs.  This was all in the hope of reducing the number of churches disaffiliating.

    But the events of the past month have made it clear that the UMC is no longer interested in leaving room for any conservative elements in its denomination.  A month ago, the UMC decided that graduates of Asbury Seminary, the largest Methodist seminary in the country, would no longer be accepted for ordination in the denomination.  Their reason:

    “The University Senate’s decision is intended to ensure that United Methodist candidates for ministry are formed in settings clearly aligned with United Methodist teachings, theology, leadership and values.” 

    Now the truth comes out.  The UMC never intended to allow any difference of opinion on this doctrine.  Now they are clearly stating that if you don’t affirm same-sex marriage and homosexuality, you are a heretic and not welcome in the UMC.

    So once again, the unity of a denomination was challenged by a single issue, first slavery and now homosexuality and other sexual identification issues.   And let me state my position.  I believe the Bible is undeniably clear on the fact that it is a sin… that it is an abomination…to tell a lie.

    Proverbs 6:16-19  “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”

    Proverbs 6 says that lying is a sin; it is an abomination, something God hates.   Also on that list are a spirit of arrogance, thinking yourself better than others; hands that shed the blood of innocents; a false witness; and a person who stirs up conflict in a community, to name a few. Other passages add idol worship, occult practices, or cheating in business or on your taxes.  And there are sexual practices that are listed as abominations, such as adultery (which includes second marriages following divorces that were not for Biblical reasons).  Along the same line, the Bible is clear that marriage is for one man and one woman and that homosexual practices are a sin.  This is abundantly clear in the Old and New Testaments.

    So if you have ever thought you were better than anyone else, if you have ever lied, if you have ever participated in stirring up conflict among others, or cheated on taxes, or if you have ever committed any of the other sins listed, then you are in the same boat as everyone else.  None of us is without sin.  And God doesn’t just hate a few sins, but God hates all sin.   But praise Him, He loves all sinners and sent His Son to pay the debts for our sins and to cover us with His righteousness.

    And while this current issue in the church and in our country is sexual practices, it could just as well be abortion, for hands that shed innocent blood are an abomination also.  We think we can pick and choose which sins are worse, but God has already done that.  It seems that if we make a list of the sins we hate, it is always the ones that we are not tempted towards.  

    And remember that God called us to be witnesses.  A witness tells what he knows: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  You don’t have to understand the whole Bible to be a witness.  You tell what you know from experience.  

    It is not our job to be the prosecuting attorney.  It is not our job to be the judge or the jury.   It is not our job to judge people or to convict them of their sins.  That is God’s job.  It is our job to love our neighbor.  That is all people, even though they are sinners, just like us. Then we are to be witnesses; we say what we know from our lives based on the Word of God.  We speak the truth in love.

    And we let the word of God be what it is.  Not everyone is going to like what it says, but we don’t change what it says to please people.  And that is why Paul and Barnabas caused division wherever they took the gospel. The word of God is always going to be offensive to some people.

    For some people, the gospel message hurts their pride becasue it tells them they are wrong and they can not save themselves.  They have to have help.  For others, the gospel is offensive because it calls for repentance.  And some people do not want to face the fact that their behavior is wrong and they must change.  Some don’t want to hear that they have to submit to anyone’s rules, including God.  

    God says, “I love you, but you must repent and agree to let me be the king of your life and live by my rules.”  Then each person must decide what they will do with Jesus.  Will you follow him, or will you reject Him?

    There is a kingdom of peace coming.  God is giving everyone a chance to decide if they want to be in His kingdom or be left outside.  And once the time of decision is up, then those who have chosen to be in the Kingdom of God will live in the kingdom of peace with total unity in Yehovah, no divisions.  But we are not there yet.  For now, we still face division.

  • July 5, 2026 – Failure or Success— Acts #46

    July 5, 2026 – Failure or Success— Acts #46
    Acts. 13:4-12

    I have met some amazing cooks in my time, but almost all of them have stories of dishes that just didn’t turn out as they expected.  Culinary failures.  But some failures can become great successes.

    100 years ago, there were no chocolate chip cookies.  And the first chocolate chip cookie in the 1930s was a failure.  They were supposed to be making chocolate drop cookies, but they didn’t turn out as expected.  Chocolate cookies required 2 cups of shaved chocolate per batch.  Shaving that much bar chocolate using a grater is difficult, so one day someone decided to use a knife to chop up the bar into small chips instead.  And instead of melting all through the dough and getting chocolate cookies, they got what we now know as chocolate chip cookies.1  That is what I call a successful failure.

    There is a rumor online that Ruth Wakefield, the chef at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, invented the chocolate chip cookie.  But don’t believe everything you read on the internet.   She didn’t invent them, but she is the one who made them famous, and it is her recipe on the package of Nestle’s chocolate chips, by the way- the only highly successful food product made just for a specific recipe.

    My wife is an incredible cook. And she is not afraid to try something new.   But one Christmas, we were traveling to my grandmother’s home, and Shirley made a cake with strawberry filling between the layers, then decorated it with white icing.  It was beautiful… until, just a few miles down the road, she looked in the back seat and saw the layers sliding in every direction.  Apparently, the strawberry filling was a little too much like jelly and was too slippery to hold the layers in place.  So, as we passed by my office, I ran in and grabbed some tongue depressors to stick into the cake to hold the layers together.  Shirley said, “That cake was a failure,” But I disagreed.  It was delicious.

    She makes a great pound cake, but once had a pound cake overflow and had to scrape it out of the bottom of the oven.  So we had all these thin scraps of cake she scraped out.  But those scraps were better than any cake I’ve ever had.  Buttery with a great crunch.  I asked her to make it that way again, but she just gave me that look.  Again, what she saw as a failure, I saw as a grand success.

    How do you determine if something is a success or a failure?  I have done some things that were colossally dumb.  Major mistakes.  But they made really great stories.  And those are the stories we tend to tell and laugh about over and over again.  So were they a failure or not?  It all depends on how you measure success.

    So today, we will look at Paul and Barnabas’ next mission in Acts and see whether it was a success or a failure.  But I am going to jump to the end and give you a sneak peek, a spoiler.  Paul preaches this great sermon, and then he comes back to the synagogue the next week, and it is a mess.  Look at verse 50:

    Acts 13:50   But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.

    Paul and Barnabas get run out of town.  I have personally never seen a preacher run out of town after the first week.  But that is how it ends.  So let’s go back to the beginning of the story.

    Acts 13:13-16   Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia.

    So they left the island of Cyprus and headed north to what is now Turkey, the town of Perga.  At this point, we are told that John Mark left them, but Luke doesn’t say why here.  But reading on in Acts and then in the book of Galatians, we discover that Paul was very upset with John Mark over this. 

    Acts 15:36-40.  And after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John, called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

    They had a sharp disagreement about taking John Mark.  Paul felt that John Mark had deserted them.  And this dissension led Paul and Barnabas to go their separate ways.  We will deal with this issue later and see how they reconciled and how Paul later speaks fondly of John Mark, but I want to make one point. 

    These two great spirit-filled missionaries, who performed miracles through the power of God, couldn’t get along and had to part ways.  We tend to put Paul, the great missionary, on a pedestal.  But he was just like us.  He had disagreements with people. There were times he said things he shouldn’t, and times he didn’t show grace to others, as God did to him.  We should remember this when we judge others (or ourselves) for such behavior. 

    We all, like Barnabas and Paul, make these same mistakes.  We judge too quickly, we speak too soon, or too harshly.  But that is part of the process of being human.  So the measure of our closeness to God is not so much how perfect we are, or how few mistakes we make, but instead, how well we forgive each other when mistakes are made and how well we repent of our mistakes.  The Bible says 

    Proverbs 27:17. Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

    When you use iron to sharpen iron, there is friction.  It gets hot.  Sparks fly.  This is a great analogy.  We sharpen each other when there is friction.  That is the process of growing.  So when you and a friend or you and a spouse have a disagreement, and you say things you shouldn’t have said, you can think of that not simply as a failure, but as a time to grow.  If you never have arguments with a friend or with your spouse, that is unfortunate.  Because then you lose the opportunity for growth.  

    James 1:2-4   Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

     We are human.  We make mistakes. And we need to make mistakes to grow.  So next time you mess up, just tell the person you are arguing with, “Wait a minute! This is great!  This is another chance for you to practice forgiveness for the stupid thing I said, and for me to grow and learn from my error.  Failures can become successes.  

    So John Mark departs, but they move on to Antioch in Pisidia.  Remember, they left from Antioch in Syria and are now in central Asia Minor (today’s central Turkey, which in Paul’s day was known as the province of Galatia).  Paul and Barnabas will spend the rest of this missionary journey in Galatia, and Paul will later write a letter to these churches, which we call the book of Galatians.  And that book will be more meaningful to you once you know the stories of the towns Paul and Barnabas visited there.  By the way, notice that before leaving Cyprus, Luke always referred to this duo of missionaries as “Barnabas and Saul.”  We have discussed that, from that point on, he will use Saul’s Greco-Roman name, Paul, instead.  But look at verse 13.

    Acts 13:13  Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia.

    No longer “Barnabas and Saul” but “Paul and his companions.”  From this point forward, Paul is the headliner.  Some have postulated that this may have had something to do with John Mark’s leaving: that he had joined his cousin Barnabas on the journey and resented Paul taking over.  But that is just a theory. 

    So they arrive in Pisidian Antioch. 

    Acts 13:14-15  And on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.”

    Well, you didn’t have to twist Paul’s arm to get him to speak, and here is his first recorded sermon.  I need to clarify that this is not the entire sermon Paul gave that Saturday morning; it’s a summary, a condensed version.  I need to say that because you can read the whole sermon in about 2 1/2 minutes.   And I can imagine you thinking,  “Well, if the great apostle Paul can give a Bible-worthy sermon in 2 1/2 minutes, why does it take him 25-30?”  

    Paul begins this way:

    Acts 13:16. “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.”

    In the synagogue were “men of Israel” or Jews, and also those whom the Bible often refers to as “God-fearers”.  These are Gentiles, non-Jewish people, who have decided that the Roman gods are not real.  They have abandoned the religion of their country and have decided that Yehovah is the only true God.  

    So they attend Shabbat services at the synagogue, participate, and usually follow Jewish moral and dietary laws, but they have not fully converted to Judaism.   Many God-fearers were wealthy, influential people who supported and occasionally funded synagogues, such as the centurion in Luke 7, who funded the synagogue in Capernaum, or the centurion in Acts 10, who encountered Peter after his vision. 

    Then in his sermon, Paul tells the story of the Bible.  In the condensed version, he doesn’t start in Genesis, but he could have.   He begins with God choosing the Jewish people and how He led them out of Egypt. Paul says:

    Acts 13:17  “The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.

    Acts 13:18   And for about forty years, he put up with them in the wilderness.

    God put up with those murmuring, grumbling, complaining Israelites, 

    Acts 13:19-20   And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took about 450 years.

    Then Paul tells of the time of the Judges, then King Saul, and then King David.  

    Acts 13:22   And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’

    David, a man after God’s own heart.  I have said this before, but this is important.  David was a man after God’s own heart because he kept pursuing God.  He certainly wasn’t perfect.  He was human like us and made lots of mistakes.  But he was after God’s heart; he was always redirecting his heart’s attitude back toward God.  

    Oh, he made some huge mistakes- murder, adultery, to name a few- but when he failed, he repented and turned his heart back toward God.  We are talking about determining if something is a success or a failure.  David failed many times, but his life was not a failure but a success, because he repented and learned from his failure.  Again, we are human, and we will fail.  But the question is: will we repent of our failures, and will we forgive others of theirs?

    Then Paul moves the story along to John the Baptist and Jesus, the promised descendant of David.   Paul tells them:

    Acts 13:27   For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.

    The prophets had predicted that a descendant of David would come, then suffer and die.  And because the religious rulers in Jerusalem didn’t realize Jesus was that one, they fulfilled those very prophecies by seeking his suffering and death.

    This savior that God had sent, they tortured and killed.  Then Paul’s sermon takes a turn with two of the best words in scripture:  

    But God….

    Acts 13:30  But God raised him from the dead.

    Hallelujah!  He didn’t stay dead, but He is forevermore alive. In the darkest time of the planet, when the Son of God lay in a grave, Yehovah reaches out and rights all wrongs and restores justice and turns failure into success, defeat into victory. 

    Please memorize this scripture right now.  Acts 13:30 But God raised him from the dead.  

    And I am hoping you will keep those first two words at the front of your mind.  But God…. because no matter what happens in your life, those two words matter more than any circumstance you will ever face. You might have an accident like I just heard yesterday about a friend falling off a ladder, you might tear a tendon in your arm, you might have to have surgery for a bad knee or shoulder, you might get a diagnosis of cancer, a family member might die, you might die today….

    But God…. 

    They put Jesus in a grave, they finished him, they thought it was over.  But God raised him from the dead.   Your circumstances, whatever bad things might happen, are not the final sentence in your story.  Because the next sentence always begins “But God…”. 

    And consider Romans 8:28.

    Romans 8:28  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose

    So the Bible tells us that for those who love God, God occasionally works things out for good.  That now and then, God is going to take your bad situation and somehow make it become a good situation.   No!

    How many things does God work to be good?   All things.  Everything.    So anytime misfortune strikes, every time your car runs out of gas, every time someone is mean to you, every time you mess up and say something stupid, every time you are inconsiderate to someone, every time you make a mess, every time you sin, every disaster…. All of these things are then followed by God working it for good.  

    Let me say that again: because of grace, mercy, and forgiveness we have available through Jesus, every time you sin, God works it for good.  He did it for David, and he will do it for you.  

    This is why you have to be careful not to call anything a failure.   Yes, we failed, got angry with each other, and said some harsh words.  But God used that as an opportunity for us to repent and for both of us to practice forgiveness and grace.  

    So our temporary failure is turned into a success.  And even when your heart fails, when your life fails, and you stop living.  God will take the horror of death and turn it into new life, a better life.   

     What are the first two words of Acts 13:30? But God.

    This is the story of the Bible.  God created a perfect world, and then humans brought sin and death into the world.  But God, through the sacrifice of His son, made a way for sin and death to be defeated.   This is the story of all of our lives.  We are all sinners, but God….  Our friend Bina became paralyzed after a spinal surgery with no hope of recovery, but God…. My friend would die without a kidney transplant, and no one could be found to match her, but God…

    I was hit in a near head-on collision on a curving mountain road and rolled my jeep 2 1/2 times, but God was with me and kept me on the road with only minor injuries.  My sweet, precious mother and my brother both passed away in the past few years, but God… but God didn’t leave them dead just like he didn’t leave Jesus dead.  I will see them again one day. 

    You and I have had many failures in our lives, and we will have many more.  But there is another sentence coming in your story.  And that sentence begins with the first two words of Acts 13:30: But God. Do you see?  For those who love Yehovah and are called to His purpose, God will see to it that our failures become our successes.  

    Acts 13:44   The next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.

    Wow.  That’s what I call a response.  You preach once, and a week later, the whole city turns out.  Sorry.  We need a Paul right now.  I can’t even get a good friend to come visit here.   But hold on, because this is not a happy crowd.

    Acts 13:45   But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.

    Paul gets heckled, and a big argument breaks out right there in the synagogue.

    Acts 13:48-50   And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.

    So there are two groups in opposition.  One group rejoices and glorifies the word of the Lord and believes.  Another group stirring up persecution.   And that group succeeds in running our missionaries out of town.  So, back to our original question: Was this ministry in Pisidian Antioch a success or a failure?  

    Well, the best people to answer that question would be Paul and Barnabas.  The scripture tells us that they did exactly what Jesus told the disciples to do if a city rejected them:

    Acts 13:51  But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium.

    So they travel to the next city.  But are they walking with their heads down, feeling defeated?  Did they see this part of their mission trip as a failure?

    Acts 13:52   And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

    No.  Despite being run out of town by those who persecuted them, they left joyfully.  They did not see this mission as a failure.  Why?  Because being persecuted and run out of town is not the end.  There is another sentence coming in the story that begins with the first two words of Acts 13:30: “But God…”They knew God wasn’t finished in Pisidian Antioch.  Seeds had been planted, and some Gentiles believed.    The story isn’t over.  And I can almost see Paul walking out of the city, turning and saying, “I’ll be back.”

    Let me end with the story of Dr. William Leslie, a Canadian medical missionary who traveled to the remote jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to minister to the Yansi people. For 17 years, he faced tremendous obstacles in spreading the Gospel.

    After nearly two decades working in the region, his relationship with local tribal leaders broke down, and he was asked to leave.  He returned home very discouraged, thinking that his many years of difficult work were a failure, and then died 9 years later, believing that nothing good had come of his life.  Then, in 2010, almost a century later, a missionary team led by Eric Ramsey traveled deep back into that section of jungle in the DRC.  They didn’t know if anyone there had ever heard the name of Jesus.   Here is part of Ramsey’s report:

    “When we got in there, we found a network of reproducing churches throughout the jungle,” Ramsey reports. “Each village had its own gospel choir, although they wouldn’t call it that,” he notes. “They wrote their own songs and would have sing-offs from village to village.”2

    There was a church in each of the eight villages scattered there, including one that seated over 1000 people.  Ramsey asked the people who had told them about Jesus, and they told him about a man, but didn’t know his full name.  It was not until Ramsey returned to the US that he discovered the story of William Leslie, who thought he died a failure but left a legacy of souls for Jesus in the jungle. 

    William Leslie died thinking he was a failure, but oh what a welcome he received in heaven.  And over the past 100 years and for time to come, Leslie is seeing the fruit of his successful mission as thousands of people from the Congo join him in heaven, thanking him for his work.

    Our failures, the small ones we make every day and even the big ones, will never remain failures because of the first two words of Acts 13:30…. “But God.”  He is still working all things for good.  All Things.  No matter how bad the news reports are, the next sentence for us always begins with the same two words:  ‘But God.’  

    1.  Gelb, Claudia.  “The Way the Cookie Crumbles”.  Gastropod podcast, April, 2022.
    2.  Ellis, Mark.  GodReports.com.  May 19, 2014.

  • June 30, 2026 – The Journey Begins— Acts #45

    June 30, 2026 – The Journey Begins— Acts #45
    Acts. 13:4-12

    Acts 13:4-6   The two of them, [Saul and Barnabas], sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.  They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos.

    First, let’s understand the geography.  Paul, Barnabas, John, and Mark first traveled the 14 miles from Antioch to Salamis, the seaport downriver from Antioch.  Then they would have to arrange passage on a ship.  No passenger ships were traveling these routes.  They would make arrangements to pay for passage on a cargo ship.

    They would bring their own supplies and food (and, on longer voyages, perhaps a tent to sleep on deck).  The trip from Seleucia to Salamis, about 131 miles, would take anywhere from 8 hours to a full day, depending on the prevailing winds and time of the year.  There was very little travel in the Mediterranean by sea in the winter.   And you had to wait to leave the port until the winds were favorable.  If you have spent much time at the beach, you know that in the afternoon the wind blows towards the shore, so departures were usually at night or in the mornings. 

    After arriving at the port of Salamis, they began preaching their way through all the Jewish Synagogues from one end of the island of Cyprus to the other, a distance of around 100 miles.  They arrived in the city of Paphos, where our story today takes place.

    Acts 13:6-12   When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
    But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?”

    You know the first three characters in this story: Saul, Barnabas, and John Mark.  For Barnabas, going to Cyprus is returning home, as he was born there.  And they have Barnabas’s cousin, John Mark, with him.   Remember that it was John Mark’s mother’s home where Peter went when he was released from Prison.  And Saul and Barnabas take John Mark with them from Jerusalem to Antioch and then on this voyage as a “helper”. 

    Luke mentions for the first time that Saul is also called Paul.  From this point forward in the book of Acts, Luke will refer to him as Paul.  This is not a change in name.  Most Hebrews in this time had two names from birth: their Hebrew name and a Greco-Roman name.  And since Paul is now traveling primarily among the Gentiles, he will be known as Paul.  

    Next we have the proconsul, Sergius Paulus.  He held supreme authority over this province of Rome.  He controlled the government and the military, acting like a king over this area, and Rome appointed him.  He is the ultimate authority in the land.  And he summons Paul and Barnabas “to hear the word of God.”  It would not be uncommon for the ruler of a province to want to hear what traveling teachers had to say.

    And then our last character.  One of the proconsul’s advisors is present.  And he is another Jew with two names: his Hebrew name, Bar-Jesus, and his Greco-Roman name, Elymus.  Bar-Jesus is  Hebrew for “son of Joshua”.  You will recall Jesus is from the Hebrew Yehoshua, which our Bible translates as Joshua.  Luke makes sure we don’t miss that he is Jewish.  But he is a Jewish false prophet and magician.  That is the same Greek word, magos, that we see in Matthew 2; the wise men from the east are magi (the plural of magos) who brought gifts to Jesus. 

    These magicians are not stage illusionists like David Copperfield or Penn and Teller, but are practitioners of the occult. They served as government advisors who based their counsel on astrology, divination, sorcery, and magic. Typically, the king or ruler sought them out to provide answers for problems that no one else could solve.

    In the Bible, we frequently see these court magicians offering advice to the king, often by interpreting dreams and signs.   We see them in Pharaoh’s court in Exodus when Pharaoh asked them to interpret his dream, but they could not, so Joseph was called in.  They would have been the ones who tried to imitate the first few plagues and also Moses’ rod turning into a snake.  We also saw them in the king’s court in Daniel.  And just a few weeks ago, we discussed Simon the Magician, who had been baptized by Philip but then tried to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter (Acts 8:9-24).  

    Again, they were the ones the king would turn to when he didn’t know what to do.  For example, say the king has a medical problem that no one can treat, like a toothache.  The historian Pliny the Elder, in his book Natural History, discussed many recommendations given by the Magi.  For a toothache, Pliny said the Magi would suggest applying the brain of a boiled dogfish, or ground deer antlers, to the tooth.  Or, of course, you could place the warm corpse of a mouse against the tooth.

    Or my personal favorite, catch a frog under a full moon and spit into its mouth.  (If you try this, let me know how it works.)  By the way, medicine had advanced so much that over 1000 years later, in the 1300s, doctors were still recommending Pliny’s description of the Magi’s treatment of a toothache by boiling earthworms in oil and pouring it into the ear.  At this point, as a retired doctor, I should probably give a Disclaimer: The medical information in this blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional health care.  Please consult your physician.

    This magician, Bar-Jesus, also called Elymas, “opposed them.”   Why did he oppose them?  He likely perceived Paul’s message as a threat to his influence on the proconsul.  You remember that in the book of Daniel, it was the jealous Magi (advisors) of King Darius who plotted to have Daniel thrown into the lion’s den.  Bar-Jesus realizes that if the proconsul accepts the gospel message, he is likely out of a job, for the good news of the gospel is that everyone has access to God, not just a special few.  

    But a Jewish magician?  The book of Deuteronomy is clear:

    Deuteronomy 18:10-12   There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD.

    Any method of predicting the future, or seeing the answer in the stars or anything to do with the occult is forbidden.  Yet this Elymas believes he can continue to be Jewish and yet practice these things.  But Paul is not going to stand for this.

    Acts 13:9-10  “But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?”

    So the Holy Spirit and Paul waste no time in calling him out.  I’m sure Paul was bothered that he went by the name “son of Jesus” when they were trying to bring the good news of Jesus of Nazareth to this man.  So Paul says he is actually the  “son of the devil,” an “enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy.”  Paul is clear that he will have no tolerance of occult practices.  What about occult practices today?

    Just because we don’t boil earthworms or spit in frogs’ mouths anymore doesn’t mean we no longer are influenced by things of the occult.  Astrology, using the signs of the stars and planets to reveal your character or predict the future, is still big business and found in almost every newspaper and a huge online community.  There are psychic readers, palm readers, and Tarot readers on the main streets of our town.    Deer antlers and dead mice have given way to crystals and chakras, energy patterns and focus.  And again, you can find shops dealing in this most towns.  

    The occult is all around us.  TikTok has its own massive subculture, Witchtok, where modern pagans, Wiccans, and spiritual practitioners share spell tutorials, tarot readings, and mythological education.  Currently, there are over 9.2 million posts, some of which have billions of views.  Ghost hunting and parapsychology, communicating with the dead, have also become more popular, driven by reality TV shows.  

    But remember what we just read in Deuteronomy.  Let me be clear.  God’s opinion of occult practices has not changed.  It is an abomination, on the same level as sacrificing your child to a false god.   You can not partake of any of this and follow Jesus.  And like Bar-Jesus, many of the people involved with the occult are offended by the gospel.  Well, let’s see how this story ends.

    Acts 13:9-12   But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately, mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

    “You will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.”  Who does that remind you of?  Saul.

    Perhaps this blindness should not be viewed as punishment, but rather as what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus.  God made Saul blind for 3 days to give him a “time out”.  Take a few days with no distractions and think about this, Saul.  And it was not until Saul was struck blind that he saw the truth of this world, the truth of the Gospel.   We don’t know what happened to this Bar-Jesus, but we can hope that in his blindness he saw the light.  And how about the proconsul’s response?

    Acts 13:12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

    The proconsul believed.    He saw this miracle imposed on his own magician, and he believed.  That is much different than Pharaoh’s reaction when Moses bests his magicians.  He just became harder-hearted.  But Sergius Paulus believed.  Does that mean that he accepted Jesus as his Lord and King, that he gave his heart to Jesus that day?   Or does it simply mean that he believed what he saw.  Remember that the Bible says in the book of James:

    James 2:18-19 “But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!”

    So the proconsul believed.  And I would like to think that he repented and accepted Jesus as his Lord also, but the Bible does not tell us.  Or does it? Sergius Paulus was a real historical person.  We have several stone inscriptions bearing his name that were found on the island of Cyprus and in Rome.  And two more inscriptions were found in Psidian Antioch. 

    This one bears the name L. Sergius Paulus.   Another stone inscription mentions his son, of the same name, as being an official in the city of Psidian Antioch.   Several more have been found outside that same city in what archaeologists believe was the Paulus family estate.  So we know Sergius Paulus was originally from Psidian Antioch, where his extended family lived. 

    Our story with the proconsul is here in Paphos, on the island of Crete..  Psidian Antioch, where his family estate is located, is in the Galatia region of Asia Minor.  Now, where do you think Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark go after leaving Cyprus? 

    They travel from Cyprus to Perga by ship, then overland to Psidian Antioch.  Could it be that the reason Paul and Barnabas leave Cyprus and travel 270 miles is that they are making a beeline to share the gospel with the family of this proconsul who found Jesus?    We don’t know, but it is an interesting theory.

    We don’t know how the proconsul’s story ends.  Did he accept Christ and follow him, or did he just believe?  And we don’t know how Bar-Jesus’s story ends.  Did he repent and seek God?    We don’t know.  But the important question today is not how their story ended, but how your story ends.  Because your story is still being written, it is not finished yet.  What you do today, this next week, and the next year will become part of your story.  

    Let’s decide to end our stories well.  Let’s decide today to live like someone who doesn’t just believe the facts about Jesus but also lives like Jesus.  And 50 years from now, when someone in your family is telling your story, it will not be just the story of someone who worked at a job and was a good father or mother, but it will be the story of someone who followed Jesus well.  Let’s write our story so that it ends well, a story of victory in Jesus.

  • Fasting to Seek God — Acts #44

    June 16, 2026 – Fasting to Seek God — Acts #44
    Acts. 13:1-3

    This week we continue looking at Acts 13, at that particular worship service held in 45 AD in the city of Antioch.  This was a momentous day in the New Testament, for it was on this day that the Spirit of God spoke to the church and told them to send out Saul and Barnabas on a missionary journey that would change the world.  This is a church service I want to attend, where the Spirit speaks and reveals exactly what the church’s mission is.  We need to hear the Spirit’s voice today.  We need God’s direction for our church and for every church.  

    So we are looking at the elements of this particular worship service in Antioch.  At this service, we are told they were praying and fasting.  It is prayer and fasting this day that sensitizes their hearts to hear the Spirit of God.  And it is after more prayer and fasting that they follow the Spirit’s instruction and send out Paul and Barnabas.  We can not underestimate the importance of prayer and fasting in the life of the church.

    So last week we went back to the Old Testament and looked at the basics of prayer. And how prayer is a fulfillment of God’s desire for us to have a relationship with Him.    We were created to relate to God.   That is why God was with Adam and Eve in the Garden.  That is why he delivered Israel from Egypt and had the tabernacle constructed — so He could live among them.  That is why He sent Jesus to conquer sin and death.  Everything God has done in the Bible after Genesis 3 is for the purpose of restablishing a relationship with us and living with us forever.

    Sadly, though, to many people, prayer is just a few words said before a meal, a structured prayer quickly said with a child before bedtime, or a request for something from God.  God gave His Son so that we could have a relationship with Him, yet so many don’t bother to speak to or listen to Him.  We do not know God as we could, and we do not experience the power of God in our world because we do not pray as we should.  And if prayer is underutilized in our churches today, how much more is fasting ignored by God’s people in our time?

    People are very confused about fasting.  The world has defined fasting in very different ways than the Bible.  Fasting for health benefits, especially intermittent fasting, has become very popular.  The church, however, has, except for a few denominations, once a year, completely ignored the concept of fasting.  And even in the season of Lent, fasting bears little resemblance to fasting in the Bible. 

    Most Christians I know today treat fasting as if it were optional for followers of Jesus.  So let me ask you, “Is fasting a command or is it optional?”  If we look in the Bible, we find one day each year when God commanded fasting.  

    Leviticus 16:29   And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

    The Hebrew phrase that is translated “afflict yourselves” here is an idiom for fasting in the Bible.  Fasting on the Day of Atonement is mandatory for Israel.  Nowhere else can I find a command to fast.  However, many scriptures make it clear that while there is no other specific day on which a fast is commanded, fasting is certainly expected.  

    As followers of Jesus, we are supposed to follow the example of Jesus.  And we know of one particular fast Jesus did immediately after his baptism.  He went to the wilderness of Judea and fasted for 40 days.  And then Matthew gives us this verse:

    Matthew 4:2   And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

    Listen, sometimes scripture is hard to understand, and we are supposed to study and meditate on it.  This is not one of those times.  Jesus is in a desert land by himself with just a few scrub brushes and no food for over a month, and Matthew says, guess what? He got hungry.  Okay, I think most of us would have figured that out.

    But seriously, it is at this time that the adversary comes to tempt him.  (Side note:  This is when you get tempted.  When you are at your weakest, when you are all alone, when you are desperate for something.)  And Jesus’ response was to quote a verse from Deuteronomy.  

    Matthew 4:3-4   And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

    But he answered, “It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

    Jesus tells the tempter that His fast is not over yet and that He needs to spend time with the Father more than He needs food.  His relationship to the Father is more important than food, even when he hasn’t eaten in 40 days.  So we know Jesus fasted. 

    And he is our model.  If we are followers of Jesus, we do as he did.  You can’t call yourself a follower of Jesus if you don’t walk the path he walked.  Jesus also expected his followers to fast.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus discusses how we should not be outwardly showy in our religious observances.  He speaks of 3 aspects of worship there. 

    Matthew 6:2   Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.
    Matthew 6:5   And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.
    Matthew 6:16   And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others.

    Interestingly, no one would ever question the importance of regular prayer or the need to give to the poor, but Jesus lists fasting with these two spiritual practices and makes it seem that fasting should be an important part of your walk as well.  Notice that Jesus expects us to do all of these things.  He doesn’t say “if you give” but “when you give”.  It is not “if you pray” but “when you pray”.  And likewise, it is not “if you fast” but “when you fast”.  Jesus expects his followers to fast, and, like his examples of prayer and giving, expects you to do this without applause or praise from others.

    One reason the topic doesn’t come up often in the gospels is that Jesus did not ask His disciples to fast while He was with them.   But fasting was such a regular part of their religion that John the Baptist’s disciples were shocked to discover that Jesus’ disciples did not fast. 

    Matthew 9:14   Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?

    And how does Jesus answer?

    Matthew 9:15   Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.”

    Jesus said when He is gone, His disciples will fast.  While I am with them is not the time to fast.  But after I’m gone, then it will be time to fast.  So, according to Jesus, we should be fasting now.   But let me point out that it is not a command… we will look at that later.

    And I will again be leaning heavily on David Platt’s discussion of this topic.  He uses an acrostic to help people remember the Biblical concept of fasting.

    F is for Focus on God and Feast on God.  That is the reason we fast.  It is not to draw attention to ourselves; it is not to lose weight or for other health benefits.  It is to fulfill God’s plan for us to build a relationship with him.  And in fasting, we grow closer to God because we take that time to feast on God.  When we fast, we are saying that we need God more than we need food.  We need God more than we need His blessings.

    Last week, when we were talking about the prayer of petition, I said that we can come dangerously close to idolatry when we pray for things, because we may show that we desire the things of creation more than we desire the Creator—and putting anything before God is idolatry.   Fasting is a physical demonstration of our desire for God and a relationship with God above all else.  It is putting our belief that God is above all into action.  

    When we fast, we show in our bodies that our relationship with God is indeed the most important thing to us.  That we desire the blessing of His presence more than the blessings of creation.   Fasting is a proof of our desire.  It is putting your money where your mouth is, because the first part of fasting is focusing on God and feasting on God.  We fast because we are hungry for God’s presence in our lives. 

    Hunger and thirst are the most basic drives for humans.  Before birth, babies get a continuous infusion of glucose from their mother.  At the time of birth, when the umbilical cord is cut, for the first time in their lives that supply is gone.  For the first time, they know hunger.  And they must satisfy that desire to live.  Babies have to eat, and they get really loud when they don’t.

    You really don’t appreciate how good food is until you are hungry.  I am willing to bet that few of you have gone days without food other than in medical situations where they are giving you a constant infusion of IV glucose, much like before you were born.  But hunger is a powerful thing.  And see what God said to Israel,

    Deuteronomy 8:3   And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

    God let them get hungry before he fed them so that they would learn dependence on Him.  So they would learn that God is more important than food.  So they would learn that they need God more than bread. This is the idea that Jesus refers to in the prayer he taught his disciples.

    “Give us this day our daily bread.”

    When you pray that prayer, remember that daily bread is not simply food, but every word that comes from the mouth of God.  God supplies all we need, but more than His food, we need Him.

    A.– Abstain from food.  True biblical fasting is abstention from food.  Now people speak about fasting from many other things.  During Lent, you hear people say that they are fasting from social media, television, or some pleasure in life.  Now, there is nothing wrong with giving up these things for a time.  In fact, there is a lot right with giving up these things for a time.  But this is really not a fast as the Bible defines it.  Fasting in the Bible is always about food.

    We put aside not just a comfort or something we enjoy, but something we have a true physical need for.  Something we have to have to live.  Something all humans crave if they have gone without it. And by putting that need aside to focus on God, we are saying, “Yes, I need food, Yehovah, but I need you more. That is the message in several psalms.

    Psalm 42:1-2   As a deer pants for the water, so pants my soul for you, O God.
    Psalm 63:1   O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

    Fasting is not about what you don’t do (eat); fasting is about what you do instead.  So you take the time you would usually spend obtaining or cooking food, and the time you would spend eating, and you spend that time in prayer, study, and meditation with God.  If you don’t do this, then you are not eating, but you are not fasting (from a Biblical definition). Every time you feel a pain of hunger, you can voice a prayer to God.   God, I am really feeling hungry right now, but that reminds me to tell you that I love you more than food.

    When we fast like this, we show God that He is more important to us than anything else.  That we desire a relationship with Him above all else.  Rich Mullins stated this so well in his song, “One Thing”:

    Everybody I know says they need just one thing.
    And what they really mean is that they need just one thing more.
    And everybody seems to think they’ve got it coming.
    Well, I know that I don’t deserve You, Lord
    .Still I want to love and serve You more and more
    You’re my one thing.

    Save me from those things that might distract me
    Please take them away and purify my heart
    I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
    ‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
    If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on with my one thing.

    He likely got this idea from Paul:

    Philippians 3:13-14   But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

    And what is that prize, Paul?

    Philippians 3:10-11  “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

    And Paul got this from Jesus, who tells a short parable with this same message.

    Matthew 13:45-46. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

    We were created to have a relationship with God.  If we do not have that in this life, we have nothing.  That should be our one thing.  That is worth giving up everything else we have or pursue.  This is why fasting is not commanded.  Because if you love someone, you don’t have to be commanded to spend time with them; you want to spend time with them.  We are to love the lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength.  If we love God this way, then we don’t have to be commanded to pray or fast, because we want to spend time with the one we love.

    So let’s take a look at ourselves.  Ask yourself: Do I pursue God as the psalmist did?  Do I want that relationship with God more than I would want water if I were thirsty in the desert?  

    What is that one thing I am pursuing in my life?  If you don’t see that desire for God in your life right now, if the way you live does not demonstrate that God is your “one thing”, then it is time to get very serious about your relationship with God.  If that is where you are, then you need to spend some time talking with God and saying, “I am sorry that I have ignored you.”  I am sorry that I let the things of this world distract me.  You may need to pray the prayer that Rich Mullins penned in his song:

    Save me from those things that might distract me
    Please take them away and purify my heart
    I don’t want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing
    ‘Cause what will I have when the world is gone
    If it isn’t for the love that goes on and on with my one thing.

    And let me tell you, from personal experience, as one who spent a few years ignoring God, if you go to Him in this way, and then you begin to spend time with God, with prayer and then with fasting.  Your life will change.  As you begin to spend time with God, that time that at first may seem awkward and hard will become easy and wonderful.  Prayer will take on a whole new meaning for you.  And as your relationship with God grows, your desire for Him and for the things of God will grow also.   

    So the last part of the acrostic for Fast is T – Try it. (Taste and see that the Lord is good.)

    Give it a try and see how God responds. Consider it a “taste test”.  I am not asking anyone to fast for 40 days, or a week, or even a whole day. Just give it a try.  Commit to fast just one meal a week, just for the next month, and spend that time seeking God.   I feel sure that God will honor your time with Him, and you will continue it. 

  • Prayer Basics — Acts #43

    June 1, 2026 – Prayer Basics — Acts #43
    Acts. 13:1-3

    Last time, we looked at a man named Manaen and discussed how he ended up as a prophet and teacher in the church community of Antioch, even though he was raised in the home of Herod the Great.  Today, I want to begin to look at this worship service they were having in the church on this day in Acts 13.

    Acts 13:1-3   Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch), and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

    Now I don’t know about you, but this is a worship service I would like to be a part of.  The Holy Spirit speaks to the people, giving them a specific task.  And don’t miss the importance of this worship service.  The task the Spirit assigns this day becomes the greatest missionary effort in the world and becomes the basis for 14 books of the 29 books in our New Testament.  This is an incredibly important worship service.

    When was the last time you were in a worship service and the Holy Spirit spoke like this? I want desperately to hear the voice of God’s Holy Spirit giving our church instruction.  And I look at this scripture, and I want to shout out to God, “Yes! Speak to us, Lord!”  But perhaps we are not spiritually prepared for the Spirit to speak.  Perhaps our worship service is not conducive to or welcoming of the Spirit speaking.  So I have to ask, Do we worship as God desires, or are we merely following a tradition of how we worship?   What can we do to better welcome God’s voice in our service and in our lives?

    So I want to focus on particular elements of worship in the book of Acts as we encounter them in the Scripture. In the next few weeks, we will take another look at the two elements mentioned here: prayer and fasting.  The Bible says so much about prayer that we could talk about it for months.   But I want to start today with the basic ideas of prayer.  And to understand the basics of anything in the Bible, you have to begin at the beginning.

    So we go back to Genesis and see that Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. We learn that men and women are special; we were created in the image of God.  We were created to have fellowship with God.  We are unique in His creation.  Puppies nor plants nor planets talk to God.  We were uniquely created to enjoy the blessing of relationship with God.  And we learn in Genesis that our relationship is one of partnership.  God, from the beginning, asks humans to join Him in managing his creation. 

    Genesis 1:28   And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

    This is our assignment: to subdue the earth and have dominion.  We are to rule the earth in partnership with God.  But in Genesis 3, sin broke the fellowship with God.  They disobeyed the only rule He gave them.  And the shame of their disobedience led Adam and Eve to hide.  But look what happens next.

    Genesis 3:9  “But Yehovah God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

    God comes looking for them.  God desires to continue the relationship with them despite their unfaithfulness to Him.  In the midst of their sin, even as they are hiding from Him, God still pursues them.  And that is true for us today.  Our relationship with God begins with His pursuit of us, not our pursuit of Him.  We are bent towards sinning.  We do not seek God unless he calls us.  Jesus said,

    John 6:44   No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.

    It is God’s grace towards us as he pursues us in the midst of our sin, just as he pursued Adam and Eve in their sin.  This is an important lesson.  Know that when you wander from God, He is not going just to let you leave.  He pursues us despite our wandering from him.  God pursued you in love long ago and drew you to Him.  He will not stop pursuing you, because His love for you has not changed.  He still desires that relationship with you.  He will not stop.

    Just think about that for a few minutes.  God, the supreme being, the creator of the universe, the being who is eternal, who put the stars in place and designed everything we see, and who spoke it into existence.  He seeks you.

    But there is a huge problem.  God desires a relationship with us; he designed us to have that relationship with Him. But the relationship is broken by sin.  God is a God of justice.  Remember how he describes Himself to Moses:

    Exodus 34:6-7  “Yehovah, Yehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…”

    God will by no means clear the guilty.  He is just.  Justice must prevail. The guilty must be punished, and we are all guilty.  God told Adam and Eve the punishment for their sin, and we know it also: the wages of sin is death.  But we also know God is merciful and gracious. So there is a problem.  We have sinned, and the just punishment is death.  He does not desire for us to die and be separated from Him.  God wants to show us mercy, but he must be just.  So how does God reconcile this problem?

    This concept is so critical to understanding how God works in our world.  God designed a way for justice to prevail and for us to be spared through the role of an intercessor who would come before God and speak on our behalf to seek God’s mercy and grace.

    In this plan, revealed to Adam and Eve, an intercessor would come and defeat the serpent, take the penalty of sin on Himself so that God’s justice would be served and we could still commune with Him.  God’s plan was revealed from the beginning: His son Jesus, who became our intercessor before God.

    This is the way God designed the cosmos to work.  But Jesus is not the only intercessor.  We are called, in our partnership with God, to be intercessors for other people.  Jesus is the model for us to follow.  Let’s look at a few examples in Scripture of how we are called to partner with God as intercessors.

    In Genesis we see God pursuing Abram.  Abram was living in a pagan land when God sought him out.  And God gave Abram direction and promise.  But I want to focus on one meeting of Abraham with God.  Abraham and Lot have gone their separate ways.  And God comes with a few angels to visit Abraham.

    Genesis 18:22-26   So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before Yehovah. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And Yehovah said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

    And you know what happens next. Abraham bargains God down to fewer and fewer righteous people required.

    Genesis 18:31-33   He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And Yehovah went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

    In this conversation with God, Abraham serves as an intercessor for those who are condemned to death for their sins.  Now, unfortunately, there were not 10 righteous found in Sodom, so it was destroyed.  But Abraham’s plea to God not to sweep away the righteous with the wicked is answered, and God spares Lot and his family from the destruction with the wicked.  All because Abraham spoke up for them.

    We are talking about prayer.  Prayer is not just “Thank you, God, for the food.”  It is not just “Please help my house sell.”  Unfortunately for some people, prayer is all about petition.  But our goal in prayer is not to get things from God.  Our goal is to know God, to love God, and to enjoy a relationship with God.  That is the central goal of prayer.  Prayer is the pursuit of God, not just His gifts.  If all you pray for is things, then you are dangerously close to idolatry, showing you want the created things more than you want the creator.  

    Our petitions to God should be primarily about people, not things.  One of the most holy privileges we have is to intercede for others in prayer to God.  And look at Abraham’s boldness before God.  Abraham is bargaining down with God as he would someone in a marketplace.  And how does God react to Abraham’s boldness?  He responds positively.

    We see that same boldness with Jacob.  He wrestles all night long with God in a dream and says, “I will not let you go until you bless me.”  Wow! Do you pray like that? That is bold.  How does God respond to Jacob’s boldness?   Why did God come to Jacob at night and start this wrestling?  Because God wanted to bless Jacob.   But Jacob had to come to the point where he could accept God’s blessing.  He had to confess who he was to God: Jacob, a deceiver, a trickster.  Only then could God bless him as he planned to do.   Philip Brooks says it this way:

    “Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance but taking hold of God’s willingness.”1

    God wants to do so much in our lives if we will let him.  Let’s move on to Exodus and look at another example of intercession.

    In Exodus 32, Moses is up on the mountain talking to God.  Now God had invited all of Israel to come up with him, but they were too frightened by this trembling mountain of fire and smoke.  And Moses had been gone for 40 days, and they thought he died up there.  So they made a golden calf and worshiped it.  Meanwhile, up on the mountain:

    Exodus 32:7-10    And Yehovah said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

    Here is the problem. The people sinned big time.  They committed the same sin that we talked about 2 weeks ago that the shiny robed Herod Agrippa broke.  They broke the first two commandments God gave them.  They put something else above God.  So here is the judgment for their sins.  The wages of sin is death.  But Moses interceded for the people.  And what happens?

    Exodus 32:13   And Yehovah relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

    Wait!  God relented.   God changed his mind?  I have struggled with the idea of God changing His mind.  We have talked about it before.  It has puzzled me because I see scriptures that seem to point both ways.  But God led me to an answer through some sermons of David Platt.  Thank you, Jesus.

    First of all, know that God’s attributes never change.  He is always holy, loving, just.  Those attributes God tells Moses in Exodus; they don’t change.

    Malachi 3:6   For I, Yehovah, do not change.
    Numbers 23:19   God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

    God’s purposes do not change; God’s promises do not change.  But it certainly does look like God changed his mind here in Exodus.  God told Moses the Israelites deserved death.  Then Moses spoke, and God relented.

    Remember how God designed the world.  He will exact judgment unless there is an intercessor to speak for the people. And Moses is that mediator who speaks to the people for God and who speaks to God for the people.  Moses asks for a chance for the people to repent.  This was God’s plan all along.  

    That’s why he tells Moses in verse 7 to go down from the mountain.  God could have dispensed judgment on the people right then and there.  But instead he tells Moses to go down the mountain, enlisting him as their intercessor.  God’s plan was to spare his people as they repented through the actions of their intercessor, Moses.  God is partnering with Moses to deliver His people.  Moses is an integral part of God’s plan.   

    Why does God stop by Abraham’s tent on the way to Sodom?  What is the purpose of His visit with Abraham?   He wants Abraham to intercede.   He needs Abraham to intercede.  I love how David Platt says it:

    “When Moses prays for them, he does not change God’s plan; he fulfills it.”2

    This is the outcome God desired from the beginning.   Let me jump out of Genesis for a moment and give you another example from the book of Jonah:  God says that the awful evil of the city of Nineveh has come up to him.  They are to be destroyed. In 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown.  But at the same time, God sends a prophet to warn them.  Why? Because God didn’t want to have to destroy Nineveh.  That was his last resort to fulfill justice.  What God wanted was for Nineveh to repent so that he could show them mercy.  

    So God judges them for their sin and, at the same time, sends Jonah to warn them so they will repent.  And Jonah eventually goes, and this happens:

    Jonah 3:10   When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

    God relented. God didn’t change His mind.   He got exactly what he wanted: the people of Nineveh repented, and He didn’t have to destroy them.   It is the same way for the Israelites in Exodus, and it is the same way for us.  We are all sinners, every one of us.  And the wages of sin is death; that is the justice we deserve.  If you sin, you will die.  We all stand under judgment for the death we deserve.  But God said to His son as He said to Moses, Go down, for the people have all sinned, and unless someone stands in the gap for them, justice requires that they all be judged.  

    1 Timothy 2:5-6   For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

    Jesus is our mediator, the only one who can pay the price for our sins.  And he is our intercessor and the model for us to intercede for others.   And he brings us God’s salvation.  And look, for what purpose does God save us anyway?  We learn this in Exodus.  Why did God deliver His people then:

    Exodus 3:12   He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.
    Exodus 3:12  And I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” 
    Exodus 7:16  Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.’ Eight times the scripture says that God is delivering Israel from Egypt so they may worship him.

    God delivered them from Egypt so that they might worship Him freely, know Him more through the instruction they received at Mt Sinai, and that He might dwell with them as He had Moses construct the tabernacle.

    So why does God save us?  For the same reasons: That we might worship Him, know Him more through His Word and through prayer, and that He might dwell with us forever.  It is not so we can get our tickets punched to heaven.  Oh, God wants to dwell with us, but that begins now, not when we die.  God wants that relationship to begin now.   

    Read this passage from Exodus and picture it in your mind:

    Exodus 33:7–11   Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

    It must have been an awesome sight.  All standing in front of their tent in silence as Moses goes into the tent of meeting to talk with God.  But think about it.  When you go to your church this week, you won’t go to stand around silently and watch someone go into a tent to talk with God.  Because now everyone can go into the tent.  But wait, it’s even better than that.  You don’t have to go into a tent, because you are the tent.  You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  You have access to what those children of Israel could not even imagine.  Each one of us has access to God right where we sit.  We can have this experience in Exodus before we get out of bed in the morning.  This is the privilege of prayer for us.

    That brings me to a shocking verse:

    Exodus 8:13   And Yehovah did according to the word of Moses.

    The first time I read this verse, I read it, “and Moses did according to the word of Yehovah.”  That is what I was expecting to read.  But it says that God acted because Moses spoke.  

    Prayer is an invitation to join with God in affecting the course of history.   And we have primarily just looked at the first 2 books of the Bible, but if we had time to go through the rest of the Old Testament, we see that when people pray, things happen: fire falls from heaven, the sun stands still, the lame walk, the blind see, the hungry are fed, the dead come to life.  When we pray, people are given another chance to repent.

    Prayer is a powerful way we participate in His plan — He chose to design the world this way.  He doesn’t have to have us.  He could do it all without us.  But He wants to partner with us (as he told Adam and Eve in the garden).  God is inviting us, through prayer, to partner with Him to accomplish the plans He has for the world.

    When we pray, God acts.  Our prayers affect the way God acts in the world. So as we continue to go through the book of Acts, notice this:  Every major act of God in the book of Acts comes in response to the prayers of God’s people.  

    Acts 1:14   All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
    Acts 2:42  And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
    Acts 6:4   But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

    Why were they so devoted to prayer?  Because they were completely dependent on God’s power to do anything.  And we wonder why we see so many churches where nothing seems to be happening.  Because what does a church do without prayer, without the power of Jesus?  Jesus said it:

    John 15:5   Apart from me you can do nothing.

    We need to pray.  We were created to commune with God.  We have been saved, delivered from sin, so that we may worship Him, learn more about Him through prayer and worship, and dwell with Him.  And we have been called to be intercessors for others in our community.    Listen to how the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said it:

    “Believe me, if a church does not pray, it is dead. Instead of putting united prayer last, put it first. Everything will hinge upon the power of prayer in the church.”2

    or Jonathan Edwards:

    “When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it, the extraordinary prayers of His people.”3

    God wants to do more in our churches than He does because we don’t ask.  It is like we are soldiers in the trenches and our mission is to take the next hill, but we can’t because we are pinned down by machine gun fire.  And we sit in the trenches, fretting that we cannot accomplish our mission because it is impossible.  So we sit, and nothing happens.  It is like we forgot we had a radio, and all we have to do is call the base and ask for air support to come in and take care of the problem.  

    James 4:2   You do not have because you do not ask.

    I believe God wants to shower his love, grace, and mercy on this community.  But He is waiting for some faithful intercessors.  Like when Peter was released from Prison, there are miracles on our doorstep, and we won’t open the door. 

    These people in Antioch in 45 AD prayed, and the Spirit spoke to them, and they sent out the greatest missionary movement in the world, a movement that turned the world upside down.  A movement that has resulted in 3 billion people following Jesus today.     What would happen if we prayed like that?  I do not know exactly what God will do if we devote ourselves to prayer.  But I know what will happen if we don’t.

    John 15:5   Apart from me you can do nothing.

    I am asking you to be a faithful intercessor.  To go before God for your community, as Moses went before God, as Jesus went before God for us, as Jesus, right this moment, by the throne of the Father, is speaking on your behalf. Let me close with another David Platt quote:

    “Through prayer, God has called us not to watch history but to shape history for the glory of His great name”4

    1.  Brooks, Philip. from “Addresses”. 1893.
    2. Platt, David.  From a series of sermons on prayer that a friend had recorded.  Much of this post is heavily influenced by his discussions.
    3.  Spurgeon, Charles. (popular quote, source unknown)
    4.  Edwards, Johnathan.  “An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer.”  1747.
    5.  Platt, David. 

  • Manaen — Acts #42

    May 20, 2026 – Manaen — Acts #42
    Acts. 13:1-3

    We are back in the city of Antioch today, and you will recall that Antioch was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire, about the size of Atlanta today.  It was the place where Jews and Gentiles really began to worship together, following Messiah Jesus.  Barnabus was sent there from Jerusalem to find out what was going on with the Gentiles, and he brought Saul there, and the two of them spent a year teaching “great numbers” of followers of Jesus. (Acts 11:25).   Our scripture today tells of a particular worship service they held there:

    Acts 13:1-3   Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch), and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

    Simeon called Niger.  Simeon is from the Hebrew name Shimon, the same as Simon Peter, so he was Jewish. Niger is a Latin word meaning ‘black’ or ‘dark,’ and it was used in a descriptive, not a derogatory fashion.  It is tempting to associate him with Simon of Cyrene, who was made to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to the place of execution (Luke 23:26), and that is possible.  Cyrene was on the Northern coast of Africa (modern-day Libya).  And he is mentioned with Lucius of Cyrene.

    But Shimon was a very common name for Jews.  There are 9 Simons in the New Testament, and two in Jesus 12 disciples (Simon Peter and Simon the Zealot).   Lucius was also a very common name for Romans.  In fact, Lucius was one of the standard 18 given names for Romans 

    Yes, almost all Roman men at this time were given one of these 18 names.  (Later expanded to 36 names.) 

    Aulus Lūcius Quintus
    Appius. Mārcus Servius
    Gāius Mānius Sextus
    Gnaeus Māmercus Spurius
    Decimus Numerius Titus
    Kaesō Pūblius Tiberius

    Romans typically had three names, such as Gaius Julius Caesar (given name, family name, and a specific branch of the family name or honorific).  Daughters were given the feminine form of their father’s name.  So the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar was named Julia.  If there were more than one daughter, they added tags like Maior (the elder) or Minor (the younger).

    The other prophet and teacher mentioned in our passage this morning is Manaen.  All we are told of Manaen is that he had “been brought up with Herod the tetrarch.”  Your Bible probably has this in parentheses, and you are likely to read right past it.  The Greek phrase being translated here is often translated as “foster brother” and refers to boys of the same age as royal princes, who were taken to court as babies or very young children to be brought up with them.  So Manean was brought up with Herod the tetrarch, as if they were brothers.  Here we go with the Herods again.

    Herod the tetrarch we are talking about today is not Herod Agrippa that we discussed two weeks ago, the ruler with the shiny silver robes who accepted praise as a god and was struck dead.  That Herod was a grandson of Herod the not-so-Great.  Today we are talking about Herod Antipas, who was a son of Herod the not-so-great.  He would have been an uncle to Agrippa. 

    When Herod the not-so-great died, Herod Antipas took over 1/4 of his father’s kingdom and ruled Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to 39 AD.  We remember him as the one that John the Baptist called out for marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias.   (This Herodias was the sister of Herod Agrippa.).   Herod Antipas had John imprisoned and then had his head chopped off as requested by Salome, who, by the way, was the half-sister of the shiny-robed Herod Agrippa. And you thought TV soap opera families were mixed up.  As ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas had some interaction with Jesus.

    Matthew 14:1-2   At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus, and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.”

    Antipas was afraid that the man he had murdered, just to satisfy his wife, Herodias, and Salome, was back from the dead. So what does Antipas decide to do? 

    Luke 13:31-32   At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him [Jesus], “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox….

    And Antipas finally gets the opportunity to meet Jesus on the morning of his crucifixion.  When Pilate questions Jesus, he learns that Jesus is from Galilee, so he sends him to Antipas, the ruler of Galilee.

    Luke 23:6-11  When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.

    Antipas basically gave his stamp of disapproval on Jesus to Pilate.  This was just what Antipas wanted.  Pilate could do what he could not do: kill Jesus publicly.  

    In the last years of his reign, Antipas was at war with the king of Arabia, primarily because he had divorced the daughter of the king of Nabatea to marry Herodias.  He lost that war and was then accused of rebellion against Rome by his nephew/brother-in-law, Herod Agrippa.  So Antipas was stripped of all of his money and land and exiled to Gaul (modern-day France).  

    Now, if you think we have spent a lot of time talking about all of these Herods, then you are correct.  But we keep finding them woven into the story of the Bible.  They are part of the context of this book, and if we don’t understand the political climate, then we miss part of what the original readers got from the scripture.

    Now that I have reminded you of how evil the Herods were, especially Herod Antipas, let’s look back at this man, Manaen.  He grew up with Antipas; they played together as children.  They were exposed to the same family, the same education, and the same religion.  The person Manaen knew as father was Herod the (not-so) great. And remember that Herod the not-so-great killed 3 of his sons, who were also Manaen’s foster brothers.  Imagine growing up with this crazed, murderous ruler as your father, and your closest friend being another evil despot, Herod Antipas. Not the best start

    And yet Luke tells us that this Manaen is a prophet and teacher in Antioch and helped launch the missionary movement that carried the gospel to the Gentile world. 

    Two boys raised in the same environment. One becomes part of a kingdom built on pride, power, and compromise.  The other joins a kingdom based on sacrifice, grace, love, and mercy.  Acts 13 quietly reminds us of a profound truth:  Your environment may have some influence on you, but it does not determine your destiny.  Your choices make the biggest difference.

    We see this over and over in the Bible and in our lives.  In Genesis 4, we have Cain and Abel.  They were raised by a mother and father who walked in the garden with God.  They heard firsthand of God’s love and grace, but also of His judgment.  These brothers both brought offerings to God.  Abel’s offering was accepted. Cain’s offering was not accepted. 

    Genesis 4:2-5  Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time, Cain brought to Yehovah an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And Yehovah had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

    You have probably heard that Abel’s offering was accepted because it was a choice animal sacrifice, and Cain’s was rejected because it was not.  But if you have read Leviticus, you know that grain and other harvested crops are certainly acceptable sacrifices.   The problem was not Cain’s offering, but it was Cain’s heart.  

    Genesis 4:6-7   Yehovah said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?

    God does not say “will your offering not be accepted” but “will you not be accepted.”  Again the problem is Cain, not the offering.  Remember what Jesus said:

    Matthew 5:23-24  So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

    Jesus spoke these words as if he were speaking to Cain’s situation.  God is much more concerned with the heart of the one offering than He is with the gift itself.  

    And Cain then kills his brother Abel.  And I can not for a minute believe that this one instance of jealousy led to murder.  Resentment had been building up inside of Cain for some time, and Genesis merely tells us the straw that broke the camel’s back.  And it is in this state of resentment of his brother that Cain makes an offering that God can not accept.

    Genesis 4:6-7   The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

    God makes it clear to Cain.  Cain was not trapped by fate. He was confronted with a choice.  Do well and be accepted, or do not do well and be conquered by sin.  And this is the difference between Cain and Abel.  They were raised the same, but they made different choices.  Abel is remembered as a man of faith. Cain is remembered as a man who fell prey to sin.

    Another example is Jacob and Esau.  Twin brothers. Same parents. Same household. Same God.  Yet Esau treated spiritual things casually. He sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.  He shunned his parents’ advice to be obedient and not take a wife from the Hittites.  The book of Hebrews later describes Esau as someone who was “sexually immoral” and  “unholy” because he traded eternal things for immediate gratification.  Jacob certainly was not perfect.  He had flaws and failures, but he desired God’s blessings and promises.  One brother lived for the moment. The other eventually learned to pursue God.  Again, similar upbringing, different decisions, different priorities.

    And I could talk of other brothers in the Bible who were raised in the same family but had different outcomes.  We could speak of Joseph and his brothers and the difference in their lives due to the decisions they made.  Or we could talk of the brothers in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. But look at the deep contrast here in Acts of Manaen and Herod Antipas.

    Herod Antipas sought to gain authority through harsh rule and murder.
    Manaen surrendered himself to the authority of God.

    Antipas imprisoned and killed a prophet.
    Manaen became a prophet and teacher.

    Herod Antipas scorned and mocked Jesus.
    Manaen chose to follow and worship Jesus.

    Antipas tried to shut down the spread of the Gospel.
    Manaen participated in sending the gospel to the nations.

    This is one of the best contrasts of life choices in Scripture.

    Antipas and Manaen both learned from Herod the (not-so) Great. Antipas became just like Herod, leading a kingdom through treachery, deceit, and murder.   Manaen chose to go the opposite direction, joining the kingdom of God, in opposition to the kingdoms of this world.   Regardless of what kind of environment you grow up in, you choose your own path.  And, like Antipas and Manaen, it seems that children either follow their parents’ path or take a completely opposite path.

    It is like the story of a man who was a violent drunk who beat his two sons every day. There was never a day he wasn’t drinking.  The first son went on to be a violent drunk like his father; the second never touched alcohol and avoided all forms of violence.   When asked why they became who they were, both of the sons said, “With a father like that, how could I not end up like this?”   We cannot choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we react to them.

    And we could talk of modern-day examples.  Adolf Hitler grew up in a home with a strict, physically abusive father.  His father died when he was 14, and his mother 4 years later.  This difficult childhood definitely influences a person, but it does not determine their destiny.  His sister Paula grew up in the same household but lived a quiet life, never joining the Nazi Party.   Or we could talk about Malcolm X and his siblings, or Jimmy Carter and his brother, or many more.

    Everyone must choose which kingdom they will serve.  Moses said it this way:

    Deuteronomy 30:19-20  I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving Yehovah your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that Yehovah swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

    Joshua said this: 

    Joshua 24:15 …choose this day whom you will serve … But as for me and my house, we will serve Yehovah.

    In his poem The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost said this:

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.

    And Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said:

    Matthew 6:24   No one can serve two masters…

    Every person must choose what kingdom they will serve.  Herod chose an earthly kingdom of fame and fortune, murder and deceit.  Manaen chose the Kingdom of God.  And all of us today are who we are based on the choices we have made.  

    But I want to focus for just a few minutes on something that we don’t know about Herod Antipas and Manaen.   We know of the negative influence of Herod and his family on Manaen.  But for Manaen to become a prophet and teacher in one of the world’s largest Christian communities, there had to be someone who was a major positive influence on him.   Someone had to show him the possibility of a path different than the path of the Herods.  There is someone not mentioned here who spoke life into Manean.  Someone who told him about Jesus.  Someone who invested time in him. 

    Now I have a theory about who it could have been.  Luke mentions Joanna in Chapter 8 of his gospel as a woman Jesus healed of evil spirits.  She was the wife of Chuza, the head of Herod Antipas’ household.  Joanna was a disciple of Jesus and supported his ministry financially. She is present at Jesus’ tomb with Mary Magdalene and other women.  And her place in the household of Manaen’s foster brother means she would certainly have known Manaen.  It could have been her who led Manaen to Jesus and helped him choose not to follow the way of the Herods.  

    Think for a moment about the people outside your immediate family who had a strong positive influence on you.  Who showed that they believed in you at a time when you needed it?  Who was there for you? 

    We need to share our stories.  I want to encourage you to share with someone this week the story of the person who influenced you.  If they are still around, you might give them a call or send them a note.  But I am asking you to tell someone else the story, over lunch today or sometime this week.  This story of Manaen and Herod is in our Bibles for a purpose.  This story needs to be told, and your story needs to be told.

    Secondly, I want you to ask God to direct you to at least one person that you can pour into over the next few years.  Someone that you can be intentional to build up, to encourage, to pray for. Someone that you will reach out to weekly.  It may be a young person, or it could be someone of any age.  Everyone needs someone to believe in them and lift them up.  

    I want to encourage you to commit to “Go Deep” with someone.   Most of our relationships are way too shallow.  We have so many people that we talk with, but we never seem to talk about the really important things in life.  Consider committing to long-term impact with one or a few people.  To have regular contact with them.  You can’t pour into a lot of people this way, but you can make a difference for a few.  Andy Stanley says it this way, “Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.” 

    Be intentional!  Choose someone who is unchurched, or someone who really needs a friend or someone to cheer for them.  Look at this story in scripture.  Someone spoke life into this man, Manaen, and instead of following the way of the Herods, he chose to follow the path of Jesus.  He did not become like his father, Herod the not-so-great, or his brother Herod Antipas. Instead, he strove to become more like his Heavenly Father.  And by being a part of the group that sent out the first missionaries, he changed the world.  And someone unknown to anyone today except God helped make that difference in Manaen’s life.