Who Were the Galatians? Adventures in Evangelism
Acts 13 and 14

Thinking back on the earliest beginnings of Christian missions, we might marvel at the exploits of Paul and his companions, who were true “pioneers.” Actually, though, both their resources and results are the same as ours today! We’ll visit four cities, which reveal four results of sharing the gospel.

1. Pisidian Antioch: strategy
2. Iconium: strife
3. Lystra: stoning
4. Derbe: success

We want to lay a bit of groundwork regarding the churches of Galatia. We’ll be largely in the book of Acts, chapter 13 -- what is commonly understood to be the first missionary journey of the apostle Paul. The story begins in Antioch of Syria. There were probably fourteen or so different Antioch’s in this era because the fellow who named them wanted to be remembered. We meet only two of them in the Bible, both in Acts 13.

What is known as Syrian Antioch became the headquarters, the main church of the first century. The Scripture records that believers were first called Christians here.

Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark sailed from Antioch to Cyprus to Perga and then went north about 100 miles to another Antioch known as Pisidian Antioch. From there they went over to Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, and then retraced their route to return to Antioch. That, in a nutshell, is the first missionary journey of the apostle Paul. It probably took place in 47 or 48 A.D. At that point the apostle Paul had likely been a believer about 15 years.

That challenges me. Having been a believer for only15 years, look what he’s about to do! In days when there were no mission agencies or anything of the sort, he and his companions just went out in the name and in the power of Jesus.

The gospel is going to be shared in untried territory in what is today eastern Turkey; in those days it would have been known as eastern Asia Minor. When I think about what we’re going to be covering, I’m reminded of Jesus’ parable of the sower and the soils. Jesus talked about the sower going forth to sow; he scatters his seed and different things happen.

We lived for quite a while in a section of Montana where the farming is predominantly what they call dry-land farming. That is, non-irrigated. It has to rain or nothing happens. We might think, “how tough can it be -- putting some seeds in the ground, letting the rain come, and harvesting?” There’s much more to it than that. Many of these farmers work multiple thousands of acres with huge equipment and it can get pretty complicated. It’s not just a matter, necessarily, of putting seeds in the ground and crossing fingers, going on vacation, hoping for the best.

Many of these fellows hire consultants, agronomists, who sit with the farmer, and review his whole operation. They get out a plat map, look at the various sections and the plots of acreage. They compare what they see with what the government says you can plant, how much and where. They determine type of soil, type of seed, spring wheat, winter wheat, what strain, barley, whatever is going to be cut, how best they can schedule. All that is laid out carefully.

But there’s a sense in which all bets are off when it comes to the unexpected. An infestation of sawflies. Maybe it will hail. Most farmers want to be completely hailed out if they get any hail at all, claiming crop insurance on the whole place and not having to start a combine in the fall. It can hail. It can drought. All bets are off when it comes to the unknown.

Jesus’ farming method in the parable was a little bit more simplistic than that and when I look at a comparison between the two – modern dry land with what Jesus described, I get to thinking about this first missionary enterprise. It seems to me as if it’s a curious combination of both. In other words, we don’t just have a few renegade Christians thinking it would be cool to go out there haphazardly sharing Jesus and who knows what will happen.

We have an organized effort based upon God’s mandate in the Bible and to the apostle Paul. They went out with that mandate as their goal of taking the gospel to the Gentiles. Interestingly, they played to mixed reviews, just like Jesus predicted would happen when the seed of the word of God is scattered as indeed they scattered it.

We see some things in common among the four cities listed, but we clearly see some differences too. We’ll do kind of a travelogue.

Pisidian Antioch: strategy

We’re dealing with a key guy here, Paul, originally known as Saul. In Acts 13 they’re heading out from Syrian Antioch. They’ve gone to the island of Cyprus, they’re having very interesting ministry. Notice in Acts 13:9

But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him (Elymas the magician) and in a sense pronounced a curse upon him. This is where the transition is made from the name Saul to the name Paul. From here on out he’s always Paul.

Paul describes himself in the third chapter of Philippines as a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, zealous for the law. He was extraordinary among his peers in his prosecution of the law of God and persecution of the people of God.

On the road to Damascus everything changed for him. Light from heaven, to the ground, several days of blindness, introspection, reflection, fasting and prayer. At the end of that time, through another of God’s servants, Ananias, Saul realized that God had his hand on him. He committed his way to God’s mandate which was clearly stated, “Paul, you will be a chosen instrument of mine to take the gospel to the Gentiles.” He understood the word of God very, very clearly.

What’s the problem with that? What’s so unusual about that? The Jews had exclusive rights, so to speak, to the gospel and there was prejudice on their part built in, generationally imposed, against anybody who wasn’t a Jew – which is how they would define a Gentile.

The vast majority of the population of the human race is Gentile. God wanted His gospel to go to the nations of the world. Paul is going to be this chosen instrument to take the gospel to the Gentiles from a Jewish origin, from Jewish people, with Jewish scriptures. It would not be a simple matter and that’s why they had to come up with some sort of plan. How will we do this? They had to use their heads and trust God’s leading as they proceeded.

Here’s how it went: How will we reach Gentiles if we’re Jews? We will have opposition from our own people and those on the other end will not necessarily warmly receive us. What shall we do?

There was a class of people who were a part of society in the Roman Empire in those days called God-fearers. They were Gentiles, most likely Romans, but they had an attraction, a draw to the God of Israel. Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 is described specifically as a God-fearer. He gave alms to the Jewish people; he prayed to the Jewish God; he was one who was drawn to the one true God. Yet they were Gentiles, not Jewish people.

They were sort of standing on the line between the two groups and yet belonged to the Gentile camp. It was clearly what Paul was going to do – and this is where this is going – he knows he has to reach the God-fearers and through them, the Gentiles because that’s who they are. That’s where they’re from. Those are their roots. That’s their link. That’s their connection. And he has to make one.

In order to get to the Gentiles then, he has to get to the God-fearers. If he’s going to get to the God-fearers he has to get them in the synagogues because that’s where he would find them. That’s why we see when the apostle Paul goes out on his journeys, regardless if it’s first, second, or third missionary journey, he’s always drawn to the synagogue because there he has two groups. He has Jews -- not his primary responsibility as a missionary -- and he has God-fearers. The God-fearers open the door for him to the Gentile community, so that’s where he wants to go. There’s a design to what he’s doing and we will follow his adventures as he does that.

If we are Christians, if we have placed all our trust in Jesus only and we know Him, He wants us to share that good news with other people. So very often the obstacle that seems to stand between them and us is, “How are we going to do this?” We get maybe one extreme or the other. We get the extreme that says, “I’m just going to go hit everybody I see. I’m just going to share the gospel, I’m going to leave tracts everywhere I go; I’m going to tell it anywhere I can, everywhere I can.”

Oftentimes those people can be a turnoff to folks. Why? Because there’s no connection, there’s no relationship at all, no common ground yet. It’s just the gospel blimp, if you will. If you’ve ever read that story of the fictitious account of those who in their zeal just to get the word out, rented a blimp, a dirigible, and went up and scattered tracts everywhere. They were woefully short on relationship and ended up irritating all kinds of people who had to dig the tracts out of their rain gutters..

On the other extreme are those Christians, and I suspect far more than we would care to know, who would say, “I’m just not going to say anything. I don’t know what to say, don’t know how to say it, I’ll just live a good life.”

Living a good life doesn’t tell anybody how to come to know the only one who can give eternal life. Just living a good life is critical, but it isn’t enough. There’s more to it than that.

Joe Aldrich, who for many years was the president of Multnoma School of the Bible, wrote a book on evangelism, and I believe that what he describes in his book is what the apostle Paul and his friends were doing on their journeys. In Aldrich’s view, he felt just having a crusade or handing out tracts everywhere wasn’t the best way to go. He was into what he called relational evangelism and he put it this way, “Who has God, the sovereign head of the church, placed in your life? Identify your spiritual sphere of influence.” We’re almost talking strategy, aren’t we?

He said, “It’s required that we stop and think, ‘With whom do I live. Who’s in my family? To whom am I related? With whom do I work? If I’m in school, who has God put around me there, on the job, in my neighborhood, where I live. Who is within my spiritual sphere of influence?’”

Aldrich says once you identify that basic group, then begin deliberately what he would call “fishing”  -- inviting people over, getting to know them, broaching the subject of spiritual issues, and seeing who is interested, seeing with whom do we have common ground. He says those who are interested are the schooling fish. Those who are not interested will let you know soon enough.

But many are and this is what the apostle and Barnabas and his friends are going to learn as they go to these various places. They’re going to share the word, they’re deliberately going to the synagogue, to the Jew, to the God-fearer, and on to the Gentile community. What they’re going to find out is there are a lot of people who want to hear. They’re fishing intelligently and they’re deliberately building bridges into the lives of people whom God has put before them.

According to the Bible, anyone who is interested in the gospel is someone in whom the Spirit of God is evidently working. When the Spirit of God begins a process He doesn’t let it go. Perhaps God will use you or me as part of that process to introduce that interested person in whom the Holy Spirit is working to a personal relationship with Jesus.

We can only know who is interested if, first of all, we know people. I’ve read several times that most Christians, once professing faith in Christ and entering into a fellowship or church, within a matter of 2 years have almost no contact with anyone who is unchurched. All their friends are Christians.

It’s very difficult to be salt in society if we don’t know a society, if we don’t know anyone out there. We must build those bridges and that’s what we’ll see Paul doing. We must know the unchurched people, and we must know how to say the words. God will superintend. We trust Him to set things up and we proceed in prayerful expectancy -- what will He do.

If relationships are in place and the words are there willingly to be spoken, it’s amazing what God can put together if we’re alert to it. We’ll see what happens with the apostles as they simply go and simply share and then we see God working and doing with His Word what only God can do.

We begin in the first two verses of Acts 13. The strategy is to send these individuals to key communities in the nearest Gentile realm, which is eastern Turkey -- the nearest foreign field to them.

Acts 13

¹ Now there were at Antioch (Syrian Antioch), in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch,

Herod was a childhood companion of Herod Antipas – the one who had John the Baptist beheaded, the one who was incidental to the mock trial of Jesus. And now some person he had known all his life is a believer and he’s a part of this church in Antioch.

² While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
³ Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

They went to Seleucia and Cyprus and the adventure begins, an amazing thing. We look at this and think, “Wow! This is pioneer work. They’re just going and trusting God to do amazing things.” What did they have for resources? I look at this and think, “Same as us.”

They have a Biblical mandate first of all. We may think, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). It was clearly God’s will that the nations be reached. It didn’t begin in Matthew 28, it began in Genesis 12 when God began to reveal His promise to bless or favor the nations through the seed of Abraham. They’re simply continuing. This has been Biblical for a couple thousand years at this point and they’re carrying it out.  They can expect God to do some things and He’s going to. So they have a Biblical mandate to begin with.

Secondly, they have the endorsement of the church. While we may not have exactly the same view of church, I can bet that in this early day they took their church very, very seriously. After all, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” They saw themselves literally as the representative body of Christ.

After the 5^th chapter of Acts, when Ananias and Sapphira were carried out feet first, they took seriously the church and God’s use of it as His instrument and God’s affection for it as His people. So when the church says, “Let’s go,” that carries a great deal of weight. They have the endorsement of their church.

Third, they have the Spirit’s leading. These men were gifted, burdened, prompted. We do not know precisely how the Holy Spirit made this designation but clearly it was registered in the sensitive hearts and minds of those who were in leadership and they all knew by consensus, “This is what has to happen.”

Barnabas and Saul are the ones to do it -- perhaps because their personalities were different but complementary, perhaps because of Paul’s amazing ability in the Scriptures combined with his knowledge of that part of the world. The fact that he’s from Tarsus, in that same region certainly had a lot to do with the fact that Paul’s mandate to the Gentiles was well known.   And so they have the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Fourth, as we shall see, they had the Scriptures and knew how to use them. They took the Scriptures with them because they went to the synagogue as way of routine and shared from the Bible.

Fifth, they had accountability. They were in partnership. It was Paul and Barnabas and they took along John Mark from Jerusalem, who didn’t last very long. A sort of sub plot occurs with John Mark abandoning them at Perga and going home. It made Paul mad. He didn’t want to take him along on the next journey because he had abandoned their work.

They had accountability; they had the two of them and there would soon be more because God is going to make increase happen. He will take care of that.

Finally, they also had initiative. You’ve heard of armchair geographers, armchair quarterbacks, armchair experts. These fellows were not. They got up out of their armchairs and they put shoe leather to what they knew God wanted. They didn’t simply sit around talking about it, they actually engaged it. They had initiative and away they went.

Picking it up in Acts 13:13. We’ll walk through some of these verses and see what God does in Pisidian Antioch.

¹³ Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia; but John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
¹⁴ But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.

That’s probably 100 miles, from sea level to about 3800 feet. One of the early historians of the New Testament suggested that perhaps the apostles sought a higher climate for health reasons. We don’t know. He left the low country at Perga and climbed to Pisidian Antioch and, true to form, went into the synagogue and sat down.

Paul is a trained rabbi in the Scriptures. He’s also a born-again Christian who knows how to make perfect sense out of the Old Testament text.

What’s his desire? To reach the Jews? No, he’s going to get to the Gentiles, but to get to them he has to meet them here and share the good news about what Jesus has done so that he gains a hearing among those who otherwise would be difficult to contact. So they sit down and have the reading of Law and Prophets. Recognizing that he’s a rabbi, he’s learned, they ask, “What do you have to say to us?” Paul stood up, motioning with his hand. There’s evidence of an eyewitness account. It had to have been Barnabas telling the story, probably to Luke who wrote it down.

¹⁶ Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.

There it is, two groups. Listen. And he begins with Israel in Egypt. He takes them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan. He takes them from the time of the judges (verse 20) to Samuel the prophet. They ask for a king, they get Saul, the son of Kish of the band of Benjamin. After Saul, David, a man after God’s own heart. All the Jews are delighted with this.

They loved Moses. David is one who will deliver the Messiah. They understood. They’d read Jeremiah, they’d read the prophets, they knew this was what was planned, but they don’t know what’s coming. Paul is kind of setting them up.

²³ From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus

I love how Paul, here and elsewhere to various audiences, is not shy about naming the Savior. In our culture it’s fashionable to consider Jesus as a good man, a good teacher, a prophet, Son of God, but the apostle doesn’t hesitate to take the heritage of the nation from the exodus, to the judges, to Samuel, to Saul, to David, right to Jesus of Nazareth who died on the cross for their sins.

That’s one detail we definitely don’t want to overlook. He talked about John the Baptist and his baptism of repentance. He quotes John regarding the sandal strap. It’s interesting that he would pick up on that.

²⁶ Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God,
to us the message of this salvation has been sent.

You’re the ones I’m really going after. It doesn’t say that, but that’s where he’s headed.

²⁷ For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath

They condemned Him; they put Him to death on the cross. They took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. God raised Him from the dead after three days.

³¹ For many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.
³² And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers

He takes them to Jesus, to the cross, to the burial, to the resurrection, and he’s setting them up by saying, “Look here. If this guy beat the grave, He wins. If He beat the grave, He truly is who He said He is.”

He brings in resurrection. This is new to them, but they sure like the idea of beating the grave. Jesus has done this and He appeared alive to many witnesses. “I’m not making this up,” he said. “I can produce witnesses, there are hundreds of them.”

“What I’m telling you is true so we want you to know the good news of the promise made to the fathers. This isn’t new; this isn’t stuff we’ve made up. This comes from our history that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that He raised up Jesus just like the 2^nd Psalm.”

They love the 2^nd Psalm.   It was foundational truth to them. “Thou art my Son. Today I have begotten Thee.” You are the Messiah and he’s saying this Messiah is Jesus. It can’t be David. David went to the grave and underwent decay. This One, in the line of David, came out of the grave never to know decay.

³⁷ He whom God raised did not undergo decay.
³⁸ Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,
³⁹ and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things,

When we get into Galatians, he takes that theme and really goes with it. But he’s presenting it here to this mixed crowd waiting to see what God will do with this truth.

³⁹ and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.

Keeping which rule freed you from sin? More on that in Galatians.

⁴⁰ Therefore take heed, so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you
⁴¹ Behold, you scoffers, and marvel, and perish; for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.

They got their interest up. And they said, “Can you preach to us again in a week? You’re saying good things.” The Spirit of God is moving. He’s taking the truth of these Scriptures and he’s applying them in people’s hearts and in people’s consciences and stirring them up. They’re saying, “We want to hear more.”

⁴³ When the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God.

The next Sabbath everybody shows up. The whole city assembled to hear the Word of God. That’s got to be a lot of folks. This has been a wave that has really grabbed folks’ hearts. The Holy Spirit is at work.

But the Jews saw the crowd. And we know some mischief is afoot. They were filled with jealousy and they began contradicting the things spoken by Paul. They were blaspheming, they were reviling. They were venomous in their counterpoint. They don’t like the crowds going after Paul; they want them for themselves. So Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly – and this is where he shows them his hand. This is where he lets it happen and the results are fascinating.  Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly. It does take boldness to speak out for the Lord.

⁴⁶ Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.

If you’re not interested in eternal life, if this isn’t for you, behold, we’re going to the Gentiles. You could have heard a pin drop. Going to the Gentiles?

⁴⁷ For thus the Lord has commanded us.

And he quotes from Isaiah the prophet:

“I have placed you as a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.”

You can’t argue with Isaiah, can you -- even if you’re a good Jew. When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord. All this time, the Gentiles -- if I may take a little bit of liberty with description -- kind of had to slither into the synagogue. Always reminded – “You sit over there. We’re the Jews. We have the truth. We have God. We have a corner on this thing. You can come in, but don’t forget you’re a Gentile. We’ll share it with you. We’ll even baptize you. But don’t forget you’re a Gentile.”

Now, according to what Paul has preached from the Scriptures, they’re saying, “It doesn’t apply any longer?

When the Gentiles heard that it was for them too, they’re rejoicing, they’re ecstatic. They’re glorifying the Word of the Lord.

48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”

Paul and Barnabas had no way of saying, “You, you, and you.” They didn’t have to worry about that because the Spirit of God had gone before them and had been working in the hearts of these God-fearers all this time. They’d been hearing the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures. They were ripe for these messengers to arrive and when they heard the good news, they rejoiced in it and came to faith because the Holy Spirit of God was working on their hearts and the messengers of the gospel were faithful to their calling. Here we have all kinds of people coming to know the Lord.

49 The word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.

Here we go. We have momentum, God’s momentum. He’s making things happen as His servants are faithfully sharing the truth. But there we go again. The Jews aroused the devout women of prominence. I’m not exactly sure who the devout women of prominence might be but evidently they had big sticks.

⁵⁰ But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.
⁵¹ But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium.

It’s interesting that when the seed of the Word is shared, responses are on the one hand embracing, and on the other hand, opposition. The natural heart is opposed to the truth of God and it surfaces when that truth is shared.

God grants increase. Opposition has to get out. That’s true with us – when we share God’s word we will see that there will be those that want to hear more. They’ll say, “This is for me.” We will also have those who will say, “This is not for me.” We may even have those who say, “This is offensive to me.”

Naturally (and I use that word deliberately) the gospel is always offensive because the gospel says, “You can’t do it yourself. You in and of yourself are not enough.”

“You not only do not deserve God’s favor, you ill-deserve it.” That’s offensive. Every human being who has ever lived has wanted to have something to do with getting himself or herself to heaven. Human pride is an extremely strong character. That’s why the gospel is offensive. It says, “Sorry, pride doesn’t work here. Get rid of it and put all your trust, not in your goodness, not in your sincerity, not in your lack of hypocrisy, not in your religious consistency – don’t put your trust in those places. Put your trust in the One who paid for your debt on the cross at Calvary, all your trust in Him alone and He gets you to heaven. There is no room for pride. “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling,” as the song goes.

So we have joy and we have opposition. Remember the sower goes forth to sow. He scatters the seed and different things happen. His responsibility is not to make anything grow. His responsibility is to scatter the seed. Yours and mine is the same. We are not responsible to argue, to coerce, to manipulate anyone, anywhere.

We are responsible to pray that the Spirit of God will make us sensitive and be working in the hearts of others. We are responsible to care – that means to love those God has put around us, to show His character through us to those He’s put in our lives and then when the time comes, to open our mouths and say the words, “Would you like to know the One who died for you?”

Prayer, care, and share – that’s our responsibility. Increase is His and that’s where He leaves us. For whom are we praying? For whom are we caring? With whom are we sharing?

Pray that God will open your eyes and my eyes to those He has put around us, giving us sensitive ways of building relationships so that one day we’ll say the words and see what God does with them.