FBCOpelika

I will return to our study of the book of Acts in five weeks. It is unusual for me to do a special series on Sunday mornings, so let me share with you how this came about.

Recently I heard a message by a pastor I often listen to. He stated that the leaders of his church have asked him periodically to share the unique purpose of their church with the people. I believe this is a healthy thing to do. We have chosen this time because people are returning from summer vacations and students are arriving in Auburn. We feel that to explain what is most important to us as a church will benefit our long-time members as well as those looking for a church.

I believe God has a special purpose for every church. The body of Christ is bigger than one local congregation. According to I Corinthians 12, God has a unique calling for every part of His body. God’s purpose for us at FBC Opelika is not the same as the unique calling of good churches like Lakeview Baptist, Cornerstone Methodist, or Church of the Highlands. We are not to be like these churches. We are to fill a unique role in the body of Christ.

Paul and Barnabas are on their first missionary journey. After beginning on the island of Cyprus, they sail to the coast of what is now Turkey and land at the port city of Perga, a hot, humid coastal town infested by mosquitoes and known in the Roman Empire as a hub of malaria. If you were in a part of the world rife with malaria, you needed to go higher in elevation, where it was cooler and there were fewer mosquitoes.

Antioch of Pisidia was on a plateau above the coast at an elevation of 3,600 feet and the first city you came to in the Roman province of Galatia. Paul will travel to more cities in Galatia in Chapter 14. Shortly after this he will write the book of Galatians.

In that book, Paul says something interesting about why he came there to preach: “As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (Gal. 3:13).
Many scholars believe Paul contracted malaria in Perga and immediately made his way up the mountains to Antioch of Pisidia to recover.

There is also a subtle change in the way the missionary team is listed. When the five pastors of the church of Antioch in Syria were listed earlier in the chapter, Barnabas’ name was first and Paul’s last. That meant Barnabas was the most valued pastor and Paul was low man on the totem pole. Even the call of God singled out “Barnabas and Saul.” But a change in leadership has occurred. It is no longer Barnabas and Paul but “Paul and his companions” (Acts 13:13). Poor old Barnabas is not even mentioned. Fortunately, Barnabas was a humble Christian who would not be bothered by this.

Luke notes without explanation that Mark left them at Perga. Mark was Barnabas’ nephew. When Mark signed on for this trip, his uncle was in charge. Now Paul is in charge. That may be one of the reasons Mark goes back home.

Barnabas and Saul had been told by the Holy Spirit to go out as missionaries. But they were not told where to start. They went from Antioch, the third biggest city in the Roman Empire, to the nearest seaport city, Seleucia, to catch a boat. They chose as their first mission field the island of Cyprus. This choice made sense for many reasons.

First, Barnabas, according to Acts 4:36, was from Cyprus. Barnabas’ presence enabled them to overcome one of the great challenges of being a missionary to a foreign land: its culture. Not only should you know its language; you must grasp its entire culture so you won’t accidentally offend the people to whom you’re ministering.

Cyprus was a prosperous island for several reasons. Its copper mines supplied the Roman Empire. Its climate was almost perfect. The island was nicknamed Makaria, the Greek word translated “blessed” in the Beatitudes. We might call it “Happy Island” today. The soil was perfect for a variety of crops. We know it was a peaceful island as well because its Roman ruler had the official title of “procurator.” When a conquered land, such as Israel, was so volatile it required Roman troops to be stationed there, the ruler was called “governor.” But when no troops were needed, the Roman leader was called “procurator.”

Several thousand Jews lived on the island; after all, it was very close to Israel. But most of the people officially worshipped Roman gods. The main goddess of Cyprus was Aphrodite, the same god who was worshipped in the wicked city of Corinth; so, as in Corinth, the island’s sexual standards were very low. Along with the worship of Roman gods, people gave themselves over to occult practices and lived in fear of evil spirits. This explains why the governor had hired a sorcerer to protect him.

The description of this sorcerer gives us insight into his personality. He had a Jewish background. Though his real name was Elymas, he called himself “Bar Jesus” (“Bar” means “son of” in Hebrew). People on Cyprus had heard of the Jesus who had performed miracles in Israel, and Elymas claimed to have tapped into the same power Jesus had. But his sorcery was most likely based on simple magician’s tricks. Notice Paul’s rebuke: “‘You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery’” (Acts 13:10).

This charlatan of a sorcerer met a real man of God, Paul, connected to the power of God. Paul rebuked him and caused him to experience temporary blindness. This allowed the governor to see who really represented the true God, and he listened to Paul’s message and became a Christian (13:12). Archeologists on Cyprus have found documents that mention Sergius Paulus as procurator of Cyprus. These documents also indicate he was a Christian. Archeology always verifies the truth of the Bible!

In 1993 an article in Christianity Today told the story of a Christian missionary native to India named M.V. Varghanese. He often went to the Hindu holy city of Hardwar on the Ganges River to witness to the pilgrims who came there seeking forgiveness. Thirty minutes before he arrived, a young Indian woman named Alila had waded into the Ganges with her baby boy in her arms. When she was waist deep in the river, she stopped for a few minutes, crying and holding her baby tight. Then she threw her baby boy to a watery death. She went back to the shore, knelt down, and started sobbing and beating her breast in grief.

Varghanese walked up to her, put his arm around her, and asked why she was crying. This was her answer: "The problems in my home are too many and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have, my first born son, to the goddess Ganges," He began to tell her of the love of Jesus and that through Him her sins could be forgiven. She looked at him, then said, “I have never heard of this before. Why couldn’t you have come thirty minutes earlier? Then my child would not have had to die.”

This story is a living example of why we send people out as missionaries. We have the one message, the Gospel, people are longing to hear. We share the truth that will meet their deepest needs.

Herod was the ultimate politician. He grew up as a wealthy playboy in Rome. He could be as Roman as any Roman when he was around Romans. But when he became the “king” of Israel, he pretended to be the most pious Jew in the land. Just to win a few more points in the popularity polls, he put to death James, one of the “big three” original disciples. He then arrested Peter and would have put him to death, too, except that God sent an angel to rescue Peter. His callous disregard for life is seen in that he put to death the soldiers charged with guarding Peter, though they had no part in his escape and had done their duty to the letter. But you can’t fight against God and an angel.

Now we find God sending another angel to do His bidding. This time Herod is “touched by an angel” and dies of a painful case of worms. This event is told in even more detail by the Jewish historian of that time, Josephus. Thanks to him, we know it occurred in AD 44. The day Herod made his public appearance he chose to wear a special garment that was interwoven with silver. He would have made his speech in the open-air stadium that still stands in Caesarea. With the sun reflecting off the silver in his garment, Herod would have been a glorious sight, and it likely contributed to the people crying out, “This is the voice of a god, not a man!” Herod was soaking it in until the moment he was struck by God in an act of judgment. The man who killed James, who tried to kill Peter, who made a mockery of religion with his hypocrisy, finally received public judgment from God.

This story is a vivid picture of the following truth: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10: 31). Here are four applications from this story.

We saw last week that Herod had already put to death one of the original 12 apostles. When that pleased the crowd, he decided to go for the biggest prize of all: Peter. The only problem was that he arrested him just before the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a seven-day event that started with the Passover celebration.

Of all the feasts, Passover Week was the one the Israelites cherished most. Everyone’s attention was to be focused on God, and a trial during this week would have been totally inappropriate. So, Peter would be placed in prison for seven nights before being taken out, tried, and killed.

Herod did everything in his power to make sure Peter could not get away. He put four squads of four soldiers each in charge of him. They were each to take six-hour shifts, to guarantee they would not get tired and fall asleep on duty. Two of the four soldiers would literally be chained to Peter, one to his right wrist, the other to his left. Peter was held in a cell behind two locked doors, the other two soldiers in each squad standing guard at each.

Peter’s case looked so hopeless the Christians might have been tempted to give up and start planning his funeral. Instead, they turned to God in prayer. Peter may have been chained to two soldiers, guarded by two others, and behind two separate locked doors, but Peter’s God is bigger than any prison cell! God sent an angel to rescue him.

I find several details very interesting here.

Let me give you the historical setting of this story.

Agrippa was the grandson of Herod the Great, who had ordered the death of the baby boys at the time of Jesus’ birth. One year before his own death, Herod the Great had Agrippa’s father, Aristobulus, put to death in a fit of paranoia. Agrippa’s father became the third son of Herod to die because Herod was afraid for his throne. (The Romans said it was safer to be Herod’s pig than his son.)

Agrippa and his sister Herodius grew up in Rome. Herodius is the woman who married her uncle Phillip, then left him to marry her uncle Herod. John the Baptist was put to death for criticizing this palace soap opera. Agrippa spent his early years as a party boy in Rome, but he got in trouble for supposedly criticizing the Roman emperor, Tiberius, and was put in prison. His fortune changed when Caligula, one of his old party friends, became the next emperor. Caligula placed Agrippa in charge of two of Israel’s three provinces. He did so well governing these provinces that when Claudius came to power, Herod was given the third province, the one that contained Jerusalem.

Agrippa was the ultimate politician. When he was in Rome or in Caesarea by the sea, he lived just like a Roman. You would never know he was a Jew. When he went to Jerusalem for the religious holidays, he always led the parade into the Temple and pretended to be devout. But Agrippa could only keep his job if he kept the peace in Israel. That meant keeping the people happy. He read the “polls” and decided his popularity would grow if he started persecuting this new group who called themselves Christians.

He started by arresting Christians on the street. Evidently the “focus group polling” showed this was a hit, so he decided to arrest and kill one of the apostles. He arrested James and had him killed by the sword. According to a Jewish rule book called the Mishnah, only murderers and heretics could be put to death that way. Obviously, Agrippa was declaring James a heretic for leading Jews to Jesus.

We can only imagine how stunned the first Christians were at the death of one of the eleven original apostles still living. (Judas, the twelfth, had hung himself in shame after betraying Jesus.)

But James was not just one of the original twelve. He was one of the “top three” in Jesus’ inner circle. Peter, James, and John had privileges the others did not. They were with Jesus when He raised Jairus’ daughter. They were with Jesus when He was transfigured on the mountain top. Jesus took only these three with him when He prayed and sweated drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. You would think these three would have received special protection from God. After all, Jesus had put special time into them.

James’ death would have caused deep grief in the ranks of the apostles. After all, John, the disciple closest to Jesus, was his brother. Peter and Andrew had been his business partners as fishermen before they started following Jesus. He was a lifetime friend as well as a fellow disciple to several of these men. The death of James also hit the apostles hard because it was a sign of what lay ahead for many of them.

One week before Jesus went to the Cross, James and John had made an audacious request of Him. They knew they were in the top three, but they decided to make it the top two and crowd Peter out. They asked Jesus to give them the thrones on His right and left hand when He came into His kingdom. Jesus replied that they had no idea what they were asking, then asked them a strange question: “Can you drink the cup I am about to drink?” Not knowing what they were saying, they said, “Yes, we can drink that cup!” Jesus sadly replied, “You will drink the cup one day.” They thought Jesus was going into Jerusalem to take over the throne. Instead, He was going to die. We know this cup was a cup of suffering. Jesus referred to His agony on the Cross as the cup He would drink when He prayed in Gethsemane.

James drank of that cup the day he was executed. James would become the first of the original twelve to become a martyr for Christ. He would not be the last. When God allowed James, one of the inner three, to die as a martyr, the others knew that they would probably follow in his footsteps in dying for their faith as well.

We have two ancient records of what happened to the original leaders of the church. One was written in the early 200’s by Hippolytus and the other in the early 300’s by Eusebius. All of the original leaders died in the mission field bringing the Gospel to the world. Most but not all of them died as martyrs.

James, the brother of the Lord and the author of the epistle of James, was stoned to death in Jerusalem. Paul was beheaded in Rome. Thomas was killed by a spear in India. Peter, Philip, Andrew, and Bartholomew were all crucified for their faith. I guess that gives real meaning to the words of our Lord Jesus when He called on people to “take up their Cross and follow Him.”

Here are some applications from this story.