Paul moves on to the next stop on his missionary journey and faces both acceptance and more opposition to the gospel message.

Transcript:

Acts 13: 13 through 15. From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem. From Perga they went on to Pisidian Antioch. On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the law and the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue sent word to them, saying, Brothers, if you have a word of exhortation for the people, please speak.

If in 1775 someone said to you, "The British are coming", your first thought would have been the redcoats. If someone said the "British are coming" in 1964, you might have thought they were talking about the Beatles tour. And if I said the British are coming today, who knows, maybe the Great British Baking Show is doing a special in the US, bringing a delicious tide of scones, crumpets, and tarts upon our shores. It all depends on the context, what is the background, what is the backstory -- we need to know what has happened to properly understand what is being said here and now.

Paul is aware of that reality as he and Barnabas continue on their mission. They got on this journey by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit guided Philip on the road south to encounter the Ethiopian eunuch, and that's worth mentioning 'cause last week I made it sound like he transported there, the Holy Spirit guided him on that road, and then he was transported away, just as the Holy Spirit guided Philip, the Holy Spirit has now guided the Antioch Church to send out Paul and Barnabas on this mission to preach the Gospel. Last week we saw how they went to the island of Cyprus and preached in the synagogues there, before being invited to share their message with the proconsul, otherwise known as a governor, of Cyprus Sergius Paulus. After hearing their message and seeing how the Jewish sorcerer Bar Jesus who opposed Paul and Barnabas was struck blind, the governor believed. Imagine that, one Governor, Pontius Pilate crucifies Jesus, another governor, Sergius Paulus believes in Jesus-- it's an astounding conversion. And it sets the stage for Paul's continued ministry among the Gentiles as they depart Cyprus.

And so we continue on in chapter 13, and we look first at verses 13 through 15, and we see here that Paul and his companions depart from Cyprus, from Paphos to sail to Perga in Pamphylia. And just to kind of orient yourself as to kind of the direction that they're taking, I showed you this map earlier. Again, spoil, it has kind of spoiler alerts 'cause it jumps ahead. But we're at stage three and four here. So they're at Paphos here on Cyprus. They're sailing to Perga in the province of Pamphylia, and they're going to be going up to Antioch, Pisidian Antioch.

Now we might ask, why is that? Why are they going to Pisidian Antioch? And just to kind of orient you a little bit more, if you're wondering how that looks on a modern map, that's where Pisidian Antioch is kind of towards, it's in the interior of modern day Turkey. Well, the first reason why they might want to go to the city is it's a, a major city, a major Roman city estimated to have possibly up to a hundred thousand population, maybe not in the immediate city but at least in the, that immediate area. It is a Roman colony, so there was about, between 5,000, 6,000 Roman colonists who had settled the area, making it an influential outpost for the empire.

And when you look at the site, in fact, it was settled on Seven Hills, which if you know anything about Rome, Roman is infamous for being on Seven Hills. So it was almost like a mini, a Roman miniature. And so in that way it was a, kind of a hub for spreading out influence across Asia Minor.

And there's a little picture of a street there that you can see of, you can actually go visit the site today and you can visit its ruins. So there's a reason to think that they might have wanted to visit this city because it's large, it's influential.

Also very interesting is that there's a possible connection here with the family of Sergius Paulus. Now, this isn't mentioned in the text. But we pick up on this based on archeological research in the area of Pisidian Antioch. I meant to actually include this earlier, so just this is another sign of, that this is a very Roman city. They had a temple there to Augustus, so very, very, very Roman city. So by getting back to the story with Sergius Paulus here, they found inscriptions there indicating the presence of the Sergi Pauli family. You can see the word kind of Pauli right there. And also there's an inscription that was written there indicating that perhaps even Sergius Paulus's son lived in Pisidian Antioch, you can see it says Sergio Paulo Filio, son. So this is speculative, but it would kind of make sense that perhaps after converting Sergius Paulus, he says, Hey, you should really go to Pasidian Antioch. I've got family there, it'll be a good opportunity. I'd, I'd love for you to share with my family. And it's an influential city.

So it kind of seems like the stars have kind of aligned here for them to head in this direction. And, I'm sure we can be assured that, that Paul and Barnabas were also seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was opening the way for them to make this journey in that direction, and so they head in that direction.

But getting there is, is not an easy journey. Once you land at Perga, to get up to Pisidian Antioch, it's going to be a journey of about 156 miles possibly. It would take minimally a six day journey. And the road that they would've taken most likely would've been a road known as the Via Sebeste. And you can actually look this up on YouTube, you can find kind of some interesting shots of that, that road. And you can see it goes right through the mountains, very mountainous territory. This wasn't an easy journey, but it was made easier by the fact that they had a Roman Road.

So they're going to these great lengths to get up to Pisidian Antioch in order to continue to share the good news of Christ. And as we saw in Cyprus, what they do is they go first to the synagogue. Now, as we've kind of, were, considered last week, there's a real practical reason to do this. Reason being is you have a ready audience. People who will give you a hearing, who can understand what you're talking about when you're saying that Jesus is the Savior, Jesus is the Messiah, and we're gonna see that play out all the more as, as we move forward in this passage.

Now, the opportunity for Paul and Barnabas to share appears on the Sabbath. And it's interesting 'cause it seems as though it is just like they came in to the synagogue and sat down and all of a sudden they had this opening. Now it's possible that just by seeing these visitors, perhaps there was something about their dress that indicated that they were kind of scholarly, they, they were, and so maybe they were just given a welcome invitation to share, but it's also possible that they showed up a little bit earlier and had some conversations with the Jewish leaders there. And so this, they were given this opportunity to share 'cause they were important guests, men from, who had spent time in the Holy Land in Israel.

And we know that Paul is very well educated and so they would've been interested in hearing what he had to say. And so Paul does take that opportunity. We continue in verse 16, it says, standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: fellow Israelites and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power. He led them out of that country; for about 40 years he endured their conduct in the wilderness; and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance.

So we're gonna kind of work our way bit by bit through his message here. So very often in the synagogue setting, it was traditional for teachers to just sit and speak. In this case though, Paul stands, and this may have been partly due to his context, because in the kind of Greek context, when a rhetorician is going to give a speech, he stands and very often even gives a hand motion. And we see Paul do that here. Very interesting. Gives, gives a little hand gesture there. Now the audience that Paul is speaking to here is not just Jewish people. He's speaking to Jews, but he's also talking to non-Jewish people, gentiles, who are seeking the God of Israel. And so in speaking to them, he recounts the story of Israel, the story of the exodus of how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, the Canaanite conquest of how God settled them in the Promised Land.

And what we we notice here, if you pay close attention to what Paul is saying, is God is the primary actor. God is the one who chose the people of Israel. He's the one who made them prosper. He's the one who led them out. Who endured their conduct in the wilderness when they were a rebellious and sinful people. He's the one who overthrew the nations that opposed them. He's the one who gave them the land. And all this takes place over the course of around 450 years, as we'll see in verse 20, which is just kind of a round number. Now the interesting thing here in the course that Paul's taking is it very much paral...