THE GOSPEL TO THE GENTILES
It was a dramatic moment when Paul and Barnabas, with their helper, set sail from Seleucia, on the waters of the Mediterranean. Behind them lay Syria and Palestine and the history of the chosen people; in front of them was the west. The religion of Israel had emerged from its age-long seclusion; it had entered at last upon the conquest of the world.
The message that crossed the strait to Cyprus was destined to be carried over broader seas. A mighty enterprise was begun. It was an audacious thought! The missionaries might well have been overpowered by what lay before them—by the power of a world empire, by the prestige of a brilliant civilization. How insignificant were their own weapons! Would they ever even gain a hearing? But though the enterprise was begun in weakness it was begun in faith. At their departure from Antioch the missionaries were "committed to the grace of God."
The account of this first missionary journey is one of the most fascinating passages in The Acts. The interest never flags; incident follows incident in wonderful variety. In reading this narrative, we are transplanted into the midst of the ancient world, we come to breathe the very atmosphere of that cosmopolitan age. In the lesson of to-day the teacher has an unusual opportunity. If he uses it well, he may cause the Bible story to live again. Absolutely essential to that end is the judicious use of a map—preferably something larger than the small sketch map of the Text Book. A travel narrative without a map is a hopeless jumble. The map is an aid both to memory and to imagination. Tracing the route of the missionaries on the map, the teacher should endeavor to call up the scenes through which they passed. The student should be made to see the waters of the Mediterranean, with the hills of Cyprus beyond, the interminable stretches of the Roman roads, the lofty mountains of the Taurus, the perils of rivers and the perils of robbers, the teeming population of the countless cities—and through it all the simple missionaries of the cross, almost unnoticed amid the turmoil of the busy world, but rich in the possession of a world-conquering gospel and resistless through the power of the living God.
1. THE PROPHETS AND TEACHERS
Both prophecy and teaching were gifts of the Spirit. I Cor. 12:28-31. Prophecy was immediate revelation of the divine plan or of the divine will; teaching, apparently, was logical development of the truth already given. Which of the men who are mentioned in Acts 13:1 were prophets and which were teachers is not clear. If any division is intended it is probably between the first three and the last two. For this grouping there is perhaps some slight indication in the connectives that are used in the Greek, but the matter is not certain. Perhaps all five of the men were possessed of both gifts.
Lucius was perhaps one of the founders of the church, for he came from Cyrene. Compare Acts 11:20. Manaen is an interesting figure. He is called "foster-brother" of Herod the tetrarch. The word translated "foster-brother" is apparently sometimes used in a derived sense, to designate simply an intimate associate of a prince. If that be the meaning here, then at least one member of the church at Antioch was a man of some social standing. In Antioch, as in Corinth, probably "not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble" were called, I Cor. 1:26; but in Antioch as in Corinth there were exceptions. The Herod who is here meant is Herod Antipas, the "Herod" of the Gospels.
2. ELYMAS
When the Jewish sorcerer is first mentioned he is called Bar-Jesus—that is, "son of Jesus," Jesus being a common Jewish name. Then, a little below, the same man is called "Elymas the sorcerer," and the explanation is added, "for so is his name by interpretation." Apparently the new name Elymas is introduced without explanation, and then the Greek word for "sorcerer" is introduced as a translation of that. The word Elymas is variously derived from an Arabic word meaning "wise," or an Aramaic word meaning "strong." In either case the Greek word, "magos," for which our English Bible has "sorcerer," is a fair equivalent. That Greek word is the word that appears also in Matt. 2:1,7,16, where the English Bible has "Wise-men"; and words derived from the same root are used to describe Simon of Samaria in Acts 8:9,11. The word could designate men of different character. Some "magi" might be regarded as students of natural science; in others, superstition and charlatanism were dominant.
3. SAUL AND PAUL
At Acts 13:9 Luke introduces the name "Paul"—"Saul, who is also called Paul." Previously the narrative always uses the Jewish name "Saul"; after this "Paul" appears with equal regularity, except in the accounts of the conversion, where in three verses a special, entirely un-Greek form of "Saul" is used. Acts 22:7,13; 26:14. Since in our passage in the original the name of the proconsul, Paulus, is exactly like the name of the apostle, some have supposed that Paul assumed a new name in honor of his distinguished convert. That is altogether unlikely. More probable is the suggestion that although Paul had both names from the beginning, Luke is led to introduce the name Paul at just this point because of the coincidence with the name of the proconsul. Even this supposition, however, is extremely doubtful. Probably the Roman name, which Paul uses invariably in his letters, is introduced at this point simply because here for the first time Paul comes prominently forward in a distinctly Roman environment.
4. PAUL AND BARNABAS
Connected with this variation in name is the reversal in the relation between Paul and Barnabas. Previously Barnabas has been given the priority; but immediately after the incident at Paphos the missionaries are designated as "Paul and his company," Acts 13:13, and thereafter when the two are mentioned together, Paul, except at Acts 14:12,14; 15:12,25, appears first. In the presence of the Roman proconsul, Paul's Roman citizenship perhaps caused him to take the lead; and then inherent superiority made his leadership permanent.
5. THE RETURN OF JOHN MARK
The reasons for John Mark's return from Perga to Jerusalem can only be surmised. Perhaps he was simply unwilling, for some reason sufficient to him but insufficient to Paul, to undertake the hardships of the journey into the interior. Certainly it was an adventurous journey. Paul was not always an easy man to follow.
The severity of Paul's judgment of Mark was not necessarily so great as has sometimes been supposed. One purpose of the second journey was to revisit the churches of the first journey. Acts 15:36. Whether for good or for bad reasons, Mark, as a matter of fact, had not been with the missionaries on a large part of that first journey, and was, therefore, unknown to many of the churches. For this reason, perhaps as much as on account of moral objections, Paul considered Mark an unsuitable helper. In his later epistles Paul speaks of Mark in the most cordial way. Col. 4:10; Philem. 24; II Tim. 4:11. In the last passage, he even says that Mark was useful to him for ministering—exactly what he had not been at the beginning of the second missionary journey.
6. HARDSHIPS AND PERSECUTIONS
It is evident from II Cor. 11:23-27 that Luke has recorded only a small fraction of the hardships which Paul endured as a missionary of the cross. The tendency to lay exaggerated stress upon martyrdom and suffering, which runs riot in the later legends of the saints, is in The Acts conspicuous by its absence. Of the trials which are vouched for by the unimpeachable testimony of Paul himself, only a few may be identified in the Lucan narrative. It is natural, however, to suppose that some of the "perils of rivers" and "perils of robbers" were encountered on the journey through the defiles of the Taurus mountains from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, and the one stoning which Paul mentions is clearly to be identified with the adventure at Lystra. In II Tim. 3:11 Paul mentions the persecutions at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra.
7. GEOGRAPHY OF THE FIRST JOURNEY
The first missionary journey led the missionaries into three Roman provinces: Cyprus, Pamphylia and Galatia. The name "Galatia" had originally designated a district in the north central part of Asia Minor, which had been colonized by certain Celtic tribes several centuries before Christ. By the Romans, however, other districts were added to this original Galatia, and in 25 B. C. the whole complex was organized into an imperial province under the name Galatia. In the first century after Christ, therefore, the name Galatia could be used in two distinct senses. In the first place, in the earlier, popular sense, it could designate Galatia proper. In the second place, in the later, official sense, it could designate the whole Roman province, which included not only Galatia proper, but also parts of a number of other districts, including Phrygia and Lycaonia. Of the cities visited on the first missionary journey, Pisidian Antioch—which was called "Pisidian" because it was near Pisidia—and Iconium were in Phrygia, and Lystra and Derbe in Lycaonia; but all four were included in the province of Galatia. Many scholars suppose that the churches in these cities were the churches which Paul addresses in the Epistle to the Galatians. That view is called the "South Galatian theory." Others—adherents of the "North Galatian theory"—suppose that the epistle is addressed to churches in Galatia proper, in the northern part of the Roman province, which were founded on the second missionary journey. This question will be noticed again in connection with the epistle.
8. TIME OF THE FIRST JOURNEY
Luke gives very little indication of the amount of time which was consumed on this first journey. The hasty reader probably estimates the time too low, since only a few incidents are narrated. The rapidity of the narrative should not be misinterpreted as indicating cursoriness of the labor. The passage through Cyprus, Acts 13:6, was probably accompanied by evangelizing; the extension of the gospel through the whole region of Antioch, v. 49, must have occupied more than a few days; the stay at Iconium is designated as "long time," Acts 14:3; the change of attitude on the part of the Lystran populace, v. 19, was probably not absolutely sudden; not only Lystra and Derbe but also the surrounding country were evangelized, v. 6; and finally the missionaries could hardly have returned to the cities from which they had been driven out, v. 21, unless the heat of persecution had been allowed to cool. Perhaps a full year would not be too high an estimate of the time that was occupied by the journey, and still higher estimates are by no means excluded.
9. THE SCENE AT LYSTRA
The account of the incident at Lystra is one of those inimitable bits of narrative which imprint upon The Acts the indisputable stamp of historicity. Lystra, though a Roman colony, lay somewhat off the beaten track of culture and of trade; hence the extreme superstition of the populace is what might be expected. It may seem rather strange that Paul and Barnabas should have been identified with great gods of Olympus rather than with lesser divinities or spirits, but who can place a limit upon the superstition of an uncultured people of the ancient world? The identification may have been rendered easier by the legend of Philemon and Baucis, which has been preserved for us by Ovid, the Latin poet. According to that legend, Zeus and Hermes appeared, once upon a time, in human form in Phrygia, the same general region in which Lystra was situated. Zeus and Hermes are the gods with whom Barnabas and Paul were identified; the English Bible simply substitutes for these Greek names the names of the corresponding Roman deities. The temple of Zeus-before-the-city and the preparations for sacrifices are described in a most lifelike way, in full accord with what is known of ancient religion. We find ourselves here in a somewhat different atmosphere from that which prevails in most of the scenes described in The Acts. It is a pagan atmosphere, and an atmosphere of ruder superstition than that which prevailed in the great cities. The "speech of Lycaonia," v. 11, is an especially characteristic touch. Apparently the all-pervading Greek was understood at Lystra even by the populace; but in the excitement of their superstition they fell very naturally into their native language.
As in the case of Peter's release from prison, so in this incident, wonderful lifelikeness of description is coupled with a miracle. The scene at Lystra is unintelligible without the miraculous healing of the lame man, with which it begins. It is impossible, in The Acts as well as in the Gospels, to separate the miraculous from the rest of the narrative. The evident truthfulness of the story applies to the supernatural elements as well as to the rest. The early Christian mission is evidently real; but it is just as evidently supernatural. It moved through the varied scenes of the real world, but it was not limited by the world. It was animated by a mysterious, superhuman power.
In the Library.—Purves, "Christianity in the Apostolic Age," pp. 111-122. Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": articles on "Cyprus," "Antioch" (2), "Iconium," "Lystra," "Derbe," "Galatia." Hastings, "Dictionary of the Bible": Muir, article on "Cyprus"; Massie, article on "Bar-Jesus"; Headlam, article on "Paulus, Sergius"; Ramsay, articles on "Antioch in Pisidia," "Iconium," "Lystra," "Derbe," "Galatia." Ramsay, "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen," pp. 64-129; "The Cities of St. Paul," pp. 247-419; "Pictures of the Apostolic Church," pp. 129-153. Lewin, "The Life and Epistles of St. Paul," chapter viii. Conybeare and Howson, "The Life and Epistles of St. Paul," chapters v and vi. Stalker, "The Life of St. Paul," pp. 65-71. Lumby, pp. 155-183. Cook, pp. 437-451. Plumptre, pp. 79-93. Rackham, pp. 194-238.