ACTS 14
Bible Study Notes Rev. Betsy Perkins
A Door of Faith Opened to the Gentiles
- What risks are you willing to take to introduce people to Jesus and share the good news of grace?
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – Acts of the Apostles (RightNowMedia), 58:35 – 1:00:50
In Iconium (14:1-7)
- Where do Paul and Barnabas go in Iconium to begin sharing the gospel message? What does their strategy seem to be in each new city they go to?
- How was the message received? How did people respond?
- How did the Lord help confirm “the message of His grace”?
- How can we do for our world what the apostles were doing for their world?
- Speaking boldly comes with risks. What happens to Paul and Barnabas? Did they go too far? How do they respond?
In Lystra (14:8-20):
- What made Paul decide to heal the lame man in Lystra?
- How does the crowd of onlookers respond to the healing miracle?
- What is Paul’s message to the pagan priest and the crowd? How is it different than the message he shared in Antioch in ch.13?
- What changes the crowd from being overly adoring to violently hostile?
As soon as Paul and Barnabas have explained the mistake (which they do with difficulty, vs.18, because, once people are bent on having a ritual and a party and a celebration meal all rolled into one, which pagan sacrifices were, then they are going to be disappointed if you stop them) the mood of the crowd changes. If these people aren’t Zeus and Hermes, who on earth are they? They must be imposters! At this point, Luke tells us, some of the Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, still righteously indignant at the message which flew in the face of their traditions – just at the point when Paul and Barnabas have been explaining that the message flies in the face of the pagan traditions as well. The result is inevitable: violence. What is remarkable is that Paul survived it. N.T. Wright
- Can you think of the kinds of people today that we might love one minute and hate the next?
One of the things this passage highlights is the almost bottomless pit of potential misunderstandings that await anyone who tries to speak, and live out, the essentially Jewish message of the gospel, with its remarkable news of the one true creator God. There are so many barriers in the way, so much anger against the way the world is (often with people simultaneously blaming God for all the bad and declaring that they don’t believe in him), so much distortion of what the message is, through bad teaching, or bad experience of church or synagogue. But the point of this whole narrative, in its larger framework, is precisely to show the explosive, if deeply confusing, effects of taking the message of Jesus out into the wider world. The journey of the gospel from Jerusalem ‘to the ends of the earth’ (1:8) is unstoppable, but uncomfortable. That comes with the territory. N.T. Wright
Derbe and home to Antioch (14:21-28):
- Why did Paul and Barnabas back-track to the cities they had just come from?
- What was their message to those who had decided to become disciples of Jesus?
- What steps did they take to try to ensure a strong future for those new churches?
All that Paul did was to come through town, a few days or weeks after his first preaching, to appoint ‘elders’, to fast and pray and lay hands on them, and then to move on. Apart from the odd letter, and a follow-up visit in a few years’ time if they were lucky, that was it. They were on their own. But they weren’t of course. The entire enterprise, the whole movement, everything about following Jesus from top to bottom, is built on the belief that Jesus is Lord over the church as well as the world, and that by His Spirit He calls, He equips, He guides, He warns, He rebukes, He encourages. It’s His business. And that is what the laying on of hands, with prayer and fasting, actually signifies. N.T. Wright
- Who do you think the ‘elders’ were that Paul and Barnabas appointed?
- What do they do when they get home to Antioch of Syria?
- What do you think Luke means when he uses the phrase ‘the grace of God’?
Another theme is starting to become prominent in the story: ‘the grace of God’. When Barnabas went to Antioch in 11:23, he rejoiced ‘because he saw the grace of God’, in other words, he saw that God was powerfully at work reaching people who had no qualifications, nothing to commend them, no social or cultural status, no pride of race or ancestry or moral achievement. Then in 13:43 Paul and Barnabas exhorted the believers in Pisidian Antioch ‘to continue in the grace of God’, that is, to continue a life of trusting the generosity of God rather than trying to grab back control, or pride of achievement, for oneself. Now, as they get back to Syrian Antioch, 14:26, Luke reminds us that that was where they had been ‘commended to the grace of God’ for the work they had completed: in other words, that the initial prayers of the church had been for the powerful, sovereign love of God to be at work in, through and around them, both guiding them and reaching out through their words, their life and their prayer to do new things in the world, works of healing of hearts and minds and bodies. In other words, ‘grace’ is not just a doctrine to be believed; it is a fact you can lean your weight on. N.T. Wright
- Have you found Paul’s statement in verse 22, ‘We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God’, to be true in your life? In what ways do you ‘lean your weight on’ the grace of God?
In light of this passage and our discussion, what one truth about God and about yourself stand out as something to “take to heart” this week?
Are there steps you will take, by God’s grace, to more fully apply it to your life?
Resources: NIV Zondervan Study Bible, 2015
N.T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part 1 2008
Max Lucado, Life Lessons from Acts: Christ’s Church in the World, 2018
Joe Boyd, Bible Experiment – The Acts of the Apostles (RightNowMedia), 2014
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