FRIDAY 21 May 2021 “Discipleship”

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Good morning my dear “Walking with Jesus” friends,

In most parts of our world if you need help in almost any aspect of life, help is readily available. Medical help, financial advice, education, home repair, automotive repair, even spiritual help. But who do you call when things are going TOO well? So well you can’t handle all the blessings! Has that ever happened to you?

Yesterday I left you in the city of Antioch, with Barnabas, pondering how God was pouring out enormous blessings in that city. “Some“ courageous followers of Jesus had relocated to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene and they were fearlessly sharing the story of Jesus and His Gospel with non-Jews who lived there, especially Greeks. (Acts 11:19-24) The result was an unusual, multi-ethnic, grassroots spiritual movement, that was remarkable and when word reached the apostles in Jerusalem, they sent Mr. Barnabas up to Antioch to investigate. Barnabas had a very special reputation. His name means “Son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36) and he was known to be ‘a good man full of the Holy Spirit and faith’. (Acts 11:24)

But Barnabas was also a realist. Seems it didn’t take him long to realize he was in over his head. Things were happening so fast, he needed help. So guess where Barnabas went to find help? No, he did not send word to Jerusalem and invite Peter or the other apostles to come to Antioch. Instead, the Holy Spirit brought to Barnabas’ mind a guy he had met a few years before named Saul, remember him? Saul had been a zealous, angry Pharisee leading the persecution against Jesus followers in Jerusalem, and on his way to Damascus, to persecute Christians there, Saul had a blinding encounter with the resurrected Jesus, and it changed his life! (Acts 9)

Saul has been down in Tarsus, his hometown, since he was run out of Jerusalem when he tried to join the apostles there and preach about Jesus being the Messiah. (Acts 9:30) Barnabas evidently took a recruiting trip, and went to Tarsus to see if Saul would consider coming to Antioch to help him. I think Saul may have felt he had been abandoned by the apostles and maybe even by Jesus. We don’t know what Saul had been doing in those many months in Tarsus, but we do know he later used tent making skills to feed himself as a traveling missionary, so perhaps Saul was using this time in Tarsus to learn a trade which would put food on his table, since he was no longer a highly respected Pharisee. I think Saul was also trying to figure out what he was supposed to be doing with his Damascus road encounter with Jesus.

I wonder if there’s ever been a time in your life when you felt you were ‘wasting time’? You wanted to be busy doing something purposeful with your life, but instead you were in a dead end job, or maybe unemployed, or maybe laying in a hospitable bed for a prolonged hospital stay? Or maybe you are retired and feeling your productive days are past. Friends, I’ve learned there is no ‘wasted time’ with God, unless we choose to waste God’s time! God is always working His purposes around the world, and always looking to involve His people in accomplishing His purposes. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

God had a strategic plan for Saul’s life which Saul did not yet know, and it would have overwhelmed him had God told Saul what the next 25 years of his life would be like, traveling around the Roman empire as a church planting missionary! But I see no evidence Saul was growing bitter or resentful. Instead I think we can assume Saul was busy in Tarsus… working a job, learning a skill, studying Scripture, deepening his relationship with Jesus. Saul was positioning himself for God’s strategic use and in the meantime sharing his story with any who would hear him. Now, that’s the secret for how to handle what feels like ‘wasted time’.

And then one day Barnabas showed up in his tent making shop! Oh I would have loved to stand in the corner and watch that conversation! Can you imagine Barnabas trying to explain to Saul what had happened with Peter in Caesarea, or what Barnabas was experiencing in Antioch? I suspect it didn’t take much convincing, and Saul was ready to pack his bags, accompany Barnabas back to Antioch, and get to work!

Luke writes it this way: “Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Saul and Barnabas met with the church at Antioch and taught great numbers of people.” (Acts 11:25,26) Saul and Barnabas did what Jesus had told the apostles to do “teach them all I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:19) But neither Saul nor Barnabas had been on the hillside with those disciples that day when Jesus said that!?

Barnabas had spent months with those apostles, learning from them, and now he was ready to teach others. Saul… well you remember the story about Saul right? He’d spent his entire life studying the Scriptures to be very successful as a Pharisee, and then his encounter with resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road had blinded him, giving him three days to think deeply about his opposition to Jesus and his persecution of Jesus followers. When Ananias had come, obediently following Jesus’ instructions to go help Saul, Ananias gave Saul this message of a new commission from Jesus: “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.” (Acts 9:15,16)

Saul had then spent three years alone with the Holy Spirit re-studying the Scriptures, and being taught by the Holy Spirit how Jesus was the Messiah, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, and all the doctrinal truths of Jesus’ Gospel. More recently, Saul had many months in Tarsus, furthering his deep study with the Holy Spirit, so now Saul is uniquely qualified to teach all he has learned, to these new Jesus followers in Antioch.

I doubt any of us can imagine what it was like when Barnabas and Saul arrived back in Antioch and began holding their discipleship classes. As Barnabas listened to Saul teach, I’m sure he was amazed. No one, not even Peter, or any of the other apostles, had such a deep understanding of the Scriptures as Saul did. None of the apostles had spent many months alone with the Holy Spirit teaching them. Saul was unique in all the world, in how God had prepared him to now be the premier proclaimer and teacher of the deep truths of Jesus.

My guess is within a few short days, Saul and Barnabas arranged a full schedule for the various types of people to meet with either one or both of them, studying the Scriptures and learning new, not yet written doctrines, which Saul would later write in his various letters to the churches he would plant in the years to come. I imagine these groups met day and night, trying to accommodate the work schedules of the people. Probably the groups also were at different levels of education and maybe even learning in different languages. I suspect well educated Saul could teach in Hebrew, Greek, possibly Aramaic and maybe even early Latin, which some historians believe was beginning about that time.

I can imagine each night, as Saul and Barnabas laid down for the night, their heads were spinning as they reflected on what the Holy Spirit had accomplished that day. The Holy Spirit was very busy in those days… anointing Saul & Barnabas in their teaching, and doing dramatic life transforming work in the people as they listened and learned from the teachings. Believers in Jesus were becoming followers of Jesus and then true disciples of Jesus!

The end result of this remarkable year? Well, I think we can safely say Antioch was profoundly impacted by these Jesus followers experiencing true discipleship. So much so that the Antioch people started calling these Jesus followers by a new name. . . CHRISTIANS! It means people like Jesus Christ! Luke writes: “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Now think about that my friends. This new name was not given to Jesus followers in Jerusalem nor in Samaria nor in Caesarea, but it happened first in Antioch!

We don’t know exactly why, but I suspect it was because the church, as Jesus said He would build it, became such a dramatic and dynamic spiritual force with the people living so much like Jesus, even though from many different ethnic backgrounds, different skin colors, even different heart languages, that a new name simply had to be found for them! This was not a Jewish Christian nor Samaritan Christian movement. This was a global church movement, since history tells us Antioch was a city built on a crossroads of major trade routes north-south and east-west, bringing peoples from every corner of the known world!

Finally, please notice something very special which happened in this remarkable group of Christians in Antioch. They heard the news. What news? Hard times had come to Jerusalem, so they gathered up a large financial gift to help, and the church in Antioch sent Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem with the money, to help the Jewish Christians suffering there, including the apostles who had never been to Antioch! Tomorrow we’ll look more closely at that.

For today, let’s just be awed at the amazing and very strategic thing happening in Antioch! A very diverse, multi-ethnic, rapidly growing church was becoming the model for churches all around the world, for the next 20 centuries!! Antioch discipleship was happening unlike it had ever happened before, because Saul was finally provided the right teaching platform for his unique training… and every day lives were changed, for God’s glory! They were called CHRISTIANS first in Antioch!

Now take just a moment and look at your city my friends? Is there anything like this happening in your city? What’s the secret? Was it Barnabas, or Saul, or the mix of people in Antioch. . .or was it the Holy Spirit working in the hearts and minds of people, like the people in your city and mine, who were being overwhelmed with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? May I suggest we take some time to pray right now, and consider HOW God might make something similar happen in your city that would impact your city as this movement impacted Antioch? Here’s a song to help you consider that possibility… oh my this song, and it’s powerful truth become your song?

Today’s Scripture is Acts 11:24-30.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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