January 9, 2022 Acts 13:46–49
46 Then Paul and Barnabas responded fearlessly, “It was necessary that God’s word be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life, look: We are now turning to the Gentiles! 47 For this is what the Lord has instructed us: I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.” 48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were rejoicing and praising the word of the Lord. All who had been appointed for eternal life believed. 49 And the word of the Lord was being carried through the whole region.
Salvation and Damnation. Who Gets What and Why? The Epiphany is Clear
Pisidian Antioch is in the middle of Asia Minor. More Jews lived down in Israel, but there were pockets of Jews spread through the Roman world at the time. Paul was on his First Missionary Journey with Barnabas, so his custom was to start out in the synagogue and witness to the people there. The first Sabbath went well. People asked questions. Paul and Barnabas had time to preach Christ crucified and risen from the dead. The next Sabbath, Luke writes that the whole town gathered there. What an opportunity!
But what happened? Acts 13:45 says, “But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with envy and began to contradict what Paul was saying by slandering him.” Slandering literally is “blaspheme” in the Greek. It means to “speak against someone in such a way as to harm or injure his or her reputation.” This is sometimes referred to as an “ad hominem” attack. When you can’t argue what someone is saying you then attack the person personally by making fun of their looks or their background. Jesus used to be mocked because he was from Nazareth. That’s what the Jews started doing to Paul.
So it’s interesting how PAUL described what they were doing. But since you reject it and consider yourselves unworthy of eternal life. He pointed the finger at them for rejecting the Gospel. It wasn’t as if Paul hadn’t tried to reach out to them. It wasn’t as if he didn’t preach the Gospel to them. Read through chapter 13 and you see it loud and clear. It’s not as if God didn’t want them. He was specifically commanded to reach out to them FIRST. God clearly says He wants ALL men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
And that’s the beauty of the Gospel. Jesus died for all. Jesus paid for all. God isn’t picky when it comes to WHO He wants to save. I think of the parable where the servant is told in Luke 14,
21 ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ 22 “ ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ 23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.
You never have to worry that somehow, for some reason, God doesn’t want you. You don’t have to worry that you’ve somehow sinned too much or you’re just too ugly for God to actually want you in heaven. Jesus died to cover all your sins and the sins of the world. His salvation is based on grace and mercy in Christ, not on how good or bad you’ve been.
So what is it that leads to the damnation of Paul’s fellow Jews? How does Paul describe it? You CONSIDER YOURSELVES unworthy. Now that’s an interesting way to put it, right? The whole message of the Gospel is that Christ came for unworthy people. Paul said it loud and clear in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. The whole way that God works in people’s hearts is to first of all crush them and show them how UNWORTHY they are.
So how could these Jews considering themselves unworthy make them unworthy? When you consider yourselves worthy, that’s what makes you unworthy of being saved. Isaiah 49 prophesied what the Messiah would come and do, the One who would be born of the Jews. I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth. Think about what this is saying. One guy, born through the Jews, would bring salvation to the end of the earth. He’s the only One who could save EVERYONE. That’s it. Apart from HIM, nobody is acceptable to God and nobody can be saved, not even the Jews through whom He came.
The Jews didn’t think they needed a Jesus, because they were were God’s people by RACE and HERITAGE. You talk about sin and Jesus to the average Joe in our world and he says it’s nonsense. “I don’t NEED to be saved from anyone or anything. I don’t want a god who judges anyway. If you god condemns millions to hell I don’t want him anyway.” Sound familiar? Sounds close to blasphemy - mock the God who threatens to judge? Check. Reject the concept of sin and the need of salvation? Check. It’s par for the course.
I’ve said this before, and it bears repeating, watch yourself in this as well. Your society’s attitude rubs off on your theology. The God who demands perfection, the God who must have His righteous anger met, He doesn’t sound too nice any more. The idea that I need to feed on Him, listen to Him, repent to Him, kneel before Him, does it sound too draconian to you? Maybe you’ll confess your sins, but maybe you don’t need grace and forgiveness THAT much? How far are you then from the Jews? They thought they’d be saved BECAUSE they were Jews. Do you think you’ll be saved BECAUSE you’re a member of Trinity? Because you’re Lutheran? Or because of what Jesus did for you on the cross? Do you need it? Do you rejoice in it? Or is it taken for granted? There is a malaise among more and more Christians in America, which shows in their lack of desire to hear and learn the Word. Be careful that you don’t fall for the same trap.
The Jews in Pisidian Antioch dug in their heels. They wouldn’t listen. There comes a time when God says, “Enough is enough.” So Paul said, look: We are now turning to the Gentiles! For this is what the Lord has instructed us: I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.” God had ALWAYS wanted the Gospel to go to the Gentiles. (A Gentile, by the way, is anyone who is NOT a Jew.) God wanted it to go THROUGH the Jews who had believed in Christ. (Evangelism is most natural to occur with those you know, live, and work with.) But since the Jews were rejecting Christ, Paul had to go directly to the Gentiles instead. Same goal, different way to the goal.
You know, there comes a time where you can’t continue to reach out to the same people and keep getting rejected time and again without finally saying, “That’s it. I’m done. It’s obvious you’re not interested. I’m moving on.” If you were in high school or college and you set your sights on one person, but that person kept on rejecting you and even started getting angry with you or calling you a stalker, you’d finally have to say, “That’s it. I’m done. I need to find someone else. I can’t keep on with this any more.”
There are members at Trinity who become angry when we finally remove them from membership after having tried to reach out to them for over a year through texts, mail, phone calls, and visits. It’s depressing if they never reply or just get angry at you. Some of them may be your own family members. The answer is obvious, even if they don’t want to admit it. If we are here to represent Christ and give Christ, at what point do we make Christ out to be desperate or a beggar by begging them to stay, when He is the King, the Lord, and the Savior? It wasn’t that Paul didn’t WANT his fellow Jews to be saved. It was that THEY didn’t want it. So Paul moved from one group to another. He really had no choice in the matter. They had rejected Jesus and it was time to move on.
And what happened as a result? When the Gentiles heard this, they were rejoicing and praising the word of the Lord. This too is an amazing thing when I think about it. They are basically being told that they were supposed to be second fiddle to the Jews. Paul was reaching out to them directly because his fellow Jews rejected him. But the Gentiles didn’t get angry about it. They didn’t say, “We won’t play second fiddle to the Jews! Why didn’t you come to US first?!?” No. Not at all. They were GLAD that Paul was reaching out to them. They were overjoyed that they were wanted by God as well and that they were a part of God’s salvation plan. Jesus died for THEM too and Jesus wanted THEM too. What an awesome attitude! Just to be thankful and praise the LORD for salvation.
Why was it that these Gentiles believed in Pisidian Antioch specifically? Luke wants to make sure that we know exactly why. All who had been appointed for eternal life believed. It is a passive verb in the Greek. They were appointed. By whom? Appointed by God. For what? To believe in Jesus as their Savior, for eternal life. It was obvious what had happened. God worked a miracle of faith in them.
Think about the Wise Men and try to figure it out. Why did THEY get it? Was it merely because of their knowledge of the stars? Where did the knowledge come from? Perhaps it was a prophecy through Daniel who also was a wise man in the east along with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Did God draw them through that? But even then, nature only took them so far. The star disappeared. They had to go to the chief priests and the teachers of the law to find out the baby would be born in Bethlehem. But even then - why them? Was it because they knew the stars better than anyone else in the world? I doubt it. Ultimately, it was all by the grace of God, who appointed them to come and find Jesus and worship him, fulfilling the Scriptures. How else could you describe these grown men going to Israel to worship a baby?
If we all are truly born spiritually dead in our sins, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, then it is going to have to be a miracle that we are brought to faith. We can’t make a choice to come to faith any more than a baby chooses to be conceived or born. That’s what happened for the Gentiles in Antioch. That’s what happened for the Wise Men. That’s what happens with us too. How else could you explain the fact that we come here on a Sunday morning to worship and pray to Jesus, who lived 2,000 years ago in Israel?!?
Don’t overcomplicate it. It’s supposed to be simple. Your coming to faith isn’t based on how smart you are. You aren’t the smartest. It isn’t based on how much you want it. You and I are sometimes pretty lazy with our spiritual lives. It isn’t because we are better than others. There are plenty of unbelievers that are probably much nicer than we are. What makes you get it? It can’t be based on me, and frankly, I don’t want it to be. God knows what a sinner I am. It has to be grace alone. To God alone be the glory.
It also means that when I’m trying to bring Christ to others, I don’t have to be the most eloquent. I don’t have to give the slickest presentation. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t prepare. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know my Word and study it. Paul knew his Word well. He spoke it fervently. He debated with the Jews. But GOD did the work of converting, not Paul. God did the ultimate convincing, not Paul.
If someone rejects it? Paul didn’t blame himself for the rejection of the Jews. He didn’t blame God either. He blamed them. How many times do we fail to say ANYTHING because we are afraid to say the WRONG thing? How many times do we hem and haw around the truth because we are AFRAID of people rejecting it. But if the results are in God’s hands, let HIM take care of the results. Let God call sin sin. Let God call to repentance. Let God throw people into hell. Let God demand perfection. Let God die on the cross. Let God give a free salvation through faith in Christ alone. Let sinners be saved. Pray for strength. Pray for courage. Pray for the words. But let God take care of it in the end.
Another neat thing is that even when you mess up, God can use it for good. I still recall very vividly backing down from a man earlier in my ministry. He intimidated me, and I was ashamed of my fear. I shouldn’t have been afraid. I was. Yet when I confessed my sinful fear to a brother pastor he said something like, “God could have worked through that too. Maybe that man needed to get away with a sin at that moment. Maybe your weakness was a blessing to him?” I certainly did not want to excuse my sin, but what he said was right. Think about that in your own life. God can work through failures too in His own time and way.
One of the most amazing stories came to me from Bounkeo Lor, a missionary to the Hmong. If I remember correctly, his father was a Buddhist. He received a simple Christian flyer that explained salvation. From that little flyer, reading it one time, he was brought to faith in Christ. He abandoned all of his other gods and followed Christ, bringing his family with him. From that one man, his children all became Christian pastors and are now in fellowship with us in the WELS. How else can you describe such a conversion but by the grace of God? How many others threw those pamphlets away? How many never even read them? But Boun’s father did.
Salvation and damnation. Who gets it and why? Here’s the Epiphany. When people don’t get it, the blame is on them. Paul makes that clear. They rejected him. But when they believe in Jesus, all glory to God, they get salvation! Think of what He did with the Wise Men, to the Gentiles in Pisidian Antioch, and to you too. By the grace of God, you get it. What is it? It is salvation, by seeing and believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. What else could it be, but a miracle? Amen.
