Good News & Bad Jews

On our journey through the book of Acts, we have come Acts 13:13. That number should remind us that at this point in Acts it has been 13 years since the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (from 33 AD to 46 AD). Isn’t it amazing that in only 13 years, without modern forms of communication and travel, under intense persecution, the church has already spread the Gospel so far? 

Paul and Barnabas are leaving the island of Cyprus and heading north to the mainland – to what is now modern-day Turkey. What unfolds there is a lot of missionary action: a significant journey by ship and on foot, the longest recorded sermon in Paul’s ministry, a city-wide revival, and backlash from the Jews of that city that got Paul and Barnabas expelled.

Acts 13 is a chapter of choices. And every choice made in this text – by Paul and Barnabas, by the Jews of Pisidian Antioch, by the Gentiles who heard the Gospel for the first time – is a choice that is still being made by churches and individual Christians today. Including us.

Please find Acts 13:13-52.