Acts 13:4-12
The Holy Spirit: A Powerful Person
August 25, 2002
Mel Gibson's recent movie, Signs, is about a former pastor and farmer who discovers crop circles, or what some believe are spaceship landing pads, in his cornfield. Gibson’s character left the ministry and lost his trust in God following his wife’s tragic death in a car accident. As he no longer believes in the traditional signs, God revealing himself in his Word, he is now confronted with supposedly supernatural signs in his cornfield. This film, as with others by director M. Night Shyamalan, who gave us Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, shows that life has purpose and that there’s an overarching plan that guides everything that happens to us. Yet is what will convince us only that which is strikingly supernatural or powerfully personal? Will aliens frighten to faith where God speaking through His Word has failed?
The crop circle phenomenon began in England in the late seventies and copycat circles have been found in 70 countries around the world. In the early nineties the original pranksters confessed that they created the circles with a plank, knotted rope, and moonlight. However, these spectacular images have become part of pop culture, and there are many who believe or hope that they are "messages" from aliens or superior beings.
Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal in Amherst, N.Y has been studying the crop circle phenomenon since the mid 1980s. He believes all the designs are man-made, and they appeal to man's sense of mystery, hope, and fear. "In those three words, you explain the human interest in most of the paranormal phenomenon. Crop circles are mysterious to people. If they are made by aliens, that's a hopeful message. And there's fear because we're not sure what the aliens are up to." Michael Shermer, author of Why People Believe Weird Things, believes that interest in crop circles "really is a religious belief. It's the promise of something transcendent, bigger than us, beyond us." (From J. Bernard, "Harvesting A Hoax," NY Daily News, (7-26-02); J. Shaughnessy, "Mystery or Mischief?" Indianapolis Star, (8-1-02))
Augustine’s Confessions well states the human condition when he wrote: “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee.” In our culture people seek answers in the supernatural wherever they can find it. The proclivity to the supernatural stems from a confused understanding of our Creator’s interaction with His creation. We quickly equate spectacular, astonishing, and unexplainable events with God’s hand. We go for the flashy, showy, powerful to find our purpose and meaning, all the while ignore that which is more mundane and ordinary. But when we do this, we miss God’s providence in our world.
The restless search for meaning quickly attaches itself to the most outlandish when we lack the biblical understanding of God working through his creation. We limit the divine to the supernatural and in so doing will consider what God says in His Word and does in his world as too ordinary.
Our passage this morning describes events in the life of the early church which contain elements of the supernatural, but the focus of Acts 13 is not to convince us by the shocking display of power, but the convicting truth of what God did in His Son. READ Acts 13:4-12
Acts 13 is the great turning point in God’s calling out a people for himself. Up to this point God’s focus has been on the Jews, but beginning in Antioch, God opens the doors to the Gentiles. No longer is the church to be content with reaching their neighbors down the street, now the mission of the church expands throughout the empire. Behind this is the work of God the Holy Spirit. God moved the church in Antioch to call those among its leadership to reach the world. But this work of God in the church, while of divine origin, was brought about through some rather ordinary means. The power of the Holy Spirit operates in a very personal fashion. Let us look at this power in our passage as we examine how the person of the Holy Spirit conducts us to serve, confronts our error and convicts us of our need.
The power of the Holy Spirit conducts us to serve 13:4-5
The Holy Spirit’s selected who would serve
Before I took off on vacation we examined vv1-3 wherein we saw what happens to a church which is gripped by God’s grace. We saw that they were dedicated to diversity, a diversity of gifts and backgrounds. The work of the Holy Spirit in a church is seen in unifying these different peoples with various backgrounds and gifts. God the Holy Spirit moves in this church as they worship. It is while they are worshipping and fasting that God directs Barnabas and Saul to be sent out.
God guides in worship, in the context of community. While internal senses of God’s calling and guidance are important, so is the external, community confirmation. Be careful when you conclude that God has called you to be a brain surgeon but you can’t get into medical school.
In these opening verses we are introduced to this first great missionary team of Barnabas and Saul. This will be the first of three such journey’s Luke describes that Paul would embark upon. What is briefly described in this chapter took two years to complete and did not begin until more than a decade after God first told him this would happen. For the next 20 years, Paul’s life would be centered around God’s directing him to serve.
The Holy Spirit directed where they would serve
In v4 we are reminded once again that this journey was at the behest of the Holy Spirit. It was God who sent them out, but he did so through the local church. In a rather ordinary way, without a pretentious show, but in quiet providence, God directs the affairs of the church. So it should not come as a surprise that the Holy Spirit’s direction of Barnabas and Saul seems quite ordinary to the casual observer, but Luke is clear to point out that God is behind it all.
They leave Antioch in Syria, travel 15 miles down the River Orontes to the seaport of Seleucia. They board a ship to cross the Mediterranean Sea 100 miles to the west to Cyprus. The reason for this island to be the first stop on their journey is quite understandable.
You may recall that Barnabas himself was a Cyprian. Perhaps God used Barnabas’ natural love for his native land to reach loved ones back home. This is a great illustration to remind us that the guiding of the Spirit need not be in opposition to what our natural desires are. While we must question our desires, knowing that even our best motives are mixed with sin, God works through our desires to accomplish his purpose.
In the ancient world Cyprus was viewed as we may Bermuda or Hawaii, calling it Markaria, the Happy Isle, because its climate was perfect and resources abundant. It was a senatorial province, that is, under the control of the Roman senate, thus having no stationed legion on the island and administrated by governors called proconsuls. Barnabas and Saul traversed the island east to west, a journey of some 90 miles to the capital of Paphos.
As they traveled they followed a pattern repeated throughout Acts. They would first begin with the synagogue, making contact with those well versed in God’s Word. This pattern again shows the guidance of the Holy Spirit: the gospel goes to the Jew first then to the Greek, as Paul wrote in Romans 1. This is a sensible approach, dispelling the notion that for God to be at work powerfully in a person’s life they will do that which is so contrary to their nature one is forced to conclude it is of God. I’ve heard people declare that if a plan is rational it must not be from God.
This twisted thinking betrays what we see soundly practiced here. That God can and does work through ordinary means. That God powerfully uses a person’s background and culture and gifts. This is not to say God can not or will not do that which we can not explain. That is certainly not the case. But here we see the power of God the Holy Spirit directing his people in a very personal and in a quite way.
The Holy Spirit directed who would serve with them
In v5 we are told they took John, also called Mark, Barnabas’ cousin, author of the gospel. They took him “to assist them.” We are not told what kind of help John gave them. This word is used of a servant or assistant of doctors, army officers, priests and politicians. So Mark’s service may be pastoral (e.g. instructing inquirers and nurturing converts) or practical (e.g. cooking and cleaning).
Interestingly, some assume that John’s accompanying them was a mistake. They conclude the selection of missionaries must be extraordinary, but in v5 it is Barnabas and Saul who select Mark. Given that Mark will abandon them after they leave the island and be the cause of Barnabas and Paul’s split in the future, Barnabas and Saul were wrong in their selection. Yet this betrays that same misunderstanding of God’s leading. It expects that for God to guide, there must be writing in the sky, some paranormal occurrence as though we should conclude that God can not guide his own creation unless he breaks into our world and suspends his own laws. While miracles can and do occur, they are not necessary for God to guide. There are times when we run to the miraculous at the sake of the ordinary, thinking that unless writes his will in the sky for us, he is not leading us.
When it comes to people devoted to a cause, it is rather easy to be overly devoted. Take Jerry Pierson, a goat farmer in Interlachen, Fla., whose newborn goat had a large "3" on its fur markings on one side. When news hit the media, NASCAR fans raced to Interlachen to see the goat -- 3 is the car number NASCAR race driver Dale Earnhardt, who died in the 2001 Daytona 500 race in Florida.
But God’s guidance is not a mysterious set of coincidences, strange crop circles difficult to understand. Rather God’s guidance remains Word centered and confirmed by the body.
The power of the Holy Spirit confronts our error 13:6-11
The Holy Spirit confronts false teaching
When Barnabas, Saul and John arrive in Paphos they encounter two very different responses to the gospel. In each of those responses we see how the Holy Spirit works to bring about the results He desires. First comes the confrontation with Bar-Jesus, also known as Elymas the Magician.
We are told that he was a magician. While Matthew uses magos as a favorable term for the wise men we call the magi, the word in the ancient world was used of a charlatan, a trickster.
His two names and the parenthesis Luke gives in v8 has perplexed commentators for some time. His second name, Elymas may come from the Arabic root alim which means sage, or the Aramaic haloma which means interpreter of dreams. So Luke aids his Greek readers by telling us that he claimed to be a wise man, a magi.
That he was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus should come as no surprise.
Romans put great stock in powers of divination and even had their own sacred oracles. Jewish roots would help him with the Romans, for the Jews had a reputation for their antiquity and depth of religious knowledge. Josephus mentioned a number of such Jewish sorcerers who had great successes among the Gentiles. Our own leaders have likewise consulted unsavory charlatans, such as the Reagan’s taking counsel from an astrologer.
The true colors of this quack are shown when Sergius Paulus takes an interest in the gospel. Elymas opposes Barnabas and Saul, perhaps fearful he would lose the governor’s ear or purse.
We are not told what he did to sway the proconsul’s opinion, to turn him from the truth, but Saul is quick to confront his interference. This seems to be another case of Christian intolerance. But this is not just a matter of conflicting worldviews or cultural insensitivity on Paul’s part. That Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit (v8), that Bar-Jesus was Jewish, and may have even taken the name he did due to stories of Jesus, and that he was a false prophet and a magician, shows the willful manipulation of events to confuse and dissuade.
This is an intently spiritual conflict here. Elymas seeks to gain power through slight of hand or demonic powers with the view of maintaining his own interest at heart. He typifies the danger of false spirituality, as it looks so intriguing, so life affirming, but at the heart can be so very deadening.
Paul speaks, showing that while we have compassion on those who are unacquainted with God’s Word and should be instructed with meekness, there are occasions where we must rebuke with all authority. Just as when a small child reaches for the boiling pot, we move swiftly and may even frightening the tot, we move with force for their own protection.
We are not given Paul’s role as the voice of direct divinely inspired judgment on any person’s soul, but we have warrant to confront sin with the Word of God, in meekness and humility, yet with firmness. Christians are not called to be so “nice” (in the world’s terms) that they drop the subject of Christ and his right ways at the slightest objection. Sergius Paulus’ eternal destiny was at stake: more than that, so was the very integrity of the gospel and the Savior for Cyprus and beyond. God opened the door. Elymas tried to close it. Paul stood fast and the Lord blew away the opposition. (Keddie, You Are My Witnesses, 152)
The Holy Spirit confronts the root problem
The Holy Spirit, working through Paul, confronts the root of the problem, describing Elymas’ ultimate origin, his orientation, his character which stand in opposition to God.
With a play on his name, Paul calls him a son of the devil. Bar-Jesus would mean son of the Savior. But this was not the case at all. Seeking to turn someone from the gospel shows that their allegiance is sinister. Secondly, he is an enemy of all righteousness. His general orientation is contrary to what is good and just. His character was filled with deceit and trickery. The word deceit originally meant bait, by which something was lured into a trap. That is what Elymas was doing with Paulus with his false claims. In so seeking to trick the governor, he sought to undo what God had done.
With that Paul pronounces what only God could do – a temporary blindness.
This judgment warns those who seek to exchange light for darkness (see Isa 5:20). It may well have been too, that Paul remembered his own life when God’s harsh mercy darkened his sight so that the mind’s darkness may be restored to light.
While you and I do not pronounce blindness to those seeking to obstruct others from the truth, the Holy Spirit continues his work of confronting sin and error in ourselves and our world. This confrontation need not be flashy or even harsh, but in the simple stands we take at the office and with family wherein we defend and define biblical morality is that quiet and effective way in which the Holy Spirit works in this world today.
Author Jamie Buckingham once visited a dam on the Columbia River. He'd always thought that the water spilling over the top provided the power, not realizing that it was just froth, that deep within turbines and generators transformed the power of tons and tons of water to electricity--quietly, without notice, not like the flashy froth on top.
A side note at this point is necessary.
In v9 Luke tells us for the first time that Saul was also called Paul and from this point on in Acts as well as in his own letters, we know him as the Apostle Paul. Why the change? It was common for Jews to take a Greek or Roman second name, like Joseph Barsabbas (1:23) and John Mark (12:12,25), and so now as Saul moves in more Greek circles, he uses a Greek name. As a Roman citizen Paul would have had several names, the third name, known as the cognomen, would be the Latin Paullus. The change of focus from his Jewish name of Saul to his Latin name Paul signifies the new phase in the life of the church.
Another interesting note is that from this point, where Paul takes the lead, the team is not Barnabas and Saul, but Paul and Barnabas. In v13, Barnabas is no longer mentioned, but just Paul and his companions.
The power of the Holy Spirit convicts us of our need 13:12
The Spirit’s work of conviction may be over time
The governor, Sergius Paulus, was a Gentile, and a man of intelligence who hungered for spiritual truth more than he was receiving from Bar-Jesus. This description refers not to his IQ, but that his inquiring mind showed interest in spiritual things. He wanted to hear more.
This desire to hear more is certainly an evidence of the powerful convicting of the Holy Spirit. In John 6:37,44 describes as God’s effectual call, that is, when we see spiritual interest, it is there because God is graciously drawing the person to himself. We mistakenly refer to such people as seekers, as though this inquisitiveness in inborn. But as Paul reminds us in Romans 3, there is none who seek after God, so when we encounter the inquirer, we can be encouraged that it may well be God at work, giving them the spiritual interest.
God was a work in his life over time. That he was interested in spiritual things is seen by the presence of Bar-Jesus. That he was unsatisfied with superficial and showy spirituality is seen in his wanting to hear from Barnabas and Saul.
God’s work of grace is rarely sudden and immediate. When God graciously calls those with little background in the Christian faith, it is often a slow process of drawing them to himself. It is at such times we need to be patient with them.
The Spirit’s work of conviction may be through word and deed
I love the way v12 combines the two aspects of witness in this one verse. The proconsul believed when he saw what occurred to Bar-Jesus because he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. The two go together. Profession of faith in God’s grace will come only as a person knows God as he has revealed himself in Scripture. In a great irony, as a result of Bar-Jesus' blindness, the proconsul's eyes are opened and now he sees the truth and embraces it.
The most powerful miracle, the great supernatural event in this passage occurs in the simple change of a man’s life. It is not that mist and darkness fell on Elymas, but that the proconsul believed. Rather than seeking the divine in the paranormal, you can see God’s hand of grace in daily providence and in the simple work of convicting us of sin and leading us to Christ.
There is a common feature in older hymns often missing in the contemporary church. We have developed a platonic dichotomy, an unhealthy divide between the sacred and profane, the worldly and the spiritual, but our spiritual ancestors well understood God’s hand of grace in our world as well as in our souls. Our final hymn, Give to Our God Immortal Praise by Isaac Watts well pictures God’s grace in both areas. In v4, the same God who fills the sun with morning light is, in v5, the God who sent his Son with pow’r to save. Rather than demanding that God make himself real in some exceptional fashion, God has made himself known through is creation and explained his will through his Word.
