Sometimes it’s far better to travel light when studying the Bible.
I hope you’ll forgive the interruption in my examination of Saul/Paul’s life and ministry. He is perhaps the most famous author of New Testament books, and someone I want you to get familiar with so you can more effectively study what he wrote. The last email got most of the distraction out of my system, but I have a little more purging to do at the very end of this email.
But for now, back to the main agenda.
What do you think of when you hear the word “missionary”?
Personally, I think of bees.
When I was growing up, my family had a missionary friend who was a beekeeper and taught people in the Philippines how to tend bees and harvest the honey as an occupation.
After bees, I think about sitting around the dinner table (as the pastor’s family, we always got to eat with the missionaries who visited) listening to fantastic stories of near fatal encounters with lions, big snakes and poisonous spiders.
For me, the term missionary is well grounded in people traveling far away to exotic places where they worked really hard to spread the gospel. Often I didn’t understand what they did with their time, because the results seemed so scarce.
I’ll bet that this last bit is close to what you think when you hear “missionary”.
Building on that, even though you probably don’t meet missionaries very often, you likely have a comfortable idea about who they are and what they do. Maybe not in details, but you wouldn’t have any difficulty talking about “missions” at church (and how important it is).
All of that is a kind of “baggage.” It’s based in your personal history and expectations and experiences. You carry it with you everywhere you go – mostly without even realizing it.
If you brought those expectations and assumptions to your Bible in Acts 13, they would steer you completely wrong.
At that point in the development of the church, missionaries weren’t a thing. They hadn’t happened yet. No one even knew there was a word for it.
In the Jewish context, missionaries weren’t a thing because they were already God’s Chosen People. They didn’t take God out to the world. God only happened in the temple in Jerusalem. Gentiles could become second class citizens of God’s economy, but they had to come to the Jews.
Look at Acts 11:19 “Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.”
The Jewish believers scattered northward, not because they wanted to share the Good News, but because they were being so heavily persecuted in Jerusalem they needed a break. And when they went, they weren’t sharing, they just kept it all in their own community.
And this was after Peter had told everyone about the miraculous gift of the Spirit to Cornelius the Gentile.
It wasn’t part of their spiritual DNA to take the gospel to those who didn’t know. They behaved as if the faith was still exclusively theirs.
Believe it or not, it took a direct intervention of the Holy Spirit to start to change this inward-focused mentality.
Acts 13:2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
What work? The Holy Spirit wasn’t speaking to Barnabas and Paul here. He was talking to everyone else at the church at Antioch.
We have to go back to Paul/Saul’s conversion event (as many as 13 years earlier) to find about that.
Acts 9:15-16 But the Lord said to him [Ananias], “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
For all these years, Paul had been a missionary sleeper. Under cover in plain sight. No one knew what a missionary really was, but God had His plan for Paul. And in Acts 13, the Holy Spirit told the church at Antioch to get the program in gear.
Up to this point, it wasn’t a thing to be a missionary. There were no books on best technique or tactics. No missionary support groups had been formed. There certainly weren’t any missionary newsletter templates laying around.
No one knew how long the team would be gone, or what kind of reception they would receive when they were “in the field.” If they had a commissioning ceremony, they made it up on the spot because no one had done that kind of thing before.
It was all brand new.
Paul wasn’t just a missionary. He was also a trailblazer.
Central to his MISSIONary work, was his MISSION. To carry the name of God before Gentiles and Jews alike. He didn’t even know what he didn’t know.
Acts 13:4 says So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
He was sent out by the Holy Spirit. It’s as if he didn’t even know what he needed to do, so the Holy Spirit had to step in and help out.
That’s all I want to talk about today as relates to Paul. But it brings up a really important principle for the Bible student:
- Check your assumptions at the door.
Acts 13 is all about Paul’s first missionary journey (we’ll get to that in due time). But this was a new venture. Yours and my 21st century understanding of “being a missionary” isn’t helpful in studying this chapter in the Bible.
For the Bible Student, It’s an ongoing process to be aware of their own assumptions, and do whatever they can to set them aside to understand the text as the original readers would have.
Theophilus, Luke’s patron/audience lived in the world where he had never heard of a Christian Missionary before. He had no expectations of what should come next. Each new story was a major revelation to him.
And so we need to strive to think like the original audience when we study the Bible. It’s the starting point for understanding the message that was intended by the author.
Only after we understand the message from the perspective of the author and audience can we map the meaning back to our 21st century lives.
If this triggers questions for you, you should probably ask them now. It’s better to get them out in the open so you can work through them and find resolution and clarity.
If I think your question is really insightful, I might even share it back to the group and let everyone benefit from it as well. Not to make fun of the asker, but to use the question to bring knowledge and insight to many more people.
This email has already got a lot of thoughts spinning in my head. I might have more to say on this topic soon anyway.
Studying the Bible is a life-long pursuit. There is always a way to learn more and develop greater skill.
Time to go unload my baggage…
Dennis
