Introduction

Everyone we ever encounter has a pre-understanding of the world in which they live.

There’s no escaping it.

They all need to have that worldview, their existing understanding of things, recognised and addressed if they are going to grasp the Gospel, which they haven’t previously clearly heard and understood.

In the first century world that the Gospel dropped into, the pre-understanding, the grand metanarratives underlying people’s lives could be divided into two major thought worlds … there were Jews and there were ‘Greeks’ and they both needed to be addressed Biblically but within their contexts.

To fail to do so would be to miscommunicate rather than communicate the Good News that had just come fresh from God.

In communicating across cultures with this Gospel, contextualising so that it was heard clearly and without misunderstanding, the stance of the first authentic heralds of the Gospel could be described as radical in its identification with those receptor cultures and radical in its difference from them.

Both.

All at once.

And we see that first and most clearly in Paul’s ministry in Acts 13 in the Synagogue in Pisidian Antioch where the two key words that sum up his missionary approach are identification and difference.

Paul is – in all contexts – radical in identification and radical in difference.

1) Radical identification, vv. 13-22

A) Rocking up at Synagogue, vv. 13-14

You have to bear in mind that for the first twenty years at least - probably more - Christianity was very much a Jewish phenomenon.

The early Christians could see that Judaism had ground to a halt on the developing timeline of the Divine history of salvation, but they still went while they could to the synagogue and did what they could there.

And the thing was, when God called Paul on the Damascus Road, the Lord called a person with a distinct advantage to evangelise in a Jewish context.

James and Peter may have been recognised as particularly called to a mission to the Jewish people and culture, but Paul (the Apostle to the Gentiles) was in a unique position every time he turned up in a synagogue.

Of course turning up was an act of identification, but every time he turned up Paul was in a situation where he was …

b) Recognised to teach, v. 15

If you read through Acts you’ll get the idea it’s pretty uncanny that when Paul drifts into a synagogue in a strange city he gets asked to preach.

If they invited every drifter fresh from the road and just blowing through town to preach … you’d think they’d end up having a pretty messed up theology, wouldn’t you?

So what’s going on?

How does Paul always seem to get invited to preach?

Well, he seems to have a clear point of identification with the culture going on again.

If you look at 2 Timothy 4:13 you’ll see Paul making a surprising request to Timothy.

By the time Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy, the young pastor had been ministering to the church at Ephesus for four years, and it had been almost that long since he had received his first letter from Paul.

Paul probably wrote to Timothy from a second imprisonment in Rome asking Timothy to come to visit him, and said:

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.”

Cloak and parchments?

What’s that about?

Paul was a scribe, a Pharisee.

It appears that he had trained at the feet of Gamaliel the Great and we know what he says about the way he had progressed way ahead of his peers in the study of the Law and the teachings of the great rabbis because he tells us about it in Philippians 3:5-6 where he says:

“circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.”

So he was at the top of the tree for teachers of the Law.

That might seem make good sense of his asking Timothy to bring these parchment scrolls he’d left with Carpas at Troas when he bade farewell to the Ephesian elders and took ship towards Rome.

But what is this cloak about?

The context (scrolls of parchment) is one of the scribe’s tools of his trade and guess what?

Just as the scrolls were part of the tools of his trade, so also was a scribal cloak … the insignia of his office.

So when Paul rocked up at the synagogue in town, with his cloak on, the elders in the synagogue knew they’d got more than the local worthies available to ask to comment and add their two pennorth on the reading from the Law and the Prophets … it was a big deal because today they’d got a proper qualified scribe in town.

Paul is identifying radically with their culture and adding considerable value to their experience at worship by the wisdom he could bring to their gathering that day.

And from the outset of his sermon, Paul was building identification.

c) Recognised non-verbal communication - that hand gesture, v. 16

You find Paul in Acts 21:40 being rescued from the baying Jewish mob by the Roman soldiers, getting permission from their commander to speak (largely on the back of being a Roman citizen) and then gesturing to the crowd, who understanding the significance of that signal, settled down for a long listen.

But there’s much more to it than that … and this gives us a clue about the difference between preaching and lecturing, addressing a congregation face to face and doing a podcast like this.

Neurobiological studies suggest that listeners may tune oscillatory activity in the alpha and theta bands upon observing the initiation of a beat gesture to anticipate processing an assumedly important upcoming word.

The classic ‘McGurk effect’ is an influential illustration of how visual input influences the perception of speech sounds.

The ‘McGurk effect’ illustrates that listeners take both visual (lip movements) and auditory (speech) information into account to arrive at a best possible approximation of the exact message a speaker intends to convey.

In ‘Beat gestures influence which speech sounds you hear’

Proceedings of the Royal Society B (27 January 2021)

https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2419

Hans Rutger Bosker  and David Peeters provide evidence in favour of a manual McGurk effect: which is to say that in the ‘beat gesture’ hand movements that  influence what exact speech sounds we hear.

“The timing of even the simplest hand movement is vital to face-to-face communication,” says Bosker. “We’ve shown how multimodal speech perception really is,” he says. (New Scientist 27th January 2021).

This is a new finding, but it is an ancient practice as we discover in Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (edd.), A Cultural History

of Gesture From Antiquity to the Present Day (Oxford, 1991).

In antiquity it had a name, Chironomia, and was an essential part of the study of rhetoric.

We find it in Cicero’s practise and in the discussion of the subject in Quintillian a discussion that illustrates quite strikingly how Roman speakers could use gestures involving their arms, hands, and fingers to give extra force and impact to their words

It’s hardly interpretive dance, but here’s Paul doing the same sort of thing in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch … gaining a hearing and communicating with bodily gestures in a manner to which both the Jews and the Gentile background God-fearers would be accustomed.

And then Paul launches into this magnum opus recital of Jewish history as his major up-front act of identification with his audience, but notice as we go through this how he is already building a bridge from the buttress of radical identification towards the buttress opposite, the buttress of radical difference.

D) Recital of recognised salvation-history 

i) Shared origins, vv. 17-20

BROTHERS, says Paul.

First of all.

Radical identification.

Now, that’s not an acknowledgment of the New Testament doctrine of adoption and an acceptance that to be of Jewish ethnic origin is to be part of the family of God.

Gently, ever so gently, as he identifies with this Jewish congregation in their shared origins Paul is going to make clear that’s not the case … and then as he comes to show how their shared and already acknowledged identification within the old covenant of people of God necessitates and is fulfilled in Jesus Christ great David’s greater Son it becomes very obvious that he is NOT calling people of Jewish heritage brothers in the New Covenant sense.

But Paul is nonetheless emphasising the things which they DO share.

“The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt; with mighty power he led them out of that country; 18 for about forty years he endured their conduct in the wilderness; 19 and he overthrew seven nations in Canaan, giving their land to his people as their inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years.”

Paul is identifying with and declaring common ground in their origins as the Old Testament people of God.

Here are the sure, steady foundations.

Here is the foundation of their identity and their faith.

They know all this.

Paul isn’t telling them this to instruct them but to affirm them and identify with them, at identifiable points where their pre-understanding is consistent with God’s truth.

ii) Shared understanding of shared history of their people, v. 20c

Paul goes on from their common origins to speak of their shared historic experience of stumbling along with God, in and out of His favour but always stumbling and falling, in spite of whatever human effort they made to walk with God.

They were not good at walking with Him because they always stumbled in their sin, so Paul indicates that by referring to specific incidents …

In the Book of Judges God was to be their King but he had to send them, as it were, deliverers to get them out of the binds that their sins kept getting them into … but the constant refrain of the book of Judges is that ‘in those days Israel had no King. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.’

That is a huge revealing refrain!

They were supposed to walk with God as their King … not having rulers to see them in line as the other nations did (which wasn’t working for those other nations either, by the way).

But OUR ancestors (and Paul is about to make his allusion to that aspect of their experience VERY clear) … OUR ancestors were living as if they had no King, until they badgered Samuel, against God’s wishes, to plead with God to GIVE THEM a King to lead them just as the other nations had kings.

It is a rejection of God that Paul is alluding to without rubbing their noses in it here in v. 21:

“Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.”

Look at what Paul is doing here.

iii) Shared understanding of the rejection of God’s sovereignty, v. 21

He is reciting their shared history fair enough … identifying with them … but all the while as he does that he is raising themes throughout what he’s doing here that point to the rejection of God’s goodness and grace in setting them apart from all the Nations to be His special people and their rejection of His authority in the demand for a human King in His place, to be their ruler instead.

This is all identifying with them but quietly pointing all along at the sinful depravity of the human heart in its turning away from their Divine Sovereign Lord, and this will lead fairly soon to His expounding the necessity of regeneration along with the repentance and faith which that brings.

Now he’s not just preaching doom and gloom.

You can’t open ears like that.

So Paul does refer to their …

iv) Shared understanding of rehabilitated Kingship: David, v. 22

V. 22 “After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

But while that might be seen by his hearers as introducing a positive note, here is the crucial bridge between what they all identify with so far and the new stuff they need to know about … the radical difference element … all about where God is now leading them on the basis of the Law, prophets and writings  of the Bible which they’ve established that they’re all signed up to together.

This is the difference between Paul identifying with people of the book and with people of pagan philosophy.

Fundamentally Paul has taken them all through the Sunday School curriculum citing the old stories they’ve known from childhood and which make them feel comforted.

But actually what he’s done is that he has taken them along certain well-chosen themes in their salvation-history that highlight their history as rejecters of the God Who had chosen them to walk with them in this client-patron relationship where He was their Great King and suzerain - their Sovereign Lord - Whose authority they had universally rejected throughout their history … and it’s as if ‘come on’, he says, ‘we’re all, agreed on this!’

But looked what it is they’ve agreed to!

They have agreed to the way that their view ad their pr-understading of he God, the universe ad everything HASN’T BEEN WORKING FOR THEM!

And Paul is about to take them with all that ringing in their ears to the way King Jesus fits into, fulfils and fixes the mess they have made of their lives as the historic people of God … in consistent fulfilment of the prophecy they all agree on.

See what He’s doing here?

He is proving radical in identification with these people to the point where they see this hasn’t worked out very well, and he is about to bring them to an understanding of the difference Christ brings!

But notice this: he is going to show in parallel to demonstrating the difference of the new covenant that it is all utterly consistent with the things they identify with together from their shared history and heritage …

This is BRILLIANT!

Here it comes.

2) Radical difference, vv. 23-41

Keeping in mind all that we’ve said about identification and difference being held together in Paul’s Gospel proclamation to these people who were people of the Book, but not of the Saviour … let’s now read these next verses and see how Paul holds on to radical identification and blends it back and forth with the New Testament difference.

Launching off from King David, their great hero of the united monarchy that lay in tatters now before their eyes every day under Roman rule, Paul says:

“From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Saviour Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

26 “Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognise Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. 

Well!

By now, given all that’s happened in the fairly recent past up at Jerusalem with the Jewish leaders rejecting Jesus and strong-arming the Roman authorities to crucify the One many had thought was the Messiah … this difference factor is starting to glow red hot for the people in synagogue that morning so where does Paul go with them?

Hear this from his sermon (v. 33)

As it is written in the second Psalm:

“‘You are my son;

    today I have become your father.’

34 God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’[c]

35 So it is also stated elsewhere:

“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’

36 “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.”

He goes straight back to link the difference of the new to the fulfilment of the old.

This new stuff, he says, is that old stuff you are so familiar and comfortable with getting fulfilled

This is AMAZING!

Look at what’s in this radical difference complemented with radical identification section of the sermon here …

a)    Recital of New Testament salvation history

The recital of salvation history mattered culturally to the audience in the synagogue that day.

They were to remember communally the dealings of God with them corporately and that was clearly from the earliest times back in Deuteronomy something built into the practice of their faith.

And in identifying with that cultural practice Paul now unpacks to them the radical intervention by way of continuity and difference that God made in Christ:

“ Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

26 “Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. 

And as we’ve just seen, straight away Paul blends the New Covenant development of salvation history back into their shared Old Covenant foundational beliefs from Old Covenant salvation-history:

As it is written in the second Psalm:

“‘You are my son;

    today I have become your father.’

34 God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’

35 So it is also stated elsewhere:

“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’

36 “Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed. 37 But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.”

What are the themes here?

i) Prophetic restoration, vv. 24-25

vv. 24 – 25   go like this:

“Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25 As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not the one you are looking for. But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’”

Now, this was all consistent with the prophecy of Isaiah 40:1-5

“Comfort, comfort my people,

    says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

    and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

    that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

    double for all her sins.

3 A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare

    the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert

    a highway for our God.”

And then, the prophet Malachi also famously foretold the coming of John the Baptist in Malachi 3:1

““I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.”

Everyone hearing Paul’s sermon in Pisidian Antioch that day would KNOW about the coming of John wearing the garb and embodying the lifestyle of Elijah the great prototypical Old Testament prophet.

As Paul begins to expand the radical difference of the New Covenant  ALONGSIDE the radical identification with the Old Covenant they already knew, Paul starts to point out that the era of communication from God has been restored and that new Word of God is coming to the Old Covenant people of God after the 400 years of silence from Heaven, and that sets the context for this recital of God’s New Covenant history expounding His new found salvation that heals the scars and the failures of their Old Covenant performance.

So there’s the theme of Prophetic restoration – God is speaking again … they need to grasp this to be able to accept the NEW covenant is now fulfilling the old.

But Paul is pointing out that God is doing a NEW thing but He is not doing a totally different thing … this is all in fulfilment of the Old Covenant they were so familiar with.

Prophetic restoration highlights …

ii) Prophetic fulfilment

Look how much of the Old Testament Paul quotes here now that He’s telling them that the old has gone and the new has come!

All the while here Paul’s message can be summarised as ‘This is that’.

This which I am telling you about Jesus is that which you know, understand to be true and identify with from your existing pattern, structure, view of the world … your existing worldview which now comes to fruit and fruition in the Christ event and in the person and work of Christ, the Messiah, OUR Saviour.

So …

John, the One Greater than Elijah, has come in vv. 24-25 but he is described as inferior to the coming One.

(Wow! That’s Messianic language!)

And then in v.32 we get:

““We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:

“‘You are my son;

    today I have become your father.’”

Then vv. 34-35:

‘God raised him from the dead so that he will never be subject to decay. As God has said,

“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’

35 So it is also stated elsewhere:

“‘You will not let your holy one see decay.’”

Then in the warning section of the sermon in vv. 40-41:

“Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:

41 “‘Look, you scoffers,

    wonder and perish,

for I am going to do something in your days

    that you would never believe,

    even if someone told you.’”

(That’s Habakkuk 1:5 for those of us who don’t have every verse of the minor prophets on the tip of our tongues in the way that Paul’s hearers would have done there in the synagogue that day).

And yet having identified and differed so thoroughly in this way,  the course of the sermon needs to move towards further difference whilst still grasping hold of this radical identification and that comes in the accustomed format of a typical scribal application … what was expected to be heard when the elders of the synagogue asked individuals to comment on the reading of the Law and the Prophets as had just happened in that synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, which gave Paul the opportunity to deliver this sermon in the first place.

Here comes the application of salvation history that was expected, but on this occasion it was going to display radical identification in format, but radical difference in the message delivered …

iii) Scribal exposition of salvation history, vv. 26-33

““Fellow children of Abraham and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. 28 Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. 

V. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

32 “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.”

The summary of the point of the sermon moves SWIFTLY to the application and the clear statement of the action that is now called for.

c) Application, vv. 38-39

““Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.”

Now THERE’s the thing.

There’s the radical deliverance that needs to be conveyed to those people in the Synagogue there, the people of the Book sitting there on the day.

The ‘THAT’ of their experience finds fulfilment in the ‘THIS’ of the person and work of Christ which brought this Good News to those who couldn’t cut it throughout their previous history with God for all their religious knowledge and pressed sophistication.

The principle of that is very similar to the principle of Paul’s sermon to a predominantly pagan Greek context in Athens in Acts 17 … but it comes there in very different cultural garb clothed in a very culturally different pattern of proclamation of the radical identification and radical difference that Biblical Gospel preaching embraces in different cultural contexts.

But this NEVER, when it is Biblically faithful, amounts the a dilution of nor a softening of the fundamental message nor the call to action of the Gospel, which always  addresses sin and calls for radical repentance and repudiation of it.

So here, it comes with a warning …

d) Warning, vv. 40-41

Vv. 40-41:

“Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:

41 “‘Look, you scoffers,

    wonder and perish,

for I am going to do something in your days

    that you would never believe,

    even if someone told you.’””

There’s consistent continuity with the ‘old’ there again, because that’s a direct quotation of Habakkuk 1:5 where the prophet (in the LXX) addresses the doubters and the detractors from God’s fresh Word in his own generation:

ἴδετε, οἱ καταφρονηταί,

This is καταφρονητής - scoffer, despiser 

καὶ ἐπιβλέψατε ( to show special attention, consider, care about, regard) 

καὶ θαυμάσατε θαυμάσια 

And marvel at the marvel

καὶ ἀφανίσθητε, 

(Marvel at the marvel) and destruction

διότι ἔργον ἐγὼ ἐργάζομαι 

Because of the deed that I will do

ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ὑμῶν, 

In your days

ὃ οὐ μὴ πιστεύσητε 

Which you would not believe

ἐάν τις ἐκδιηγῆται

Even if it were told to you.

Wow!

What was Habakkuk taking aim at?

The prophet lived and spoke in the build-up to the invasion of Judah (anticipated in 1:6) and the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 bc. The reign of Josiah, marked by justice and covenant loyalty, had come to an end. His son Jehoiakim had succeeded him in 609 bc, but he was only concerned with self-promotion; mercy and justice became values of the past and the nation spiralled downwards in oppression and violence. When Jeremiah, Habakkuk’s contemporary, challenged Jehoiakim about his corrupt ways, he spoke with characteristic vigour: ‘Your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain, on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression and extortion’ (Jer 22:17).

The Kings had failed.

Oppression resulted because no-one heeded Habakkuk’s warning.

And the Jewish people sitting in the synagogue that day in Pisidian Antioch were living at the other end of the awful times foretold in Habakkuk while God was silent and withdrawn from them on account of the sin Habakkuk had warned of but been ignored.

However, with the hindsight of history we know that whilst this sermon was probably delivered between 41-46 AD, another invading foreign force would conquer Jerusalem’s Temple itself (a Temple which held out against this Gospel in AD 70 and a re-run played out of the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple in 586 BC of which the prophets had warned.

To quote Habakkuk 1:5 in that place on that day was a POWERFUL warning that would ring in the ears of all who’d been listening … but how it seemed after AD 70 can only be imagined.

Radical in identification.

Radical in difference … but not so different from the prophets of long ago in their similarly radical call for repentance and warning against scoffing when God brought new revelation.

Well, we know how people responded to Habakkuk.

What sort of response did Paul get to his preaching the day?  

3) Predictable patterns of response, vv. 42-50

“ As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.

46 Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us:

“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,

    that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

49 The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. 50 But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.”

A) Acceptance, vv. 42-43

“ As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

b)    Interest, v. 44

“On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”

c)    Rejection, v. 45 

“When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.”

D) Riot and revival, vv. 48-50 

“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

49 The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. 50 But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.”

Conclusion - the outcome, vv. 51-52

“So they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

Applause and popularity are not features that authenticate ministry as a genuine work of God.

Far from it.

And it’s also very interesting that when the Apostles had deployed a Biblically authentic missiology to present a Biblically authentic message and witnessed a Biblical authentic pattern of response … they realised they could leave it to God and walked away.

There is a tremendous trust evident in them of the consequences of their confidence of the sovereignty of God in their preaching.

There is no evidence of confidence in their method … but in the Divine Messenger Who protects both the preaching and the faith it draws forth by the intervention of the blessed Holy Spirit.

William Cowper captures the essence of their attitude in his famous hymn of 1779

v. 1 The Spirit breathes upon the Word,

And brings the truth to sight;

Precepts and promises afford,

A sanctifying light.

V. 3 The Hand that gave it still supplies

The gracious light and heat.

Its truths upon the nations rise;

They rise, but never set.

What this prototypical sermon for the People of the Book that Paul delivers here demonstrates is that in authentic apostolic ministry 

there is method, 

there is message 

and there is absolute reliance on the God Who can be trusted to speak life to lost souls, to produce and nurture the fruit all the way through to His Glory.

Radical in identification.

Radical in difference.

Radical dependence on God to do what He wills with His Word.

And we see that repeated in other very different cultural contexts in Paul’s next two prototypical sermons in Acts.