<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74"> </SPAN><br/><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>LESSON XIV</h2>
<h3>THE GOSPEL TO THE GENTILES</h3>
<p>It was a dramatic moment when Paul and Barnabas, with their
helper, set sail from Seleucia, on the waters of the Mediterranean.
Behind them lay Syria and Palestine and the history of the chosen
people; in front of them was the west. The religion of Israel had
emerged from its age-long seclusion; it had entered at last upon the
conquest of the world.</p>
<p>The message that crossed the strait to Cyprus was destined to
be carried over broader seas. A mighty enterprise was begun.
It was an audacious thought! The missionaries might well have
been overpowered by what lay before them—by the power of a
world empire, by the prestige of a brilliant civilization. How
insignificant were their own weapons! Would they ever even
gain a hearing? But though the enterprise was begun in weakness
it was begun in faith. At their departure from Antioch the missionaries
were "committed to the grace of God."</p>
<p>The account of this first missionary journey is one of the most
fascinating passages in The Acts. The interest never flags; incident
follows incident in wonderful variety. In reading this narrative,
we are transplanted into the midst of the ancient world, we come
to breathe the very atmosphere of that cosmopolitan age. In the
lesson of to-day the teacher has an unusual opportunity. If he
uses it well, he may cause the Bible story to live again. Absolutely
essential to that end is the judicious use of a map—preferably
something larger than the small sketch map of the Text Book.
A travel narrative without a map is a hopeless jumble. The map
is an aid both to memory and to imagination. Tracing the route
of the missionaries on the map, the teacher should endeavor to
call up the scenes through which they passed. The student should
be made to see the waters of the Mediterranean, with the hills of
Cyprus beyond, the interminable stretches of the Roman roads,
the lofty mountains of the Taurus, the perils of rivers and the
perils of robbers, the teeming population of the countless cities—and
through it all the simple missionaries of the cross, almost
unnoticed amid the turmoil of the busy world, but rich in the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>
possession of a world-conquering gospel and resistless through the
power of the living God.</p>
<h4>1. THE PROPHETS AND TEACHERS</h4>
<p>Both prophecy and teaching were gifts of the Spirit. I Cor.
12:28-31. Prophecy was immediate revelation of the divine
plan or of the divine will; teaching, apparently, was logical development
of the truth already given. Which of the men who are
mentioned in Acts 13:1 were prophets and which were teachers
is not clear. If any division is intended it is probably between the
first three and the last two. For this grouping there is perhaps
some slight indication in the connectives that are used in the Greek,
but the matter is not certain. Perhaps all five of the men were
possessed of both gifts.</p>
<p>Lucius was perhaps one of the founders of the church, for he
came from Cyrene. Compare Acts 11:20. Manaen is an interesting
figure. He is called "foster-brother" of Herod the
tetrarch. The word translated "foster-brother" is apparently
sometimes used in a derived sense, to designate simply an intimate
associate of a prince. If that be the meaning here, then at least
one member of the church at Antioch was a man of some social
standing. In Antioch, as in Corinth, probably "not many wise
after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble" were called,
I Cor. 1:26; but in Antioch as in Corinth there were exceptions.
The Herod who is here meant is Herod Antipas, the "Herod" of
the Gospels.</p>
<h4>2. ELYMAS</h4>
<p>When the Jewish sorcerer is first mentioned he is called Bar-Jesus—that
is, "son of Jesus," Jesus being a common Jewish name.
Then, a little below, the same man is called "Elymas the sorcerer,"
and the explanation is added, "for so is his name by interpretation."
Apparently the new name Elymas is introduced without explanation,
and then the Greek word for "sorcerer" is introduced as a translation
of that. The word Elymas is variously derived from an Arabic word
meaning "wise," or an Aramaic word meaning "strong." In either
case the Greek word, "magos," for which our English Bible has
"sorcerer," is a fair equivalent. That Greek word is the word that
appears also in Matt. 2:1,7,16, where the English Bible has
"Wise-men"; and words derived from the same root are used to
describe Simon of Samaria in Acts 8:9,11. The word could
designate men of different character. Some "magi" might be<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>
regarded as students of natural science; in others, superstition and
charlatanism were dominant.</p>
<h4>3. SAUL AND PAUL</h4>
<p>At Acts 13:9 Luke introduces the name "Paul"—"Saul, who is
also called Paul." Previously the narrative always uses the
Jewish name "Saul"; after this "Paul" appears with equal regularity,
except in the accounts of the conversion, where in three
verses a special, entirely un-Greek form of "Saul" is used. Acts
22:7,13; 26:14. Since in our passage in the original the name of
the proconsul, Paulus, is exactly like the name of the apostle, some
have supposed that Paul assumed a new name in honor of his
distinguished convert. That is altogether unlikely. More probable
is the suggestion that although Paul had both names from the
beginning, Luke is led to introduce the name Paul at just this
point because of the coincidence with the name of the proconsul.
Even this supposition, however, is extremely doubtful. Probably
the Roman name, which Paul uses invariably in his letters, is
introduced at this point simply because here for the first time Paul
comes prominently forward in a distinctly Roman environment.</p>
<h4>4. PAUL AND BARNABAS</h4>
<p>Connected with this variation in name is the reversal in the
relation between Paul and Barnabas. Previously Barnabas has
been given the priority; but immediately after the incident at
Paphos the missionaries are designated as "Paul and his company,"
Acts 13:13, and thereafter when the two are mentioned together,
Paul, except at Acts 14:12,14; 15:12,25, appears first. In the
presence of the Roman proconsul, Paul's Roman citizenship
perhaps caused him to take the lead; and then inherent superiority
made his leadership permanent.</p>
<h4>5. THE RETURN OF JOHN MARK</h4>
<p>The reasons for John Mark's return from Perga to Jerusalem
can only be surmised. Perhaps he was simply unwilling, for some
reason sufficient to him but insufficient to Paul, to undertake the
hardships of the journey into the interior. Certainly it was an
adventurous journey. Paul was not always an easy man to follow.</p>
<p>The severity of Paul's judgment of Mark was not necessarily
so great as has sometimes been supposed. One purpose of the
second journey was to revisit the churches of the first journey. Acts<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
15:36. Whether for good or for bad reasons, Mark, as a matter
of fact, had not been with the missionaries on a large part of that
first journey, and was, therefore, unknown to many of the churches.
For this reason, perhaps as much as on account of moral objections,
Paul considered Mark an unsuitable helper. In his later
epistles Paul speaks of Mark in the most cordial way. Col. 4:10;
Philem. 24; II Tim. 4:11. In the last passage, he even says that
Mark was useful to him for ministering—exactly what he had not
been at the beginning of the second missionary journey.</p>
<h4>6. HARDSHIPS AND PERSECUTIONS</h4>
<p>It is evident from II Cor. 11:23-27 that Luke has recorded only
a small fraction of the hardships which Paul endured as a missionary
of the cross. The tendency to lay exaggerated stress upon martyrdom
and suffering, which runs riot in the later legends of the saints,
is in The Acts conspicuous by its absence. Of the trials which are
vouched for by the unimpeachable testimony of Paul himself,
only a few may be identified in the Lucan narrative. It is natural,
however, to suppose that some of the "perils of rivers" and "perils
of robbers" were encountered on the journey through the defiles
of the Taurus mountains from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, and the
one stoning which Paul mentions is clearly to be identified with the
adventure at Lystra. In II Tim. 3:11 Paul mentions the persecutions
at Antioch, Iconium and Lystra.</p>
<h4>7. GEOGRAPHY OF THE FIRST JOURNEY</h4>
<p>The first missionary journey led the missionaries into three
Roman provinces: Cyprus, Pamphylia and Galatia. The name
"Galatia" had originally designated a district in the north central
part of Asia Minor, which had been colonized by certain Celtic
tribes several centuries before Christ. By the Romans, however,
other districts were added to this original Galatia, and in 25 B. C.
the whole complex was organized into an imperial province under
the name Galatia. In the first century after Christ, therefore,
the name Galatia could be used in two distinct senses. In the
first place, in the earlier, popular sense, it could designate Galatia
proper. In the second place, in the later, official sense, it could
designate the whole Roman province, which included not only
Galatia proper, but also parts of a number of other districts, including
Phrygia and Lycaonia. Of the cities visited on the first
missionary journey, Pisidian Antioch—which was called "Pisidian"<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
because it was near Pisidia—and Iconium were in Phrygia, and
Lystra and Derbe in Lycaonia; but all four were included in the
province of Galatia. Many scholars suppose that the churches
in these cities were the churches which Paul addresses in the Epistle
to the Galatians. That view is called the "South Galatian theory."
Others—adherents of the "North Galatian theory"—suppose that
the epistle is addressed to churches in Galatia proper, in the northern
part of the Roman province, which were founded on the second
missionary journey. This question will be noticed again in connection
with the epistle.</p>
<h4>8. TIME OF THE FIRST JOURNEY</h4>
<p>Luke gives very little indication of the amount of time which
was consumed on this first journey. The hasty reader probably
estimates the time too low, since only a few incidents are narrated.
The rapidity of the narrative should not be misinterpreted as
indicating cursoriness of the labor. The passage through Cyprus,
Acts 13:6, was probably accompanied by evangelizing; the extension
of the gospel through the whole region of Antioch, v. 49, must
have occupied more than a few days; the stay at Iconium is designated
as "long time," Acts 14:3; the change of attitude on the
part of the Lystran populace, v. 19, was probably not absolutely
sudden; not only Lystra and Derbe but also the surrounding
country were evangelized, v. 6; and finally the missionaries could
hardly have returned to the cities from which they had been
driven out, v. 21, unless the heat of persecution had been allowed
to cool. Perhaps a full year would not be too high an estimate of
the time that was occupied by the journey, and still higher estimates
are by no means excluded.</p>
<h4>9. THE SCENE AT LYSTRA</h4>
<p>The account of the incident at Lystra is one of those inimitable
bits of narrative which imprint upon The Acts the indisputable
stamp of historicity. Lystra, though a Roman colony, lay somewhat
off the beaten track of culture and of trade; hence the extreme
superstition of the populace is what might be expected. It may
seem rather strange that Paul and Barnabas should have been
identified with great gods of Olympus rather than with lesser
divinities or spirits, but who can place a limit upon the superstition
of an uncultured people of the ancient world? The identification
may have been rendered easier by the legend of Philemon and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span>
Baucis, which has been preserved for us by Ovid, the Latin poet.
According to that legend, Zeus and Hermes appeared, once upon
a time, in human form in Phrygia, the same general region in which
Lystra was situated. Zeus and Hermes are the gods with whom
Barnabas and Paul were identified; the English Bible simply substitutes
for these Greek names the names of the corresponding
Roman deities. The temple of Zeus-before-the-city and the preparations
for sacrifices are described in a most lifelike way, in full
accord with what is known of ancient religion. We find ourselves
here in a somewhat different atmosphere from that which prevails
in most of the scenes described in The Acts. It is a pagan atmosphere,
and an atmosphere of ruder superstition than that which
prevailed in the great cities. The "speech of Lycaonia," v. 11, is
an especially characteristic touch. Apparently the all-pervading
Greek was understood at Lystra even by the populace; but in the
excitement of their superstition they fell very naturally into their
native language.</p>
<p>As in the case of Peter's release from prison, so in this incident,
wonderful lifelikeness of description is coupled with a miracle.
The scene at Lystra is unintelligible without the miraculous healing
of the lame man, with which it begins. It is impossible, in The
Acts as well as in the Gospels, to separate the miraculous from the
rest of the narrative. The evident truthfulness of the story applies
to the supernatural elements as well as to the rest. The early Christian
mission is evidently real; but it is just as evidently supernatural.
It moved through the varied scenes of the real world, but
it was not limited by the world. It was animated by a mysterious,
superhuman power.</p>
<hr class="tb" />
<p><span class="smcap">In the Library.</span>—Purves, "Christianity in the Apostolic Age,"
pp. 111-122. Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible": articles on "Cyprus,"
"Antioch" (2), "Iconium," "Lystra," "Derbe," "Galatia." Hastings,
"Dictionary of the Bible": Muir, article on "Cyprus"; Massie, article
on "Bar-Jesus"; Headlam, article on "Paulus, Sergius"; Ramsay,
articles on "Antioch in Pisidia," "Iconium," "Lystra," "Derbe,"
"Galatia." Ramsay, "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen,"
pp. 64-129; "The Cities of St. Paul," pp. 247-419; "Pictures of the
Apostolic Church," pp. 129-153. Lewin, "The Life and Epistles of
St. Paul," chapter viii. Conybeare and Howson, "The Life and
Epistles of St. Paul," chapters v and vi. Stalker, "The Life of St.
Paul," pp. 65-71. Lumby, pp. 155-183. Cook, pp. 437-451. Plumptre,
pp. 79-93. Rackham, pp. 194-238.</p>
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