The congregation in Antioch was blessed with a number of prophet-preachers and teachers: Barnabas, Simon, nicknamed Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen, an advisor to the ruler Herod, Saul.
One day as they were worshiping God--they were also fasting as they waited for guidance--the Holy Spirit spoke: "Take Barnabas and Saul and commission them for the work I have called them to do."
who had worked himself into the confidence of the governor, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man not easily taken in by charlatans. The wizard's name was Bar-Jesus. He was as crooked as a corkscrew. The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God's Word firsthand from them.
But now you've come up against God himself, and your game is up. You're about to go blind--no sunlight for you for a good long stretch." He was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist and stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.
After the reading of the Scriptures--God's Law and the Prophets--the president of the meeting asked them, "Friends, do you have anything you want to say? A word of encouragement, perhaps?"
God took a special interest in our ancestors, pulled our people who were beaten down in Egyptian exile to their feet, and led them out of there in grand style.
God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: 'I've searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He's a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.'
As John was finishing up his work, he said, 'Did you think I was the One? No, I'm not the One. But the One you've been waiting for all these years is just around the corner, about to appear. And I'm about to disappear.'
They did just what the prophets said they would do, but had no idea they were following to the letter the script of the prophets, even though those same prophets are read every Sabbath in their meeting places. "After they had done everything the prophets said they would do, they took him down from the cross and buried him.
There is no disputing that--he appeared over and over again many times and places to those who had known him well in the Galilean years, and these same people continue to give witness that he is alive.
"When he raised him from the dead, he did it for good--no going back to that rot and decay for him. That's why Isaiah said, 'I'll give to all of you David's guaranteed blessings.'
He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God.
Watch out, cynics; Look hard--watch your world fall to pieces. I'm doing something right before your eyes That you won't believe, though it's staring you in the face."
As the meeting broke up, a good many Jews and converts to Judaism went along with Paul and Barnabas, who urged them in long conversations to stick with what they'd started, this living in and by God's grace.
But Paul and Barnabas didn't back down. Standing their ground they said, "It was required that God's Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it--you've made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life--the door is open to all the outsiders. And we're on our way through it,
following orders, doing what God commanded when he said, I've set you up as light to all nations. You'll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!"
When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God--they honored God's Word by receiving that life.
Some of the Jews convinced the most respected women and leading men of the town that their precious way of life was about to be destroyed. Alarmed, they turned on Paul and Barnabas and forced them to leave.