All Who Were Appointed To Eternal Life became Believers Acts 13:13-52.

Pause for thought

This Antioch of Pisidia is not the Antioch in Syria where Paul and Barnabas were commissioned and sent out from with the gospel.

No one was ever born a Christian or woke up and found themselves a Christian! Of course we give thanks to God for Christian influence through family and friends and as we look back at different often seemingly unconnected events we can see God at work bringing us to faith in Jesus Christ, and so changing our lives forever. What might We have become if God had not intervened in our lives? 13:48.

This sermon that Paul preached in the Synagogue at Antioch is very similar to the sermon Peter preached at Pentecost Acts 2. Paul insisted that the coming of Jesus is the fulfilment of Jewish and world history. That the Jews had missed this truth and had handed their Messiah to the Romans to be crucified. Because God could not be defeated and raised Jesus from the dead, which was the proof of the power and purpose of God. Especially for his Jewish listeners Paul points out that the resurrection promises made to David were not fulfilled in David, but are now fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The sermon about the good news of Christ was to some of his hearers really good news, but very bad news for those who rejected Paul’s message 13:42-43.

Paul and Barnabas were not prepared to compromise the message of the Gospel, for the sake of their Jewish brethren’s feelings or for any fear of personal rejection. What they preached was and still is a matter of LIFE or death, they did as God bade them and on leaving that place shook the dust from their feet as a sign against them. The fruit from their visit meant that they left behind in Antioch a joyous group of Christians continuously being filled with the Holy Spirit. ( this is the sense of the verb filled used here)

The unchanging message of the gospel will have unchanging results.

A verse to remember

For this is as the Lord commanded to us when He said “I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring Salvation to the farthest corners of the earth” Acts 13:47.

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