missionary – Rev. Tim Ehrhardt

*Elymas the sorcerer is struck blind by Paul, before Sergius Paulus. painting by Raphael (1483-1520)*

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 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.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. John was with them as their helper.

They traveled through the whole island until they came to Paphos. There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was an attendant of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”

Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord. (New International Version)

Most, if not every, follower of Jesus wants to hear the voice of God’s Spirit. Yet, many don’t. Why? Because they have not yet put themselves in a position to listen and learn.

We can only hear if we are attentive. We cannot hear if we are distracted doing other things.

The Antioch Church heard the Holy Spirit speak to them because they deliberately arranged their Christian lives so that they could learn God’s Word and clearly hear God’s voice. Notice what helped them:

A diversity of leaders. The Church purposely had Christians from various backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and cultures, including Barnabas, a Jewish Levite from the island of Cyprus; Simeon, a Black man from sub-Saharan Africa; Lucius, a Roman from North Africa; and Manaen, an upper class Jew from Judea. They knew that the Spirit’s voice was not limited to one particular group of people, and could come to anyone.
Worship and fasting. Together, the prophets and teachers worshipped the Lord and committed themselves to the spiritual practice of fasting. They knew that focusing on God by abstaining from food for a time, and using that time for prayer, would help them be ready to hear and respond to the Spirit.

As a result, the Church heard the Holy Spirit’s instructions for them to send Barnabas and Saul [Paul] as missionaries to the Gentiles. The Christians obeyed God, blessed the team, and sent them off to do their work.

It was the missionaries practice to find the Jewish synagogues wherever they went. There they would proclaim the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of divine promises to the people. Early on, Barnabas and Paul encountered Elymas, an esoteric individual who had the ear of the Roman authority in Paphos, a city in Cyprus.

Elymas was, frankly, a spiritual pest who kept interfering with Paul’s ministry to the Roman official. Paul, having many gifts of the Spirit, saw exactly who Elymas was – a windbag who deceived and cheated people for his own advantage.

Paul got down to it with Elymas, bluntly informing him that he has finally come up against God himself, and his trickery is over. Paul declared that Elymas was about to go blind for a good long time. And sure enough, the supposed magician was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist; he stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.

It was only fitting that a person who promoted dark ways and crooked paths should be subject to that darkness and have to grope around for a time.

When the Roman official saw what happened, he became a believer on the spot, full of enthusiasm over what Barnabas and Paul were saying about Jesus.

So began years of ministry for the Apostle Paul, missionary to the Gentiles. There never seemed to be a dull moment with him around, making gracious waves of good news for those coming to God; and a tsunami of judgment for people, like Elymas, who were stuck in their selfish ways.

Paul, like Jesus, demonstrated his authority over the forces of darkness. He thus proved himself in Christian mission. The conversion experience and the commissioning of Paul became real and complete at the beginning of this missionary journey.

It is from this point on that the former Saul is now consistently referred to as Paul – signifying his change of status as a person who once opposed Christ to one who is dedicated to serving Christ and making him known throughout the Roman Empire.

Years of mature learning, spiritual growth, and discovering Jesus went into Saul’s life before he then became the missionary Paul. Although Paul was an extremely gifted person with a large intellect, he still needed to go through what we all must go through in the Christian life – put the time and effort into spiritual growth and maturity needed within the church, in order to go out and change the world with the good news of Jesus.

Gracious and almighty God, you have given pastors and teachers to equip us to do your work and to build up the church, the Body of Christ. Help us all together to realize unity in the faith, and knowledge of your Son, so that we will be spiritually mature in Christ, in whose name we are bold to pray. Amen.

My brothers and sisters, I know without a doubt that you are full of goodness and have all the knowledge you need. So, you are certainly able to counsel each other. But I have written to you very openly about some things that I wanted you to remember. I did this because God gave me this special gift:to be a servant of Christ Jesus for those who are not Jews. I serve like a priest whose duty it is to tell God’s Good News. He gave me this work so that you non-Jewish people could be an offering that he will accept—an offering made holy by the Holy Spirit.

That is why I feel so good about what I have done for God in my service to Christ Jesus. I will not talk about anything I did myself. I will talk only about what Christ has done with me in leading the non-Jewish people to obey God. They have obeyed him because of what I have said and done. And they obeyed him because of the power of the miraculous signs and wonders that happened—all because of the power of God’s Spirit. I have told people the Good News about Christ in every place from Jerusalem to Illyricum. And so, I have finished that part of my work. I always want to tell the Good News in places where people have never heard of Christ. I do this because I don’t want to build on the work that someone else has already started. But as the Scriptures say,

“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard about him will understand.” (ERV)

Paul was an Apostle – a person commissioned by God for a specific purpose. His task was to go to the Gentiles – non-Jewish people. Although a Jew himself, Paul was sent as the missionary to places where Gentiles were the dominate culture. Through the Apostle Peter, and then Paul, the good news of Jesus spread to persons that were beforehand considered unreachable. Paul viewed himself as having no limits as to who could hear and respond to the gospel of new life in Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul understood himself as standing between heaven and hell, interceding, and pleading on behalf of people in need.

It is quite likely there are persons in our sphere of influence for whom we think would never respond to the message of Christ’s redemption. In these dog days of summer’s ordinary time in which we may be just trying to beat the heat; and, we might see family that we typically don’t throughout the rest of the year; it could be easy to lose sight that attending a virtual meeting, family gathering, and/or interaction with a person outdoors, there are those who need the kind of life which Jesus invites us to – and we will never know if God is wooing them to himself unless we share life with them.

Perhaps we need to see ourselves as Paul did – standing in the gap and always trying to find ways to speak good news to people who need deliverance from empty ways of life. The cousin or uncle, co-worker or friend, neighbor, or new acquaintance, can be forgotten by us as to their very real need to discover faith and the spirituality which resides within. We, my friends, are the conduit that God has ordained to bring the life-giving message to people all around us – people for whom we might have already written off as unreachable.

Sometimes the Apostle Paul gets a bad rap as moving beyond the bounds of his apostolic authority in dedicating his life to reaching the non-Jewish person, as if Gentiles were not really on the radar of Jesus. Yet, Paul took pains to demonstrate biblically that his mission was really God’s mission. Indeed, Paul did not fabricate including Jew and Gentile together as one people of God. Romans 15 is filled with Old Testament quotes pertaining to God’s agenda that all peoples of the earth would come and worship together.

It has always been God’s vision to restore humanity, Jewish and Gentile alike, to a life-giving place of beauty and joy in the Garden.

So, Paul had a healthy pride in his work as an Apostle sent from God to the task of reaching the vast numbers of non-Jewish people. I sit here today, two millennia later, the spiritual progeny of the Apostle’s great effort. Because Paul kept pioneering new churches, pushing ever farther into places which knew little to none about Jesus, and being concerned for people very different from himself, Christians today enjoy a rich legacy of faith and works to draw upon in our own lives.

Yes, as an historian I am quite aware of the complicated history between the Jewish people and their Gentile neighbors. I perhaps know more than the average bear about how the Church has far too often brought harm and not help to the world. Yet, this in no way mitigates the incredible new life which has occurred for so many people and cultures throughout the past two-thousand years of Christian history. In fact, in the light of today’s New Testament lesson, it behooves us Christians to establish gracious and loving connections with our Jewish brothers and sisters, as well as all of humanity. Their pain of persecution and difficulty through the centuries is our pain, as well.

May the power of God’s Spirit come upon us all. May we all become a community of priests and prophets proclaiming peace, love, and joy – the life we are all meant to experience and share together.

We praise you, O God, for the ministry and success of your servant, the Apostle Paul, through whom we who are Gentiles owe our own faith and calling. Grant us a vision like his, the conviction and commitment to pursue it, and the grace which confirms and prospers it. Amen.