Jesus was no Dalai Lama enthroned on a high Tibet mountain waiting for seekers. Nor did he hold to the philosophy, “If you build it, they will come.” Jesus gave us his strategy: ” . . . the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10).
In the Book of Acts, author Luke reports how the Holy Spirit carried on Jesus’ mission through the church. We see it again in the newly-planted church at Antioch . . .
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 (Acts 13:1-3).
Probably the Holy Spirit spoke through the gift of prophecy while these leaders were open and sensitive to him during worship and fasting. His message was clear. Barnabas and Saul were to be set apart for a specially-called mission—as we’ll see, a search and rescue mission similar to Jesus’. The other leaders designated them as church representatives and sent them off. This mission would eventually reach Rome itself, the heart of the Empire—and perhaps even Spain on the eastern Atlantic.
Barnabas and Saul left from Antioch’s port city, Seleucia, headed for Cyprus. The island, the Mediterranean’s third largest, lay 275 miles to the west.
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 (Acts 13:4-6a).
Their search and rescue mission took them from the port of Salamis on the east to the western-most city of Paphos. As was to become Paul’s practice, they preached Jesus as Messiah in the Jewish synagogues along the way. John Mark, Barnabas’ cousin, accompanied them. It’s been speculated that his “help” was perhaps to pass along his eyewitness report of Jesus’ suffering and death. When they arrived at Paphos, things got a bit exciting.
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, and for a time you will be unable 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 (Acts 13:6b-12).
Both Salamis and Paphos were flourishing centers for commerce and the worship of the pagan goddess called “the Paphian”. For more than 50 years, Rome had ruled Cyprus through the administration of a proconsul, the current being Sergius Paulus.
That he calls for Barnabas and Saul “to hear the word of God” is quite extraordinary. He’s “an intelligent man” wielding significant power. Barnabas and Saul are nobodies without authority or political prestige. If one didn’t know better, he might think the Holy Spirit had already been at work!
But so is the devil. Elymas the magician, a member of the proconsul’s court, sees Sergius Paulus starting to accept the missionaries’ message and tries to divert him. Paul will not allow it. Led by the Holy Spirit, he confronts the magician, calls him some non-politically correct names and curses him with temporary blindness. While poor Elymas fumbles around for someone to take his hand and get him out of there, the proconsul believes the amazing teaching about the Lord.
We’re not told anything about the results of the missionaries preaching anywhere on Cyprus, except at Paphos. As far as Luke’s account shows, no one believed, though seeds may have been planted. But as far as I can tell, there was one Gentile proconsul on the far western end of Cyprus, 275 miles away from Antioch, the Holy Spirit apparently had searched out and begun working in. When he hears two “nobody” Jewish preachers are in town telling about Jesus, he calls them in. And the Holy Spirit uses a Jewish spiritual con-man’s opposition attempts to confirm the Gospel and the proconsul believes. If I’m getting this right, this was a Spirit-directed search and rescue mission for one man.
If you are a Jesus faith-follower like me, that means at some point in our lives the Holy Spirit went on a search and rescue mission for you and for me. In our case, we’re the “nobodies.” Yet the eternal God of the universe, not only sent his Son to the cross, he sent someone with the Gospel through whom he searched for and rescued us.
We would do well to sit quietly and ponder that wonder, then worship him—not only singing praise to him with our words but serving him with our lives.
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