11. The First Mission Trip

Acts of the Apostles

“Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers.” Chapter 13 of the Acts of the Apostles focuses on the Christian community of Antioch, that great city where a Church was created composed of non-Jews. In the community of Antioch was also the physician Luke, who is recognized as the author of the Acts of the Apostles and the third Gospel. Therefore, it is logical that he would write about these facts about his city because it is his historical experience since it is from this reality that the evangelical preaching started.

Barnabas and Saul work in Antioch; when they returned from Jerusalem, they brought with them John named Mark, the young man who witnessed for a few moments the life of Jesus and accompanied the birth of the Christian community, the growth of the Church in Jerusalem. It has been approximately 15 years since the time of Jesus’ Passover; it occurred in the year 30, and now we are in our mid-forties.

The spread of the Gospel is beginning to take on consistency. A new election takes place in this community; the narrator introduces the leaders of the Church of Antioch but does not use the terms that will later become customary: deacons, priests, bishops, but calls them prophets and doctors, responsible for teaching and proclaiming the word. The first on the list is “Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”

They are five men considered responsible for the community. “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.’ Then, completing their fasting and prayer, they laid hands on them and sent them off.” What has happened? The community of Antioch matures the option to begin the evangelizing mission. After all, they are discerning about what happened to them. In the years before, about ten years earlier, some Hellenists expelled from Jerusalem had arrived in Antioch and without a specific project had begun to talk about Jesus and many people believed in the Gospel, and a beautiful community was created; ten years later, this community is full of people, happy to be a Christian, and eager to communicate to others the beauty they have experienced.

And they reason in this way: what happened to us without much planning, could not be repeated in other cities? What does the Lord ask of us? Was it simply a coincidence that the Christian seed takes root here in Antioch, or is it a sign that the Lord has given for us to take this style and repeat in other places what happened here? The Holy Spirit, during the liturgy, enlightens them by saying, “Separate from me Barnabas and Saul.” Those two, who are the best and are somewhat responsible for the community are sent on a new mission. Hands are laid on them; it is a sacramental gesture of ordination, and they are sent out.

This is Saul’s third vocation. On the road to Damascus, he became a Christian; through Barnabas, he became a priest; now, during his ministry, the community decides to start a mission and chooses to send the two best: Barnabas and Saul. The project is to test an experiment; to send two Christian preachers to where the Gospel of Christ is not known and offer this preaching to see if it succeeds, if it is accepted, if new communities are born. It is a test of verification to see if they have understood what the Lord’s project is.

Barnabas and Saul accept and leave; from Antioquia they go down to Seleucia where the port is; they embark and since off the coast of Syria, where Antioch is located, is the island of Cyprus, and Barnabas is originally from Cyprus, it seems logical that the first stop is precisely the island of Cyprus with its numerous cities. It is an environment that somehow Barnabas knows; he can have points of reference and start somehow, so they decide to start in that environment.

“So they, sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia –the eastern port of the island– they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. They had John also as their assistant”, nicknamed Mark. It is important to note that the first step is always in the synagogue, starting with the Jews who attend the synagogue, and by reading the Scriptures they start from those texts to announce the Gospel of Jesus.

“When they had traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos” – and here they met a strange character, “a magician named Bar-Jesus who was a Jewish false prophet. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who had summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God.” In front of this Roman authority, Barnabas and Saul meet Elymas, a Jewish magician who probably had some special powers or boasted of paranormal qualities that somehow influence and fascinate the proconsul.

This Elymas opposes Barnabas and Paul, disputes what they say and “Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all that is right, full of every sort of deceit and fraud. Will you not stop twisting the straight paths of the Lord? Even now the hand of the Lord is upon you. You will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.’ Immediately a dark mist fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.

It is a punishing intervention by Saul; as in Jerusalem Peter had punished Ananias and Sapphira because they intended to deceive the Holy Spirit, now at the beginning of the mission, Saul says a powerful word of judgment against this deceitful man who tries to fight the preachers of light and it is he who falls into absolute darkness.

“When the proconsul saw what had happened, he came to believe, for he was astonished by the teaching about the Lord.” It tells of a conversion of an authorized member of the Roman administration. The proconsul Sergius Paulus becomes a Christian, struck by the word as a positive proposition and impressed too by this power of Saul that punishes the Jewish magician, this man accepts the Gospel.

In verse 9 of this chapter 13, we witness a name change. Without a precise reason, without explaining, the narrator says: “Saul, also known as Paul, full of the Holy Spirit….” From this moment on, Saul’s character is usually called Paul. The name was not changed when he became a Christian in Damascus, or when he became a priest in Antioch, or when the Church began the mission, but the name is changed now when he meets someone called Sergius Paulus and therefore, the scholars think that there is a close relationship between Paul’s name and this Roman proconsul who somehow not only becomes a Christian, but now adopts Saul or, perhaps, is Saul himself who takes the name of this Roman almost as a trophy.

The word of Jesus works, the evangelical preaching obtains good results. All it takes is a change of letters: ‘Saulos’ becomes ‘Paulos,’ a Hebrew name becomes a Latin name. It is the opening to the Greco-Roman world with which the Jewish Pharisee Saul marks his own change. An opening to a new culture simply accepts Jesus’ Gospel project of the proclamation to all people.

Sailing from Pathos, they decide to reach Panfilia, a region in today’s Turkey, the southern coast of Turkey; it includes several areas, including Pamphylia. They land in the port of Antalya, and from there, they start a new itinerary, but instead of following the coast, which would have been a more natural and logical journey, Paul and Barnabas plan to go up the Taurus mountain range to visit Pisidia.

It is not clear why they took this inaccessible route; there were no roads; regular communications followed the coast; we have no geographical maps, but the southern zone of Turkey is very rocky, and the whole coast is followed by a mountain range, if not like the Alps quite similar. It is the road that crosses the mountains to go down to Pisidia, and it is a decidedly inaccessible and unusual road. It means that they have been walking for weeks on alpine trails, without shelter, without means of subsistence, therefore carrying in a backpack the elements to survive in a long journey, facing the danger of bandits and fierce animals, of natural disasters. Why make this effort if any city on the coast could have been correct to begin this evangelical experimentation?

The possible solution comes from a recent discovery of a plaque in Antioch of Pisidia where this proconsul Sergius Paulus is named; he is a landowner in that region; therefore, we can imagine that Sergius Paulus, who became a Christian, advises Paul and Barnabas to continue the work in his territory, where he has the properties, and probably offers credentials, introductions, to find welcome, help. And reading these details as signs that providence provides for the apostolic mission, they accept it.

On the other hand, young Mark does not want to undertake that journey, probably because he is afraid of the dangerous journey. He arrives at the coast of Asia Minor and leaves Barnabas and Paul, and returns to Jerusalem. The two continue alone and happily cross the mountain of Taurus and reach the central plain of today’s Turkey. They go to the city of Antioch in Pisidia, and there they begin to preach in the synagogue. And here, Luke puts into Paul’s mouth the programmatic discourse. A long and broad discourse, theologically articulated, is very similar to the one Peter pronounced on Pentecost.

It is interesting to note that Paul’s first speech is very similar to Peter’s first speech. In a Greco-Roman city, far from Jerusalem, Paul gives in the synagogue the same speech that Peter had given fifteen years earlier in Jerusalem at the beginning of his apostolic mission. Luke does this intentionally to show a close parallel between the two apostles and their preaching.

Paul’s speech fascinates the Jews of Pisidian Antioch, but the synagogue authorities envy the pastoral success of these two foreign preachers, and they oppose this work and expel them from the synagogue. At this point, Paul and Barnabas address the Greeks and have considerable success. Some Jews welcome, and many Greeks accept the Gospel, and a new Christian community is born.

Naturally, these activities take weeks and months. In Antioch of Pisidia, a community is born until the Jews organize a real expulsion, and Paul and Barnabas are thrown out. They don’t get discouraged; they change cities, they start again at Iconium with the same criteria: first at the synagogue and then everyone else. They present the proclamation of the Gospel, and despite the difficulties here, they also have considerable success, but the problematic situation is repeated; they are expelled from Iconium, move, change cities again; they start again from the beginning.

In the city of Lystra, they begin with the healing of a paralyzed man. In Lystra –we are in Lycaonia– the inhabitants of the city consider Paul and Barnabas as gods; they are ready to worship them and offer them a sacrifice; they call Barnabas, Zeus and identify Paul with Hermes because Barnabas had to be big and fat, and Paul was the one who spoke, so he was the messenger of the gods. Of course, the two apostles do not accept this pagan ritual; they present themselves for what they are, simple men, and dispute that Greek religiosity; they want to correct it.

Lystra inhabitants who are willing to worship both, seeing themselves criticized in their religion, become enemies, and they stone Paul and leave him for dead. Instead, he just fainted, but evidently, he had received many strokes of stone and was supposedly not in excellent health. Paul wakes up and leaves; together with Barnabas, they change the city once again. They go to Derbe and start the mission again. After which they decide to return and make the trip in reverse, they return to Lystra, then to Iconium, then to Antioch. They cross the mountain of Taurus, go down to Antalya, embark and return to Antioch.

We have explained it in a few minutes, but they took some years in such activity with indescribable efforts. Still, they planted the Church, gave birth to Christian communities in Cyprus and Antioch, in Iconium and Lystra, in Derbe, and in these cities, they left some presbyters who were the elders, those responsible. Each community is guided by a priest, a reliable, adult, mature believer capable of animating a group. It is the beginning of the ecclesiastical organization that starts as an experiment.

Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, and they tell what the Lord did through them and how he opened the door of faith to the pagans. It is a very important expedition. The Acts of the Apostles talk about open doors not only to those in prisons but, above all, the door of faith is opened by the Lord so that all peoples may embrace the Gospel.