The period of rapid expansion – This next historical period extends from Acts 9:32 through the end of the book of Acts 28:31. This is a very crucial period that tells of how a small group of Jesus followers became the universal Church that “turned the world upside down.”The Church started in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, but by the time we get to the end of the book of Acts, the Church was all the way in Rome, the capitol of the empire. Initially, there were only 120 followers of Christ and they were all Jewish, but by the time we get to Acts 28, the Church is universal and it consisted of both Jews and gentiles. Now a significant part of the expansion of the Church, was the result of Paul’s three missionary journeys. And while he was on these missionary journeys, he wrote epistles to strengthen and instruct those new Churches.
God’s providence on display
Now, as I begin to examine this important period in the growth of the Church, it is important that I briefly review something that I talked about in the my previous post regarding God’s selection of Paul to be His apostle to the gentiles. As I stated, the selection of Paul was absolutely no coincidence. In fact, by selecting Paul, God had chosen someone who was extremely and uniquely qualified to be God’s gentile spokesman in this heavily pagan Greek and Roman world like not many others in his time. First of all, in addition to being a legal Roman Citizen which allowed Paul to have unencumbered travel access throughout the Roman world, Paul was also a “Jew from the tribe of Benjamin.” But in addition, Paul was also an elite level Jewish scholar, who was not only fluent in the Old Testament scriptures, but was also fluent in Greek language, culture and philosophy. In fact, Paul was so fluent in Greek literature, that he was able to recite Greek poems and philosophies when he was debating with the Greeks during his evangelistic journeys.
Furthermore, in addition the being relentless and completely committed, Paul had the unique ability and philosophy to meet and relate to people where they were or on their own level. In other words, he was able to be “all things to all people.” We he was around the Jews, he would keep their dietary laws, and when he was around the Greeks, he could recite their poems and their philosophies. And his deep understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures, allowed him to be able to argue with the Judaizers and demonstrate to them using the Old Testament Scriptures themselves, that Christianity was not a perversion of Judaism, but was to the contrary, the literal fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Paul was also able to explain to the Jews that the New Testament was actually a completion to God’s salvation story. Paul uniquely understood that it was part two of God’s two-part story of His redemption historical narrative. In other words, Paul was able to persuade many that Christ did not come to destroy the Law, but instead, He came to complete or fulfill the law. Because of Paul’s intimate understanding of the Old Testament, he was able to argue the case that, Christ was the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophets, and that He was Israel’s true Messiah.
Now, it is important that we also consider the fact, that at the time, because of the combination of Paul’s brilliant analytical mind and the combination of his Jewish lineage and his Roman citizenship, there was arguably no one better and more uniquely qualified to make those arguments to both Jewish audiences and Greek audiences than Paul. And of course, it is important to point out, that God’s selection of Paul, also demonstrates just another example of the amazing providence of God in orchestrating the affairs of history in order to facilitate His ultimate plan of redemption.
Subsequently, when you consider the fact that not only did God divinely and providentially orchestrated world history in order the “prepare the way,” or set the stage for His son to be born in Bethlehem, He also divinely and providentially selected and prepare this uniquely qualified and anointed individual to be the one who would boldly take the gospel to a pagan gentile world and to turn that world “upside down”, in addition to writing nearly two-thirds of the New Testament Canon.
The Gospel to the Ends of the Earth (acts 13–28):
The Journeys of Paul
This third major chronological section of Acts and by far the longest, concerns the three missionary journeys of Paul and his arrest and journey to Rome. Luke’s primary purposes in spending so much time on Paul are to show that: (1) Paul is not a traitor to his Jewish religion, but is faithful to his Jewish heritage through his allegiance to Jesus, the Jewish Messiah; (2) the Gentile mission was all along part of God’s plan for Israel and was initiated by God himself, not by any human being; and (3) Christians are good citizens and are no threat to Roman authority.
First Journey: The Gospel to Cyprus and Galatia (acts 13:1–14:20). It is the Holy Spirit who calls for the first missionary journey (acts 13:2). This is God’s plan, not Paul’s! The missionaries—Paul and Barnabas (and their assistant John Mark, who shortly returns to Jerusalem)—first travel to the island of Cyprus, Barnabas’s home island (4:36), and then north into Galatia, where they establish churches in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe (13:4–14:20). Paul’s message in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch (13:13–52) is particularly important, illustrating the kind of message Paul brought to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles in the synagogue. He traces God’s covenants with Israel from the patriarchs to the coming of the Messiah. The passage also establishes a pattern of response by Jews and Gentiles. After an initial positive response, most of the Jews reject the message (13:44–45)and Paul turns to the Gentiles (13:46–48). This pattern will be repeated throughout Acts. While a remnant of Jews respond favorably, the majority reject the gospel, and many Gentiles accept it.
After returning to appoint elders in the churches they have established, Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch, reporting success: God has “opened a door of faith to the Gentiles” (acts 14:27).
The Council of Jerusalem (acts 15:1–35). After their return, a crisis occurs in the church at Antioch. Some Jewish Christians come from Jerusalem claiming, “Unless you are circumcised, according to custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (acts 15:1). This question of whether Gentiles need to become Jews in order to be saved was one of the most challenging issues facing the early church. In what has been called the “Council of Jerusalem,” the leaders conclude that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised or keep Israel’s ritual laws to be saved, since both Jews and Gentiles are saved by faith alone. At the same time, they encourage Gentile Christians to abstain from certain practices highly offensive to Jews (15:19–21, 28–29).
Now again, it is import that I continue to emphasize that I am overviewing the big picture of the New Testament from a chronological perspective as opposed to the traditional canonical standpoint. And chronologically speaking, the easiest way to slot each of Paul’s epistles in their actual chronological order, or in the order in which they were actually written, is to slot the books in conjunction with Paul’s three missionary Journeys. So, for example, Paul left for his first missionary journey from Antioch and traveled to the region of Galatia and then he back to Antioch. And upon his return to Antioch, Paul wrote one epistle which was addressed to those new converts in Galatia. Which means that from a historical and chronological standpoint, the next epistle after the book of James, was the book of Galatians.
Later, after the dispute with the Jerusalem council, Paul puts together another missionary expedition where he travels through Asia and Macedonia. He then stops a Corinth where he stays for a year and a half, and while at Corinth, Paul wrote two epistles which were, first and second Thessalonians. Now Paul previously had to leave Thessalonica because of the intense persecution, so Paul was concerned about what was happening to the Christians there. Paul eventually went back to Antioch and back to Jerusalem and then he went on his third Journey.
In his third missionary journey, Paul spent the majority of his time in Ephesus. While in Ephesus, Paul wrote three epistles which were, first and second Corinthians and then Romans. Later, Paul was arrested in Jerusalem and transferred to Caesarea where he remained a prisoner for two years before requesting to be transferred to Rome in order to argue his Case before Caesar himself.
The circumstances that led to Paul’s imprisonment was quite interesting. Upon his return to Jerusalem following his third missionary Journey, Paul had been seen in the city with Trophimus, a Gentile from Ephesus, and so the rumor quickly spread that the apostle had taken “Greeks” into the temple and “defiled this holy place” (Acts 21:28), which was a capital offense. Before long, the city was aflame with the “lynch-him” mentality. Paul’s life was saved only when Roman officials intervened and took him to a place of safety.
Eventually, under heavy guard (470 soldiers; Acts 23:23), the apostle was taken to Caesarea over on the coast, where he was confined in Herod’s palace. Over some period of time, Paul was subjected to a series of interrogations. Finally, after two years had lapsed, and it appeared that “justice delayed is justice denied,” the noble preacher concluded that he would never receive a fair hearing under the present circumstances. And so, exercising his right as a Roman citizen, he appealed his case to Caesar (Acts 25:11-12). Later, because of his Roman citizenship and his request to appeal to Caesar, he was taken to Rome where he was placed on house arrest. And while in house arrest in Rome waiting for his trial before Caesar, Paul wrote four epistles which were, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians and Philemon. And because Paul was a prisoner, these four epistles are referred to as Paul’s four “prison epistles.”
Finally, we believe that Paul did in fact enjoy a short period of freedom which enabled him to continue his apostolic journeys. We know, for example, that according to the Acts record the apostle never visited Crete on any of his previous apostolic journeys. Paul did sail around the island on his way to Rome as a prisoner, but it was not until his release from his first Roman imprisonment that he actually visited Crete. The apostle’s brief stay on the island was long enough to see that the churches there were in a state of chaos (Titus 1:10-16). Consequently, Paul leaves Titus behind, his companion in travel, “to set in order the things that were wanting” (Titus 1:5).
The book of Acts ends abruptly when he is arrested for the final time and imprisoned and executed in Rome. Probably from Crete, Paul made his way to Corinth where he writes to Titus to inform him that he planned to winter in Nicopolis (Titus 3:12). However, after about two years, Paul was arrested once again and returned as prisoner back to Rome. It could well be that the apostle was apprehended at Nicopolis and taken again to Rome for preaching Christ. This time however, the sentence would go against him. So, without hesitation he writes to Timothy, since it was nearing winter, to bring his cloak and also the Parchments (II Tim. 4:13). Nero, who literally had become insane, had Paul executed along with a number of other Christians in Rome at the time around AD 67. According to tradition, Paul was beheaded because it was actually illegal to crucify a Roman citizen.
Now, the political and cultural impact of the message of the Apostle Paul is incalculable. His impact was so profound, that not even Paul himself could have anticipated the ripple of affect of his famous speech on Mars Hill in the influential city of Athens to a group of Athenian Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in an Athenian counsel called, The Areopagus in response to the many idols that he had seen throughout Athens, and particularly to an alter with the inscription, “to the unknown God”:
Acts 17:22-34
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor* he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God* and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” 29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’ 32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33At that point Paul left them. 34But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The Epicureans were atheists; they denied God’s existence. They denied a life after death. They were also materialists, and felt that this life was the only thing that really existed and that, therefore, men should get the most out of it. They felt that pleasure was the highest virtue, and that pain was the opposite. Their motto (and it still persists to this day) was “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” They were what we would call today “existentialists,” living for the experience of the moment. This is a widespread philosophy in our day, although it is no longer called Epicureanism.
The Stoics, followers of the philosopher Zeno, were pantheists. That is, they believed that everything is God, and that he does not exist as a separate entity, but is in the rocks and trees and every material thing. Their attitude toward life was one of ultimate resignation, and they prided themselves on their ability to take whatever came. Their motto, in modern terms, was “Grin and bear it.” They urged moderation: “Don’t get over-emotional, either about tragedy or happiness.” Apathy was regarded as the highest virtue of life.You will recognize there are many people today who feel that the best thing they can do is to take whatever comes and handle it the best they can. These Stoics were all proud fatalists, and there are many like them today. Luke gives us the initial reaction of these two philosophical groups to Paul:
And some said, “What would this babbler say?”[Those were the Epicureans.] Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” — because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.[These were the Stoics.] And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you present? For you bring some strange things to our ears; we wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:18b-21 RSV).
Paul’s speech is sophisticated and alert to context. He quotes from a well-known Greek poet and speaks the standard lines about images, idols, and true deity. He refers in a generous way to the religious convictions of the local population and speaks of a creator who made all nations to search for God. This is generous speech indeed and includes all his hearers as children of God. The references to the resurrection from the dead strike most of them, finally, as silly or superstitious, but some hear. This passage is critical because it shows Paul adapting his speech to the level of his audience, seeking to address them in terms that are both open and familiar. Paul’s encounter points out the difficulty with understanding or accepting resurrection as a cornerstone of Christian belief. Finally, the passage shows us that even a few who hear positively can be seeds for local congregations to grow.
Amazingly, in spite of unimaginable physical persecution, in large part because of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, and in fulfillment of the great commission and Acts 1:8, in less than forty years, the church had spread from a small group of 120 disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem, all the way to Rome, the capitol city of Empire.
Finally, not long before his death, Paul wrote this moving letter to Timothy, who was like a son to him. These last words had powerful meaning for Timothy and to us. The apostle Paul wrote this very intense and personal letter to his “beloved son” in the faith, Timothy, from his second imprisonment in Rome (2 Timothy 1:2, 8). It appears Paul’s final imprisonment was much more severe than his first stint in prison there. He was in bonds with few visitors, and he felt his death was imminent (4:6-9).
It was a time of unrest for many reasons. In A.D. 64 Nero had allegedly burned sections of Rome and blamed the Christians. A generation after the death of Christ, Christianity had reached Rome in the form of an obscure offshoot of Judaism popular among the city’s poor and destitute. Members of this religious sect spoke of the coming of a new kingdom and a new king. These views provoked suspicion among the Jewish authorities who rejected the group and fear among the Roman authorities who perceived these sentiments as a threat to the Empire.
In the summer of 64, Rome suffered a terrible fire that burned for six days and seven nights consuming almost three quarters of the city. The people accused the Emperor Nero for the devastation claiming he set the fire for his own amusement. In order to deflect these accusations and placate the people, Nero laid blame for the fire on the Christians. The emperor ordered the arrest of a few members of the sect who, under torture, accused others until the entire Christian populace was implicated and became fair game for retribution. As many of the religious sect that could be found were rounded up and put to death in the most horrific manner for the amusement of the citizens of Rome. The ghastly way in which the victims were put to death aroused sympathy among many Romans, although most felt their execution justified.
This Roman mosaic shows prisoners put to death in the arena as part of a festival
Beginnings of Christian Martyrdom
The following account was written by the Roman historian Tacitus in his book Annals published a few years after the event. Tacitus was a young boy living in Rome during the time of the persecutions.
“Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition – repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, – where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of “hating the human race.”
In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good but were victims of the ferocity of one man.”
Also, in 66 the Jewish wars began. Which means that Paul probably wrote his first letter to Timothy between 63 and 65. This second letter to Timothy was probably written in 66 or 67.
Second imprisonment
Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome from approximately 61 to 63 had been less severe. It seems then he was under a kind of house arrest and could receive visitors, had access to the Scriptures and could freely teach (Acts 28:16, 23, 30-31). Apparently, Paul was then released from prison and continued traveling and teaching, since his later letters mention travels that were not recorded in the book of Acts. But as the years moved along and Paul’s fame spread, Paul was again put in prison in Rome, perhaps from 66 to 68. This time he did not expect to be released.
Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy realizing that his personal end was nearing. He gave some very specific instructions to Timothy covering our commitment to God and the way we should do God’s work. He also warned in a prophetic way what life will be like during the “last days.” As he concluded the letter, he encouraged Timothy to come quickly. Paul longed to see him and described his feelings of being abandoned by many. He explained that at his “first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me,” but Paul knew “the Lord stood with me and strengthened me” (2 Timothy 4:16-17). He was assured that he had “fought the good fight” and that a “crown of righteousness” was laid up for him (verses 7-8).
His end is drawing near
Paul sums up his life of some 30 years of service to God and Christ in verses 6-8 as he looks forward to the resurrection to eternal life and to receiving his reward when Christ returns to establish His Kingdom.
He singles out members for special note. In fact, Onesiphorus (a member from Ephesus who had not abandoned Paul, but had refreshed him) is mentioned twice in the letter: 1:16 and 4:19.
Finally, Paul looks as always to his Savior, who will not let him down and who will deliver him to the Kingdom. John R.W. Stott explained: “Paul issues to Timothy a fourfold charge regarding the gospel—
To guard it (because it is priceless)
To suffer for it (because it is a stumbling block to the proud)
To continue in it (because it is the truth of God)
To proclaim it (because it is good news of salvation)” (Guard the Gospel, p. 126).
Paul’s Final Days, tells us how one of the most influential men in history “finished the race”. His conversion from a murderer of Christians, to a fervent ambassador of Christ shows the great power of Christ in us. The letters he wrote from prison to the churches he established give us a glimpse of what was on his mind: the unity of believers in the love of Christ and under the Lordship of Christ.
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