Acts 13:1-15 - Homiletics

The invasion of heathendom.

It has been well remarked that Antioch was the true center of direct missions to the heathen world. An Ethiopian eunuch, and a Roman centurion, had indeed been gathered into the fold of Christ. But they were both closely connected with the land of Judah, and their conversion had not led to any further extension of the gospel of Christ. At Antioch the seed of Christian truth first fell in abundance upon heathen soil; from Antioch first went forth the preachers of the gospel with the express purpose of disseminating it among the nations of mankind. It is a deeply interesting study to mark the various steps by which the providence of God brought about this great event. There was first the molding of the great soul of Saul into a fitting instrument for this momentous ministry by the circumstances of his conversion. The tenderness of heart caused by the memory of his persecution of the Church of God; the gradual loosening of the ties which bound him to the Jews' religion, through the bigotry, the distrust, and the repulses of his Jewish countrymen, which drove him from Jerusalem; the friendship of the kind and sympathetic Barnabas; his enforced retreat to his native Tarsus, within easy distance of Antioch;—these were the preparatory steps by which God was bringing about his great purpose. Then, as the work grew among the Gentiles, Barnabas was sent to Antioch by the Church of Jerusalem; thence, needing more help, he went to Tarsus and sought Saul and brought him to Antioch. Then followed a full year's ministry in that great heathen city. That year brought a rich experience of things sad and of things joyful; experience of heathen darkness, experience of God's grace; widening knowledge of the thoughts, the wants, the misery of heathenism; deepening knowledge of the power of a preached gospel; a further loosening of the strait bands of Judaism as lettering Christian liberty. And then, when the ground was thus prepared, came the direct call of the Holy Ghost, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." And what a work it was! It requires some knowledge of the degradation of human nature as manifested in all the vileness of the voluptuousness and impostures of the East, in the incredible and growing flagitiousness of the once noble Roman character under the shameful profligacy's of the empire, and of the general spread of vice, oppression, and cruelty in the Roman world, to take a just measure of the work to which Barnabas and Saul were called. It was a work of hopeless difficulty if measured by the strength of man; it was a work of incalculable importance if measured by its world-wide influences and results—a work than which no greater has ever been undertaken either by man or for man. To revolutionize the whole relations of man with God; to upset and root out all the old thoughts of the whole world concerning God and the service of God; to give a new direction to man's thoughts about himself, about his duty, and about eternity; to transform human life from sin to holiness; and to do all this by the power of words,—was the task given to Barnabas and Saul. And they did it. That we know and love God; that we believe in Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins; that we live righteous lives; that we have a good hope of the resurrection to eternal life—is the fruit of the mission of Barnabas and Saul. They invaded heathendom with the sword of faith, and heathendom fell before their onslaught. O God, raise up in our days such soldiers of the cross that all the kingdoms of the world may become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ!