Reader's Guide: "The Word for Today" July 7, 2013

Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Sunday, July 7, 2013 Read – Acts 13:13-43 The first thing we should notice about our reading today is that suddenly Paul has risen to prominence. Up to this point Barnabas has had the lead position, always being mentioned first. Now Paul is the center and leader of the mission. Paul and his companions cross the Mediterranean Sea to the mainland. Almost as an aside, Luke tells us that John, who was travelling with them, leaves for home. No reason is given and nothing more is said at this time but we shall visit this episode again. Once again, Luke drops a marker for his readers only to pick it up much later in his story. The first town they visit is Perga in the province of Pamphylia. Luke tells us nothing about what happened there. Paul and Barnabas move on to another city called Antioch – this one in the province of Pisidia. The terrain was mountainous and the journey would not have been easy. Upon their arrival in Antioch of Pisidia, Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas went to worship at the synagogue. Once again it is crucial that we hear this – they begin with the Jewish people! Luke describes a typical synagogue experience – there is a reading from the Torah followed by a reading from one of the prophets. As was typical, guests were invited to share a message if they had one to share. The opportunity provides Luke with the opportunity to give his readers the first of Paul’s speeches. We have been hearing various speeches in the book of Acts and we have noticed that each speech has a distinctive core. Will Paul’s speech follow this pattern? Will the proclamation to the Jewish people outside of Israel be the same? We will not be disappointed. Paul’s speech indeed follows the same pattern as speeches by Peter. The core is present and prominent – “Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath, they fulfilled those words by condemning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children by raising Jesus … that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you” (Acts 13:27-38). The rest of Paul’s speech, as was the case with Peter and the others, is made up of arguments from the OT that Jesus fulfills what the OT had proclaimed. Following Don Juel, I have called this “Messianic Exegesis” – seeing the story of Jesus in the words of the OT and reading the OT through the lens of the experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul points to four OT texts – Psalm 2:7, Isaiah 55:3, Psalm 16:10 and Habakkuk 1:5. (One can’t help but wonder if the reading from the prophets that day came for Habakkuk.) We are going to look at a couple of those references in the coming days so we will not examine Paul’s speech any further. The importance needs to be placed on the core message – a core message that is common to all the speeches in Acts.