The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Acts 13:5,
“When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.”
As I read of the beginning of Barnabas’ and Paul’s first missionary trip, I see that it was “the word of God” they proclaimed at their first port of call at Salamis on the island of Cyprus. As we continue to read of the events that took place it is the word of God that Paul and his team carries into new territories. The message they took was not the word of the church, the word of the denomination, the word of this or that new movement. It wasn’t the word of some new world religion or the latest teaching from some seminary or university. It was the word of God himself. Not the traditions developed or the doctrines hammered out at the epicenter of Antioch: It was the word of God himself.
In that town we are introduced to a “sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus”, Acts 13:6. Saul (Paul) and Barnabas were opposed by this man and Paul condemned him as a man who never stopped “perverting the right ways of the Lord.” Not the ways of Paul and Barnabas and not the ways of the church in Antioch. Not the ways of the early New Testament church, not the ways of the circumcised believers nor the ways of the Gentile believers, it was the ways of the Lord that Bar-Jesus was opposing as Paul and Barnabas brought the word of God to Cyprus. We are told it was “the word of God” that the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, wanted to hear that Bar-Jesus was in such opposition against. Imagine the insanity of opposing God!
Two men who have set out on a journey to take the very words of God to mankind! We’re talking of the Creator of the cosmos: it is his communication to mankind that Paul and Barnabas are taking to these new areas! The more I think of it the more astonishing I find it!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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