🎙️ Acts 13v13-52 - Preaching Killing God

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🎙️ Acts 13v13-52 - Preaching Killing God

Encouragement, History, Repentance, Gravity, Apologetics, Urgency, Division

Sacred Texting

Aug 10, 2024

Transcript

~ first missionary journey - crossing cyprus, John’s gone back to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas going town to town.

~ two little vignettes - preaching to synagogue then to a city

[1] PREACHING ENCOURAGEMENT

Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem, 14 but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. 15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” 16 So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said:

~ this is a sermon ~ how should we preach? I think about this so much, so inconclusively.

~ Words create worlds.

~ Sermon - An argument / provocation / story - to inspire, convict, comfort, chasten, unify, clarify.. ~ I wonder what the rulers of the synagogue wanted to hear? As there is one rendering which crawls Good teacher.. Oleaginous and sycophantic. Bitter sweet - encouragement ~ gee up the faithful remnant.

~ Words create worlds.

What encourages you?

How do you encourage people?

[2] PREACHING HISTORY - GOD CONSTITUTED A PEOPLE

“Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. 17 The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. 18 And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. 19 And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance. 20 All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21 Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. 22 And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’

Read with God emphasised.

Expand:

[2.0] Stages in forming a people - God's agency

~ Chose. Zero to one. Noise to signal.

~ Made great. One to many.

~ Led out. Out of Empire.

~ Wilderness. Consolidated apart from the world.

~ Land. Rooted. Placed.

~ Judges. Organised / Regulated.

~ Kings (Saul). Person-centred.

~ King (David)

[2.1] History as preaching

~ think on God’s past faithfulness as encouragement

[2.2] Typology as preaching

- incidental recurrence ~ Saul/Paul as the new Saul - why are you persecuting me. Patterns recur. Nominative determinism

But then

[2.3] Speaking to an audience

- frame to people a mutual understanding of who they are

How did you get here? Brought to this place

How did we get here? What is our shared story

[2.4] Pattern book and Story

- Gospel as Culmination

Creation → Creation of remedial community - Perennially

What would your history / origin story of your community be?

Who is the agent in it?

[3] PREACHING REPENTANCE - GOD SENDS ELIJAHS

23 Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, as he promised. 24 Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. 25 And as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

[3.0] John the Baptist: Elijah comes

- Preacher inserts a preacher. As a perennial case in point. I’m interested in the prophet character - disruptive analyst, truther who is somehow the fuse of the powder keg of history. Pay attention to the Elijahs.

Just after they’ve been up the Mt of Transfiguration: Mt17v10

The disciples asked Him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” 11Jesus replied, “Elijah does indeed come, and he will restore all things. 12But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him whatever they wished. In the same way, the Son of Man will suffer at their hands.” 13Then the disciples understood that He was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

Mk9v11-12 Elijah comes. Would you know it if you saw it? Three connected misapprehensions keep the disciples in the Scribe's dark.

Form. Wrongly venerating Elijah as an Old Greybeard historic character ~ literal, specific, limited, pluperfect (woe to that Mt23v29-31), as if prophecy was. Prophecy is. Elijah comes.
Function. Wrongly considering Elijah's sufficient Elijian role as completely completing moral reform and political overthrow. A whitewashed and rosy-tinted account of the good-enough prophet will disqualify John-the-Baptist, and we would-be-way-preparers, as not-Elijian-enough.
Messianic prerequisites. Wrongly limiting that the Messiah only comes to an already perfected people, that the Saviour comes only when there is nothing more to save us from. Elijah comes and Jesus comes. We participate prophetically in preparing the way and pointing the way, imperfectly, incompletely but supernaturally and substantially.

See Jesus claims: (v11) “Elijah does come.” or “Elijah comes.” Present tense, Indicative Mood, Middle Voice. Elijah here stands as a Type, the prophetic mode, which is enduring. Constantly speaking of what the spirit of God is doing, constantly relaying the Father's heart, constantly preparing the ground for the Christ-seed, constantly calling the Ahabs and Herods away from their Jezebels and Salomes, constantly speaking the original truths, the timeless, timely and urgent: the jealous love of God, the call to repentance.

Elijah as the perennial perpetuation of prophecy is crucial to Jesus' point in the Transfiguration chat, as it is when he speaks a woe in Mt23v29-31. The notion that prophets *were* is what kills the prophets that *are*

How do you repent?

How do you preach repentance?

[4] PREACHING GRAVITY - WE KILLED GOD

26 “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. 27 For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

[4.1] Jews asked Pilate to have him executed -

~ in order to not tacitly export anti-semitism from an interpretation of this passage, we must war against the chronological snobbery that assumes that we would be any better, or indeed that we do any better.

~~ pick and mix orientalism, cosmetic shabbat shalom.

What would it be to be as constituted as the Jews as a nation as an economy as a ritual? How you be that weird and not collapse into myopia.

[4.2] Even though they read the scripture every sabbath

- Establishment Christianity - Regressed Christians who have settled in a desupernaturalised faith - Zombie form. Run a rescue shop within a yard if he'll

~ limits of understanding

~ fulfilled prophecy despite not understanding

[4.3] What would make you kill a man?

Chosen people as jealous

Existential threat

Always nodal, Always cascades

Perennial challenge of trials of tribalism

Creation → Creation of remedial community - Perennially

How to own that which should be more Jewish about our Christianity?

What would make you kill a man?

[5] PREACHING APOLOGETICS - GOD RAISED

32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,
“‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’
34 And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
35 Therefore he says also in another psalm,
“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
36 For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, 37 but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. 38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

[5.1] ~ better than David who died

- resurrection over death

Historicity. Crucifixion/Resurrection foolishness to greeks and stumbling block to jews

[5.2] ~ better than the law

- freedom through the power to fulfil the law apart from ourselves - forgiveness over works

[6] PREACHING URGENCY - WE DISBELIEVE GOD

40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
41 “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”
42 As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath. 43 And after the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.

[6.1] ~ Altar call is about the severity of a need for understanding

~ ? what does astounded and perish translate

[7] PREACHING DIVISION

44 The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him.
46 And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 For so the Lord has commanded us, saying,
“‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’”
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. 49 And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.
50 But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.
51 But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. 52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.