Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Acts 14:21-28, Elders appointed, and home to Antioch
Paul and Barnabas retrace their route, warning that the kingdom comes through hardships and appointing elders in each church, then report to Antioch that God has opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
Acts 14:21-28, in every translation this tool compares.
After making many disciples in Derbe, Paul and Barnabas retrace their route through the cities where they had been attacked. They encourage the new believers to hold on, warning that hardship is part of the road into God's kingdom, and they appoint elders in each church with prayer and fasting. Then they travel back through the south coast and sail home to Antioch. There they tell the church everything God has done, above all that Gentiles have been given a way into faith.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/present-age-and-age-to-come\/","n":"This age and the age to come","s":"Jews divided history into the present age, under the rule of evil nations, and the age to come, when God would rule unchallenged. The sufferings expected before the change were called birth pangs.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/kingdom-of-god\/","n":"God's kingdom","s":"Kingdom meant God's reign, God becoming king in fact. It was the good news Isaiah promised, and in Jesus' day it was also a slogan.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/elders\/","n":"Elders","s":"Older men respected for wisdom led Israel's villages in the Old Testament and still led Jewish communities and synagogues in the first century, usually as a group. The first churches took over the pattern, calling their elders overseers too, with deacons beside them.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/fasting\/","n":"Fasting","s":"Going without food, and often washing and oil, as a sign of mourning, penitence and longing. The law required one fast a year; the devout kept many more.","r":""}
Many Jews expected a time of suffering before the kingdom, the birth pangs of the Messiah (Keener and his notes). From Derbe the short way home ran through the Cilician Gates and Tarsus, but they went back through the cities that had just driven them out, on a journey of some 1,200 miles (the Zondervan atlas). Elders had governed towns and villages in the Old Testament and in much of the Mediterranean, and most synagogues had several elders acting as a council (Keener and his notes); the ESV Study Bible says Paul's churches followed that pattern. Fasting went with prayer in seeking God (the cultural backgrounds notes). Pamphylians and Pisidians were reputed skilled in augury, reading omens from the flight of birds (Keener). Wright holds that the Galatians of Paul's letter are these southern churches and that the long stay in Antioch is when Peter and the men from James came (Galatians 2:11-12); Carson, Moo and Morris also date Galatians before the council of Acts 15, though many scholars instead equate Galatians 2 with that council.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 13:2, 14:22 and 14:23
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 14:21-22, 14:23 and 14:24
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Acts 14:23
- Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, The Journeys of Paul, Paul's First Missionary Journey
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part Two, comment on Acts 14:21-28
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 7, Paul, section The Problem of Sources
