Paul’s First Missionary Journey and Acts 15 (3 of 12)

The first deliberate cross-cultural mission in Christian history was launched from a prayer meeting, and it ended in a council that decided what Christianity was going to be.

How Did the First Missionary Journey Begin?

With fasting and worship at Antioch, around AD 46.

Acts 13:2-3 records the Spirit speaking while the leaders were worshipping and fasting: set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. They fasted and prayed again, laid hands on them, and sent them off.

Notice that the sending church is Antioch rather than Jerusalem. The first organised mission to the nations goes out from the mixed Jewish and Gentile congregation, not from the mother church.

Where Did Paul Go on the First Journey?

Cyprus, then up into the interior of Asia Minor.

Cyprus first, which was Barnabas’s home territory, with Salamis and Paphos both excavated. Then across to the mainland and inland to Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.

Pisidian Antioch has yielded the Monumentum Ancyranum, the inscription recording the deeds of Augustus, which gives some sense of the imperial atmosphere of the place Paul walked into with a message about a different king.

A pattern establishes itself and holds for the rest of his career. Synagogue first, where the Scriptures are already known and the argument can start from common ground. Then Gentiles, as the synagogue divides. Then trouble, and on to the next town.

When Did Saul Become Paul?

On Cyprus, and Luke marks it in passing.

Acts 13:9 introduces the shift in the middle of a confrontation with a magician named Elymas at the court of the proconsul Sergius Paulus: Saul, who was also called Paul.

It is not a rename at conversion. He had both names already, a Hebrew one and a Roman one, as many did. What changes is which one Luke uses, and it changes at the point where the mission turns decisively toward a Roman world.

What Did Paul Preach at Pisidian Antioch?

Justification, in terms he will spend the rest of his life developing.

Acts 13:38-39 has him telling the synagogue that through Jesus forgiveness of sins is proclaimed, and that everyone who believes is set free from everything they could not be set free from by the law of Moses.

That sermon is the seed of Galatians and Romans, delivered years before either was written.

When the synagogue divides, Acts 13:46 gives the turn: it was necessary that the word be spoken first to you, but since you reject it, we turn to the Gentiles. That sentence gets repeated in various forms across Acts and it is a description of sequence rather than a rejection of Israel.

What Happened at Lystra?

They were mistaken for gods and then nearly killed, in the same town, by roughly the same crowd.

Acts 14:8-18. A man lame from birth is healed, and the crowd concludes that the gods have come down in human form, calling Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes. The priest of Zeus brings oxen to sacrifice. The apostles tear their clothes and rush in shouting that they are only human.

Then Acts 14:19-20. Opponents arrive from Antioch and Iconium, win the crowd over, stone Paul, and drag him out of the city supposing he is dead.

And then the sentence that should stop any reader: the disciples gathered round him, he got up, and he went back into the city.

Back in. The same day. To the town that had just stoned him.

What Did Paul Do on the Way Home?

He went back through every town he had just been driven out of.

Acts 14:21-23 has them returning through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the disciples, telling them that they must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God, and appointing elders in every church with prayer and fasting.

That is the method in one sentence. Evangelise, establish, entrust. He does not plant and leave. He goes back into danger to appoint leadership and hand the work over.

Why Was the Jerusalem Council Necessary?

Because the first journey succeeded, and success created the question.

Acts 15:1 states it: certain people came down from Judea teaching that unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Salvation itself was on the table. Not a secondary practice, not a matter of preference. The claim was that Gentile converts had to become Jews in order to be Christians.

What Did the Jerusalem Council Decide?

That Gentiles are saved the same way Jews are, and are not to be burdened.

Peter speaks first, in Acts 15:10-11, asking why they would test God by placing on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither they nor their ancestors were able to bear, and concluding that we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.

Read the direction of that sentence. He does not say Gentiles are saved as Jews are. He says Jews are saved as Gentiles are. The comparison runs the other way from what anyone expected.

James then gives the judgment in Acts 15:16-19, citing Amos 9:11-12 on the rebuilt tent of David gathering the nations, and rules that they should not make it difficult for the Gentiles turning to God.

The letter goes out with four abstentions concerning table fellowship, and the phrase that has been quoted ever since: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.

No circumcision. No yoke. The gospel stayed the gospel.

When Was Galatians Written?

Genuinely disputed, and the dispute is worth knowing about.

On the early dating, associated with a South Galatian reading of the destinations, Galatians is Paul’s first letter, written around AD 48 or 49 in the heat of this controversy and possibly just before the council. On the later view it belongs around AD 55.

The letter itself has no thanksgiving section, which is unique among Paul’s letters and tells you something about his state of mind. Gal 1:6-8 goes straight from greeting to astonishment that they are so quickly deserting the one who called them, and to a curse on anyone preaching another gospel.

Its thesis is stated in Gal 2:16: a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. The same argument the Jerusalem Council settled institutionally, argued personally and at white heat.

Part of a series following the Apostle Paul timeline.

Footnotes2

1. The return through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch is easy to read past. Paul had been stoned in one of those towns and expelled from the others. Going back to appoint elders was not a routine follow-up visit; it was a deliberate decision to risk the same treatment in order to leave functioning churches behind.
2. Peter's formulation in Acts 15:11 repays slow reading. The expected argument is that Gentiles can be included on Jewish terms. What he says is that Jews are saved by grace in the same way Gentiles are, which makes the Gentile experience the reference point rather than the exception.

Sources

The biblical texts cited: Acts 13:1-14:28, Acts 15:1-35, Gal 1:6-8, 2:1-10, 2:16, and Amos 9:11-12.

Marsha A. Ellis Smith, "Archaeology and the New Testament," in Foundations for Biblical Interpretation (B&H, 1994), 371. Supports the excavated remains at Salamis and Paphos on Cyprus.

Timothy B. Cargal, So That's Why! Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2001). Supports the Monumentum Ancyranum at Pisidian Antioch.

Where the sourcing stops: the dating of Galatians is a live scholarly dispute and both positions are given here without adjudication. The relationship between Gal 2:1-10 and the council of Acts 15, whether they describe the same meeting, is a related and equally contested question not settled here.