Acts 15:36 - 16:15

Teacher: Rusty Kennedy
Series: Acts

Rusty's Notes

Where we left off in Acts…

• Paul had completed his first missionary journey
• First Missionary Journey Map
• Cypress (Paphos), Perga, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra & Derbe w/ Barnabas.
• Once they had landed in the Galatia area John Mark bailed on them.
• Judaizers followed them and discredited all their teachings.
• They ended up back in Antioch where they were confronted by the traditional Jews from Jerusalem.
• Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with the council and ended up with a letter that affirmed his teachings and ministry.

 
PAUL AND BARNABAS PART COMPANY
Acts 15:36-41
Around 50 AD
36 After some time had passed, Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s go back and visit the brothers and sisters in every town where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they’re doing.” 37 Barnabas wanted to take along John Mark. 38 But Paul insisted that they should not take along this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone on with them to the work. 39 They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company,

• They had just spent months unifying the Church through the message of Jesus and now they have an argument and become divided.

and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed off to Cyprus.

• Barnabas was not giving up on his family. We discover in Colossians 4:10 that John Mark & Barnabas are cousins.
• Barnabas didn’t give up on others. The early Church named him Barnabas because it means “son of encouragement”. (Acts 4:36)

40 But Paul chose Silas and departed, after being commended by the brothers and sisters to the grace of the Lord.

• Paul selected a new partner, Silas, a chief man in the church, a prophet (Acts 15:22, 32), and one chosen to take the Jerusalem Conference decrees to the churches (Acts 15:27).
• “Silas” is probably a Greek version of the name Saul.
• He was coauthor with Paul of the Thessalonian epistles, and he was the secretary for Peter’s first epistle (1 Peter 5:12).
• Like Paul, he was a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37).[1]

41 He traveled through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

• Even though we see this parting of ways between Paul & Barnabas as a division, the Lord used it as multiplication by making two strong teams.

 
PAUL SELECTS TIMOTHY
Acts 16
1 Paul went on to Derbe and Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, but his father was a Greek. 2 The brothers and sisters at Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him. 3 Paul wanted Timothy to go with him;

• Timothy was probably converted through Paul’s ministry when the apostle first visited Lystra, for Paul called him “my beloved son” (1 Cor. 4:17) and “my own son in the faith” (1 Tim. 1:2).
• Timothy’s mother and grandmother had prepared the way for his decision by being the first in the family to trust Christ (2 Tim. 1:5).
• Young Timothy undoubtedly witnessed Paul’s sufferings in Lystra (Acts 14:19–20; 2 Tim. 3:10–11) and was drawn by the Lord to the apostle.
• Timothy was Paul’s favorite companion and coworker (Phil. 2:19–23), perhaps the son Paul never had but always wanted.[2]

so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, since they all knew that his father was a Greek.

• Gentiles would not be required to become Jews in order to be Christians.
• Paul did not allow Titus to be circumcised lest the enemy think he was promoting their cause (Gal. 2:1–5).[3]
• The converse was also true: Jews would not be required to abandon their Jewishness in order to become Christians.
• There is absolutely no evidence that Paul ever asked Jews to abandon circumcision as their mark of membership in God’s covenant people.
• According to later rabbinic law, a child born of a Jewish mother and a Greek father was considered to be Jewish.
• The marriage of a Jewish woman to a non-Jew was considered a nonlegal marriage; and in all instances of nonlegal marriages, the lineage of the child was reckoned through the mother.
• According to this understanding, Timothy would have been considered a Jew. His father, however, being a Greek, would not have had his son circumcised; and the local Jews were aware of this (v. 3). Thus Paul had Timothy circumcised.[4]
• I’d say Timothy was committed at this point.

4 As they traveled through the towns (most likely Iconium & Antioch in Pisidia), they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem for the people to observe. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
 
EVANGELIZATION OF EUROPE
6 They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia; they had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 When they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

• Map of 1st & 2nd Missionary Journey
• Map of 1st & 2nd Missionary Journey on Google Maps
• We are supposed to go to Israel in October with a group of 35 people… but I don’t know if we are going to be able to with the pandemic.
• I want to go really bad!
• The geographical scheme is certainly not the dominant motif in this section: the divine leading is.
• We have no idea what the “medium” of revelation is to Paul and his team.
• Father (v. 10), Son (v. 7), and Spirit (v. 6) together led Paul to the decisive new breakthrough—the mission to Macedonia, the witness on European soil[5]

8 Passing by Mysia they went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision in which a Macedonian man was standing and pleading with him, “Cross over to Macedonia and help us!”

• Macedonia was where Alexander the Great was from.
• Alexander had a vision of one world.
• Paul was making it come true with the Gospel.

10 After he had seen the vision, we immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

• All of a sudden it changed to “first-person” speech with the usage of “we”.
• Is this where Luke joined Paul’s party?

 
LYDIA’S CONVERSION
11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, the next day to Neapolis,

• The weather must have been good and the winds favorable because their ship sighted Samothrace the first day.
• Samothrace was a mountainous island with a peak rising 5,000 feet above sea level.
• It lay off the Thracian coast on a direct line between Troas and Neapolis, the port of Philippi.
• The next day they arrived at Neapolis.
• In Acts 20:6 the voyage from Philippi to Troas took considerably longer—five days in all.[6]

12 and from there to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia. We stayed in that city for several days. 13 On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate by the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer.

• The Jewish population in Philippi must have been very small since there was no synagogue there, only a place of prayer by the river outside the city.
• (It required ten men for the founding of a synagogue.)[7]

We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there.

• “It is better that the words of the Law be burned than be delivered to a woman!” said the rabbis; but that was no longer Paul’s philosophy.[8]

14 A God-fearing woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, was listening.

• She was “a worshiper of God,” a Gentile who was not a full Jewish proselyte but who openly worshiped with the Jews. She was seeking truth.[9]

The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.

• The Lord opened her heart does not indicate that Lydia was passive in this decision.
• Lydia was a God-fearing woman already.
• A Gentile who was pursuing the Jews God.
• Lydia was listening.
• Lydia had to respond.
• Her response was a choice of “yes” or “no”.

15 After she and her household were baptized,

• Lydia was an influencer
• She was a business woman.

she urged us, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

• She obviously influenced Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke to stay with her.

[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 466). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[2] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 466). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[3] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 466). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[4] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 343). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[5] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 345). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[6] Polhill, J. B. (1992). Acts (Vol. 26, p. 347). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[7] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 467). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[8] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 467). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
[9] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, pp. 467–468). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.