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CONNIE: It’s been said that Jesus as an adult hardly traveled a hundred miles from home, and yet His message has spread to the whole world. Join us today as we look at how the Holy Spirit got the message out.

Giving God’s trumpet a Certain Sound for 75 years, this is the Voice of Prophecy.

CONNIE: Hello, I’m Connie Jeffery,

LONNIE: and I’m Lonnie Melashenko.

LONNIE: You know, Connie, when Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, it must have seemed to His disciples that what His ministry—and theirs—had pretty much come to an end. Did they even dare to dream that it would spread from there all around the world?

CONNIE: Jerusalem wasn’t exactly the center of the world in those days, was it?

LONNIE: No, it was just a little backwater town in the huge Roman Empire. And it would take the disciples quite a few years before they began to understand that God had a bigger plan in mind—bigger than just ministering to their little nation. But I think God probably already had in mind just how it was to happen, and who he would use to accomplish it.

CONNIE: You’re thinking of the apostle Paul, I suppose.

LONNIE: That’s right. Here was a man with a tremendous amount of energy and courage—if God could just get it bent in the right direction. And after Paul’s conversion, Jesus very quickly began to show him that he would have a special ministry to the larger world.

CONNIE: But there were many obstacles in the way, weren’t there?

LONNIE: There certainly were. Paul had to undergo a lot of hardship in the process of spreading the gospel, and his plans often got vetoed by God Himself. But it was all part of the bigger plan to get the message spread as far as possible as quickly as possible.

CONNIE: The gospel jumped the bounds of Asia on Paul’s second missionary journey, and to help us see how that happened, we’ve invited Dr. John McVay of Andrews University to join us. Ken Wade spoke with him recently—let’s listen in.

KEN: I want to welcome Dr. John McVAy to our program here today. He is dean of the seminary at Andrews University.

JOHN: It’s delightful to be with you.

KEN: We are talking about a part of Paul’s life today, and I think we are talking about a very rich time period in Paul’s life.

JOHN: There’s a beautiful story, or maybe better…a string of narrative stories about missionary Paul and his team, as they move across an important part of the world, and it is rich.

KEN: One of the things that strikes me here is that Paul, after the Jerusalem council, when he’s thinking well what’s next, he’s not just launching off into new territory. He was the type of man that liked to go back and make sure everything was ok, wasn’t he?

JOHN: Yes he was, and in fact, if you read through the rest of this story and in Acts in general, I think that you get a warmer portrait of Paul than we sometimes understand. We sometimes think of Paul as the hit and run evangelist who comes into town does an overnighter and leaves…

KEN: …And sometimes gets ridden out on a rail.

JOHN: Yes, and of course, the latter does happen. But we do see his dedication to these places and these people, and he is spending time and he is going back and he is writing letters.

KEN: One of the people that he meets on this journey, he makes a return trip back across Asia-Minor basically, kind of in reverse order than he had gone before, but he meets a new man that he wants for a traveling companion, Timothy. That story has some powerful implications, doesn’t it?

JOHN: Staying with the idea of how it adjusts our understanding of Paul. We find Paul adopting Timothy as a mentoree, he’s going to mentor this young man whom he sees as promising, and if you count through the Acts of the Apostles and through the epistles, Paul has more than 100 employees or co-workers. People that he works with in spreading the gospel and that he mentors. Of course, those are just the ones that are named, so Paul is not the lone evangelist. Rather he is the trainer, the enabler; the inventor who’s equipping other’s to help him with his mission.

KEN: It’s especially intriguing, Paul’s willingness to adapt to his audience, the fact that he is going to take Timothy and circumcise him even though Paul says that circumcision is not necessary for salvation. In order to reach more people he’s willing to make that step, isn’t he?

JOHN: It is an interesting case study, coming out of the Jerusalem conference, that now Paul is willing to make that adjustment.

KEN: I think that as these men traveled; I would love to make that trip sometime, perhaps in the back seat of a car, rather than walking, they meet a lot of frustration along the way, I mean God say’s, “go here don’t go there”, I mean…?

JOHN: It must have been quite frustrating for Timothy. He was a young member of the evangelistic team and he surly had dreams and hopes of vast conquests and so on, and at every turn they are forbidden by the spirit of Jesus, and does not allow them and so on.

KEN: I guess there are some lessons there for us when we meet frustration along the way, aren’t there?

JONH: Surly. God has a plan and there’s something in store here, but their somewhat blindly feeling their way toward it.

KEN: And then, of course, they finally get to Troas, and then on to Macedonia, and what happens the first three places they land over there, they get run out of town after they raised up a church, don’t they ?

JOHN: Yes! And some difficult times. They landed in jail in Philippi and so on. Well, Timothy is getting quite an induction into the ministry here.

KEN: But finally they arrive in Corinth, I think that we might be able to see God’s plan here, that now God says to stay here for awhile. What’s so important about Corinth?

JOHN: Corinth is a strategic place, highly mobile population and the spirit of God seems to decide that this is a place where the roots of Christian faith need to deepen a bit, and a community needs to develop.

KEN: People from all over the world would be passing through there and if they could be touched with the gospel there then perhaps it could be spread to other parts of the world, in other words.

JOHN: Absolutely!

KEN: So, through it all, there might be questions about how the Lord is leading, but in the end we see the indeed God was leading.

JOHN: Yes, and we learn that there are some difficult and traumatic times, but that perseverance are part of the Christian faith.

KEN: Well, he sure had it?

JOHN: Thanks Ken.

O For a Thousand Tongues”, Called IV, from Quartet Favorites Collection CD.

CONNIE: Amen! That was the group “Called IV” with the song “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” and you know it kind of seems like God multiplied the power of the apostle Paul’s tongue at least a thousand-fold as he set out to proclaim the gospel.

LONNIE: Yes it does, and of course that was through the work of the Holy Spirit moving on other people’s hearts, inspiring them to share as well. It’s something we still like to see happen with our broadcasts and Bible School here at Voice of Prophecy. If you appreciate the messages you hear on our broadcast, please tell a friend—every time someone new tunes in, God’s word is being multiplied.

CONNIE: You can do that with the Discover Bible Lessons as well. We often invite listeners to enroll in this Bible Fundamentals course and take it by correspondence or over the Internet. And if you’ve already done that—why not invite a friend to do the same?

LONNIE: The Discover Bible Lessons are available free, either at our Internet page, VOP.COM, or by enrolling through the mail.

CONNIE: We’ll have more information about that later, but right now let’s listen as Lonnie shares today’s message, “To All the World.”

To All the World

So, had been settled. The great question that necessitated the calling of the first great church council of the Christian era—the council at Jerusalem in about A. D. 50.

The apostles and elders had met to discuss and settle once and for all a “problem” that the apostle Paul had helped to create. The “problem” was that Gentiles were being converted and becoming Christians. And the Holy Spirit was giving evidence that these people had been accepted into the kingdom of God just as fully as their Jewish counterparts. But some of the Jews just couldn’t believe that God could so readily accept Gentiles.

So the council met, and after considering the evidence, realized that God was leading them to be much more open toward Gentile converts. This was good news for Paul and Barnabas. They couldn’t wait to share it with their friends—especially with the people who had joined the churches they had founded in Asia Minor.

They hurried home to Antioch from Jerusalem, and then it was time to retrace their steps, check up on the progress of their converts, and maybe even take the good news to new lands.

You can sense Paul’s enthusiasm for missions, can’t you, in this text: “After some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing’ ” (Acts 15:36, NRSV).

Paul wasn’t a fly-by-night evangelist who rode into town, raised up a church, and then went on his way never to look back. On his first missionary journey, he was careful to retrace his steps to visit each of the churches, even though he’d been almost ridden out of town on a rail in several of the cities. Now he wanted to plan another trip to go back to the same places and make sure everything was going well—and probably also to reassure the Gentile believers that the church had fully accepted them.

Barnabas wanted to go too, but he thought they should take John Mark with them. And that’s where the two faithful traveling companions parted ways. Paul would have none of it—he figured Mark had dropped out once before, and he wasn’t willing to run the risk of having that happen again.

The name Barnabas means “encouragement,” it seems to have been an earned name rather than a given name—Barnabas often stood up for the underdog—he’d done it for Paul earlier. Now he chose to give Mark a second chance, and so the two of them headed for Cyprus—which had been the first leg of their earlier journey with Paul.

Paul for his part took another man, Silas, and set out for the other areas he and Barnabas had worked in, via the land route that took him through his home town of Tarsus and some of the churches he had helped raise up in that area, then on up to Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium where he and Barnabas had ministered together.

In Lystra he met a young half-Jewish man named Timothy who had a real zeal for the gospel. Paul wanted Timothy to work with him, and Timothy was most willing. But there was one obstacle to success. And here we get a clear insight into the character of Paul. A surprising insight.

Paul had argued long and hard for the establishment of one of the fundamental principles of the gospel: Circumcision is not a prerequisite to salvation. He had won that point in the council in Jerusalem. And now he had set out on a trip to deliver this good news to the Gentile converts in the churches he had raised up. But we read in Acts 16:3 “Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek” (NRSV).

Whoa! Is Paul being a hypocrite here? After arguing against the necessity of circumcision, why circumcise Timothy?

Because circumcision wasn’t the issue. The issue was, Who can be saved and on what basis?

Paul wasn’t stuck on proving that no one had to be circumcised. If being circumcised would win more souls than being uncircumcised, then bring on the knife! In his dealings with Jews, he knew that having an uncircumcised half-Jewish companion would raise issues and create barriers that would keep people from accepting the gospel. And neither he nor Timothy wanted that.

Paul was a man who wanted as many people saved through Jesus as possible, and he would do whatever was necessary to accomplish this. To the believers in Corinth he wrote, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law . . . so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law . . . so that I might win those outside the law. . . . I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:20, 21, 23, NRSV).

And so Timothy was circumcised and joined the traveling troupe of missionaries. What happened next is another amazing part of the story of Paul and his spiritual growth.

From Timothy’s home town of Lystra, the missionaries no doubt traveled on to Iconium and Pisidian Antioch, visiting churches Paul and Barnabas had raised up. Then, instead of turning around and heading home, they continued on into new territory. But it seemed like whatever direction they turned they met obstacles that prevented them from proceeding.

Acts 16:6-8 tells us “They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas” (NRSV).

Can you imagine what it was like for young Timothy, having set out with Paul to do great missionary deeds, only to find himself traveling mile after mile, week after week, always receiving divine directives “Don’t go there—no, not there either, no, you’re not to preach here!”

We’re talking about several hundred miles of walking through rough, dangerous territory, with very little to show for their efforts except a lot of sandal leather worn off.

But there was a reason why God was leading them to keep on moving instead of stopping. The Holy Spirit had a special mission for them—one that would force them to look beyond the horizons of what they might have thought possible.

When they finally arrived at Troas on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea not far from the site of ancient Troy, they must have wondered what next? They couldn’t walk any farther in the direction the Spirit had been leading.

That’s when Paul’s horizons were expanded and he caught a whole new vision of where his mission would take him.

“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’ ” (Acts 16:9, NRSV).

Unless you’re looking at a map, this simple vision may not seem like it has a great deal of significance. But get out your Rand McNally, and you’ll quickly see that Paul was being called to make a giant leap—from what was then considered Asia (we call it Asia Minor now), into Europe.

Now he knew for sure that he was being called to take the gospel to the entire world. No physical or spiritual barrier should be allowed to stand in the way.

What followed seems like a lightning tour through Macedonia and Achaia on the way to the crossroads city of Corinth on the Greek Peloponnesus. First to Philippi, where the missionaries met a group of women and founded a church, but soon ran afoul of the law by casting a demon out of a girl who had been making money for her masters by soothsaying. After a night of hymn singing in jail and an earthquake, Paul baptized the jailer and his family and headed on south to Thessalonica, where he preached about Jesus until troublemakers ran him out of town again. Next was Beroea, where Paul and Silas found a group of Jews who were willing to study carefully in the scriptures to see whether what they proclaimed was true. But troublemakers soon drove them out of that town also—it seems the Holy Spirit had bigger fish for Paul to fry, and soon he found himself at the intellectual crossroads of the ancient world, Athens.

He didn’t stay there long, but Acts 17 tells the fascinating story of his preaching to the philosophers there and persuading some of them to believe in Jesus. Then it was on to Corinth, where finally he had a chance to settle down and do some in-depth preaching and teaching. In spite of the opposition that sprang up, Paul received a vision in which the Lord encouraged him: “ ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people’ ” (Acts 18:9, 10, NRSV).

People from all over the world passed through Corinth on a daily basis—it was the ancient world’s equivalent of Panama—but without the canal. Ships would pull up to one side of the isthmus, and smaller ones could actually be hauled across on wooden rails. Larger ones offloaded their cargoes, which were then carried across and loaded onto other ships on the other side.

The Lord clearly had a mission in mind for Paul—not just to proclaim the gospel in remote corners of Asia Minor, but to carry the good news to the intellectual and trading capitals of western civilization so that it could be dispersed and spread to the entire world!

Through hardships, persecution, and even jail time, Paul had been learning and growing, and now he was ready to settle in and establish a church and teaching center that could influence people from every corner of the known world.

But he still had things to learn about the best methods of Christian ministry. When he left Corinth after 18 months, he took all the best leaders and teachers with him—a step he would have many opportunities to regret and learn from. His letters to the Corinthians reveal just how far astray the congregation soon went without adequate leadership. But he learned from that experience, and in the future he made always left good leadership behind when he moved on—as his letters to Timothy and Titus reveal.

God had a mission for Paul. And it was Paul’s openness to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and his willingness to learn as he went, that made it possible for that mission to be fulfilled.

He has a mission for all of us—are you listening daily for the voice of the Holy Spirit to speak to you? Are you asking God daily what He would like to teach you, and what He would want you to share?—and say: Are you ready to go on a trip for God? Whether across the street or across the world, God has a mission for you. And as you walk with Him, He’ll prepare you to fulfill that mission, just as He did Paul. To carry the gospel to every corner of the world.

“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”, Christian Edition, from Fishers of Men CD.