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Acts 13 - From One City to Another
We're continuing with the book of Acts, chapter 13; where Paul and Barnabas come to Antioch and build a huge church out of gentiles in record time.
The next stop of Paul and his team was in Antioch. On the Sabbath day, they went into a local synagogue. Christians haven't built a single building up to now. They went into the existing synagogues and preached there. Jerusalem synagogues wouldn't let them in anymore; but when they entered a new town, they went into a synagogue. Actually, Jesus was preaching at synagogues as well.
Paul employees the same sermon structure Peter used when he was preaching on the day of Pentecost. He approached the topic from a cultural perspective of the people he addressed. He starts off with the story of the Jewish nation and gradually leads to Jesus. And people in this town let him finish. He was allowed to talk about the coming of Jesus as messiah, his death, and resurrection. He was able to back everything he said from the Psalms of king David, which had great authority in the eyes of his listeners. After the sermon, the gentiles asked him to come preach about the same stuff next Saturday. When the meeting was disbanded, many Jews who converted from paganism, stayed to ask questions. And on the next Saturday, nearly everyone in town came to listen.
Whenever the apostles went, they never needed to put in any effort into trying to attract people; people were drawn to them like to magnet. But as usual, soon, they met opposition from religious Jews. Some Jews started confronting them because they were jealous Paul attracted more followers then they did. Then Paul told them that since they disqualified themselves, he will preach only to gentiles from now on. In the end, the religious Jews spurred persecution against Paul and drove him out of the area. But by this time, Paul and Barnabas managed to leave a huge church there, out of gentiles. Their mission in this town was finished. They founded a church there, that spread all throughout that country. They could move to the next point now.
