The Missionaries Return to Antioch
Acts xiv. 23-28.
done. An interval was permitted to elapse, that the fittest men might emerge; and already the rule, “Lay hands suddenly on no man,” was practised before it was prescribed.
The term translated “ordained,” etymologically signifies election by a show of hands; and although, in later times, the word was employed to express the act of a bishop without election by the congregation, the original root remains as a fossil evidence of the liberty that prevailed in the primitive Church. This and many other privileges which were enjoyed in apostolic times were gradually undermined by the encroachments of ecclesiastical power in a later age.
The founders of these infant communities could not remain with the inexperienced converts. They were obliged to leave the Christians among unbelieving Gentiles and Jews, as sheep in the midst of wolves; and yet they were not overwhelmed with fear for the safety of the churches. Faith was then young and fresh, and full of life. They commended their charge “to the Lord, on whom they believed,” and proceeded on their journey. They had no arm of flesh whereon to lean, and they seem never to have thought such a support needful.
Having traversed the province of Pisidia, they came to Perga, the place at which they had first landed when they crossed from Cyprus to the continent. For some reason not expressed, they had merely passed through that place on their first visit; and now, when they returned to it the second time, they paused and preached. This town was in communication with the sea by means of a river; but though the missionaries desired now to return by sea to Antioch in Syria, they did not sail direct from Perga — probably because the larger ships did not frequent that port. Another harbour farther westward, called Attaleia, better suited their purpose. A greater traffic congregated there, and there accordingly they might more readily obtain a passage to Syria.
From this port a great army of Crusaders sailed for Antioch in the middle ages — a wretched, unfortunate rabble, who perished by thousands on the way. Alas! the gospel which Paul and Barnabas brought to these shores was greatly corrupted in the course of a thousand years. How unlike the clear, certain sound of the first preachers, was the echo which returned from West to East in the crusading times! These two men, not fighting, but suffering, came from east to west, with no weapon but the Word, mighty through God to subdue the nations; but when the West, in an evil day, proposed to make a return missionary visit to the East, they bore carnal weapons, and wasted the territories of friend and foe. They took the sword, and they perished by it. A fleet with an army sailed from the port of Attaleia.
After the lapse of another six centuries, the Western nations have again turned their faces to the East, and preached a new crusade. From America and Europe they stream eastward — soldiers of the Cross, to re-conquer Palestine from the disciples of Mohammed, and to win India and China for Christ; but they have returned to the means and methods of apostolic times. We send a few earnest believing men and women, armed with the sword of the Spirit; and they are waging a successful war against the superstitions and idolatries of Asia.
From Attaleia by sea Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch in Syria, whence they had been sent out on their first missionary tour. That great city of the world became for a time the centre of effort for propagating the faith of Christ. From it the missionaries departed, and to it they returned when the work was done. Immediately the Chris-The Church in the Hoitse.
tians of the city assembled to hear the report of their agents. It must have been a glad and exhilarating scene. Every eye would glisten, and every countenance beam with joy, as these pioneers of the gospel rehearsed in the assembly the great things that the Lord had done.
“To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundantly.” This promise was fulfilled in the experience of the Church at Antioch. They possessed grace which induced and enabled them to give to others; and their gift to others came back in redoubled blessings to themselves. From them the mission went forth, and to them the missionaries returned, charged with the blessing of a world that was ready to perish. Like swallows returning to their nests, the apostles came back to Antioch. The successful labourers longed for kindred spirits, who might sympathise with them in their sorrows and their joys; but who could rejoice with them over the work accomplished, so well as those who had commissioned and sent them out for the work? The success of its own mission was the means of quickening the Church.
The element of novelty in the report which Paul and Barnabas brought home was, that God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. Hitherto, although converts from beyond the pale of the J ewish nationality had been freely admitted, they had been accepted as individuals, on profession of their faith, into communion with believing Jews. But now, in Gentile cities, churches were constituted mainly of Gentile converts. The door was open, and the gospel, overleaping the boundaries of Israel, had obtained access to the world.
The Church at Antioch, while Paul and Barnabas resided there after their return from the Greek cities of Asia, seems to be no longer a lodge in the wilderness, but one of the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. There was so much of faith, and love, and joy, and that of so long continuance, that they might well begin to think they had already passed through the great tribulation — that the kingdom in its glory would soon appear. But a dark cloud suddenly overshadowed the bright landscape. “Certain men came down from Judaea, and taught the brethren,” etc. Alas! the ailment under which we suffer to-day, afflicted the Church in that early age. Certain men with narrow superstitious notions attempted to thrust their own crotchets down the throats of their brethren. How much has the kingdom been obstructed in the world by men within the Church attempting to impose unnecessary beliefs or practices upon the consciences of their brethren? This baleful spirit manifested itself at an early date, and it has not yet been cast out. These men, acting like all other creatures after their kind, did not go to the heathen to proclaim the gospel where it was unknown; they came to those who were already Christians, and zealously proselytised in favour of their own sectarian watchword. They settled among the disciples at Antioch, and taught in a very positive form, that unless the Gentiles conformed to the Mosaic ritual, their trust in Christ could not save them. The apostles perceived at once that this question was vital. Here they must take their stand. The entrance of this leaven, they saw, would corrupt the whole body. It would introduce another gospel.
It was one thing for converted J ews to continue for some time the practice of the Mosaic ritual, with which they had been familiar from their childhood; and it was all another thing to impose that ritual on the Gentiles as if it were necessary to salvation. The question was keenly discussed for some time at Antioch, between Paul and Barnabas on the one side, and the Judaising teachers from Jerusalem on the other; but as there was no authority competent to decide between the parties, no progress was made. In these circumstances, the whole Church resolved to lay the matter before the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. Accordingly, it was arranged, with common consent, that a deputation, including Paul and Barnabas, should proceed to the Mother Church of Judasa, to state their case and maintain their interests.
In adopting this resolution they were wisely led. A right and authoritative decision on this subject was necessary, not only for the immediate peace, but also for the future prosperity, and even the ultimate existence, of the Church. To have admitted, as authoritatively binding the consciences of believers, that something additional to faith in Christ crucified was necessary to justification, would have essentially changed the nature of the gospel. It would have been to draw the pen through the glorious word, “It is finished,” and to throw despairing sinners back on their own resources, as if no Redeemer had undertaken and accomplished the work. We owe much to the watchful faithfulness of these primitive missionaries in asserting for themselves and transmitting to us “the simplicity that is in Christ.”