Berean Break
May 3, 2015 broadcast
Acts 16:6-12
by George Sinkie
[printable PDF
of Acts
16:6-12][audio MP3 of Acts 16:6-12]
[EGW editors note: Previous article in this series on
the book of Acts Following the Pattern]
Good
morning and welcome to the Berean Break, my name is George A,
Sinkie and I am so glad you are able to join us today. Do
you have your Bible handy? I
hope so because I want you to check out what is taught here today.
There are many false teachers
in the world today and so we need to on the alert and check out
what is taught to make sure we hold to the truth. As we begin today, lets go
to God in prayer:
Great God in heaven, we want
to humble ourselves to You today. We
thank You for You word that give all the knowledge and direction
we need to be pleasing to You. Lord
as we use You word to plant the pure seed in our lives and to
water that truth, we pray that we will bring forth a harvest
for You. We also pray
for moisture to come and water this world so it can bring forth
growth. We thank You
for sending Jesus and it is by His authority we come to You now,
AMEN!!
Today
were are going to continue our study of the history of the church
of Christ. We are following
what is commonly called Pauls second missionary journey.
This part of the history is
recorded for us in Acts 16. We
are going to pick up and read from verses 6-10. Got your Bible opened? Acts
16: 6-10 reads this way in the NASB. And they passed through
the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the
Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they had come
to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit
of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came
down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in
the night: a certain man of Macedonia was standing and appealing
to him, and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And
when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into
Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel
to them.
One of the first things we should
note in this reading, is the change in pronouns. Note beginning in verse 6,they
passed, verse 7 when
they had come,
again in verse 7 they
were trying, and
also in verse 7 did
not permit them,
and they
came down verse
8. But note in verse
10, we
sought and had called us. Here
is why this is significant. They
and them are third person pronouns and are used when a third
party is being spoken about in a sentence. Luke
is the writer, he is first person, the readers that Luke initially
wrote to would be second person. Paul
and those with him are who he is writing about, that would be
third person.
An example would be, if Luke and
others with him did something, he would say, we did such
and such. If Luke, the writer was trying to tell
the readers to do something, he would say, You need to
do so and so. And
last if Luke was trying to say that someone besides himself or
the readers were doing something, third person would be, They
did this and that. So
in verses 6, 7, and 8, Luke is talking about Paul and those who
are with him, they were traveling here and there. But in verse 10, where he talks
about we, it indicates that Luke is with Paul.
So Luke did not do all this traveling
with Paul, but they did meet up in Troas. Luke
has used we numerous times here in the book of Acts,
but it has always been when he was recording what someone else
did and talked about it. This
is the first time in Acts when Luke is writing about something
that he was there doing. From
now on in Acts when Luke writes something and he was there, he
is going to say we, we did this, we did that. When
he is not with the ones doing the action he will write they.
Since the rest of the book
of Acts follows Pauls travels, we can tell whether Luke
was with Paul or not.
Lets consider the travels
that Paul makes here with some of his companions, Silas is one
of these companions. If
you have a map in the back of your Bible it might help to look
at it. It may be labeled Pauls Second Missionary
Journey. It should
show at least what is modern day Turkey. This
area is bordered on the North by the Black Sea, on the South
by the Mediterranean Sea, to the West by the Aegean Sea and to
the East it opens up into the main part of Asia. Now remember those are our modern
designations and may vary some from what they were called in
New Testament times.
Acts 16:6 says that they traveled
through the Phrygian
and Galatian region.
If you look at your map Galatia
is right about in the center of this land mass. Galatia is an area, sort of like
we think of a state. The
letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians, is written to the congregations
of the church of Christ in this area. The
other area is Phrygia which is also in the center of the land
just to the west of Galatia. To
the West of Phrygia, on the coast of the Aegean Sea is the area
of Asia. Dont
confuse this with the large land mass we call Asia today.
For some reason the Holy Spirit
forbid Pauls group from speaking the word in Asia.
I wish I could tell you why,
but the reason is not given. The
gospel does spread into this area though. We
know this because in the first part of Johns book of Revelation,
he is directed to write to the seven churches of Asia, these
are seven congregations of the church of Christ in this area
of Asia.
Lets go back to Phrygia again,
now if we travel to the north of Phrygia we would enter Bithynia
which borders onto the Black Sea. This
area is mentioned there in Acts 16:7, but note in that verse
that the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them to go to Bithynia.
Again we are not given any
details as to why they were not allowed to enter this area.
To the West of Bithynia, North
of Asia, and Northwest of Phrygia lies the area of Mysia.
Acts 16:8 says that they pass
by, or another meaning of that word is to pass through Mysia.
They do end up in Mysia because
they come to the city of Troas. Troas
is a port city on the Aegean Sea. It
is the area called Mysia and the whole area of Turkey is called
Asia Minor. This is
just a few short miles from Europe.
Lets go ahead and read Acts
16:9-10 again, And
a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a certain man of Macedonia
was standing and appealing to him, and saying, Come over
to Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen the vision,
immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God
had called us to preach the gospel to them.
This is sometimes called the Macedonian
call. During the time
when the Lords church was just in its infancy, that
is while God was still using miraculous powers to guide His church,
God would use visions and dreams to guide His people.
As I mentioned earlier, with
Asia and Bithynia, Im not sure why God didnt want
them to preaching those areas. And
Im not sure how He conveyed that message. Here we see Him using a vision
in the night.
This is a call to go to Macedonia.
Again looking at your map,
we see the Aegean Sea that comes up between Turkey and Greece.
At the North end of the Aegean
Sea is the area of Macedonia. One
of the main cities in Macedonia is Philippi and this is where
Paul is going to head. This
is going to be an important milestone in the history of the church
of Christ. As far as
the inspired record is concerned this is going to be the first
time that the Gospel has been preached in Europe.
Lets look at some more of
the text here in Acts 16. Acts
16:11-13, Therefore
putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace,
and on the day following to Neapolis; and from there to Philippi,
which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman
colony; and we were staying in this city for some days. And
on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where
we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and
we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled.
Having determined that God was
calling them to go to Macedonia they board a ship that is headed
there and the first go to Samothrace. If
you look at your map you will see that Samothrace is a small
island about half way from Troas to Neapolis. They
apparently spend the night there as indicated by the phrase,
on
the day following.
On the day following they come to Neapolis.
Neapolis is the port city
for Philippi, which lies on the land trade route. The name Nea Polis means New
City. So after
getting off of the ship they make their way to Philippi.
Philippi is described in two
ways.
First it is a leading city
in Macedonia. In part
this is because of its association with the port city of Neapolis
and being on the land trade route. The
merger of these two forms of trade brought a lot of wealth into
the city.
The other description is that it
was a colony, meaning that it was a Roman colony. A colony referred to a city
or town with special privileges in that the inhabitants of such
a town were regarded as Roman citizens, such towns were
originally colonized by citizens of Rome, in this case Octavius.
These privileges gave an individual
a lot of legal protection. We
will see some of that later on here in Acts 16, so we will discuss
that when we get there. But
lets jump ahead a little bit to Acts 22, reading from verses
25-29 it says, And
when they stretched him out with thongs, Paul said to the centurion
who was standing by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a
man who is a Roman and uncondemned?
And
when the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told
him, saying, What are you about to do?
For
this man is a Roman. And the commander came and said
to him, Tell me, are you a Roman?
And
he said, Yes. And the commander
answered, I acquired this citizenship with a large sum
of money. And Paul said, But I was
actually born a citizen. Therefore those
who were about to examine him immediately let go of him; and
the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a
Roman, and because he had put him in chains.
Note these things concerning Roman
citizenship. A citizen
could not be punished without a trial. Citizenship
could be bought, but it was expense. One
could also be born a citizen, this was the case when you were
born in a Roman colony. It
was also a problem to put a Roman citizen in chains, again without
the proper legal proceedings.
Our time is up for today, but Lord
willing we will continue to look at the history of the Lords
church as it spreads into Europe. The
church of Christ is on the move as the Gospel is preached and
open and sincere hearts accept the truth.
This Berean Break is brought to
you, in love, by the pre-denominational and non-denominational
church of Christ that meets at 1600 East First Ave. in Mitchell
SD. You are welcome
to meet with us at 10:00 Sunday Mornings for our assembly followed
by a time of Bible Study, also on Wednesday evenings at 6:30
for an additional time to study God's Word. If
you have a comment or a sincere Bible question, please phone
us at 605-770-5555. We
want to remind you of the non-denominational TV program, KNOW
YOUR BIBLE on KDLT-TV at 9:00 on Sunday mornings.
This is George A. Sinkie for
the Lord's church, here in Mitchell, good-bye for now. Remember
that we care about you and may God bless you as you do His will.
[printable PDF of Acts
16:6-12][audio MP3 of Acts 16:6-12] |