Acts 13:4-12--Barnabas and Saul on Cyprus

Acts 13:4-12
English Standard Version
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Barnabas and Saul on Cyprus
4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John to assist them. 6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. 7 He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the magician (for that is the meaning of his name) opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. 9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10 and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.

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Notice the text doesn't say that Barnabas and Saul were sent out by the Church in Antioch.  Luke correctly identifies the Holy Spirit as the one who equipped, commissioned and sent Barnabas and Saul, and the Church only recognized and supported what the Holy Spirit was up to and joined with Him in the work He was doing, in, to, and through Barnabas and Saul. 

​They first went down to Seleucia from Syrian Antioch, and then from there, they set sail for Cyprus.  Why Cyprus?  Because this is where Barnabas and John Mark are from and it is consistent with The Great Commission to start working in your hometown and the region around where the Lord has planted you.  Barnabas and John Mark would probably know people that could help them out with food, clothing, and accommodations as needed, and they knew the lay of the land to give Saul of the "spiritual climate" in each area so that Saul could be thinking of Scripture references that might best speak to the Jews living in these areas--remember that they are preaching to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles.  As we mentioned last time, this is also one of the greatest distance that the gospel has spread so far, so this is the "frontier" for them.

When they got to Cyprus, they preached the gospel in all the synagogues by preaching the Old Testament Scriptures and explaining how they pointed to Christ and how Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and has established a better and New Covenant through His blood.  John Mark assisted them with this as they travelled the island.  We don't get many details on this trip other than two cities that are mentioned.  The first is Salamis (I would suspect that this is probably where Barnabas was from and this was a natural place for them to go first) and then they made their way systematically from there through all the areas populated by Jews until they reached what seems to be the capital city of the region, Paphos.  As a center of government, this area probably had Jews travelling there on business, but it was unlikely that many of them lived there and served in the government.  We're going to see that the one Jew that we know of that they speak to in this city was not obedient to the Word of God and had given himself over to sorcery and was controlled by greed and a lust for power.

This Jewish man that the Holy Spirit wants Barnabas and Saul to speak to is named Bar-Jesus and later will be called by his Greek name of Elymas the Magician.  Acts identifies Bar-Jesus as a false prophet who had the ear of the proconsul of the island, Sergius Paulus.  It was Sergius Paulus who had summoned Saul and Barnabas to the capital city to come speak with him.  However, Elymas tried to interfere with their gospel presentation and to try to keep the proconsul from believing by faith.

The text will now start to call Saul of Tarsus "Paul" and will do so almost exclusively now through the book of Acts, for "Paul" is the Greek version of the Jewish name "Saul."  The Apostle Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit looked directly at Elymas the Magician and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.”  Elymas was trying to conceal the truth from the proconsul, but it was Elymas who was spiritually blind, and the Holy Spirit would use this miracle to both humiliate Elymas in the eyes of the people so that they would stop listening to him, and be a sign for the proconsul to see that the message that Paul and Barnabas spoke was from God and was something that he should believe in.  Certainly none of the pagan Greek or Roman gods worshiped by this proconsul nor the magic and sorcery of Elymas could contend with such power.  The only rational and logical response to such power is total surrender. (and we are told that this proconsul was an intelligent man seeking the wisdom of the Word of God).

This sign accomplished its purpose.  Bar-Jesus was struck blind and needed to be led around by the hand.  The Holy Spirit said that he would only be blinded for a time, though we are not told how long this blindness lasts.  It reminds me though of the fact that God struck Saul with blindness on the road to Damascus and he was led by the hand to the place where someone would come to him and share the gospel with him when the prophet Ananias was sent to him.  Will it be the same for Bar-Jesus where the blindness is temporary because he will see clearly that the gospel is true and he will believe it by faith and be cured first of his spiritual blindness and also then have his physical blindness healed as a sign to the rest of the world that God has allowed him to see the truth clearly?  I would imagine so, though the text doesn't tell us--just imagine how powerful a voice that would be if everyone knew him as the one who used to be the false prophet, sorcerer and magician who had the ear of the proconsul and now we know that the proconsul immediately believed the gospel and this would change the direction of the governance of this island.  Even to this day the island of Cyprus has a rich Christian heritage that can be traced back to this first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas.

Next time we'll see Paul and Barnabas make way towards Pisidian Antioch (in the area we'd know today as Turkey--near the modern day city of Yalvac, Turkey).  It is here that John Mark will leave them to go back to Jerusalem.  This will be a passage of some length that records portions of at least two different sermons that Paul preached on two consecutive Sabbath days (one to an audience that was totally Jewish and another time to an audience made up of everyone in the entire city that included many, many Gentiles).  How will the Jews respond when they hear that God has made the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant available to the Gentiles through Christ and apart from the Law of Moses? Lord willing, that's part of what we'll discuss next time.