Second Chances

S: Acts 13:13; Acts 15:36–41; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 1:24; 2 Timothy 4:11

O: Mark was basically one of the early second-generation Christians. Acts 12:12 says that his mother’s house was where the believers gathered in Jerusalem, and church tradition identifies it as the house that contained the κατάλυμα (guest room) in which the Last Supper was held. (This is the same word traditionally mistranslated as “inn” in the Christmas story.)

In Acts 13:13, Mark “chickened out” on Paul and Barnabas’s first missionary journey. Now, in Acts 15:36–41, Barnabas, the “Son of Encouragement,” wanted to bring him along again for their second missionary journey.

Paul didn’t want to have anything to do with that. I can imagine the argument:

Paul: I don’t want that quitter coming along again! He’s useless!
Barney: He’s young. We need to nurture him so that he will grow.
Paul: If we bring him, he’ll just chicken out again! Let him learn at home here in Jerusalem!
Barney: If we discourage him now, we could set his growth back years!
Paul: I’m not bringing him! He doesn’t have what it takes!
Barney: I love you, you love me… 🤣

Okay, maybe not exactly like that. 😊 But Luke does say, “They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas.”

Interestingly, if we move forward several years, we find Mark working alongside Paul. In Colossians 4:10, Paul mentions Mark and tells the church to welcome him. In Philemon 1:24, Paul lists Mark as one of his fellow workers.

And in 2 Timothy 4:11, Paul goes even further: “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” What a turnaround! The man Paul once refused to take on a missionary journey had become someone he considered useful to his ministry.

A: God is a God of second chances, and we, as His people, should be willing to give others second chances, too. I know it’s not always easy, especially when someone has let us down. Sometimes, like Paul, we may have good reasons to be reluctant to trust that person again. Giving someone another chance doesn’t mean pretending that nothing happened or ignoring the need for growth and accountability. But Barney had the right idea. Paul had forgotten that he himself was one of Barney’s “encouragement projects.” I guess Paul later learned to be more like Barney, too.

Note: I wrote the first draft myself, but I did get AI to do some editing.

When Jesus is not Jesus

S: Acts 13:6-12

When Barnabas and Saul got to Paphos on Cyprus and shared the Gospel with Sergius Paulus, the sorcerer Bar-Jesus opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. But the Holy Spirit filled Saul and had him say, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”

As a result, Sergius Paulus believed in Jesus.

O: Recently Cristiano Ronaldo had a public dispute with the coach of Portugal’s national team, Jorge Jesus. Christiano accused Jesus of breaking his word twice, and there was quite a bit of public fall-out in the news.

In the above reading, Bar-Jesus (i.e. “Son of Jesus”) was clearly the bad guy, trying to stop Sergius from trusting in Jesus.

In modern times, we find a lot of people claiming Jesus but doing questionable things, especially in politics, but sometimes in other ways as well.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11:4 and Galatians 1:6–9, warned against people preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel.

Actually, the name Jesus is the same name as Joshua, but the fact that Jorge Jesus and Elymas Bar-Jesus happened to have that name spelled the same way, and Cristiano Ronaldo has the name of Christ, just highlights something: Someone can be called by the name of Jesus (or Christian) and not be following Jesus, or even be opposed to what Jesus wants. (Note that I’m not assuming who is right or taking sides in the Jesus vs Christiano dispute, just using the names as an illustration.)

A: We need to be authentically following Jesus if we are to call ourselves by His name, to be Christians. We must beware of others or even ourselves labelling our thing as Christian but not actually be in line with what Christ would want.

So we need to keep in fellowship with Him, read His Word, and accept correction from the Holy Spirit. Staying in fellowship with other believers who can encourage us and alert us to when we stray from Jesus is also important and helpful.

P: Lord make me like You.
Please make me like You.
You are a servant, make me one, too.
O Lord, I am willing, do what You must do
To make me like You, Lord,
Just make me like You.

Amen.

P.S. Speaking of names, it is interesting that from this point onwards, Luke refers to Saul as Paul (Latin Paulus).

Perhaps it was because of the Roman practice of adopting an adult they like and making their heir (see what happened to Judah Ben Hur after he rescued Quintus Arrius in Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ).

St. Jerome, the 4^th century theologian, historian and Bible translator, thought that Saul called himself Paul in honour of his first distinguished convert.

Other people think that Luke switched from calling him Saul to calling him Paul because he, being a Roman citizen, already had that Roman name in addition to his Hebrew name, and now he was concentrating on the Gentiles.

In all his epistles, he called himself Paul.

Pride and Prejudice

S: Acts 12:20-25

O: Herod Agrippa I was a grandson of the ruthless Herod the Great from the Christmas story. He seems to have been less notorious for cruelty than his grandfather, but he also persecuted the church. He had James son of Zebedee executed, and when he saw that this pleased the Jewish leaders, he proceeded to arrest Peter. That was calculated persecution: he used violence against Christ’s apostles to strengthen his political standing. Josephus, the Jewish historian, generally wrote positively about him but also noted that many people celebrated his death.

He also was familiar with the Jewish religion, and so would have known that it was wrong to receive worship like the Roman emperors did. Josephus portrayed him as a king who took Jewish law seriously. As a Jewish king whose position depended partly on maintaining good relations with his people, Agrippa had reason to respect their religious traditions.

Unfortunately, when the crowed proclaimed him a god, he failed to give God the glory, so God struck him down. Perhaps his earlier persecution of Christians was also relevant. Josephus said he died after 5 days of excruciating abdominal pain.

Luke supplies the detail that he was eaten by worms, which is ironic, because Josephus reported that worms was part of how his grandfather Herod the Great died as well. Josephus reports that Herod the Great's final illness was regarded by some as divine punishment for his impiety. In the surrounding account, Herod had executed Jewish teachers and their companions who opposed his placing a golden eagle above the Temple gate, an act they considered contrary to Jewish law.

The irony is striking: Agrippa seems to have taken Jewish law seriously, unlike his grandfather, yet he failed to give God the glory when the crowd acclaimed him as a god.

A: God opposes the proud and preserves His purpose. Therefore, we should remain humble, give God the glory, and take courage when worldly powers oppose the gospel. We may die like James ben Zebedee did, or be rescued like Peter, but in either case, we should stay true to Yahweh and trust that He is ultimately in control.

P: Father, help me to stay in Your ways. When I am tempted to do wrong, remind me. When I suffer for doing right, keep me faithful. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Note: I discussed these ideas with 2 different AIs and used some of their phraseology.

When God challenges your prejudices

S: Acts 10:1-11:18

O: Cornelius, a centurion in Caesarea, sincerely sought God, and God answered him, sending an angel who told him to invite Peter from Joppa, 50 km away, which back then in those conditions took roughly 12 hours to walk, but usually people would take two days.

For Peter, entering a Gentile home was not a small social adjustment. In our Malaysian setting, it may feel as difficult as asking a committed Muslim to enter a non-Muslim’s home and share a meal in a way that could bring criticism from his own community. That helps us feel the force of Peter’s obedience and the scandal it caused among the Jewish believers.

So God had to send him a vision – the animals on the sheet – to persuade him to go with the people Cornelius sent to invite him, and then when he got back to Joppa, the other Jewish Christians were scandalised, and he had to go back to Jerusalem to answer their charges. He managed to persuade them by pointing out to them that if the Holy Spirit accepted them by giving them the Gift of Tongues, who were the Jewish Christians to deny them?

Even after this, Paul still had to contend with the Judaizers. And even Peter backslid and Paul had to correct him (Galatians 2:11-14). So it was definitely not easy.

A: What prejudices do I still hold against people different from me? Who is in and who is out?

The Jewish Christians were demanding that Gentiles had to “masuk Yahudi” before they could become Christians and be saved. We must not make people feel that they have to “masuk” our culture before they can come to Christ. They do not need to become like us in order to be saved.

And, even before they’re saved, remember how Jesus accepted Gentiles like the Syrophoenician woman and others. What non-Christians are God calling for me to drop my prejudices against?

And we must be open to others’ correction, like Peter was to Paul even though he was the leader of the Apostles after Jesus’ ascension.

P: Father, open my eyes to see where my own practice of the faith needs to expand its horizons. And help me to be open to others’ correction. In Jesus’ name, amen.