Last night before going to bed, I was reading from Acts 14 and was once again captured by the fact that the Lord confirmed Paul's words with signs and wonders. Here are the verses - Acts 14:1-3 NIV:
[1] "At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Greeks believed. [2] But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the other Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. [3] So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders."
I love verse 3, for that is such a clear description of the way I believe the Lord wants to work. It was the signs and wonders that confirmed their message. The signs and wonders weren't the message, the message was about Jesus and who He was, and what He did. The message was about the Kingdom of God being established by Jesus (that was one of the primary messages of Paul - see Acts 28:31 which is the last verse in Acts). The signs and wonders were to confirm what Paul and Barnabas said was true.
The Greek word here translated 'confirmed' is Martureo and it is defined as follows:
1. to be a witness, to bear witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something, or that he knows it because taught by divine revelation or inspiration
A. to give (not to keep back) testimony
B. to utter honourable testimony, give a good report
That is a perfect verb for for what the Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit was doing through Paul and Barnabas. He was affirming that people had both heard and seen something that was divinely inspired. In other words only God could do such things, and thus they must be His messengers. So their message about Jesus was provided an experience that the people witnessed that proved what they (Paul and Barnabas) said was true.
In the following verses, we see an example of the Holy Spirit empowering them to work a miracle and the people who witnessed it were convinced about the divine nature of the miracle. This happened in the next city they visited after Iconium.
Acts 14:8-12 NIV
[8] "In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. [9] He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed [10] and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. [11] When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” [12] Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker."
This is a perfect example of a normal response to a miracle - people think it must come from God. Now these people were raised with Greek thought and religions, so when they saw the miracle, they knew it was only possible for a god to do, and thus thought that Zeus and Hermes had come to visit. They came to right conclusion about the divine nature of the miracle, just had the wrong god.
So, going back to the previous verses, we see that Paul and Barnabas spoke for considerable time there, and the Lord confirmed their message of His grace by enabling them to perform miracles. The message of His grace is clearly outlined in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapter 2. As an aside, the message of grace is really quite astounding, when compared to the works and sacrifice based Greek religion. The people don't have to earn God's favor, or sacrifice to Him to stay on His good side. There isn't a whole group of gods that one has to be constantly worried about, but just one God, the only true God. This God loved them so much that He did everything they needed for salvation, including forgiving their sins, and all they needed to do was believe in Him and enter into relationship with Him. He would visit them personally in the form of the Holy Spirit and empower them, all as a free gift, because He loved them! That must have been very interesting to hear for the first time.
Back to Paul and Barnabas, in the New American Standard translation their mission in Iconium was described as follows: "Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace,..." Acts 14:3 NASB. I like the addition of the fact that they were relying on the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace. They didn't just preach, but they relied on the Lord to testify that what they were saying was true. They didn't primarily rely on the logic of their arguments to prove that what they said was true, rather they relied on the power of the testimony of signs and wonders. Wouldn't that be a refreshing change to our Sunday sermons?
Lord, our desire, as Your church, is to walk in this same ministry with integrity. Our desire is to see You confirm our message about Your grace and Your Kingdom, not for our sake, but for Yours and the sake of the people who have not met You, or who have not understood how good You really are. Empower us and encourage us to proclaim Your message to all the world.
Amen!
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