Feb 4, 2018
What do you think Paul would have to say to a synagogue full of Jews living in a foreign country, far from the land of Israel? Well, thanks to Luke, we don’t have to guess. He provides us with the details of just such a sermon, delivered by Paul in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. And he takes a note from the apostle Peter’s play book, mirroring the content he used when he had spoken before the high priest and the Jewish Sanhedrin. Paul basically gives a history lecture, but with a very specific objective. He is trying to get them to understand that all of Jewish history pointed to Jesus as the Messiah or Christ. God had led them out of captivity in Egypt, back to the land of Canaan, the land promised to Abraham – but for a much greater reason than just their occupation of it and infatuation with it. God had given the people of Israel judges and then kings, including King David, but they were meant to hold the nation together, until such a time that God would send His Son. Paul’s whole objective was to get to Jesus. He is not only the consummation of Israelite history, but of the entire world. He is the focus of all human history. But these Jews, hung up on their heritage and religious rituals, ran the risk of missing the very one God had promised to Abraham: The seed who would bless all the nations of the world.