for the gospel this morning we'll read our passage. This is Acts 13 verses 1 through 12. This is God's Word. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, a lifelong friend of Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they had arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John assist them. 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. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elimas, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the procounsel away from the faith. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 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? 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. than the procounsel believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Holy Father, as we think about your word this morning, it teaches us about the glories of your son and about your work through your spirit in the church today, and we would ask that you would be pleased to take whatever veils are on our eyes off this morning so that we would be able to see these things more clearly and understand the gospel that is before us. We thank you for your word. We thank you for your presence. We thank you for your Holy Spirit who's in our midst. And we ask that he would lead us further into worship this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. We've seen Acts chapter 13 as our passage. And I will tell you this, that when I began this series on Acts, you know, it started as going through Luke and then I'm like, well, I guess I better do Acts too. And I had no intention on going some of the directions that we've gone, especially with some of these Greek stories that we even talked about last week and we'll see again today. But just want to tell you that it is my desire to go where I believe that the data leads me and where I think Luke is leading me. I'm compelled to show you what I believe was in his mind and why he would write the way that he writes. Because that shows you the meaning intended by our disciple of Jesus, which escapes so many people. And to that end, I want to give you Two stories, one is recent and one is ancient. This recent one is going to have direct relevance on some of the things that we have even talked about and sung about in our church this morning. So this was just probably about a week ago. Bart Ehrman, if you've ever heard that name, he's the notorious Episcopalian-turned-Born-Again Christian-turned-Liberal Christian-turned-Agnostic Atheist who now rabidly attacks anything even giving off a scent of orthodoxy. He had a little discussion with a fellow named Alex O'Connor on Jesus on his podcast, where they talked about the gods of the pagans, and one of my theological heroes, Michael Horton, decided to weigh in on it, and somebody sent that to me. Typical of Ehrman, he tries to make it sound as if Jesus is just one myth among many, and that for this reason, there's absolutely no reason to believe the Jesus myth over any other myth. And that was basically what they were talking about throughout the podcast. He basically says, all the myths are balderdash. And when that word came into my mind, I thought, this is a great word. It doesn't get used enough anymore. I want to tell you about balderdash. Some say its origins go back to the Scandinavian god of beauty and eloquence. His name is Baldr, brother of Thor and son of Odin. In his essay on the similarities between Baldr and Jesus, C.S. Lewis writes this, the differences between the pagan Christ, Baldr, Osiris, or whoever, and the Christ himself is much what we should expect to find. The pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising either every year or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage whose execution can be dated pretty accurately under a named Roman magistrate with whom the society that he founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It's not the difference between falsehood and truth, it's the difference between a real event on the one hand, and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other hand. Now, Bart Ehrman seems to have committed the classic blunder. He presupposes that all the myths are fiction, he links Jesus to a myth, and then presto, you've proven that Jesus isn't God, because, you know, gods don't exist. I say that's the true balderdash in its most literal sense. Now, Mike Horton did a great job showing what I've been saying throughout our study of Acts, that myth doesn't necessarily mean fiction. Jesus' story is a myth, he rightly says, but it's a true myth, rooted in the actual verifiable public history. Now my only complaint with how Horton responded was that he didn't seem to understand that the biblical authors often deliberately utilize the outlines of famous Greek stories that become premeditated foils for their own stories about Jesus and his church as they subvert the pagan tale with the truth about Christianity showing their similarities and differences. And that makes the biblical story come alive in ways that work on a deeper level of one's own cultural longings and the stories that they grew up with. That and Hart Horton like Bart doesn't seem to give much credence to the pagan myths also being rooted in some kind of real history, albeit nowhere near as verifiable as biblical history. The point here is the reason why someone like Luke might want to contrast a Greek story with his story is not that one happened while the other one didn't happen. but that their story is leading you in the absolutely wrong direction spiritually, whether it happened or not. The story of Jesus corrects this and sets us on the only path to genuine enlightenment and salvation and fellowship with the living God, because it is true in every sense of that word. Now we've actually seen Luke do this over and over, and we're going to see it again and again until Acts ends. Acts 13, 1 through 12 is no different. That leads to the older story that I want to tell you about, and it's very old. It goes back to about the 5th century BC. Euripides was the most famous of the three classical tragedians of the city of Athens. Now, a tragedian was a poet who tells a tragedy, that is, a drama based on human suffering and the terrible sorrow that the events bring to the cast of characters. The tragedy differs from the comedy, which Aristotle said gives us laughable people involving some kind of blunder or ugliness, which does not cause pain or disaster. And actually, last week, the story, some people thought was a comedy, and we talked about that. Now, Euripides' most famous tragedy is something that we've seen crop up earlier in Acts, specifically in Acts chapter five. It's called the Bacchae. Another name for the female dancers of Dionysius, who's the god of revelry, ritual madness, and untethered worship, this play that he wrote tells us about how the god brought a new religion. It was the religion of himself. He brought it to Thebes and to King Pentheus, who was later smitten by Dionysus for rejecting this cult. This is precisely the kind of setting that Luke is beginning to tell here in Acts 13. As a new religion, the true religion makes its way to the shores of a new land for the very first time. In fact, the place where it all begins is a city named Salmus on the island of Cyprus And that city name, Salmis, bears the very same name of the home of Euripides, the island of Salmis, just a half a mile from the mainland of Greece and within sight of the city of Athens. These are word plays or idea plays or theme plays that will become apparent as we move on into our story. But first, the relevant portion of the back A for our text involves the second main scene of that play. After entering Thebes to establish his permanent cult of followers, Dionysus moves off the stage, and the scene shifts to two old men, Pentheus' grandfather, Cadmus, and the blind seer named Tyrseus. Now, Tyrseus is the key figure that I want you to understand this morning. He's a mainstay of Greek tragedies, As a young man, he once happened upon two snakes. They were copulating, and he kills the female with a stick. For this, he's transformed into a woman. After marrying and bearing children, she saw two more serpents, and this time she kills the male, and for it, is turned back into a man. Now, if you can hear themes of transvestitism and bisexuality and the like, you probably aren't far off. A dispute later arose between Zeus and Hera, to which they wanted an answer from Tiresias, who was really the only person who could answer, because he had been both a man and a woman. But his answer did not please Hera, so she cursed him with permanent blindness. Zeus was powerless to stop her, so to compensate him, he gave Tiresias the gift of prophecy. Now importantly, you can usually spot him in Greek art because he wears a dress or a wrap, but is depicted as bearded. Now I mean to make you a little uncomfortable in telling you this tale, and you'll see why as we get to the appropriate part of this. Now, our story in Acts is the first of 12 verses of chapter 13. It gives us several names and several more places, and one amazing series of events that leads to an astounding salvation of the pro-council or governor of Paphos on the island of Cyprus, which is how the story ends. Now, these verses have several larger contexts to consider. Probably the most important is that these verses begin the first missionary journey of the book of Acts. This missionary journey goes all the way through to the end of chapter 14. Now our time frame is the years 47 and 48 AD. That's when this missionary journey took place. The journey begins in Antioch where Barnabas and Saul had been seen in chapter 11. They then get in a boat and they head west to a large island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, where they hit the land at Salamis, which is the large city in the east. There they proclaim the gospel and then they head to the western side of the island to Paphos, where most of our story takes place. After this, they're gonna go up to Asia Minor, this will be later on in the chapter, that is modern Turkey, where they will go inland to several cities before they return home. And besides this, our story seems to be very much chiastic, attaching itself to both chapters 12 and 14, centering on the change of name from Saul to Paul, which is actually in our text today. And this is the very first time that Luke tells us that Saul's name is actually Paul. Finally, the flow of the chapter also pairs up very well with Luke 9, starting verse 51. It's there that Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem and he begins his long journey through Samaria. Now this will match up in Acts all the way basically to the end until Paul is brought to trial when the final missionary journey comes to an end. And we in Acts are also back in Jerusalem just the way Jesus gets at the end of Luke. The point of this is to help you see that what happens to Jesus in the gospel happens to his church in Acts because they're inextricably linked together through the mystical union by faith in the Holy Spirit that we have with Christ. So let's look at our story. It begins back in Antioch where it says, there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. So these are two of the gifts that God gives to the early church, and they're mentioned together with evangelists and shepherds or pastors and apostles in other parts of the New Testament. Their gifting here, the prophet and the teacher, was to proclaim the gospel and the story of Jesus in ways that would be understood and persuasive to those they were talking to. Luke then names five men, Barnabas, Simeon, who's called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manan, who's a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. Now notice here, Saul's still called Saul. He's not called Paul. That comes a little bit later. So let's look at these each. It's worth remembering that Barnabas is actually from Cyprus, which is where they're going to head in a moment. That's not an accident. He clearly has connections on this island. He's also a Levite, which will have importance when they go into the synagogues to preach. And he's also the cousin of John Mark, who appears in our story. Saul, of course, is a Benjamite. He was highly trained in the school of perhaps the most distinguished rabbi of that era, Gamaliel. Simeon has another name you'll see here. His name is Niger. This most likely makes him a black man from Africa as the word Niger is Latin for black. In fact, Nigeria comes from this root. Lucius of Cyrene is probably the most interesting of the three we haven't seen before. Cyrene is in North Africa, and he may have been a Hellenistic Jew. Some think he could have been the Lucius referred to at the end of Romans 16, although there's no evidence for this. Maybe the most interesting is that some people believe that he's actually Luke himself who wrote the Book of Acts. Adding to that idea is a textual variant that you find back in chapter 11 that gives the first plural pronoun we, meaning that Luke was actually present in Antioch. Finally, we have the fellow named Menean, his name means comforter, whom we are told was a lifetime friend of Herod the Tetrarch, who ruled in Galilee in Jesus' day. Perhaps the most stunning thing of all about these five is how diverse these guys are. Different cultures, different races, different continents, all highly connected, lots of learning, probably lots of moving around in their lives. God uses these things, and it only makes sense that in taking on such a huge endeavor as the first missionary journey to the world of the Gentiles, that the church would take these into consideration as well, and that's why they chose these five men. However, it's from these five that two of them are singled out. Verse two says, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. So, this is an explicit work of God. How did Charles Wesley put it? My daughter read this this morning, she goes, this is a very Calvinistic song. Chosen by God's immediate will, sealed with the Spirit's authentic seal, he was ordained before. The context of what's happening here, I think, is really important to understand. Notice, they're worshiping God, seemingly, formally, in a local church as this happens. This would have been the time for prophecies to come about, and that seems to be how the Holy Spirit spoke. That's why he mentions there were prophets there. Just like he spoke in the days of old, and the prophets like Jeremiah. Second thing they're doing is that they're fasting. Now why? Well, because it seems that they're seeking God's face on how they should proceed in spreading the gospel. They've never done anything like this before. And so they turn to God in worship and fasting. That's the occasion for the Spirit speaking to them to single out Barnabas and Saul. Now to me, you know what this all sounds like? It sounds highly ordinary. Not some kind of blast of wind or lightning bolt or ray of the sun that shines on their two faces or something like that. They listened to the words that were being spoken and they took this as the voice of the Holy Spirit. Now sealing the deal, verse three says, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. So the church formally recognizes and through the laying on the hands, commissions these two men to leave their church and head out for the unknown adventure of proclaiming the gospel to other Gentiles in the dark lands of the gods of the nations. Now after being reminded one last time that the Holy Spirit is the one who was ultimately behind the sending of these two men, it says they head off from Antioch to Seleucia. So Seleucia is just the port city that's right down the road from Antioch. From here they would set out some 130 miles to the east by boat to the large island of Cyprus, the home of Barnabas, and the city of Salmus, which, I remind you, is the name of the home of Euripides, far to the west in Greece. Salmus is the largest city on the island of Cyprus. It also sported a gymnasium and a theater and aqueduct, and temples to Apollo and Zeus. Now, all we learned about what happened in Salmus is that it says they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. Now, as it regards John, I simply want you to remember that this is Mark, okay? We learned that in the last chapter. It's not entirely clear to me why Luke wants to call him John. We do know, and we will see, that Luke loves playing with names and words, and maybe something like the association John's name had with Herod. earlier is in mind, or maybe he's drawing to our minds John the Apostle from earlier in Acts, and how this is the Gentile version of what happened earlier there with Peter and John in Jerusalem. Here he's called the helper of Barnabas and Saul, and as Barnabas' cousin, he probably also has ties to many people on the island, and that might have been why they took him as well. So as it regards the synagogues, notice it's important to remember that Barnabas and Saul are both Jews. So it makes sense that they would begin preaching here. After all, Paul's the one who says, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. So they start there. They wanna use the Holy Scripture to prove to these people that Jesus is the Messiah. That makes the most sense to start there on that level too. And, of course, this would have been a great entry point to Gentile proselytes or God-fearers, because they could attend the synagogue worship as well, and then they would begin to hear the message, and then it would spread from there. But there's something else. We need to remember that generations ago, the Jews had been dispersed among the nations. There were going to be synagogues everywhere in the Roman Empire. And because there were, the news about the coming Messiah surely spread throughout the Roman Empire, making the timing for these missionary endeavors all the more perfect. Jesus and his church were here at just the right time in history. But whereas the Jews were supposed to be bringing wisdom and guidance to the nations, you can think of somebody like Daniel or Jeremiah or Esther all doing that. No, these Jews are not doing as they were commanded by the prophets. Jeremiah 29, 7 and 8 says, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream. This is what Jeremiah told them, and we're gonna see just how relevant this is here in a moment. So, verse six begins the last episode in our passage today. It tells us that they went through the whole island, making their way from east to west. I find that an interesting direction, as this is the direction that you enter a temple. Presumably, they're going there to preach the gospel. They then make it all the way to Paphos on the western shore of Cyprus, nearly 90 miles from Salamis as a crow flies, about 106 miles of road that would have taken them through any number of villages and towns. This would have taken weeks or months, and Luke is not interested in telling you any of that, which is interesting itself. Instead, he goes to Paphos. Now, Paphos was the capital city of Cyprus. It's the seat of the Roman provincial procurator. It was also the principal port city for the western side of the island. It had three enormous Roman villas, two temples, had a theater, had an amphitheater, all in the city. And the principal deity of this city seems to have been Aphrodite or Venus. Now, when they finally arrived, verse six says, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. Now, we've seen false prophets before, most obviously in Simon Magus in chapter eight. Bar-Jesus is clearly being contrasted with the true prophets from verse one that resided in the church in Antioch, among whom are Barnabas and Paul. Now, Simon the magician was a Samaritan, but this man is a Jew. Recall what I said about the Jews not doing what they're supposed to be doing. Here's what was going on. Clinton Arnold, who's an expert in the ancient world of ancient magic, says this. The fact that he is known as a magician indicates that he has been reputed as having extensive esoteric knowledge about spirit forces and how to manipulate them through incantations, rituals, and formulas. Luke's reference to him as a false prophet may indicate that he practices revelatory magic or divination as a means of fortune telling. Luke here draws on the Old Testament tradition about lying prophets as a means of characterizing this man. The fact that he's Jewish is not a surprise. Many Jews engaged in various forms of magical practices in the Greco-Roman era. In fact, Jewish magic was famous in antiquity. Josephus gives an account of the Roman puricator Felix securing the services of a Jewish magician from Cyprus to use spells in his request to secure the attraction of Drusilla whom he fell madly in love with. Now, if all that sounds like that's wrong, then you're just not supposed to be doing that. I've read Leviticus, then you're right, and that's my point, right? These guys are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, either in terms of obeying the law or the prophets, and that's what Luke wants you to see in calling this guy a Jewish magician. Now, curiously, look at his name. He bears the name Jesus. or rather, son of Jesus. The word bar is just the Aramaic word for a son. Now this obviously reminds you of Jesus Christ and what it means to be a son of his. We will see this is no son of the Lord Jesus. And so just in the name and in his occupation, we're already being doused in all kinds of irony. Next thing we learn is that he is, quote, with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, Now, there was actually a Latin inscription that was discovered in Rome, explicitly mentioning this man, along with four others, as a director of water management for the Tiber River in Rome in the days of Claudius. Because the Bible's telling you real history. These are actual people, and we can look at them and see that they really existed in archeological finds. Now, this guy was likely so good at his job that he got a promotion to govern Cyprus. His full name was Lucius Sergius Paulus. But I want you to notice, Luke, who has his first name, Lucius, doesn't call him Lucius, but rather he singles out the Paulus part. And this will become important. Also curious, we learn that his son, who bore the same name, became an important Roman official in Pisidian Antioch, which happens to be the very next place that Barnabas and Saul are gonna go when they leave this island. And that makes what happens at the end of this story all the more interesting, since it was perhaps at his direction that they decided to go up north to Pisidian Antioch. Now, it was common enough for Roman rulers to have spiritual advisors who were astrologers or magicians. Caesar Augustus had one, Tiberius had one, Nero had one. They all consulted these kinds of people. Of the many Greek magical papyri that we have discovered, one illustrates how the magic and divination connected with prophecy. It reads this way, whenever you seek divinations, be dressed in the garb of a prophet. shod with fibers of the doom palm, and your head crowned with a spray from an olive tree, but the spray should have a single-shooted garlic tied around the middle. Clasp a pebble numbered 3663 to your breasts, and in this way make your invocation." And then it tells you about the invocation that they would do in order to bring about whatever they were trying to conjure up. But Sergius Paulus wasn't only a man who was consulting with magicians, he was open to pretty much anything apparently. And Luke tells us lastly that he is, quote, a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. And at this point, Luke returns us to Bar-Jesus, the false prophet. But, instead of continuing with his name, he suddenly calls him Elimas, the magician. And inserts this parenthetical, for that is the meaning of his name. Now there are a hundred different commentaries on this that give you a hundred different answers for what that means. Some think that this name might be derived from an old Aramaic word meaning one who dreams or a Semitic word meaning a wise man. But that isn't really what Luke says. Those are only tangentially related to his point. Other people think that this is associated with the descendants of Noah through Shem, who becomes the father of the Persians, who are the archetypal Magoi, or the magicians. And those are the kinds of people that we see coming to Jesus's birth, right? The wise men. And that probably makes more sense. However, Given that Luke loves to play off names and stories, perhaps there's another option for what he is doing here. Notice, Bar-Jesus and Elimas are the same person. He's first called a false prophet, and second, he's called the magician. And Elimas is the explanation for this. Both professions, not just the magician, need to be taken into account. And this is where we're going to enter the story of the Bracke that I told you about earlier. Now, McDonald notices that it certainly cannot be said that Bar-Jesus is translated into Greek as Elimus. That's not what's happening here. And yet both names are significant to Luke. Bar-Jesus is going to be played off by Luke in a moment when he also changes Saul's name for the first time to Paul. On the other hand, an iluma in Greek is a cloak. It's a mantle or a imitation, or better, it's a woman's wrap or a shawl. It derives from the verb Iulio, which means I wrap. So this guy who's commenting on this humorously calls Elimus Mr. Shawl. And yet I want you to recall that Tiresias was transformed into a woman. and is always depicted as being dressed like a woman, draped in a fawn skin, crowned with ivy, and leaning on a wooden staff. Tiresias is also a prophet. In the Bracchae, he tries to persuade the king to accept a new religion, which is that of Dionysius. But why does Luke say Elimas, the magician and false prophet, does this to the governor? What does he say about this? Well, what Luke tells us is that Elimas does exactly the opposite of Tiresias. It says that Elimas opposes him and seeks to turn the procouncil away from the faith instead of to the new faith of the God. And this creates amazing tension and contrast when the stories are considered together. On one hand, Elimas' name directly reminds us of the dressings of a prophet, but of a woman prophet. just like Tiresias was for seven years. But unlike Tiresias, he's seeking to turn the ruler away from the new religion, and yet, I thought, curiously, Tiresias did not turn the ruler towards the true religion, did he? Rather, he turned him toward the wicked religion of Dionysius. So in that way, they're actually alike. It gets more interesting. Luke continues, but Saul, who was also called Paul, Now just like Bar-Jesus becomes Elimus for reasons that escape many people, so Luke now suddenly changes Saul's name to Paul. Now he's not done this before this moment. This is the very first time we learn in Acts about his other name being Paul. And by the way, God did not change Saul's name. Paulos was Paul's Roman name. And it's for the first time that he tells us this here. Now why would he do that and why would he do it here? There's several reasons begging for us to notice. The first one is that the proconsul's name is Sergius Paulus. In other words, they share the same name. We're certainly meant to see this connection just as we are meant to compare Bar Jesus to the Lord Jesus. Second, the way that we now view Paul, because of how Luke has written his story, is that Paul becomes his kind of Christian name, while Saul was his pre-conversion name. Now that's not technically true, but it's how Luke is shaping it for us. This hints at what is about to happen to the procouncil. Paul is the Christian name. Finally, let's look at what Paul does in the story. Luke tells us that he is first filled with the Holy Spirit. That's more Christian language. Then he looks intently at Elymas and he says, you son of a devil. There's a major wordplay. Do you see it? Bar Jesus, son of Jesus, is actually Bar Diabolo, son of the devil. He isn't Jesus' son, like Barnabas and Paul are. He's Satan's son. This reminds us of Luke 11, 15, as Jesus is making his way along a long journey through Samaria when they said and implied that he must be the son of the devil because he casts out demons by Beelzebub. But the reality is, it's Elimas who's like the Pharisees whom Jesus said are sons of the devil. Paul's only getting started. He says, you enemy of all righteousness, full of deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? What Bar Jesus is doing is reminiscent of Grimma Wormtongue, the henchman of Saruman. He was sent to King Theoden of Rohan to confuse the king and lead him into darkness. The language here is a compilation of Old Testament passages, specifically Jeremiah 5.27 that calls full of deceit, which speaks of wicked men who come in among the people like fowlers lying in wait, setting the trap and to catch men. Hosea 14 has the ways of the Lord that are straight and Isaiah 40 verse three is the straight way that's prepared by the coming of Messiah, that Luke actually opened up his treatment of Jesus' ministry with those very words. This last one is especially important because this was a prophecy of bringing the Jews back. It was a messianic prophecy, and it's one that now Paul and the church, rather than the charlatan Jewish prophet, are fulfilling. John Piper says, what is the making crooked of the straight paths of God? It was a Limas who was doing it in verse eight. He was seeking to turn aside the procounsel from the faith. To turn aside corresponds with to make crooked. And from the faith corresponds with the straight paths of the Lord. So the way you make crooked the straight paths of the Lord is to get in the way of people coming to the faith. That's what he was doing. He didn't want this guy to hear the good news. This is a horrible sin this Jewish magician is committing. Finally, in linking up the Greek tragedy of the Bacchae to Elimas, his enemy of all righteousness, full of deceit and villainy, takes an even starker image. He's being linked in that story to a transvestite bisexual pagan prophet who implored the king to welcome in perhaps the most perverse of all ancient Greek religious movements. And that's why it's so genius to subvert the pagan myths like we see Luke do so often. This is not a good man. But there's still more to see, because Luke is not yet finished speaking. It says, and now behold, or Paul's not finished speaking. 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. Well, guess what? This is exactly what happens to Tyrsias. He was struck blind by the goddess Hera, only his blindness would be permanent. Curiously, Elias' blindness is only temporary, and that reminds us of Saul himself, who rejected the new religion of Christianity in chapter nine, and was punished by God with temporary blindness. And I thought, well, maybe this is a sign of hope for this evil man, that God might actually have mercy on him later. Furthermore, when you read the Tyrseus story, you find that he appears in Greek art and literature often with someone who is leading him by the hand. Luke is giving us all kinds of connections to the Bacchae in these short verses, and the similarities do not end there. Our last verse says, the procounsel believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. So while Elimas becomes blind like Saul in Acts 9, Sergius Paulus becomes a believer like Paul in chapter 13. So all these characters are playing off one another in this brilliant artistry. Paul now becomes like Gandalf shining the light of the gospel onto the procouncil once he has blinded the wretched Jewish false prophet who's trying to keep him in the dark. And this playing includes more of the bacchae. Tiresias enters the play at first with a boy leading him around by the hand while he's decked out in a woman's fawn skin. After Cadmus arrives on stage, he praises Tiresias' wisdom. But in our story, it is Paulus who's the man of intelligence, not the blind prophet. Cadmus' son, King Pentheus, then shows up, dismayed at the crazy woman of the city that had followed Dionysius into the hills. He swears he's going to arrest this man, not knowing that he's actually a god. But Tyrseus rebukes the king, saying, you have a rapid tongue, a rabid tongue, as though you were sensible, but there is no sense in your words, he says. Opposite of Acts 13, in the bacchae, the king is actually the fool. he becomes defiant of the words of his prophetic blind counselor. He dispatches soldiers to arrest Dionysius. After being rebuked by Tyrseus, Pentheus is left alone on stage with a chorus who lament the king's folly and express their desire to escape Thebes, Thebes' insanity, by saying this, may I go to Cyprus, island of Aphrodite, where the Erotes who charm the hearts of mortals will sway at Paphos. So even the locations of the Greek mythical story are found in the very story we're looking at in Acts 13. Later for his sacrilege, after Dionysius escapes his prison, as we saw when Luke played on this story back in Acts 5, it says he will smite Pentheus with madness. But in our story, it's the same word. Just look at this. Translated as, he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. That's what the ESV says in that last verse. He was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Luke's point is so much more than that Paulus was astonished. This translation doesn't even come close to doing it justice. Rather, it's the teaching of the Lord that strikes or smites the procounsel, bringing out its intended outcome at the sovereign and merciful hand of the true God. Not Dionysius the God, but the Lord Jesus Christ. Many have seen these connections with Tiresias in our story, at least in a cursory manner. They aren't difficult to miss if you know what you're looking at. Clement of Alexandria in the second and third century Christian theologian and philosopher who taught the great catechal school of Alexandria once wrote a book called The Exhortation to the Greeks. and in it he exhorts the pagans of Greece to adopt Christianity by using his extensive knowledge of pagan mythology and theology, and then he demonstrates by going through the myths that Christianity is infinitely superior to them. In particular, he singles out the cult of Dionysius and our prophet Tiresias. At the very end of the book, he gives the following exhortation, one I believe Luke himself would have been most pleased to read. Come, thou frenzied, stricken one, not resting on thy wand, not wreath with ivy. Cast off thy headdress, cast off thy fawn skin, return to soberness. I will show thee the word. and the words mysteries describing them according to thine own semblance of them. This is the mountain beloved of God, not a subject for tragedies, but one devoted to the dramas of truth, a wineless mountain shaded by hollowed groves. The righteous form this company and their song is a hymn of praise to the king of all. The maidens play the harp, angels give glory, prophets speak, a noise of music rises. Swiftly they pursue the sacred band, those who've been called hasting, with eager longing to receive the Father. Come to me, old man, come thou too. Quit Thebes, fling away thy prophecy of bracket revelry, and be led by the hand to truth. Behold, I give thee the wood of the cross to lean upon. Hasten, Tyrseus, believe, thou shalt have sight. Christ, by whom the eyes of the blind see again, shineth upon thee more brightly than the sun. Night shall flee from thee, fire shall fear thee, death shall depart from thee. Thou shalt see heaven, old man, thou canst not see Thebes. O pure light, in the blaze of the torches I have a vision of heaven and of God, this Jesus eternal, one great high priest of one God, who is also Father, prays for men and encourages men. Give ear, ye myriad peoples, or rather, so many mankind as are governed by reason, both barbarians and Greeks, the whole race of men I call. I, who was their creator by the Father's will, come to me that you may be marshaled under one God and under the word of God. And do not surpass the irrational creatures in reason only. For you alone, of all mortal beings, I offer the fruit of immortality. I desire to impart to you even this gracious favor, supplying in its fullness the good gift of incorruption. And I freely give you divine reason, the knowledge of God. I give you myself in perfection. For this is myself, this is God's desire, this is the concord, this is the harmony of the Father, this is the Son, this is Christ, this is the Word of God, the arm of the Lord, the might of the universe, the Father's will. Friend, that's the power of the smiting call of the gospel. It's a power Luke will return to time and time again in these missionary journeys. Clement believed in it, and he pleaded, like few others, for you to believe in it. Luke believed in it, and he wrote inspired scripture like few others to show you its power in relation to the fallen powers of this world. The blind Elimas was temporary, but Paul hoped even that this man would be wrapped up and be saved by Christ, because he knew himself all too well, and he also was blinded for his insolence. There's no sinner beyond God's saving power to heal. Paul also knew this God truly now, because he showed himself to him in the face of Christ, to be so powerful even over blindness and sin and death itself. Therefore, hearken to the word and be stricken by its power. See how the mists of old do not hold a candle to the light of the sun of righteousness. He is the bright beam of light leading you to the eternal city. As for the myths and the false prophets like Tyrsias, all they do is lead to blindness and darkness. But in the face of Jesus Christ and the teaching of our Lord by the invincible power of the Spirit, we see and believe the light of God himself, and we are smitten by the power of that word. Believe in it. Let's pray together. Lord God, the way that you tell us stories of the early church, to me, is a really remarkable thing. Comparing what happened to Paul and Barnabas with this magician and this procounsel, to a Greek pagan tragedy, and flipping the reversal of roles, and flipping the gods, and seeing the power of your gospel to change a real governor who then sends these people most likely up to his son to go proclaim the news probably to him next. And from this missionary journey, you begin all these changes in the Gentiles by using their own stories against them. It's a remarkable thing to me, Lord. And I would pray that you would help us to see more of the power of the gospel as we've thought about it here in Acts 13, the beginning of this first missionary journey. I pray that you would put it into our hearts to go and learn more about what it is that we thought about today, to reflect upon it, and to think about your great power, the power of Jesus to make us sons, as opposed to the power of the devil that keeps his sons in the darkness. I pray, Lord, you would hear this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.