24th Day of Easter, Tuesday May 5: Acts 13:13-52

The next leg of this missionary journey leaves Cyprus for central Turkey, a lesser town called Pisidian Antioch, an another long model sermon. Paul rehearses in synagogue the salvation history from Egypt through Moses and David, to place Jesus as culmination of the story, rejected by the chosen people. Psalms are quoted along with prophets, in a model sermon.

Freedom from sins and freedom from law is a new theme in this sermon, and the beginning of another long tradition of anti-semitic rhetoric in Christianity: the bad old God of law replaced by the good new God of gospel, rejected by Jews and given in replacement to Gentiles. In original contexts, this might have been good news for outsiders – but for a long time in the mouths of the majority state religion applied to persecuted Jewish minorities, it has been genocidal.

Why do the rich and powerful women and men want to run Paul and Barnabas out of town? Why would opponents incite the elites against this gospel? Did you catch the note of predestination: those who were destined became believers? Who has the most to gain by religious revival – and who is threatened? Does anybody have as much control or choice in these matters as we assume?