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Context No. 1168 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 13:12-25: in context

12Then the proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord. 13Now Paul and his company set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem. 14But they, passing on from Perga, came to Antioch of Pisidia. They went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. 15After the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, speak.” 16Paul stood up, and gesturing with his hand said, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen. 17The God of this people chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they stayed as aliens in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out of it. 18For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. 19When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years. 20After these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. 21Afterward they asked for a king, and God gave to them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. 22When he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he also testified, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ 23From this man’s offspring, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise, 24before his coming, when John had first preached the baptism of repentance to Israel. 25As John was fulfilling his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. But behold, one comes after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’

In the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia, invited to give a word, Paul stands and preaches the story of Israel as a single arc leading to Jesus. God chose the fathers, made them great in Egypt, brought them out with an uplifted arm, bore with them forty years in the wilderness, gave them the land, then judges, then Samuel, then Saul, then David, a man after God's own heart. And from David's offspring, Paul says, God has brought Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised, prepared for by John the Baptist, who said he was not worthy to untie the sandals of the one coming after him.

What Paul lays out is the long patience of God working through a whole history toward one point. Notice the phrase, he put up with them for about forty years in the wilderness; God bore with a stubborn, grumbling people across decades, not abandoning the plan despite their repeated failures. The whole sweep, patriarchs, exodus, wilderness, judges, kings, is a story of God patiently, faithfully advancing his purpose through centuries and through flawed people, all of it bending toward the promised Savior from David's line. Paul preaches history as providence: none of it was random; it was God, step by patient step, keeping his promise, until at the appointed time he brought Jesus. And the last figure before Jesus, John the Baptist, models the right posture toward him: I am not he; one comes after me whose sandal I am not worthy to untie. The whole of history, and the greatest prophet at its climax, points away from itself to Christ. God's patience through a long, messy story was aimed all along at bringing a Savior, and the wisdom is to see our own long, messy stories the same way, as the field of a patient God working toward his purpose.

Can I read the long, patient sweep of God's work in history, and in my own messy story, as his faithful advance toward Christ, trusting the God who bore with his people forty years and kept every promise?

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