That's when the Holy Spirit spoke to us, telling the group to send Barnabas and me out to spread the gospel. John wanted to go, too. We shook hands, gave each other man-hugs and headed out, first to Seleudia, then to Cyprus.
We were invited to speak in the Jewish synagogues. We had the greatest news ever to tell the Jews gathered there, the good news that God's Kingdom had been ushered in through Jesus and that if they would repent of their sin and trust in Him they would have eternal life.
To tell you the truth, they were pretty cold to this good news, so we went to Paphos. There we met Sergius Paulus' magician who called himself Son of Jesus. He was a Jew. Usually Jews did not do magic. God had forbidden it. But Son of Jesus did magic. His other name, Elymas, even meant ‘magician’. He was afraid that if his master believed our message he would lose his job as magician. So, he opposed Barnabas and me. He tried to persuade his master not to believe our message.
It was here that I began to use my Greek name, Paul, meaning "small." It communicated my status when compared to our Lord, Jesus.
We warned Magician to stop doing magic, but he refused. Then these words came tumbling from my mouth, "Magician, you are about to be struck blind." And that's exactly what happened.
Sergius Paulus saw what had happened. He was convinced of the truth of our testimony, and he became a believer on the spot! I tell you there is no greater joy than seeing someone respond to the moving of the Holy Spirit and becoming a follower of Christ.
John left us and went back to Jerusalem. We went on to Pisidian.
On the Sabbath, we went to the local synagogue. One of the leaders stood and read a very, very long list of laws from the Law of Moses and some prophecies.
Seeing Barnabas and me as visitors, they, supposing us to be Jews, said, "Brothers, if you have a message of encouragement, stand up and tell us about it."
I took the opportunity to show them how everything in their history, culture and Scripture pointed to the good news that we were preaching. We read from Psalm 2, "You are my Son; today I have become your father." We also read from Isaiah 55:3, "I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David" and then from Psalm 16:10, "You will not let your Holy One see decay."
I tried to show them how the prophets and psalmists had brought the Jews to this very point in history. I preached the forgiveness of sins through Jesus.
Lots of people believed our message and followed us out of the synagogue, wanting to hear more of our message of the grace of God in Christ.
On the next Saturday, almost the whole city gathered to hear our message of salvation.
The Pharisees, Saducees and the priests saw the crowd and were jealous at the large number of people we attracted. Their pious messages had never attracted that many. They were lucky to have 40% of the synagogue filled when they preached. They started cursing us and making fun of our message.
I said to them, "Gentlemen, we brought God's message of salvation to you first, because it was from your ancestors that Christ came. Since you have rejected our message, we will take it to the Gentiles, just as the Scripture says. In Isaiah 49:6 God wrote, 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.' "
This made the Gentiles happy, but it made the Jewish leaders very angry. They stirred up persecution against us and physically threw us out of their region.
So we picked ourselves up, brushed ourselves off and started all over again.
The Holy Spirit gave us peace about our mission and joy in our hearts.
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