Well, when you're traveling, you don't always get everything done that you need to do and you lose some things along the way...so, here's Monday's scripture reflection, after I found my notes again...
Acts 13:13-52--Paul and Barnabas in Pisidian Antioch
Paul and Barnabas show up in the synagogue, and they get invited to preach. I wondered if that was because they were guests or because they came from the church in Jerusalem. Paul's preaching is similar to Peter's and Stephen's, but a bit briefer, and I wonder why they started by summarizing Israel's history. Did that prove that they were good Jews? Did it give them some other kind of credibility, before they switched into preaching about Jesus? I wonder.
I also wonder if Paul, because of his Roman citizenship and his Jewish ancestry, experienced any kind of double consciousness, knowing that he sort of embodied the intersection of two so different cultures/races, or whatever. I mean, as a person of privilege, he certainly wouldn't have experienced it in the same sense that the concept came about through the African American experience, of course...
Anyway, lots of people listened to Paul, but the Jewish leaders got mad, so Paul and Barnabas moved on to teaching the gentiles. I know that's the way Paul ended up doing things most of the time, but I wonder how he felt about that. Wouldn't that be terribly disheartening, the fourth, or fifth, or fifteenth time it happened? Maybe he just knew that was the way it had to go, and he had reconciled himself to it.
Verse 46 is quite an interesting verse--"Everyone who was appointed for eternal life believed." I guess we could make a case for predestination, then...
Then this story ends with them getting kicked out of the town, but the Holy Spirit still makes them feel happy with their situation. How many of us have experienced that? Wiping the dust off and moving on isn't always fun, but it's not always horrible, either...
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