"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister.
And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord."
Today's lesson relates how Saul, who is for the first time referred to as Paul, and Barnabus, by the will and company of the Holy Ghost, left Antioch to preach to the outlying regions of the Gentiles.
In Paphos, Paul, through the power of the Holy Spirit, struck Elymas the sorcerer blind.
Because of that miracle and Paul having preached the, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God, the deputy, Sergius Paulus was converted.
It behooves us to note that Paul and Barnabas did NOT preach to a group of followers in a building strictly designated for that purpose, such as "Christianity" exclusively does today. They preached in the markets, and in the streets. They preached in hostile places like the synagogues of the Jews knowing that the Jewish leadership hated them and were making every effort to have the imprisoned or killed.
The point herein being that NOWHERE in the New Testament does the gospel of Jesus Christ authorize the sanctification of any particular building as a place where worship of the Lord is to be explicitly practiced. To the contrary, the followers of Jesus Christ, including those of us who profess to teach God's word today, are commanded to preach the gospel of Christ wherever there are willing ears.
"Christian" have become a cold and distant people who no longer demonstrate the zeal toward the gospel that was so evident in the work of the early disciples who worked so hard to preserve the true word of God so that we could have it today.
Those who pass themselves off as "Christians" today are today content to go two or three times a week to their comfortable padded pews and hope that some lost soul might show up to sit in the unoccupied pews in the back of the air conditioned building and be converted by the pastor.
We have become like the Laodiceans and are deserved of the same warning that God gave to them; "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)~
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