SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/11/2018
8:50 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “Spiritual Mission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 13:2b-5
Message of the
verses: “the Holy Spirit said,
"Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called
them." 3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on
them, they sent them away. 4 So, being
sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they
sailed to Cyprus. 5 When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word
of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper.”
Seleucia is located around sixteen miles from Antioch and
I near the mouth of the Orontes River, and this city served as the port of
Antioch so we can see the details that Luke puts into his writings. After reaching Seleucia, and we don’t know
how they got their by boat or on the road, they took passage on a ship and
sailed to Cyprus.
Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean
while Sicily is number two in size and Sardinia is the largest island. John MacArthur writes that Cyprus “Is about
60 miles off the Syrian coast and would have been visible from Seleucia on a
clear day. The main part of the island
is 90 to 100 miles long and up to 60 miles wide. In New Testament times its two major cities
were Salamis, the chief port and commercial center, and Paphos, the capital.”
There is a number of reasons why they chose Cyprus as
there outreach ministry as Barnabas was from there, and it was only two days
from Antioch, and we know also that it had a large Jewish population, but it
was a good location to begin their Gentile missions work.
Once “they reached Salamis they began to proclaim the
word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.”
Paul wrote to the Romans, “to the Jews first and then the Gentiles,” which
is the reason they began to preach in the Synagogue. There were several Synagogues there as the
population of the Jews, as mentioned was large enough to support a number of
Synagogues. We next learn that John Mark
was also along with them as their helper.
Mark was a native of Jerusalem as seen in Acts 12:12 and Barnabas was
his cousin as seen in Colossians 4:10.
In Acts 12:25 we learned that John Mark came back with Paul and Barnabas
as they had been there to deliver a gift to the people of Jerusalem from
Antioch. MacArthur adds “Although he was
soon to desert them and return to Jerusalem, for now he was a member of the
team, helping Saul and Barnabas carry out their spiritual mission.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Athens” (Acts 17:16-18).
Today’s Bible
question: “Who stretched his hand over
the Red Sea, enabling the children of Israel to go through on dry land?”
Answer in our next SD. 2/11/2018 9:09 PM
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