This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The History of Salvation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 3, 1991.

So now shall we begin our scripture reading in Galatians, chapter 2. We start at verse 11 and read to the end of the chapter. Hear the word of God. When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his faith, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, he began to withdraw to hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cetus in the presence of all, if you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

We are Jews by nature and not sinners among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, Even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin?

May it never be, for if I rebuild what I once What I have once destroyed I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life which I now live. In the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, with righteousness comes to the law, and Christ died needlessly.” I’m turning over to the book of Acts, the 18th chapter. In order to get a feel for Paul’s second missionary journey, we’ll begin reading with the first verse.

After these things he left Athens, that is, Paul, and went to Corinth, and he found a certain Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they were working, for by trade they were tent makers. And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews in Greece. Then Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia.

Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. And when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be upon your own heads, I am cleansed. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles.

And he departed from there and went to the house of a certain man named Titius Justus, a worshipper of God whose house was next to the synagogue. And Christus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his house, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized. And the Lord said to Paul, In the night, by a vision, do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking, and do not be silent. For I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”

And he settled there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them. Then turning over to 1 Thessalonians, for a taste of that epistle, Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, the first chapter. And reading the end of that first chapter, beginning in verse 8, For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.

They themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the last to come.

Our Father, it is true that often we believe that the impossibilities that stand for man are final, that there are impossibilities for us and for those that we know and love. We ask, Lord, that we would have that faith that sees you as the God of all possibility, not only for ourselves, for surely we have been rescued by you, redeemed and set in your kingdom. Lord, with respect to those about us, those we love, and with respect to the circumstances that overtake your people, you are the God who can change things. We thank you, our Father, Such is your power, that according to your ordination, your people make their requests, they cry out unto you, and you, in response to them, change things.

You even change, Lord, those whose hearts are apparently of stone. You take those who are intractable and make them pliable. You renew them. You change the direction of their lives. You raise them up, as it were, from the dead. You rejoice our God. May we, in our attitude, never act as if great things are impossible to you. Instead, may our confidence be built up and our hope strengthened through what you tell us in your word. May we pray with all confidence and with full expectation that we are heard and shall be answered as you please. We pray these things as we approach your word tonight. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

Now as we make our way through this history of New Testament times, we want to remember that there is not simply historical material for us that comes to us from the Gospels and from the Book of Acts. But there are also epistles, and that the epistles work within the framework of that history that is laid out in front of us. Not that that’s an easy task. It isn’t. We go to work trying to colorate what we find in the epistles with what we find in historical sections of Acts. Sometimes we are baffled. Sometimes we’re at a loss. Nevertheless, there is a historical frame which the various epistles fit. There is a figure that has been introduced to us now in Acts that is important to us.

The figure is James. He was introduced to us last week as we took up the Jerusalem Council. He appeared there and According to the account in Acts, he gave the final speech, and everybody was happy after he had spoken, and the letter was drafted and sent out to the churches with the imprimatur of the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem. And James certainly was a pillar of that church. So who is this James? If he, in fact, the brother of John, one of the sons of Zebedee.

Well, that can’t be. Why? Because in the 12th chapter of Acts, we’ve already found out that that fellow has been executed by Herod Agrippa. He’s gone from the sea. That James has died, passed on. Here’s another James. What James might this one be? Well, there is the James who was the younger brother of Jesus, son of Mary. It seems from the gospel accounts he wasn’t a believer to begin with. Now after the death and resurrection of Jesus, he has come to believe and now is a pillar in the church at Jerusalem. And the epistle that bears the name James, later on in the canon of the New Testament, has been written by the younger brother of Jesus.

Now, this epistle that has been written has caused its own problems, and I think that you’re well aware of those. Have you worked your way through the epistle of James recently? Maybe you were as distressed as was Martin Luther when he read through it.

He didn’t like that epistle at all. He called it the epistle of straw. Very weak, he said. Why? Because he couldn’t find any evidence in it of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the doctrine which he felt was the chivalrous by which all true Scripture could be identified and authenticated. James hadn’t fared well with the Protestant Reformation, at least as it came forth from Luther.

It fared much better with Calvin. Calvin looked at the epistle of James, and he saw the epistle of James as something of a New Testament book of wisdom. Do we have Old Testament books of wisdom? Do we not? the most famous of which is probably the Book of Proverbs.

Here is a New Testament book of wisdom, and you hear James speak about wisdom, and that’s centrally to his epistle. You read the third chapter of James, and you come to the fifteenth verse of that chapter and what a marvelous statement is given up there as James speaks about that wisdom that is transcendent, the wisdom that comes down from heaven but doesn’t arise from the earth.

Magnificent, magnificent statement. It’s obvious from that statement that James himself has the heavenly point of view, and that with respect to the wisdom that then he places before the churches, before the saints. Now, he has a number of sober reminders for us in light of this wisdom that he is sharing now by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I might say a wisdom that is possible only because of the work of Jesus Christ. This wisdom that comes down from above is the wisdom that is dispensed by Christ from on high. This epistle, as I have said, is a book of sober reminders.

We must remember that faith, though it justifies, does not stand alone in its activity. Faith is proved by works, so much is this the case that James wants us to hear it in stark, in bold fashion. justified, therefore, by a faith which stands alone. For a faith which stands alone, devoid of works, is dead.”

Now, does this contradict what Paul has said so magnificently in Galatians, the second That portion which we have read tonight? No, not at all. If you continue to read in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, you come to the fifth chapter, the sixth verse, and we’re told there by the Apostle Paul that there is this faith then that justifies, but this faith which justifies is a faith that works by love. And if it doesn’t work by love, it’s not justifying faith.

It’s as simple as that. It’s as simple as that. an epistle then of sober reminders to us coming forth from James, the younger brother of Jesus. And not only is he reminding us of faith’s relationship to work, he’s reminding us of faith’s relationship to prayer. Go on to the fourth chapter. You want to jolt, read that fourth chapter. In fact, pick up any of the chapters of James’ epistle, and you’re sure to be jolted by what you read in those chapters. But nevertheless, moving on to the fourth chapter, you have faith relationship to prayer. He comes out boldly.

Why is it that you pray, and then you don’t see any consequence to your prayer? A straightforward question. Why is it you see no response from heaven to your prayers? Because you pray them in. You pray out of your lust, he says. What you wish for, you will hope to receive in order to consume what you have received upon your lust, that’s why. You are not, therefore, submissive to God In your prayers, your faith is not directed properly.

It is not directed aright. Sobering sucks. You have to go to work on your heart when you enter into the activity of prayer. You have to fight with yourself. You have to argue with yourself, debate with yourself, with regard to the condition of your heart as you make requests of heaven. Be in tune with the One to whom you are called upon to submit. Be in tuned to God. Be in tuned with Christ. Be in tuned with that wisdom that comes down from above. understand him, and pray accordingly.” Well, here is James, and he is figured, as I have said, already, as you know, we saw this last week, he is figured in the Jerusalem Council.

He’s said the decision is made now with respect to Gentile status. Do they have to submit themselves to Jewish rights to the law itself? Is that to be required of them? Are they to be compelled to keep the ceremonial laws of the Jews? No. So says the Council in Jerusalem, and now the word goes out, James contributing to that.

Now, we’re not done with the figure of James, as you’ve seen from the letters to the Galatians. We have Galatians 2, which James has mentioned once more. It seems that now that Paul and Barnabas have returned from Jerusalem to Antioch, which is their home church, they have engaged in teaching and preaching there once more, and it could well be within that context that the things that are described now in Galatians 2 take place. Peter has come down from Jerusalem. He’s paying a visit to the church in Antioch. And when he comes there initially, he eats with the Gentiles.

Makes no bones about it. Jews and Gentiles eating together. Now, see, that’s not the way it used to be. Jews didn’t eat with Gentiles. You would become unclean if you did such a thing. Now, we are told that there are those who have come down, reputedly, from the party of James, come down from Jerusalem, representing him, and when they arrive on the scene, we are told that Peter withdraws from the Gentile tables and eats at the table of the Jews who have come down from Jerusalem. Now, things are in a backdraw. Not only is it a matter of Peter withdrawing and then segregating himself to eat only with Jews, we have pressure brought to bear upon Barnabas, the former Levite, you know. He is withdrawing also.

So Paul withstands Peter to the face. He puts it to him, knowing that if he does not make his stand, the Gentiles there at Antioch are liable to think once more that salvation in some respect is related to the work of the law, or that these Jews have a privileged status and that their keeping of their ceremonial practices somehow places them at a level above Gentile believers. Paul sees this as a threat. a threat to the gospel itself. So he goes toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball with Peter publicly, stands up to him, challenges him, and wins the day. Peter is convicted and realizes his error. and he and Paul once more in fellowship again, and Barnabas is recaptured.

Well, this is the second missionary journey with Paul, and we’re going to survey that tonight with you. We’ll be moving from the 15th chapter of Acts, verse 36, through the 18th chapter, verse 22. Now, it’s in fact these Problems arose in the Antioch church prior to the second missionary journey of Paul. What now transpires as Paul’s getting ready for that second missionary journey leaves us quite disillusioned, doesn’t it?

Because, you see, the church is a place where controversy takes place. You can’t avoid it. There’s been controversy at the church at Antioch. There’s been trouble. People have been fighting with one another. Peter and Paul, in fact, have squared off against each other and gone toe-to-toe.

And not only that, but now as you move into the preparations for the second missionary journey with Paul, we have Paul standing over against Barnabas. Completely different matter now, for Barnabas wants to take along with him John Mark. What’s the problem there? Well, during the first missionary journey, you might recall John Mark abandoned ship. He left. And Paul is quite upset about that. Why should we take this fella who abandoned us in our first journey? Barnabas is insistent. He wants to take John Mark. They can’t come to an agreement, so they part company. Barnabas takes John Mark, and they go to Cyprus, and Paul takes Silas, and they set out to the north and to the west through Asia Minor.

Now they retrace the steps of the First missionary journey, that is, they retrace the cities that had been visited by Paul and Barnabas in Lavergne. They go to Derby and then Lystra. If you have a map in the back of your Bible, you may want to follow the progress of the journey through Asia Minor. They go to Derby, the city of Derby first, and then they go to Lystra, and there, though we’re not told in the Book of Acts, they pick up Timothy. Timothy joins the company because he is from Lystra.

They then move to Iconium and then to another Antioch. This is Antioch of Pisania, a different city than the one that they had left where their home church was situated. They are forbidden to go into the province of Asia, which stands to the far west, now in Asia Minor, the province that includes such cities as Ephesus and others, they’re forbidden to enter into that province by the back door, so they must move northward, but they run then into the province of Bithynia, and they are forbidden by the Spirit to enter Bithynia, so they have to move due west. They have to move due west to Troas. It’s almost as if Paul’s party must to skirt the territories of Asia and Bithynia, like the Jews were compelled to skirt the territories of Edom and Moab in the Old Testament as they were making their approach to the Promised Land.

But at any rate, at any rate, Paul and his company finally come to Troy. Now, this is, in fact, ancient Troy. And we’re not told much about what happens there, but it is plain from the text that at this point they pick up, in addition to the ones that they are already carrying along, they pick up Luke, which is at this point that we have introduced for us the wee passages of the Book of the Acts, suggested that the author is himself engaged in what is happening. Well, it is at Troas that Paul receives his Macedonian call. You remember the vision that he has? The Macedonian that appears to him says, come over and help us. So Paul and his company are off to Macedonia, and they land at Neapolis, and from there they go down to Philippi, a famous city of that region, and great things happened in Philippi.

Read the sixteenth chapter of Acts. and refresh your memories. They meet Lydia there. She’s saved. She is a convert. There is also the healing of the demon-to-death girl. She’s a sorceress. She’s a means of income to others who live in Philippi. Those who are denied now their income through her services are enraged, and they go to work on Paul and his company and set the officials against them. Paul and Silas are then in prison. They’re beaten. You remember what happens at midnight as Paul and Silas are singing psalms together. There’s an earthquake and the jailer comes in. He’s trembling. He sees that his wife is in the balance.

He asks the question, What must I do to be saved? And Paul gives his response, “…believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” We usually leave off the last part of that. Unfortunately, I suppose the reason that we do is that we’re Baptists at heart instead of Presbyterians. No, the whole verse says, “…thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” Covenantal response Paul makes here. to this Gentile jailer. Today there is the apology that was given by the officials of Philippi as Paul and Silas are then released.

They make their way then to Antipolis and then to Apollonia and then they come to Thessalonica. We’ve read from Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians tonight that there are controversies that arise in Thessalonica. And from that region they then moved down to Berea. On their heels come Jews from Thessalonica to make trouble for them there at Berea. The Bereans, however, proved themselves to be most noble because they searched the scriptures diligently to see whether the things that Paul is saying are true. But Paul is then, because of the pressure that is exerted in Berea, forced to leave there.

He leaves behind Silas and Timothy, he travels out to the coast, and then he moves on down south to Athens, and at Athens he preaches in the marketplace, and he’s taken up on Mars Hill, there to address the philosophers that had gathered there regularly in order to hear something new.

He preaches to them something new indeed, the resurrection from the dead, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He tells them, in fact, that this one who has been raised will come again to judge the world. Some of them said, well, that’s interesting. Some of them stopped. Others believed.

We move then into the 18th chapter of Acts, Paul is moving west from Corinth, I’m sorry, he’s moving west from Athens to Corinth, a place where then he stays for 18 months, a year and a half we are told. He meets there Aquila and Priscilla, they are tent makers, they’re fleeing Rome because Claudius the Emperor has issued an edict and driven the Jews out of Rome, they’ve come to Corinth to live there and to work, and Paul being a tent maker, he knows a trade, He joins forces with them, and they are working together, Paul supporting himself, and we assume at the same time he is preaching the gospel. When Timothy and Silas arrive, they come down from the north.

He is able to give his full time to the ministry of the Word. The Jews, however, are stirring things up. They enlist, or hope to enlist, Gallio, a council there, a royal official, a government figure. He has no sympathy for the Jews and their objectives, and the church is sparing.

But after the 18 months, Paul is on his way to Jerusalem. He leaves Corinth, and he makes his way to Ephesus. He stays but a little time A little period there, he is with Aquila and Drusilla once more there in Ephesus, but then he departs from Ephesus, promising to return and minister to them later on. He makes his journey back to the Holy Land, to Caesarea, he goes up to Jerusalem, he there greets the Church, and then he returns to the home base, Antioch. We have that in the 22nd verse of the 18th chapter, and the second missionary journey of Paul has reached its conclusion.

Now, there is something else to be said. We have, in fact, read some Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. There are letters to the Thessalonians this evening. There are two of them. These epistles are written by him when he was at Colon. and quite concerned about the well-being of the Thessalonians to the north. There have been some deputations to Thessalonica. We had sent Timothy to investigate the situation there. He was quite concerned about the well-being of these saints. But Timothy has reported much to the joy of Paul how well the Thessalonians are doing.

Once an exciting reading, read through the Thessalonian Epistles because you have an account of the well-being of the Thessalonian Church and how magnificently these things are doing even under the pressures that they are living. You have them doing well, but there are some concerns. I might note some of them.

In the fourth chapter, for instance, of that first epistle, Paul is warning them about the sorts of things that they are bound to face, which they are in fact facing in this Gentile environment. Immorality, in a Gentile environment, has a certain status. Because, you see, immorality has placed upon it a religious sanction. you can sin sexually in a Gentile environment and be looked upon as one who is pleasing the gods and goddesses. So sexual immorality has a certain status conferred upon it in a Gentile environment. These Thessalonians have been rescued from that, They have been introduced to the living and true God, they are awaiting his sons in heaven, but the pressures are severe, they are intense.

So you can read in that fourth chapter of the first epistle to the Thessalonians how Paul gives them instruction. But not only that, you have the problem of the second coming, and that too is addressed by Paul in the latter part of that fourth chapter and into the This chapter has some very interesting things to say about the return of Christ. Now, it’s not as if Paul’s letter was fully successful, because you turn to the second letter of Paul to Thessalonians and you find him dealing with similar issues. In fact, things have become so bad now, with respect to the second coming, it seems that a number of people have stopped working. can become a drag upon the life of the Church. So Paul again speaks to them very forthrightly about matters concerning the second coming of Christ, but then he tells them, look, get to work.

You’re busy about those things that you should be busy about, and don’t give yourself an excuse. Don’t provide yourself some sort of theological excuse for your slothfulness, for your laziness. words again that I pointed, and I read, and of course minister to those folks in Thessalonica several centuries ago. Well, read those epistles for profit, for instruction to yield. They are very helpful.

Remember the stress that that early church was under. and under the temptations to face them on every side, the concerns they had about life day by day, concerns they had with respect to things theological, like the return of Christ, and the importance of that question for the life of believers. The second missionary journey is Paul, expressing the things that we’ve already emphasized time and again, mission and the message of grace, the unity of the Church as once more Jew and Gentile are brought together under the banner of Christ, and, of course, the apostolic presence as the progress of the Church is overseen by the authority of those whom Christ has called and set in place. Amen.

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