Acts 13:1–3: Barnabas and Saul Sent Off
Passage
I’d originally planned to post about the entirety of Chapter 13 (since it’s all related), but to my surprise I ended up writing a lot about the first three verses before even getting to the rest so I figured I’d break it up into multiple posts.
Here they are (with verse numbers, which I don’t usually do, but in this case I keep referring to verses 2 and 3 below so it’ll help):
1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. (verses 1–3)
Thoughts
It’s worth noting what the disciples are doing before the Holy Spirit comes to them at the beginning of the passage: worshiping and fasting. It’s also worth noting their response upon receiving His message/command: fasting and praying. I’m sure there’s a pause between the worshiping and fasting in verse 2 and the fasting and praying in verse 3—I’m not assuming they’re just extending their fast—but that’s not the point, the point is that they’re taking very seriously something that we rarely do in the modern Church: fasting. I’m sure there are churches that make fasting a regular part of their worship of the Lord, but I’m equally sure it’s not common. I don’t think most Christians in the 21st Century fast regularly, or could properly articulate what fasting is or why it’s important.
So what is it?
That’s a very good question, because I can’t really articulate it. In keeping with the spirit of this post I should be including a discussion of fasting and its importance to the Christian, but I’m not qualified to do so. I can sort of see it as being a recognition that worship of the Lord is even more important than food, but I also feel like that’s only part of it. (And is a crass way of stating it.)
My usual go-to, the ESV Study Bible, didn’t include any comments on the worshiping, fasting and praying in these verses (though I’m assuming the topics are covered elsewhere), though the Matthew Henry Commentary had a bit:
… Religious fasting is of use in our ministering to the Lord, both as a sign of our humiliation and a means of our mortification1. Though it was not so much practised by the disciples of Christ, while the bridegroom was with them, as it was by the disciples of John and of the Pharisees; yet, after the bridegroom was taken away, they abounded in it, as those that had well learned to deny themselves and to endure hardness.
So, similar to what I’ve been pointing out, that the Christians in the early Church “abounded” in the act of fasting.
“So That” vs. “Because”
Here is what I don’t think the Christians in this passage are doing: they’re not trying to curry favour with God, or “prove” their devotion to Him, or trying to make this some kind of transactional thing whereby they’ll fast and pray and He will give Barnabas and Saul success.
I think what we’re seeing—what should always be the case, when Christians worship and fast and pray—is a set of Christians who are in a close, loving relationship with their God, and who are getting even closer to Him by worshiping Him, and fasting, and praying to Him. It’s not a “so that” kind of thing (“I’ll fast so that He will do something for me”), it’s a “because” thing (“I’ll get closer to Him in fasting because He has been so good to me”).
A Metaphor
Lately the comparison of our relationship with God to a romantic relationship has been on my mind; especially the early parts of the relationship, when everything is new and wonderful. At those times, you want to be in that person’s presence as much as possible; when I was younger that would mean “wasting” a lot of time talking on the phone with my girlfriend; maybe other activities would have been a “better” use of my time, but it never felt that way to me, it felt like any time spent talking to that other person was all I wanted to be doing. (The same thing would still apply for young lovers today, except it’s likely a lot more texting and less talking on the phone.)
Are there “better” or “more productive” things the Christian could be doing on a Sunday morning than going to church? Or going to prayer meeting Wednesday night? In a sense, maybe, but the Christian would much rather be at church than doing the “more productive” things. (Given that we were made to worship God, one could easily argue that those other things aren’t more important than church in the first place, but that’s a whole other post.)
That doesn’t mean that we’re overjoyed to be at church every single Sunday morning, there are times when it can feel like a chore instead of a joy—I’m sure there were times when I felt I “had” to call my girlfriend, as almost an obligation—but in the aggregate, I want to worship God in church, I want to pray to Him, I want to be in His presence, just like I wanted to talk to my girlfriend when I was younger, even if there were particular instances where it was more out of obligation2.
And… why Pray?
We have five prophets and teachers in this passage, people who are directly hearing from the Holy Spirit, and they’re making worship and fasting a regular part of their lives. And then when something special happens—in this case, the Spirit giving them a direct command—their immediate response is to fast some more, and pray some more.
But pray about what? What’s there to pray about? The Spirit has already told them to set Barnabas and Saul apart; they’re just following His command. So what do they need to pray about it for? Just obey! Right?
Christians sometimes get a little too inside our own heads when we think about prayer, tying ourselves up in knots overthinking it: “Why should I pray to God when I already trust that He is going to do His will, and know that whatever He wants is best? Best case scenario I’m praying for something He’s already going to do, worst case scenario my prayers will be counterproductive because they’ll be for something He’s not going to do! Would it be more faithful for me not to pray, and just trust that He’ll do what’s best?”
And it’s true that God is going to do His will, and that His will is what’s best, however, using that logic to decide not to pray would mean that:
- I’m losing out on opportunities to be closer to my Lord. Let’s not forget that prayer is a form of communication, direct from me to Him. (Let’s also not forget that it took the death of Jesus on the cross to open up this direct line of communication between ourselves and God; not a small thing, for us to treat prayer too casually!)
- I’m disobeying the Scriptures, which command us to pray without ceasing.
- I’m not emulating Jesus, who was in constant prayer. By the logic listed here He was the one person in history who “needed” prayer the least, and yet he was always praying! (If I come up with a logical argument that shows Jesus needed prayer more than I do, there’s a flaw in my logic!)
When I focus on prayer as a means of being close to God, I’m not saying to the exclusion of making requests. To be clear, I’m sure the Christians in this passage were asking God for things when they were praying to Him; I’m sure they were asking Him to watch over Barnabas and Saul to keep them safe, and to give them success in their task (even though it was God who’d set the task before them in the first place), and a number of other things. Not because they didn’t have faith in Him to do those things, but because it’s a natural reflex on the part of a Christian to reach out to God in prayer. My only point is that treating prayer as if its only purpose is to ask God for things, without considering that it’s a means of communicating and being closer to One who loves us more than any human ever will, is short-changing ourselves, and leads into the weird “why should we even pray in the first place” logic I was mentioning above.
I had to look up the term mortification, since it’s not in common use anymore—or maybe it is, but not in Protestant circles?—but it just means the process of putting the sinful nature to death. We’re more used to the term sanctification, whereby the Christian is becoming more and more holy over the course of their life, and mortification would be considered part of sanctification. ↩︎
We could push this comparison even further: Were there times, in my younger days when first in a relationship with my girlfriend that I only talked to her out of a sense of duty? Yes. For the most part I wanted to be in her presence in any time I could, but there were instances where I didn’t feel it so strongly. But I’d also argue that some of those instances when I was getting on the phone out of a sense of duty were times when the things I’d rather have been doing were selfish in nature; I was single, and living on my own, and used to being able to use my time however I wanted. I would argue that those times that I “forced myself” to talk to her (that’s too strongly worded) I was also making myself a better person: less selfish, and better suited to one day be her husband, in regular practice of putting her needs above my own. ↩︎
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