Barnabas and Saul Are Chosen and Sent

¹In the church at Antioch there were some prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon (called the Black), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (who had been brought up with Governor Herod), and Saul.

²While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, to do the work to which I have called them.”

³They fasted and prayed, placed their hands on them, and sent them off.

In Cyprus

⁴Having been sent by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went to Seleucia and sailed from there to the island of Cyprus.

⁵When they arrived at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues. They had John Mark with them to help in the work.

⁶They went all the way across the island to Paphos, where they met a certain magician named Bar-Jesus, a Jew who claimed to be a prophet.

⁷He was a friend of the governor of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The governor called Barnabas and Saul before him because he wanted to hear the word of God.

⁸But they were opposed by the magician Elymas (that is his name in Greek), who tried to turn the governor away from the faith.

⁹Then Saul—also known as Paul—was filled with the Holy Spirit; he looked straight at the magician

¹⁰and said, “You son of the Devil! You are the enemy of everything that is good. You are full of all kinds of evil tricks, and you always keep trying to turn the Lord's truths into lies!

¹¹The Lord's hand will come down on you now; you will be blind and will not see the light of day for a time.” At once Elymas felt a dark mist cover his eyes, and he walked around trying to find someone to lead him by the hand.

¹²When the governor saw what had happened, he believed; for he was greatly amazed at the teaching about the Lord.

In Antioch in Pisidia

¹³Paul and his companions sailed from Paphos and came to Perga, a city in Pamphylia, where John Mark left them and went back to Jerusalem.

¹⁴They went on from Perga and arrived in Antioch in Pisidia, and on the Sabbath they went into the synagogue and sat down.

¹⁵After the reading from the Law of Moses and from the writings of the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message: “Friends, we want you to speak to the people if you have a message of encouragement for them.”

¹⁶Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and began to speak: “Fellow Israelites and all Gentiles here who worship God: hear me!

¹⁷The God of the people of Israel chose our ancestors and made the people a great nation during the time they lived as foreigners in Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt by his great power,

¹⁸and for forty years he endured them in the desert.

¹⁹He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and made his people the owners of the land.

²⁰All of this took about 450 years. “After this he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel.

²¹And when they asked for a king, God gave them Saul son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, to be their king for forty years.

²²After removing him, God made David their king. This is what God said about him: ‘I have found that David son of Jesse is the kind of man I like, a man who will do all I want him to do.’

²³It was Jesus, a descendant of David, whom God made the Savior of the people of Israel, as he had promised.

²⁴Before Jesus began his work, John preached to all the people of Israel that they should turn from their sins and be baptized.

²⁵And as John was about to finish his mission, he said to the people, ‘Who do you think I am? I am not the one you are waiting for. But listen! He is coming after me, and I am not good enough to take his sandals off his feet.’

²⁶“My fellow Israelites, descendants of Abraham, and all Gentiles here who worship God: it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent!

²⁷For the people who live in Jerusalem and their leaders did not know that he is the Savior, nor did they understand the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Yet they made the prophets' words come true by condemning Jesus.

²⁸And even though they could find no reason to pass the death sentence on him, they asked Pilate to have him put to death.

²⁹And after they had done everything that the Scriptures say about him, they took him down from the cross and placed him in a tomb.

³⁰But God raised him from death,

³¹and for many days he appeared to those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now witnesses for him to the people of Israel.

^32-33And we are here to bring the Good News to you: what God promised our ancestors he would do, he has now done for us, who are their descendants, by raising Jesus to life. As it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’

³⁴And this is what God said about raising him from death, never to rot away in the grave: ‘I will give you the sacred and sure blessings that I promised to David.’

³⁵As indeed he says in another passage, ‘You will not allow your faithful servant to rot in the grave.’

³⁶For David served God's purposes in his own time, and then he died, was buried with his ancestors, and his body rotted in the grave.

³⁷But this did not happen to the one whom God raised from death.

^38-39All of you, my fellow Israelites, are to know for sure that it is through Jesus that the message about forgiveness of sins is preached to you; you are to know that everyone who believes in him is set free from all the sins from which the Law of Moses could not set you free.

⁴⁰Take care, then, so that what the prophets said may not happen to you:

⁴¹‘Look, you scoffers! Be astonished and die! For what I am doing today is something that you will not believe, even when someone explains it to you!’”

⁴²As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to come back the next Sabbath and tell them more about these things.

⁴³After the people had left the meeting, Paul and Barnabas were followed by many Jews and by many Gentiles who had been converted to Judaism. The apostles spoke to them and encouraged them to keep on living in the grace of God.

⁴⁴The next Sabbath nearly everyone in the town came to hear the word of the Lord.

⁴⁵When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; they disputed what Paul was saying and insulted him.

⁴⁶But Paul and Barnabas spoke out even more boldly: “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. But since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we will leave you and go to the Gentiles.

⁴⁷For this is the commandment that the Lord has given us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, so that all the world may be saved.’”

⁴⁸When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the Lord's message; and those who had been chosen for eternal life became believers.

⁴⁹The word of the Lord spread everywhere in that region.

⁵⁰But the Jews stirred up the leading men of the city and the Gentile women of high social standing who worshiped God. They started a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and threw them out of their region.

⁵¹The apostles shook the dust off their feet in protest against them and went on to Iconium.

⁵²The believers in Antioch were full of joy and the Holy Spirit.

Questions about Marriage

¹Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about. A man does well not to marry.

²But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband.

³A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs.

⁴A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is.

⁵Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.

⁶I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission.

⁷Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.

⁸Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do.

⁹But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry—it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹⁰For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband;

¹¹but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce his wife.

¹²To the others I say (I, myself, not the Lord): if a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever and she agrees to go on living with him, he must not divorce her.

¹³And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an unbeliever and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him.

¹⁴For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God.

¹⁵However, if the one who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace.

¹⁶How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?

Live As God Called You

¹⁷Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.

¹⁸If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised.

¹⁹For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments.

²⁰Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call.

²¹Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free, use it.

²²For a slave who has been called by the Lord is the Lord's free person; in the same way a free person who has been called by Christ is his slave.

²³God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of people.

²⁴My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition that you were when you were called.

Questions about the Unmarried and the Widows

²⁵Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.

²⁶Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.

²⁷Do you have a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife.

²⁸But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.

²⁹What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married;

³⁰those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought;

³¹those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.

³²I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord.

³³But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife;

³⁴and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.

³⁵I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.

³⁶In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not acting properly toward the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to. There is no sin in this.

³⁷But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his mind not to marry, and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do—then he does well not to marry the young woman.

³⁸So the man who marries does well, but the one who doesn't marry does even better.

³⁹A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian.

⁴⁰She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.

The Question about Food Offered to Idols

¹Now, concerning what you wrote about food offered to idols. It is true, of course, that “all of us have knowledge,” as they say. Such knowledge, however, puffs a person up with pride; but love builds up.

²Those who think they know something really don't know as they ought to know.

³But the person who loves God is known by him.

⁴So then, about eating the food offered to idols: we know that an idol stands for something that does not really exist; we know that there is only the one God.

⁵Even if there are so-called “gods,” whether in heaven or on earth, and even though there are many of these “gods” and “lords,”

⁶yet there is for us only one God, the Father, who is the Creator of all things and for whom we live; and there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created and through whom we live.

⁷But not everyone knows this truth. Some people have been so used to idols that to this day when they eat such food they still think of it as food that belongs to an idol; their conscience is weak, and they feel they are defiled by the food.

⁸Food, however, will not improve our relation with God; we shall not lose anything if we do not eat, nor shall we gain anything if we do eat.

⁹Be careful, however, not to let your freedom of action make those who are weak in the faith fall into sin.

¹⁰Suppose a person whose conscience is weak in this matter sees you, who have so-called “knowledge,” eating in the temple of an idol; will not this encourage him to eat food offered to idols?

¹¹And so this weak person, your brother for whom Christ died, will perish because of your “knowledge”!

¹²And in this way you will be sinning against Christ by sinning against other Christians and wounding their weak conscience.

¹³So then, if food makes a believer sin, I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.

⁴If you have no regard for the law, you are on the side of the wicked; but if you obey it, you are against them.

⁵Evil people do not know what justice is, but those who worship the Lord understand it well.

⁶Better to be poor and honest than rich and dishonest.