Missionaries - Acts 13:1-4

Ok, this is where it gets pretty new for me because while I’ve heard briefly about the Apostle Paul before, it was very minimal and I’d never heard of Barnabas until a couple of weeks ago. So really, anything from here on out is going to take me a lot of mental work to understand because I’m just not familiar with it at all. I will tell you this though, I went to the temple last night and I had a different appreciation for Peter because he had been the subject of my study the last couple of weeks, it was really interesting and fun to have some new insight based on personal scripture study.

Anyway, if we remember from chapter 11, Barnabas went to Tarsus to get Paul and they went to Antioch where they, with a group of “prophets and teachers… ministered to the Lord, and fasted.” The IM points out that it is because the leaders of the Church in that area fasted and prayed to know the Lord’s will that Saul and Barnabas got the missionary call. In response to their fasting and prayers, the “Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.” The Spirit directed Saul and Barnabas to go on a mission, and I assume that the men agreed to the call because the others “laid their hands on them” setting them apart and then “sent them away.”
The IM quotes President Spencer W. Kimball as teaching the importance of setting apart, saying, “the setting apart may be taken literally; it is a setting apart from sin, apart from the carnal; apart from everything which his crude, low, vicious, cheap, or vulgar; set apart from the world to a higher plane of thought and activity. The blessing is conditional upon faithful performance… In my experience there have been numerous people who like Saul… have, through the setting apart, received ‘largeness of heart,’ extended influence, increased wisdom, enlarged vision, and new powers.”
Just to jump ahead a little bit and give an overview of their mission, the IM says, “This first missionary journey resulted in the establishment of branches of the Church in areas far removed from Jerusalem and Samaria. Saul and Barnabas journeyed over 1,400 miles on this first mission, teaching the gospel in areas where people had never heard it before. When Saul and Barnabas arrived at a location where there were no members of the Church, they would typically go first to the local synagogue and announce the gospel message to fellow Jews and to Gentiles who believed Jewish teachings. After teaching and baptizing those who accepted the gospel message, they called and set apart local leaders to watch over the Church after they departed. Often they would visit the newly formed branches as they were returning to Church headquarters. The account of this first mission depicts Saul in his new capacity as a Church leader.”
I don’t know why but for some reason I always just imagined any Christian missionary just showing up and standing on a street corner preaching until either they were invited somewhere or kicked out of town. But I also guess that’s because I didn’t realize that there were synagogues all over the known world at this point, which would make sense because the Israelites had been conquered and enslaved and moved from their homeland many times since Joseph moved his father Jacob out of Canaan into Egypt. It makes sense that those Jews who didn’t return to Palestine after captivity would have created a community where they could worship God where they were. This also makes sense with the concept of taking the gospel to the house of Israel first, then to the gentiles afterward. Going to the synagogues allowed these ancient missionaries to find people who held their common beliefs and who, ideally, would be looking for the information the missionaries would be bringing. These audiences would also have had some distance from Jerusalem and the corrupt Jewish leadership there, so it is quite possible that they still had a purer understanding of Judaism and the Messiah.