Silas

Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.

They sent Judas, called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter.

The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth.

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter.

Then it seems good to the apostles and to the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.

They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter.

The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and have troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who therefore will tell you the same things by word of mouth.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

That's a good idea.

We're gonna take John with us again." And Paul said, "No, we're not." And Barnabas said, "Oh yeah, we are taking him." And Paul said, I'm paraphrasing, but this is what he said, "He ain't going with me." [laughs] "He's not going." And the scripture goes further to say, "And the contention was so great that they parted ways, and Paul chose Silas to go with him, and Barnabas took John Mark and left for Cyprus." Now, nobody backslid there.

They both just had different ideas about how they wanted to do this.

I'm a little bit cynical 'cause Barnabas was from Cyprus, and he may have had more hope in going to see the folks than really going on a mission.

But, but anyway, he w- he went...

But neither history nor the Bible tells us anything about that journey.

But Paul's journey with Silas is the greatest missionary journey, the greatest evangelical journey in the history of the world.

That speaks to us.

That's kind of where this whole Thessalonican church was part of that story in Acts 16 and 17.

Remember when Paul went to Philippi in Acts 16? Of course, he and Silas were beaten up, thrown in prison.

And then the Lord miraculously opened the prison.

And they went out and the Philippian jailer got saved and his family.

He says, it's from an extremely rare verb of obscure origin.

Wallenberg conjectured that it was a term of endearment derived from the language of the nursery.

Whatever its origin, it denotes the warm affection and tender yearning that Paul and Silas and the team felt for their spiritual babes at Thessalonica.

That's what Paul's saying.

right now.

Agabus was a, Silas is a prophet, but we don't have any prophecies from Silas.

Agabus was a prophet.

We have two prophecies from Agabus, the drought, the famine in Jerusalem.

Mm.

And, uh, you look in the Book of Acts, right? The prophets come and prophesy and set apart, uh, I think it's Paul and Silas or Paul and Barnabas to, to send them for a work they do.

Yeah.

And man, they change, they turn the world upside down, like Paul.