Acts 13:13-52 - Paul's Early Evangelism Strategy

In this blog series, I’m going to take a look at the book of Acts from a strategic point of view. What was going on in the days of the early church and what can we learn from it today in the 21^st Century?

After Barnabas and Saul were in Cyprus, they sailed for mainland Turkey. Luke interestingly labels the group, “Paul and his companions” – the group leader has already changed from Barnabas. It seems that if there was a said or unsaid change of leadership in the missionary team, John Mark wasn’t on board with it, and he get on board – a boat back home to Jerusalem. After arriving in Perga, they make the arduous 7 day walk inland to Pisidian Antioch. We then get to see Paul’s strategy for spreading the Gospel. 

1.  Search for Early Adopters

Paul starts by going to the synagogue. This makes complete sense. If you’re going to start bringing the Kingdom of God in a city, go for the quick wins. The quick wins are the Jews. Paul knows them, he is one. He starts by meeting the people who will be most receptive to his message.

In the modern world, we talk a lot about “early adopters”. If you want to launch anything new, you must rely on early adopters. After the innovators (the first 2.5%), the early adopters usually represent the next 13.5% of a population. The next group is the early majority, representing 34% of the population. If you, the Innovative 2.5%, can win the early adopters and the early majority, you reach the fabled “tipping point” at which the rest of the population follows. 

By going to the synagogue, Paul is doing something similar. If he can win the early adopters in the synagogue, he might just be able to win the whole synagogue, and if he can win the whole synagogue, he might just be able to win the whole city.

It’s amazing what can be achieved when we focus on the early adopters.

2.  Take the opportunity to speak

If you show up enough, soon enough you’ll get the opportunity to speak, and when the opportunity comes, Paul goes straight for it.

So much of the job of influence is in showing up. Show up in your community long enough and soon enough they’ll want to hear what you have to say.

3.  Tell the good news in a way that is good news for people

Paul starts with a short explainer about Jewish history. He starts with the Jews in Israel, then the judges, then Samuel and David. This technique is digging to get to the hope and ambition of all first century Jewish people – that a “Son of David” would come to rule Israel, kick out the Romans and give them back control of their land again. Even in the diaspora, this is the same hope.

Paul then directly links Jesus to David, thus ticking the box of the Messiah needing to come from the Davidic line. Paul then explains what the good news is: That what was promised to the Jews has been fulfilled in Jesus, and he is witness to it. Another Messianic hope was in the resurrection of the dead. Paul is bringing good news to that hope.

This message is a carefully constructed message which is designed to explain what “good news” is to the people to whom he is speaking.

For the most part, however, we in the West are Gentiles. If someone doesn’t believe in Jesus, a hope of a future Messiah isn’t good news. It’s just not relevant news. The work of our preaching must be, like Paul, contextual to those to whom we speak.

We must know what people are wanting to achieve in life and then explain how Jesus is Good News in that scenario. The problem is, most westerner’s hope isn’t in something as God-centric as the hope of a Messiah.

So what do we, in the West, hope for? That tends to be different for each generation, and we run sessions to help churches work out their unique mission field.

The point is, the message must be good news for people. If it’s not good news, is it really the Gospel? Now I’m not advocating for unorthodox theology, I’m not advocating for seeker sensitive services and I’m not advocating for watering anything down, but we’ve got to work out what the Good News of Jesus looks like in our context. Is the Good News actually good news to the people who hear you?

4.  Reframe misconceptions

It’s at this point that Paul claims that anyone who believes in Jesus is set free from every sin, a shocking message to the early Jews who are so ingrained in temple sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. This sentence reframes preconceptions. They thought that the Messiah would do one thing, but actually it’s in a completely different way to what they thought.

In our teaching, we must reframe misconceptions. People come in thinking that they want one thing, but in reality they need something else.

5.  Leave people wanting more

As Paul and Barnabas are leaving, they get an invite back. One of the best ways by which you can judge the effectiveness of the message is: do people want more? Do they want another helping? Do they want to go back and research the topic?

Our job is to get people to invite us back, whether by them coming back next week or by researching more. Now, in the case of Paul, this has some negative consequences as well. That can happen. Great services and great messages are divisive in many senses.

Whatever your context, we are called to reach the world around us with the message of Jesus, and Paul’s approach here is a valuable way we can learn to spread the Good News better.