Acts 16:6-10 – How to create a flexible and focused church

“And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.” Acts 16:6 ESV 

At the end of the book of Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples to go into all the world, the famous Great Commission. I’ve heard so many preaches that every person should be trying to reach as many people as possible with the Gospel, to save them from a lost eternity with God. The stakes are high.

So I find it really odd that the Holy Spirit would specifically forbid Paul from going to the provinces of Asia and Bithynia. So what’s going on?

Before this passage, Paul was in Derbe and Lystra, which were in Galatia in the top map but it appears on the second map to be part of the region of Lycaonia. From there is says he went to Phrygia and Galatia, although it would make more sense if it were Galatia then Phrygia as this forms a loop towards the Province of Asia, where he’s heading.

By Milenioscuro - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45059701

From what it appears here, the province of Asia consisted of Mysia, Lydia, Caria and Phrygia, so perhaps here Luke is referring to Lydia and Caria as “Asia” because it then says that he went to Mysia attempting to get into Bithynia directly north. In both cases, it seems plausible that Paul’s plans were to make a loop back to Antioch, either going South through Asia or North through Bithynia. 

The Holy Spirit then pushes him West to the port city of Troas, where he gets his vision of the Macedonian man. This then starts the next leg of the journey: Samothrace, Neapolis in Thrace and then Philippi.

I think that in churches we are too worried about saying no to things. But God isn’t. We want to reach everyone, The Holy Spirit forbids Paul to speak the Word in Asia. We will never shut a programme down, The Holy Spirit will happily shut down the planned return leg to push things forward.

There’s some things I believe we can learn from this:

1.  Make plans, but allow the Holy Spirit to disrupt them

I’ve heard churches say things to the effect of “we don’t move unless the Holy Spirit tells us to move!” But that’s not what Paul did here. He clearly had a plan, even a backup plan, but the plan was never held rigidly.

So many churches can get stuck waiting for the exact plan from the Holy Spirit, but instead, it’s better just to get moving and allow the Holy Spirit to change your course. We all know the analogy that it’s easier to steer a moving vehicle rather than a stationary one, and I think this is true in this case.

I’d rather get a plan together of what is in my heart and allow the Holy Spirit to change my course rather than be stuck in one place waiting for the call.

2.  The Holy Spirit will stretch further than you thought

Paul’s plan looks to have been one similar to his first missionary journey, but the Holy Spirit wanted him to go west into Macedonia, taking the Gospel into Europe. Our plans are good, but the Holy Spirit will give you a plan that is much wider and further than you thought possible.

3.  Saying yes to something is saying no to other things

We often think that going towards something new means that we add on to what we’re already doing. That may be true in some cases, especially if you’re lacking development in a certain area of church life, oftentimes we add on new programmes and initiatives on top of old ones.

Think about it this way: The Holy Spirit could have said “Go to Asia, Bithynia AND Macedonia.” But He didn’t, He said to go to one place. Saying yes to Macedonia meant saying no to Asia and Bithynia, at least for now. When God puts something on your heart, you need to look at what needs to be taken out to allow the space for the new thing to come in.

Let’s say you feel called to run a Food Bank in your community. Great! But what are you going to take out? You only have finite money, people, time and focus, so what will you stop doing to allow the church to rally behind this new initiative? Perhaps you could cut a midweek service? Perhaps its something else. Whatever it is, you need to think carefully about what you take out of your church, otherwise you run the risk of overstretched finances, overstretched volunteers and overstretched focus.

What do you need to say no to? The bigger question though is: Have you got a plan and are you willing to drop everything if God tells you to change it?