Paul’s Warning in Pisidian Antioch

The gospel cannot be preached as a mere statement of the facts about Jesus and what they mean, for the truth of Christ calls on us to make a decision concerning Him. A command to repent and believe is always implied when the gospel is preached, but it is also the duty of the preacher to call for a response (see Acts 16:31; 17:30). When Paul preached the gospel in Pisidian Antioch, he called for his audience to respond in faith and repentance, as we see in today’s passage.

Acts 13:40–41 records the warning that Paul uttered after concluding his presentation of the basic facts and significance of the person and work of Jesus. The Apostle quotes Habakkuk 1:5, wherein God tells the prophet that He is bringing Babylon to judge the nation of Judah. Habakkuk and the other faithful Judahites had to believe that God was at work in the Babylonian judgment and to trust that the Lord would do what is right if they were to be preserved through that judgment and to be found righteous in the sight of God (Hab. 1:6–2:20). That work in Habakkuk’s day was an incredible thing, a new work. Similarly, God had done a new thing in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, something that many people would find hard to believe (Acts 13:40–41). As in the time of Habakkuk, the people had to trust that the Lord had acted in Christ if they were to persevere through God’s judgment and be found righteous in His sight. Paul’s point was simple: If the congregation who heard him in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch did not believe his message but scoffed at and rejected it, they would suffer divine judgment.

As Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue, some of the people begged them to come back the next week to speak again. They had some interest in the gospel message but had not yet committed themselves to Christ. Others believed, including many Jews and “devout converts,” or gentiles who had gone all the way in following the God of Israel by getting circumcised and attempting to keep all the Mosaic law. Paul told these individuals to “continue in the grace of God” (vv. 42–43). Matthew Henry comments that this meant that the converts were “to hold fast that which they had received, to continue in their belief of the gospel of grace, their dependence upon the Spirit of grace, and their attendance upon the means of grace. And the grace of God shall not be wanting to those who thus continue in it.”