Paul now made an important decision, establishing a principle that he was to follow from this time on in virtually every city where he preached. He said to the Jews who were resisting him, “We had to speak the Word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth’” (vv. 46-47).
The reason Paul felt he had to speak to the Jews first was because he was a Jew himself and because when the Lord gave the Great Commission, particularly the one we have recorded in the Book of Acts, He said, “Begin in Jerusalem,” that is, with Jews. Our equivalent of that, if we are Gentiles, is beginning where we are. I do not think this means that if we are Gentiles we are to begin with Jews. We are to begin where we are and go on from there. But Paul was a Jew. The Gospel had started in Jerusalem. So when he went about preaching the Gospel, he went to the synagogues first.
That was a very sensible thing to do, too, because in the synagogues Paul found people who were versed in the Old Testament and were interested in spiritual things. Even if he had been determined to reach only Gentiles, the spiritually minded Gentiles were in the synagogues. His policy was good evangelistic strategy.
Yet what is significant about the decision recorded in Acts 13 is that Paul went on to say, “Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.” Why did he say this? Obviously because the Gospel, although proclaimed to the Jews first, is not a Jewish Gospel exclusively. It is a Gospel for the whole world. And that is why Jesus, although He told His Jewish apostles, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,” nevertheless also went on to say, “… and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Paul had a text to support him also, a text from the Jews’ own Scripture: Isaiah 49:6. “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” This referred to the Jews themselves. They were to be the Gentiles’ light. But if the Jews would not believe and then propagate the Gospel, the Word would not be bound. The Messiah would not remain hidden, and Paul, a Jew himself, would take it to them.
It is interesting that the first part of that verse, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles,” is something the elderly Simeon quoted in Jerusalem when he saw the infant Jesus at the time of His nativity. He took the child in his arms, then praised God, saying, “Now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
Simeon applied “a light for…the Gentiles” to Jesus. But now Paul is saying that the Jews themselves were to be that light, in the sense that they were commissioned to carry the Gospel of the light of Christ to the world’s communities.
