Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 13:7

"who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of understanding. The same called unto him Barnabas and Saul, and sought to hear the word of God." — Acts 13:7 (ASV)

From Salamis, Barnabas and Saul traveled throughout the island of Cyprus, continuing to preach within the Jewish synagogues to both Jews and “Godfearing” Gentiles. But when they reached Paphos—or, more exactly, New Paphos, the Roman provincial capital seven miles northwest of the old Phoenician city of Paphos—their ministry definitely changed. At Paphos the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus asked them to present their message before him. This was probably meant to be an official inquiry into the nature of what the missioners were proclaiming in the synagogues so that the proconsul might know how to deal with charges already laid against these wandering Jewish evangelists and head off any further disruptions within the Jewish communities. The invitation could not have been refused. But neither the proconsul nor the missioners could have anticipated what actually happened at the inquiry. Luke describes Sergius Paulus as a man of discernment, which he proved to be in accepting the Christian message. Within his court at Paphos was a certain Jewish sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus. In assuming himself as the Jewish spokesman in opposition to these Christian evangelists, this man probably wanted to enhance his own reputation. While sorcery and magic were officially banned in Judaism, there were still Jews who practiced it, both under the guise of Jewish orthodoxy and as renegades (cf. Lk 11:19; Acts 19:13–16). Bar-Jesus is also called Elymas (a name meaning “sorcerer,” “magician,” “fortuneteller”). In all of Saul’s activities thus far, nothing had happened to suggest that he was anything but “a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents” (cf. Php 3:5). He was interested in an outreach to Gentiles but made no special appeal to them directly. Nor did he approach them as being on an equal footing with Jews or apart from the synagogue. Though his preaching aroused strong feelings within certain Jewish communities, it engendered no more ill will than had been directed against the other apostles before him. Here in the hall of the proconsul, however, Saul was in new surroundings as he presented his message before a leading member of the Roman world, a world of which he himself was a member. As a Jew, he proudly bore the name of Israel’s first king, Saul. As a Roman citizen (cf. 16:37–38; 25:10–12), he undoubtedly had two Roman names, a praenomen and a nomen, though neither is used of him in the NT. But as a Jew of the Diaspora, who must necessarily rub shoulders with the Gentile world at large, he also bore the Greek name Paul, which became his cognomen in the empire and was used in Gentile contexts. So at this point in his narrative Luke speaks of “Saul, who was also called Paul,” and hereafter refers to him only by this name. As the Gospel was being proclaimed to Sergius Paulus, Bar-Jesus tried to divert the proconsul from the faith. But Paul turned on the sorcerer and pronounced a curse upon him. In highly biblical language, he denounced BarJesus as “a child of the devil,” “an enemy of everything that is right,” one “full of all kinds of deceit and trickery,” always “perverting the right ways of the Lord,” and pronounced a curse of temporary blindness on him. “Immediately,” Luke tells us, “mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand.”