The Early Church

Then, on seeing what had happened, the governor trusted, astounded by the teaching about the Lord.

Having set sail from Paphos, Sha’ul and his companions arrived at Perga in Pamphylia. There Yochanan left them and returned to Yerushalayim,

but the others went on from Perga to Pisidian Antioch, and on Shabbat they went into the synagogue and sat down.

After the reading from the Torah and from the Prophets, the synagogue leaders sent them a message, “Brothers, if any of you has a word of exhortation for the people, speak!”

So Sha’ul stood, motioned with his hand, and said: “Men of Isra’el and God-fearers, listen!

The God of this people Isra’el chose our fathers. He made the people great during the time when they were living as aliens in Egypt and with a stretched-out arm he led them out of that land.

For some forty years he took care of them in the desert,

and after he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Kena‘an he gave their land to his people as an inheritance.

All this took about 450 years. After that, he gave them judges, down to the prophet Sh’mu’el.

Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Sha’ul Ben-Kish, a man from the tribe of Binyamin. After forty years,

God removed him and raised up David as king for them, making his approval known with these words, ‘I found David Ben-Yishai to be a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want.’

“In keeping with his promise, God has brought to Isra’el from this man’s descendants a deliverer, Yeshua.

Now before the coming of Yeshua, Yochanan proclaimed to all the people of Isra’el an immersion in connection with turning to God from sin.

But as Yochanan was ending his work, he said, ‘Who do you suppose I am? Well — I’m not! But after me is coming someone, the sandals of whose feet I am unworthy to untie.’

“Brothers! — sons of Avraham and those among you who are ‘God-fearers’! It is to us that the message of this deliverance has been sent!

For the people living in Yerushalayim and their leaders did not recognize who Yeshua was or understand the message of the Prophets read every Shabbat, so they fulfilled that message by condemning him.

They could not find any legitimate ground for a death sentence; nevertheless they asked Pilate to have him executed;

and when they had carried out all the things written about him, he was taken down from the stake and placed in a tomb.

“But God raised him from the dead!

He appeared for many days to those who had come up with him from the Galil to Yerushalayim; and they are now his witnesses to the people.

“As for us, we are bringing you the Good News that what God promised to the fathers,

he has fulfilled for us the children in raising up Yeshua, as indeed it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’

And as for his raising him up from the dead, to return to decay no more, he said, ‘I will give the holy and trustworthy things of David to you.’

This is explained elsewhere: ‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’

For David did indeed serve God’s purposes in his own generation; but after that, he died, was buried with his fathers and did see decay.